Nokia Messaging (/'Email') as a server-side push system works very well when it works. But what happens when, as for me, it's completely and utterly broken? On recent devices, you can simply 'decline' the terms of service at set-up time and IMAP access to your mailbox is used instead - problem solved. On the S60 3rd Edition phones, there's no such question screen and things are less trivial. But there is a way forward. Read on...
You'll recall that last year I wrote about 'pimping' the Nokia E55 (and E52), in terms of the software needed to bring them up to 2011 standards? Quite a bit of this feature is also relevant to their qwerty candbar cousin, the E72, but I thought that, in the light of my recent hardware pimping of the editorial E72, it would be handy to bring the feature right up to date and to explicitly talk about what works and what doesn't work on the landscape screen and different form factor.
It's a commonly held 'fact' that the apps in the iPhone (iOS) App Store blow away the competition, especially the young upstart that is the Ovi Store, with the latter having something like 10 times less bona fide applications. In the light of my recent editorials (e.g. here), I was curious as to how true (or false) this 'fact' is. Looking at the top selling and top freeware applications (and the best games) in the Apple iPhone App Store, how many are also available for Symbian, either directly or via an equivalent? More than you might think...
You may remember a piece from me almost a year ago in which I gave six reasons why the Nokia N97 sucked and nine reasons why it still 'ruled'? In this followup piece, I extend, for the first time, my popular 'Pimping' tutorial series to a touchscreen Symbian phone - and not just any old smartphone, but the one that everyone loves to hate, the flawed flagship that for many people epitomises some of the decisions that sealed Symbian's fate. However, I'm a geek, you're a geek, and the N97, now available second-hand for under £100, is about to get 'pimped'...
You'll remember my somewhat scathing appraisal of the current state of in-app advertising in Symbian applications last week? I focussed on both the aesthetics and overall user experience and found the implementation somewhat lack-lustre, to say the least. inneractive is the company behind the examples given and I was pleased to get a direct response from Hillel, inneractive's marketing manager, asking for right of reply, to explain the company's approach and plan. The full interview between myself and Hillel is below, for your interest.
As writers who often seem to be taking Nokia's side, against the prevailing mood in the world tech press, I'd like to justify why our faith isn't misplaced. Specifically, in the context of updates and stability. It's at this point that I have to acknowledge the few who have bought specific network-branded, locked Nokia smartphones in some countries and been left high and dry, but on the whole Nokia's firmware and application update programme has been relatively impressive. Read on for my thoughts and a cautionary tale or three.
While not yet directly relevant to Symbian developers, it looks like Amazon are going to address the issue of mobile app pricing with the launch of their Android App Store (reports Technologizer). Along with the fragmentation of the “Android app story” and leveraging their recommendation engine, Amazon are going to introduce variable pricing of applications. And while that’s the biggest gamble, I’d love to see this on more platforms including Symbian and Meego.
The pendulum swings regularly in the software world, with different ways of making money from software being in 'vogue'. The latest fashion, somewhat predictably, with most applications and games needing a price of 'free' in order to get serious numbers of downloads, is to put adverts inside the app or game and rely on income from these to bring in a similar amount of money to that which you'd have expected if you'd tried to sell the item by more conventional means. The concept is indeed sound - but I'm finding the implementation often lacking. What's needed is more imagination.
I just can't resist the challenge of taking something old and unloved and making it useful. And my latest target is the much misunderstood Nokia N96, from 2008, still one of the largest-screened non-touch Nokia smartphones and with more gadgets than you can count - yet a device that was panned on release, plagued with performance problems and never sold as well as it should have done. In the latest in my series of 'pimping' articles, I look back at the Nokia N96 and what's needed to keep it topped up and current.
One of the applications which arrived very late in the day for S60 5th Edition (i.e. Symbian^1) was Nokia Internet Radio - it seems that haste isn't the order of the day for Symbian^3 either, with no obvious multi-station Internet radio clients in the Ovi Store for the Nokia N8, C7 and C6 - yet. However, all is not lost, as I found out when embarking on a little end-November quest for working Internet radio for my N8...
