I'm not sure S60 really needed yet another photo browser, but Nokia Beta Labs has gone and released one anyway, at least in 'experimental' form. Nokia Photo Browser offers a fluid wall of photos (see screens and video below), with 'magnifying glass' feature and 'face detection' (swipe from face to face in a group shot). It's very limited though, in that there are no menus or ways of actually doing things with your photos. My guess is that some of the 3D tech in this release will make its way into future S60 5th Edition devices. Anyway, enjoy for now.
Mobimate have updated their Traveller's Utility Worldmate for 2009. The major addition is a dashboard like home-screen that provides an overview of the most popular functions inside Worldmate, including flight tracking, weather and your current location, as well as the familiar Worldmate icons allowing you quick access to the world clocks, currency conversion tool and the comprehensive flight scheduling tools.
AT&T today officially confirmed that they would be carrying the Nokia E71 on their network in the form of the E71x. The E71x comes in black and, in contrast to the E71, runs S60 3rd Edition Feature Pack 2 (S60 3.2 on Symbian OS 9.3). The phone supports the US 3G bands (850/1900 Mhz) and retains the WiFi connectivity and GPS from the E71. It comes with a variety of AT&T services including AT&T Navigator (turn by turn GPS navigation), AT&T Music, XM Radio, CV-stream, Xpress Mail, Mobile Instant Messaging and Video share. The E71x will cost $99, on a 2 year contract, after a mail-in rebate ($50).
In a regular new feature, here's a round up of the rest of last week’s mobile development news. This week FleaC, Rhomobile, and froglogic are in the news and there's a reminder of the Betavine Widget 2009 competition.
If you are into microblogging, in particular, if you love twittering and using Symbian, this is the app you are looking for. Gravity v1.00 by Mobileways is now released, the first fully-featured and native Twitter client for the S60 platform (3rd Edition and 5th Edition). It supports multiple accounts, Twitter Search, Laconica, TwitPic and wraps everything into a gorgeous looking interface. Screens and more info below, while Ewan will be having a more detailed look at the app later this week.
Winding up his three week tour of the USA, taking in social media and gaming events, Ewan decides to take a kitchen knife to his Nokia 5800 XpressMusic. No, really. In this, the eighth of his regular video reports, embedded below, letting us know how he's getting on with S60 5th Edition and the 5800, he talks about pricing, input options, N-Gage, Lifeblog, Music player, the stylus that's easy (for him) to lose and application compatibility. If nothing else, gasp as the aforementioned knife puts the 'soft' resistive screen to the ultimate test...
Nokia is apparently clearing down stocks of its older smartphones - in this case what I'd call 'classic' smartphones - the still awesome N82 (in black or silver) is in the Nokia UK shop at the bargain price of £199 including VAT (sales tax), SIM/contract-free and unlocked. Staggering. The black version's there too, though 'Out of stock' messages have popped up recently - your mileage may vary. Anyway, grab them while you can. Xenon flash, candy bar form factor, accelerated graphics, you know you want to....
Another Nokia 5800 tutorial for beginners, this time we're taking a look at the e-mail options currently available on the 5800. We cover the basics of how to set up a POP or IMAP e-mail account on the phone's built-in messaging app, how to make new e-mails alert you just like text messages, how to set up multiple e-mail accounts on the same phone, and more. (We haven't covered the dedicated Nokia Messaging e-mail client or Gmail's Java client because they don't yet have proper 5800 versions.) As always, you can see a complete list of these how-to articles on our 5800 tutorial index page.
If you go to the official N-Gage Need For Speed website and click on the "Competition" pack of cards near the bottom left corner of the site, you should receive instructions on how to claim a free activation code for Mile High Pinball, Reset Generation or Pro Series Golf. This contest opened unofficially earlier in the week and some people had trouble getting their code to work, but hopefully they've fixed things now that the compo page has officially opened. Incidentally, if your activation code begins with the number 0 (zero), make sure you enter 0 (zero) and not the letter O.
It might be a long running series, but is Need for Speed's first appearance on the N-Gage worth the wait? Ewan doesn't think so, remarking that the controls are sluggish, the graphics barely adequate and a sense of fast racing realism non-existent. Despite these flaws, he still feels that there's a good game buried without, waiting to get out. Here's the Need for Speed review, but comments welcome if you've bought it or tried it.
I've been investigating the fact that Nokia Maps' online searching for full UK postcodes is currently broken, the last two or three characters are always missing in the results - a spokesman for Nokia said "We are aware of the problem and are working to get it fixed as soon as possible". More data points would be welcome - If you're outside the UK, do full postcode searches work in your country at the moment?
Another in our series of beginner tutorials for the Nokia 5800, Tzer2 looks at using GPS and Nokia Maps on this device and on S60 5th Edition. Items covered include how GPS and positioning work, how to send your location to friends and how to spy on top secret government installations(!) We've done over thirty of these tutorials so far, and you can see a complete list on the Nokia 5800 tutorial index page.
