Yes, Ewan's heading off (Twitter feed here) for a three week tour of the USA, taking in social media and gaming events. To try and add a little Symbian spice to proceedings, we insisted he take the Nokia 5800 with him, to really try it out 'on the road'. This is the fifth of his regular video reports, embedded below, letting us know how he's getting on with S60 5th Edition and the 5800. Ewan talks about PIM apps (Contacts, Calendar, and so on), touching on Sync options and having a good rant about the paucity of Nokia's S60 To-do list functions.
Much has been made of the Apple iPhone and T-Mobile G1's capacitive touchscreens, with many proclaiming them superior to the humble 'resistive' touchscreens that have been used since the dawn of time (oh, ok, since about 1995). But is it as simple as the one technology being superior? What advantages does 'resistive' tech have and what else do you need to know?
Google has flipped the switch on StreetView for the UK and The Netherlands. At least, it has if you live in one of a dozen or so major cities. Reading isn't included (sob), but London, Bristol, Liverpool, Birmingham, Cambridge, Sheffield and a number of others are all present and correct (see coverage map in full story). Comments and additions welcome if you'd like to try your home city.
In a move that's utterly unsurprising, Nokia has announced its intention to close its file sharing site, MOSH. The intentions of this site were never crystal clear at the best of times and it has often been host to warez and adult material, all available without controls in place. MOSH is expected to close before the Ovi store opens in May.
Once again (Symbian's) David Wood's blog provides useful pointers to the future of the Symbian software world. In this post he discusses firmware upgrades and points out, specifically, that the old situation where firmware upgrades were limited by license to a particular OS Feature Pack level may not one day apply because of the way Symbian Foundation is open source and (commercial) license-free. Don't hold your breath, though, you're unlikely to ever see S60 5th Edition running on your old N95!
For an All About Symbian podcast with a difference, join Ewan, Ricky Cadden, Charlie Schnick and Molly Schonthal (the latter two from Nokia) on the show floor at SXSW in the States this week. The discussion's a little more chaotic than usual, but they cover devices, UIs and apps, before moving on to the organisational miracle that is Ewan's Filofax.... Presenting Podcast 119.
Just a quickie, since this has been reported in many other places, but for the sake of completeness, there's a new firmware for the North AMerican version of the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic - firmware v20.2.014 is now available, with many improvements, including (allegedly) a resolution to the 3G reception problems seen in some US cities when the device was launched.
Aha. After my own (on video) mystification over why many quality S60 themes wouldn't work fully on the Nokia 5800 (tabs weren't working in some apps), it seems that theme authors have worked out what's wrong and are patching their productions. Here, PiZero has released new, working versions of Blue Haze, Spyro, DarkStar 09 and Valentine 09. Top stuff.
The Nokia E71 today received a firmware update to 210.21.006 from 200.21.118. It is currently available for both Asian and European SIM-free models. Other markets and operators variants will likely follow in due course. It is a relatively minor firmware updates with a few bug fixes and minor application updates.
EA's racing game Need For Speed: Undercover is out now on the N-Gage platform. You can find it in your phone's N-Gage app: to see it go to the showroom tab, select Options, then Update Now. (For a list of compatible phones and other info, see the All About N-Gage FAQ.)
Long-time Arena user Clintonjeff has been one of the first in the world to receive the new business-oriented Nokia E75 smartphone. This is the first Eseries device to be compatible with N-Gage, and CJ has looked at how well it copes with gaming. Apparently not very well. There are quite a few "issues" such as the N-Gage icon being hidden too deeply in the menu system (in the "Media" folder!), restricted gaming key options, and a client that doesn't work in horizontal mode. Check the link out for more details and see below for CJ's E75 N-Gage video. It's a real shame that N-Gage is making such a disastrous debut on Eseries. If anyone from Nokia is reading this, take a look at CJ's article and make note of what needs fixing (the problems would mostly be very easy to fix too).
Two weeks on from my initial Top 10, my feature has grown into a veritable Top 20 Freeware for the Nokia 5800 and S60 5th Edition. Four new entries (hey, it's starting to sound like a proper chart...) and some other tweaks and new URLs. Enjoy. It's also worth noting that many S60 3rd Edition apps work fine on the 5800, but this freeware list is specifically for applications that are custom made for touch and the larger screen.
Yes, Ewan's heading off (Twitter feed here) for a three week tour of the USA, taking in social media and gaming events. To try and add a little Symbian spice to proceedings, we insisted he take the Nokia 5800 with him, to really try it out 'on the road'. This is the fourth of his regular video reports, embedded below, letting us know how he's getting on with S60 5th Edition and the 5800. Ewan talks about connectivity, Twitter and TwitPic (using Gravity), plus the delights of using a predictive (virtual) keypad that's twice the size of a regular one.
