YouTube has finally, finally, done something about their low-grade 176 by 144 pixel mobile video interface. For Flash Lite 3-compatible phones (which means most S60 phones made in the last couple of years, provided firmware is kept recent), videos are now served up from the mobile YouTube interface in Flash format. Once the video starts playing, you tap to bring it up full screen in Flash Lite's video player. Most significantly, the quality's miles better than the original QCIF version - 480 by 320 pixels for many videos. Screenshots and links below.
On Thursday, Rafe Blandford and I were invited to spend a day with a pre-production Samsung Omnia HD, powered by Symbian OS 9.4 and S60 5th Edition (the previous Omnia had been much lower spec and Windows Mobile-powered). Away from trade show crowds and noise, we were able to really explore the Omnia HD in text, photos and video, so watch for this content over the next few weeks. In this feature I look at the device itself, its form factor and obvious interface characteristics.
It seems the E75 fairy missed AAS out (an admin mistake, apparently), but fear not for Clinton Jeff has stepped up to the plate with a nicely opinionated and illustrated look at Nokia's latest Eseries qwerty slider. A man after my own heart, he has torn into the device in his first 24 hours and presents a long list of pluses and minuses.
Yes, Ewan's heading off for a three week tour of the USA (Twitter feed here), 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 third of his regular video reports, letting us know how he's getting on with S60 5th Edition and the 5800. Embedded below is part 3 of this series, in which he chats about connectivity, the touch interface generally, the contact bar homescreen and handwriting and T9 text input.
Any set of figures which show Apple gaining in the smartphone race (up 300% year on year) are bound to be heavily commented on in the USA-dominated tech media, and Gartner's Q4 (and general 2008) worldwide sales figures are no exception. Definitely worth a skim though. Symbian OS still dominates the world, powering 52% of the world's smartphones, but the lead is down 6% from the previous year. RIM continues to rise with the Blackberry OS and the iPhone is on the up and up too. In terms of manufacturers, Nokia sold 44% of all smartphones last year, roughly the same (60 million) as in 2007, with RIM and Apple clocking up 16 and 8 million respectively. The leading Windows mobile handset maker, HTC, was a distant worldwide fourth, with only 4 million.
You have to hand it to David Wood of Symbian Foundation, he sure knows how to whip up and manage an OS release schedule. Here he publishes the timescales for the next few releases of Symbian Foundation OS, which make interesting reading. Of note is the numbering system (though don't get too tied up on the way Symbian OS 9.5 runs S60 5th Edition Feature Pack 1 which will become Symbian^2, and so on) and the mammoth software engineering exercise that will be keeping no less than five major OS versions all in planning/development/release all at the same time. A recipe for disaster or a masterplan that will result in world domination? Comments welcome!
Of course, Jaiku's been in such a moribund state since Google bought it that it's arguably not as earth-shattering - we now have a world where Twitter is king of the microblog and Google's own Maps/Latitude is arguably king of location sharing. But location-aware blogging tool Jaiku still has a place in many people's hearts and news is just in that not only is Jaiku now Open Source and running on its final destination server (Google App Engine) but a new S60 native (and presumably also Open Source) client is also coming very soon. Can't wait.
A while ago we asked the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation if they had an online OPML directory of their podcasts. They replied they didn't but would make one, and true to their word it has just gone live. You can now browse and subscribe to all CBC podcasts on your S60 device by adding the directory address http://www.cbc.ca/podcasts.opml to your Podcasting application. We will be publishing a more detailed article about this later, but for the moment see our previous article on how to add directories to the S60 Podcasting application (the link also has the URLs for the BBC and NPR podcast directories). Also see our guide to podcasting on the Nokia 5800.
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 second of his regular video reports, letting us know how he's getting on with S60 5th Edition and the 5800. Embedded below is part 2 of this series.
The BBC News website is carrying a report about a new way of making lithium batteries which could massively speed up their charging time. It's unclear quite how long the charging would take with the new batteries: the BBC report talks about "20 seconds" in comparison to "6 minutes", so they clearly weren't testing a full capacity battery. However, if we scale that up, a 90 minute charge on current batteries would be reduced to 5 minutes with the new battery type.
Hot off the press, Ovi just added support for S60 5th Edition phones such as the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic and N97. Each can now be added in the 'Manage your device' section and, crucially, you can now sync your Calendar, Contacts, To-dos and Notes to Ovi. For 5800 owners like me who have felt a little uneasy about the lack of OTA backup, then this is very welcome. Screen grab proof below.
