The next gen N-Gage shoot-em-up Space Impact Kappa Base has been updated to add support for online clans and instant messaging in the game's "World Battle" section. Current owners can update to the new version for free, and people who haven't bought SI:KB yet may like to know the game's price has been dropped to 5 euros. Current owners can find full instructions for updating to the new version below.
The Nokia 5800 is to make its debut in Singapore soon with Nokia's all-you-can-eat "Comes With Music" service built-in, which allows unlimited downloads from the Nokia Music Store for one year. In related news, the Nokia Music Store has just opened up branches in Switzerland and in Austria. The Nokia Music Store is now available in 15 countries.
Google Documents is a wonderful online resource, of course, but up until now spreadsheets have been rather off bounds to mobile users, with just an unfriendly column-by-column view. As long as your phone has a Web-kit-based browser (e.g. iPhone, S60, G1) then there's now a whole new view, with your spreadsheets looking (roughly) as they should and with full editing. Each row can have its elements edited in one go, which is a kludge but also kind of handy. On the downside, the weight of javascript involved does mean that the page isn't that light though, and largish spreadsheets can be slow to open and manipulate. Screens below.
ZingMagic, creators of slick version of classic board and puzzle games on all platforms, have launched a range of their titles now supporting S60 5th edition devices like the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic. The list is: Backgammon Pro II, Checkers Pro II, Chess Pro II, Chinese Chess Pro II, Four In A Line Pro II, Gomoku Pro II and Reversi Pro II. All have a reworked UI (compared to the original S60 3rd Edition versions) and improved AI. There's also Zingles II, a bigger update, now supporting '4x4', 'thru 16x16', 'Jigsaw', 'Killer Sudokus', plus lots of 'solving aids, helper features'. Links, screens and mini-review of one of the new titles below the break.
Ewan heads out onto the course with the golfing legend.... but this, curiously, isn't an N-Gage game - it's Java. Surprisingly, this fact doesn't affect playability and, despite somewhat rudimentary graphics, he finds that it ranks with the best golf games on the mobile platform. Here's the review of Tiger Woods PGA Tour 09.
Ahead of next week's Mobile World Congress next week Symbian has issued a press release with a roll call of the latest companies who pledged their support to the Symbian Foundation. These include Atelier, Bank of America, Gemalto, HP, Imagination Technologies, Mobica, MySpace, Nanoradio AB, OMRON Software, Qualcomm, SanDisk, SESCA, SiRF Technology Inc, and Virtual Logix. This takes the number of companies endorsing the Symbian Foundation to seventy-eight. Read on for more.
CellPhoneSoft have announced, in a reversal of their previous statement, that they will be ceasing to support and develop their UIQ portfolio with immediate effect. They had pledged resources through to the end of 2009, but with rising levels of piracy and a drop in income from registrations they've pulled the plug.
Congratulations to Kristian at the Nokia Beta Labs for the blog post this morning. Not for the failure of the Contacts on Ovi database (because we wouldn't want to cheer on that sort of thing), but for coming clean and laying out a full explanation online to the problem. One of the lessons of the modern web is that news travels very fast, and hedging explanations is never a good thing. Looks like The Cluetrain Manifesto is in full operation at Beta Labs.
Another in our continuing series of definitive Nokia 5800 XpressMusic tutorials, in this piece I advise on taking better photos with the device, including some example images taken yesterday as proof of what can be achieved. Bonus link: Tzer2 talks a beginner through using silent mode and flight mode on the 5800, explaining the basics and subtleties of profiles.
A heads-up for two interesting pieces over here at Ricky Cadden's guru site: firstly, Rita el-Khoury provides a great roundup of the resources and software that help keep her S60 phone fully up to speed in the medical world; and secondly the guru himself breaks news of JBak Pencil, a utility to give 5800 XpressMusic owners a virtual 'pencil' key for selecting multiple items - it's unsigned, but in this rare case the pain of signing something for your specific phone is definitely worth it.
This could be interesting. We (the writing staff) are under strict instructions from Rafe to not mention leaked products or services. It's long been the All About Symbian policy to discuss the official news and not comment on the rumours – after all, beyond reproducing the same spy-cam picture, rumoured specs and “it's shiny”, there's not much you can add in terms of accurate commentary. But the current wave of leaks should be seen as a good thing, in my opinion. Read on for why...
Tzer2 has been busy - we've got lots more 5800 XpressMusic beginner tutorials online, all centred on getting the very most from Nokia's new touch-screen S60 5th Edition phone: How to change the wallpaper on the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic, How to use memory cards on the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic and Using the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic in other countries.
You'll remember our review of T9Nav from a week or two ago, along with comments that noone really knew what would happen when the beta period expired. Now we know, as T9Nav has appeared on the Nokia Software Market at 17 Euros. Not cheap for a little utility, but if the beta transformed your phone's interface and saved you time each day then it's still a recommended buy from our end.
The recently announced Nokia 5630 might be a cut price S60 model, but by packing in a huge feature list for regular users at an affordable price for them (and the networks), it's a perfect smartphone for the recession, no matter what power users may think of it.
The webmail component of Mail on Ovi, which was previewed at Nokia World last year, is now live (in beta status, naturally). Along with the webmail component, you can now also use Mail on Ovi on S60 devices by adding the email address to either the built in Messaging application or the Nokia Messaging service. Mail on Ovi had previously only been available via Beta Labs on Nokia's Series 40 handsets. Mail on Ovi gives you a username@ovi.com e-mail account, based on your Ovi username, with a space quota of 1GB. Read on for more details and a short video demo...
