Announced first for Russia and then the rest of the world, Samsung have launched the I7110, with an OLED screen, similar to that in the Nokia N85, but is in a candy bar form factor and with familiar 5mp/GPS/Wi-Fi specs. More details below.
It's always interesting seeing long term tests of phones, i.e. from people who have lived with a device intensively for a while. In this case, Symbian Smashpop has lived with the Nokia N96 for a month (and no, I still haven't even seen one - go figure) and here presents a list of loves and hates. In other news, Vaibhav has been trying out the DVB-H TV in the N96 and comes away very impressed.
Dr Jukka recently put 50 S60 WRT widgets on to his site for free download. There's a whole range of mini-puzzles and games that have, for the most part, been ported across from existing, freely available, Javascript versions. There are versions of old favourites, such as Same Game and Tetris, as well some less well known puzzles, such as Cohan Circle.
Sigh. Another month, another needless high profile security scare. The BBC should know better. In this case, they talk to a Mr Coney, who (surprise, surprise) happens to sell security software. He's quoted as saying "One of common types we see now runs amok on the Symbian platform. These viruses work their way through the contact book, sending themselves out to every subscriber who has been called or has called that handset." What a load of rubbish, timed to go live on the eve of the Symbian show, too. Read on.
It's all very well standing there smugly with your new Nokia N or Eseries phone, knowing that it's functionally superior to your friend's Apple iPhone. But when you both turn on your devices, it's the iPhone that people gather round, partly because of the larger screen, but also partly to watch its party tricks. Watching these tricks, you might well ask: 'Why can't my S60 phone do that?' Chances are, it can, with a few software caveats...
An awesome application just got much, much better. Wavelog just hit the big v2.0 (v2.01, in fact). It's a native S60 client for Blogger, Wordpress, Drupal and Joomla, with ancillary support for YouTube and Picasa uploads and insertions. There's more about Wavelog on the Telewaving web site.
The much-awaited Nokia N85 is now available in Finland, and it also seems to have now gone on sale in France too. It's already been available in Italy for a short while now, and presumably should get a continent-wide rollout as the month goes on. The package deal of the SIM-free model varies from country to country, but most people seem to get a voucher for some free Nokia Music Store tracks, a free Nokia Maps subscription and a free N-Gage game.
S60.com are giving away (look under 'My exclusives') another of their periodic 'exclusive' themes. This time it's the rather dynamic 'Sporty' - one for your collection, at any rate!
Nokia Beta Labs brings us news of an update to Communication Center 2.0, with bug fixes and optimisations in all areas. Good stuff, though my previous comments about a fragmented PC-side software portfolio remain!
On monday it's time for the Evening with S60 London. However as things do not kick off until 7:30pm and as the AAS team are in town we thought we would hold an informal get together before the event in a local pub. So from 5:30pm or so we'll be in the Windmill pub which is just a few minutes away from the Nokia Flagship Store.
While we were sitting in the AAS Editorial Chat room yesterday, mulling over the last minute tweaks to Rafe's review of Comes With Music review (see here), Rafe started talking about setting up the referral fees. Turns out that this was to make sure the 5310 CWM package was in the AAS Phone Store (you do realise we have one and that you help the site when you buy through it?), but for a moment I thought that there were referral fees passed onto sites that recommended music tracks. Which got me thinking...
I can't resist linking over to AAS regular Matt Radford's latest post over on All About iPhone, talking about why the release of the S60 5th Edition-powered Nokia 5800 XpressMusic is going to be good for the Apple iPhone. At the latter's launch, the talk was on how it would be good for the mainstream phone industry - both views were absolutely right, as is Matt's observation that there will never be a 'winner' or a 'finish line' in this industry, just continuing advancement and improvement.
After a certain amount of hoo-ha in the E90 v300 firmware thread, it seems that Blackberry Connect has been upgraded after all to work with the new firmware. See here and select your region and operator and you should see a v300 compatible version of Blackberry Connect v4.0. Panic over, everyone?
Back at last year's AAS Pub Meet (was it really that long ago?), Julie agreed to help me with a comparative review of Sat Nav applications for S60. We've produced odds and ends during the year, but you may be wondering where the promised head-to-head mega-review is. Good question. Read on if you're not offended by the sight of a grown woman (Julie) having a really good rant....
Nokia continue to explore virtual worlds with their meetings in Second Life, and tonight sees the next event organised by the Connected Worlds in Team. Meeting in the Blarney Stone bar in the Dublin Sim of Second Life (direct link to venue in Second Life), Hydra Shaftoe will be chairing a discussion on European Communities inside Second Life, followed by 'live' music from Bedford Banstand, relayed from The Bedford in Balham, South London. It all starts at 11am SL time (around 7pm in the UK).
