The Nokia 5800 XpressMusic, a mid-range music-focussed phone, was launched today in London. It is Nokia's first touch enabled S60 phone. It runs S60 5th Edition on Symbian OS 9.4, has a 3.2" nHD (360 x 640) touch screen, WLAN and 3G connectivity, a 3.2 megapixel auto-focus camera, integrated A-GPS and accelerometer and proximity sensors. To underline its music potential, the 5800 has a standard 3.5mm audio jack, stereo speakers, ships with a 8GB microSD card and will be one of the first phones to support Comes with Music (Q1 2009). It will be available worldwide in Q4 for 279 Euros (£215) before taxes and subsidies. Read on for much more.
Today, in London, at its Remix event, Nokia formally launched its Comes with Music service offering. Comes with Music (CwM) lets you buy a Nokia device that includes a year of unlimited access (downloads) to tracks from the Nokia Music Store. After the year is up you can keep any previously downloaded music. CwM will launch first in the UK later this month on the Nokia 5310 Xpress Music, with the Nokia N95 8GB and Nokia 5800 Xpress Music to follow in due course. Read on for more details.
Nokia's support site has just added a section for the upcoming N85 which (amongst other things) lets you read its manual in dozens of different languages. Devices are usually released within a few weeks of their support page appearing, though they may sometimes take longer.
In case you hadn't gathered, Nokia's big launch (device? new service? We're sworn to secrecy...) is tonight, at 5.00pm BST (4.00pm GMT), entitled 'Nokia Remix London' and, as usual, there's a virtual event page where you can follow all the happenings, releases and chat. If there's a video stream, look out for Rafe, who'll be there to capture video and images for All About Symbian.
Nokia Chat, the instant messaging/Contacts-integrated/GPS-using/Maps-linked(!) utility, has just received a significant bug fixing upgrade, though Nokia Beta Labs promise us that more is on the way. They've also broken the news that Nokia Music for PC has graduated from Beta Labs and is now formally released, though don't download it if you've been testing the beta - you'll need a special upgrade file that's coming later this week by email.
I have been playing with the Nokia N85 (prototype) and present some more thoughts on the new OLED screen technology used. How does it perform outdoors, specifically in sunlight? Could this be the Achilles Heel of the technology and how big a problem is it? Your thoughts welcomed if you've used a device with an OLED display.
It seems that the BBC's version of iPlayer for S60 has gone live, download it here. It has been implemented as a web runtime widget that kicks off streaming in RealPlayer. And it's also, naturally, a bit fussy about which devices it installs on. It seems happy with the N78, N95 and N96, obviously, other success stories welcome. Screenshots and more comments below... [updated with photo of iPlayer running side by side on N96 and E90]
Westward, originally released on the PC, is a cocktail that mixes in elements of town simulation, real sime strategy, adventure and humour. Does it combine the best of all worlds, or is it an unwieldy mess? Read Tzer2's review of Westward to find out... (Incidentally, this game is available for both S60 3rd and UIQ3, links for both at the end of the review.)
Kyte today have officially announced the full availability of their Mobile Producer application, a C++ based S60 application to help produce and distribute live streaming and pre-recorded mobile video and pictures. It sits alongside their Kyte Mobile java application which allows people to view media on the Kyte.tv service. It's a free download, just point your phone's browser to http://m.kyte.tv/get and choose the Mobile Producer.
Nokia continues to increase their portfolio of internet services with the upcoming acquisition of Oz Communications (via MoCoNews and others). The Canadian firm specialises in providing both IM and email alongside a basic social network to operators including Verizon and Sprint. The obvious home for this platform is inside Ovi; the deal should be completed by the end of the year so we may see where Oz ends up in early 2009.
Nokia have opened up their Nokia Pilots program, which will allow members to get involved in the development and testing of new products and services. More details on the program can be found here, while you can join the program via Nokia's Beta Labs.
Digia have today announced the immediate shipping of @Web, their Webkit based UIQ 3 browser. This application, which has been in fairly open beta testing for the last few months, brings full S60, iPhone & Google Android style browsing to the UIQ 3 platform.
More 'normob' encounters in the last few days have left me speechless. If some of what I've encountered is typical then arguments about how to introduce smartphones to the average person in the High Street are, quite simply wasted. Or maybe I'm just a technology snob. Either way, I'm a geek and proud of it. You probably are too. Read on and comments welcome...
Mail for Exchange, Nokia's Microsoft Exchange client for S60 powered Nokia phones, has been upgraded to version 2.7. Updates include support for Exchange Server 2007 Autodiscover (enter your email address and server settings are automatically provisioned), updated mapping of data fields in Contacts and a number of bug fixes. As was recently announced the new version can also now be installed on any Nokia S60 3rd Edition phone.
Some news for the developers this morning from EMCC. They've released a VoIP engine solution that can be used in their own applications. The engine is available for S60, Windows Mobile and 'other platforms.' While VoIP is available on some handsets (and in a few cases it depends on the network you buy the handset for), EMCC's “all in one” solution is geared towards developers looking to have consistency over devices and platforms.
