The Widsets 2.0 beta (update: now live on main site too) site recently went live which means you can now download and test the latest version of the Widsets client. New features include better integration between Widsets and the rest of the device including the ability to initiate a phone call or open a browser window. Widsets is a way to get web content on your mobile via widgetisation. Read on for more.
In Download! on most Nseries devices there's: a new games catalog 'Try for free', a collection of fairly decent native [or at least ported through a runtime] S60 games from 3D Arts; Shockwave Minis, mini-games across a variety of genres; a new catalog of Jamster games (probably all Java); SNAP Arcade, in-house Java game creations from Nokia; 'Just for Laughs', a 'fun' video player and downloader. Can you spot something else new in your device/market? Lots of screenshots below, by the way.
Out today is another free VoIP solution. OctroTalk works on all S60 3rd Edition phones and is an Instant Messaging application with full VOIP and peer-to-peer file transfer. You can connect to GoogleTalk, Jabber, MSN, Yahoo, AIM and ICQ (though not Skype). OctroTalk claims to use a low bandwidth codec and can be used with GPRS/EDGE networks.
Take a real mobile power user (Leon), with years of Windows Mobile expertise behind him and a top of the range HTC Athena. Now give him a Nokia E90 and give him a few months to really get to grips with it. This post over on the XDA Developers forum goes into detail about Leon's real world findings. Find out how the Symbian/S60 communicator fared against the behemoth of the Windows Mobile world.
Hearing that my long-suffering wife, Fiona, was off for a day jaunt to 'somewhere she'd never been before', I wondered if she'd like to get help from some smartphone technology and try out one of the new features of Nokia Maps 2.0 - namely the explicit pedestrian navigation mode. She agreed and handed over her Nokia E51 for me to preload it with the latest beta and the UK maps. I also stuck a pocket GPS in her jacket and guessed it would see enough of the satellites from there. Here's her Maps 2.0 report.
A few links of interest that caught my eye yesterday. Mr. Lock is a freeware, customisable auto-lock utility that's worth investigating if the inflexible built-in auto-lock frustrates you (via N82 blog). The E90 blog has a mini-review of Boxwave's Nokia E90 deskstand sync/charger/spare-battery-charger. And SymbianWorld has published an interview with one of the software heroes of the Symbian OS world, Antony Pranata, developer of Screenshot, used on every site and blog you read.
Continuing his quest to find great time fillers for his transatlantic trip, Ewan's been looking at another Java game, Silver Ball. It's presented well and has classic gameplay, but it's let down by clumsy sound control and some overlong screen transitions.
Four links of interest to the same source, so I'll group them together 8-) Over at SMS Text News, there's an item on Vyke (VoIP) being added to Nokia's Download! - although it hasn't appeared on my N95 8GB, there's an update on Scribe, the Wordpress blogging client for S60, plus a lengthy rant on how customer service can sometimes get it soooo wrong, including revelations about a secret N95 4GB, and news that Vodafone actually have a forum intervention team, scouring the Internet for Vodafone-related issues to sort out. Coo.
Do you use GMail or a service like it on the web? Does your email server have an IMAP option? If so, why not set up Messaging on your S60, UIQ or Series 80 smartphone for IMAP access and get pseudo-push email, simply and for free? I investigate what's involved. And how does GMail via IMAP/Messaging compare with GMail via the dedicated Java application?
Oh, those inventive marketeers at WOM World. Today (Friday), at a live event in Rome (anyone able to make it?), their made-up (in more ways than one) genius of 'position art' will recreate the logo or scribble of your choice using a Sports-Tracker-ed Nokia N82. See www.theworldismycanvas.com for the full audiovisual Stavros experience, for quite a few laughs, to submit your own geo-scribbling and to find out more about the event. [Update]The recreation is now live, here.
IQ Technology has announced the winners of the UIQ Open, a developer competition that ran until the end of Dec 07, with each winner getting a free UIQ 3 phone, free marketing help and event invites. Winners included FlyingMoney Manager, Mobile Documents, Handy Weather, IM+ All-in-One Mobile Messenger, Spodtronic, MicroPool, Paintball 2, Easy Search and GDesk, many of which are AAS favourites.
In conjunction with DDH Software, AllAboutSymbian is giving away three copies of HanDBase 4.0 for S60 smartphones. The draw is now closed, the three winners are listed below, along with all the rest of the submitted entries.
If you're anything like Ewan and myself, you'll enjoy a good brain-stretching, language-challenging word game - and these have been few and far between on smartphones. However, the appearance of Scratchy, reviewed here by Ewan, has helped a lot, keeping him entertained on his American travels. It's Java-based and basically works on anything, by the way.
Enthusiast Symbian blogger Norman John, based in Germany, has been reviewing the Sony Ericsson P1i - it's refreshing to hear a fresh opinion on this UIQ 3 smartphone. His verdict? It's a 'strong multimedia smartphone' but its 'UI is too tricky'. And he rightly says that you should ditch the built-in Opera for the also-free Opera Mini.
The Nokia Nseries PC Suite (v2.0) has apparently 'graduated' from Nokia Beta Labs, effective from today. It's not clear whether today's download contains any further updates, so comments welcome if you're feeling brave. The download shown is only 8MB, so presumably this is just a stub that then grabs the rest. Anyone care to review it?
