The Ubiquitous Carnival
Carnival of the Mobilists no. 113 is now live over at Ubiquitous Thoughts, plenty of post MWC analysis here...
Recent News - Page 261
Nokia 6650 - exclusive S60 clamshell for T-Mobile
Nokia has announced the 6650, an S60 phone which will be available exclusively to T-Mobile International Customers. The 6650 has a 2 megapixel camera (with LED flash), integrated AGPS, a microSD card slot to supplement the 30MB of internal memory, FM radio and HSDPA connectivity. Rather than using Nokia's own Ovi services it will use T-Mobile services. The 6650 will be available in the third quarter on a number of European T-Mobile networks. More details below.
Nokia and Vodafone: introducing the 6124 Classic
Nokia has announced the launch of a new S60 smartphone, the '6124 classic', in conjunction with Vodafone in most markets, calling it a 'compact multimedia device offering Vodafone customers faster and easier access to all of Vodafone's high speed Internet and entertainment services'. It is good to see this sort of collaboration happening and to see S60 hitting the true mainstream yet again. Read on for more information.
Insight 15: Geotagging and Handset Design
It's Monday and it's time for our new Insight podcast. In number 15 (aka AAS podcast 63), we look at news, geotagging privacy concerns, recent handset designs from Nokia and Ewan reports on truly mobile software. Give it a listen on the way home from work. Here's the RSS feed if you want to subscribe regularly.
CorePlayer Mobile 1.2.0 beta
CorePlayer has been inching up to a major new release, 1.2, for a while now. Registered users can upgrade to a special 'preview' version of 1.2, which includes better support for file type associations, streaming video, plus support for Speex and GSM audio. (via p@sco)
Top 10 - Classic Smartphones
In times of inconsistent quality, it's good to reflect back on devices that have oozed quality, charisma or style, and sometimes even all three. In "Top 10 - Classic Smartphones", I count down the significant stars of the Symbian OS world from the last 7 years. Controversial? Biased? Probably. But I'll bet there are four or five of these on everybody's own personal top 10 from the same period! Comments and your own picks are more than welcome!
Basic for Symbian almost here...
NS Basic, the cross-platform Basic programming language that was announced for Symbian OS at last year's Smartphone Show, seems to be finally coming together. NS Basic has now put a page up, listing it as 'coming soon' and with a bullet list of features. It'll work with both S60 and UIQ, too, which is good to see, though it's apparently implemented on top of the StyleTap Palm OS emulator for Symbian. If you've got as many concerns over performance as I had, check out their benchmarks page too.
Open Signed Online going live next week
Thanks to SWB for reminding us that Symbian's Open Signed Online starts next week for those without Publisher IDs, in beta at least and with some throttling limits in place. We haven't been featuring every last 'unsigned' utility that's flooded the blogosphere in the last 3 months because, basically, the self-signing has been too hard for the average user. Will the new system improve matters? Comments welcome.
Samsung i560 not arriving in the UK... sob.
Vodafone have confirmed, following initial reports that the Samsung i560 would be taken up for the UK as a Vodafone exclusive, that they "won’t be ranging this device. This device was tested with our new Sat Nav software and we weren’t happy with its performance." This was the only one of Samsung's new S60 smartphones that we had a hope of seeing in the UK, although the i450 and i550 are available in Germany and Italy.
The N82 gets a (G4) TV thumbs-up
Great to see the Nokia N82 getting some professional TV coverage, here on G4 on their Gadget pr0n (sic) show. Despite the American focus(!), the presenters seemed to get the hang of the N82's strengths - well worth a watch. (via Lonely Bob)
OxyCube debuts
Oxygen Software have been plugging away at their Phone Manager product for years, and they've just announced a major revamp, rebrand and relaunch. OxyCube is released yesterday and is compatible with a wide range of handsets and provides syncing and file browsing functions. (via SymbianOne)
6120 Classic gets an update
Apparently there's a new firmware update out for Nokia 6120 Classic owners, taking you to v4.21, reports Ricky. There's UDP too, so you shouldn't have to worry about backups and restores. Better to back up just in case though?
Hands-on Preview of the Nokia N78
Rafe also spent a lot of time with the Nokia N78 at Mobile World Congress. Here's his detailed and illustrated preview. A natural evolution of the best-selling N73, despite the hardware improvements, it's the software and services improvements that really caught Rafe's imagination, taking Ovi and a much more rounded package to the mass market.
Finally! Google releases native Google Maps client for UIQ 3.
This is something many UIQ 3 users have been waiting for (me included!). A native SIS client for Google Maps instead of a Java Midlet. The new client is fast, looks neat and has a function called 'My Location' which basically gives a guess of your whereabouts. No press release whatsoever, but for you who want to test it, head over to http://www.google.com/gmm using your UIQ 3's internet browser and download the SIS file. Screenshots after the break.
All About N-Gage reviews Hooked On: Creatures Of The Deep
Over on All About N-Gage, we've just done an in-depth review and playing tips feature about Nokia's flagship N-Gage title Hooked On: Creatures Of The Deep, programmed by Symbian OS codemasters Infinite Dreams. Click on the link to find out whether it makes the grade or has to be thrown back in the sea.
