Steve's been thinking about battery life and discusses how long your smartphone really needs to last to be useful. As long as you can get through a working day, any excess battery life is a bonus. All your phone needs to do is "cross that battery threshold"...
The Pdf products from mBrain Software for S60 3rd Edition have received an upgrade. Most notable is v1.75 of Pdf+ Pro, which includes the functionality from PdfPrinter, allowing you (as it sounds) to print to PDF format, and also lots of Nokia E90 keyboard shortcuts. Pdf+ Standard v1.75 is also new out today. Pdf+ Pro is a paid upgrade to the Standard product.
In AAS Insight # 8 (AAS podcast 56) Rafe, Steve and Ewan discuss some of the news out of CES: the announcement of the Motorola Z10 and Nokia N95 8GB North American version. There's also information on the recent firmware update for the N95 8GB and the importance of runtime technologies for the Symbian platform.
The worlds of mobile and social networking keep circling each other but (the hibernating Jaiku aside) never seem to really hit it off. Ewan Spence has been looking at Zyb, an online sync host and social network that launched recently. How integrated is Zyb and is it worth signing up for yet?
AAS forum member Andrew Galpin answers one of the big FAQs of the last few months - how do you 'sign' an unsigned utility for use on your smartphone? Thanks, Andrew, clearly done, but all readers should both note that this sort of thing isn't for computing beginners and that a more elegant solution is just around the corner (see the header note).
We seem to have missed that the big-selling Nokia N73 ME got a new firmware upgrade a few days ago. The new version is 4.0750.31.2.1 and reportedly makes the device a lot snappier. Hmm... I don't think Demand Paging is implemented here, but comments welcome from N73 owners - anyone care to back up, update via NSU and restore in the interests of experimentation?
In a move which is set to further shake up the UK data market, T-Mobile has launched free access to it's network of WiFi hotspots for new users signing up to it's web'n'walk plus or pro plans. What with almost unlimited 3G data and WiFi, this move sets T-Mobile yet another step ahead of the competition in the rush to offer for "free" data access. The full press release follows.
Following on from yesterday's question of "is Jaiku dead?" Jyri Engestrom replied both on the Jaiku Blog , but also to some questions over on my blog . The short answer is the integration with Google has been a massive headache, but things are going to start picking up in the near future.
UK readers looking for the latest smart phone deals will be interested in the price comparison facilities over at newly launched Phones Limited (via SMSTextNews ). And yes, it's probably a good idea to use this alongside Steve's infamous grid of current smart phone features.
I reviewed Meteor almost three years ago but Krisse, in the run up to the next-gen N-Gage launch in 20072009 2008, has been revisiting many Symbian OS classics and here reviews Meteor again in QVGA form on a modern S60 3rd Edition device. Has the game changed in the intervening years - does Meteor still hold up? It's available for all versions of S60 and UIQ, plus Series 80, by the way.
One area which is often overlooked but in which Nokia has been steadily improving our smartphone lives is the 'Switch' application (a.k.a. Data Transfer), ostensibly letting us transfer all our 'stuff' from one S60 phone to another. Vaibhav has been documenting Switch's use in keeping two smartphones in sync and has been relishing all the options and control. Worth reading if you're about to switch or if you have two devices (husband and wife?)
