Yes, it's magazine week here on AAS, with another plug for a paper publication of interest! This month's ('November'!) PC Pro has a feature looking at TV on the mobile phone, with a heavy emphasis on Nokia/Symbian handsets.
What's the sudden fascination with pinball on smartphones all of a sudden? Here's the next version to try and tempt you to go with them - it's Soccer Pinball, and it's available for both Series 60 and UIQ devices.
More confirmation of the successor to Sony Ericsson's UIQ-powered flagship P910i, here by the folks at Engadget, who collared SE yesterday at Apple Expo.
Issue 42 of mainstream magazine PDA Essentials, out today, has a 7-page Symbian review roundup pitting the Sony Ericsson P910i, the Nokia 6680, the Nokia 9500 and the Nokia 7710 against each other. No prizes for guessing the author, by the way!
Nokia's E3 website this year had a section on their Next Generation of games-capable smartphones which are due to launch in 2006. The site told us a lot about the Next Gen which will replace the current generation N-Gage: the Next Gen will have next generation graphics, the games will be sold entirely as downloads direct to phone or via your PC, and the games will work on a wide range of Nokia Symbian smartphones, not just one model. It also said more information would become available in September including details of the launch games lineup, but a source tells us the official press briefing may happen on October the 1st. Hints at the contents of the announcement may also be revealed during the N-Gage chief's webchat on Thursday 22nd of September.
For all the musically minded smartphone users, LonelyCat's UltraMP3 player now supports Ogg Vorbis playback (an open source file format with greater compression than MP3 for similar sound quality). Version 1.5 is currently available for Series 60, and we'd expect the UIQ and Series 80 versions to follow in good time.
By running a PC based driver, and a Series 60 client on your camera equipped smartphone, you've got yourself a Bluetooth Webcam for your PC. Warelex's Mobiola application brings this admittedly simple sounding idea to life.
Both Steve's putting skill and his smartphone's memory are severely challenged in the Java-based PMGA Minigolf, for all Series 60 devices plus the Motorola A1000. Read the review here
More theme/customisation fanpacks from N-Gage.com, with High Seize the latest addition. Nice to see these, but the big question to me is why these aren't supplied in the MMC cards along with the game, as well as on the web. Surely the more value in the MMC Game Cards, the better?
In case you missed it, the PDA world got a bit of a "woah" when PalmSource was bought out by Access (the people behind the NetFront browser). Now it turns out Palm bid make a bid as well (reports Business Week). What's more interesting from a Symbian point of view is that "...major US and European handset makers jumped into the bidding, and drove the price too high." So who would that be? Nokia? Sony Ericsson? Motorola? It might be speculation, but if one of them had accquired PalmSource, what might that have meant for Symbian?
Last year was the year of Snakes, this year All About N-Gage is putting the petty cash on Mile High Pinball to be the game everyone talks about. Dennis Roy is helping guide that game into the hands of as many N-Gage'rs as possible. So we decided to find out just how high this mile is, as we interview Dennis Roy about Mile High Pinball...
Now this looks fun. Tapping into the rapidly rising support for computer Poker, and the always popular puzzle genre comes PokerPuzzle from L3 Solutions. You've got a field of playing cards you can slide around, and the aim is to get the central line of 5 cards to be a hand that beats the dealer.
HandyCalc for UIQ pops up in the AAS Store today from Megasoft2000. It's a multi-screen scientific calculator with a host of features for modern calculations. Given I'm really afraid of calculus this app scares the living daylights out of me, so it at least looks the part.
Redshift's monster RPG game has the biggest exapnsion pack yet, in Legends 2. Take the Legacy engine and push it to the limits - play as good or evil in a world of warcraft, sorcery, arena challenges and adventures.
Forum Nokia have released an updated version of CodeWarrior (Thanks to NewLC for the news). Updates include support for OS 9.1 and a new compiler/linker.
