Always good to read of older (but classic) devices still being put through their paces. Diogo Neves has penned a lovely 8 point comparison between his trusty Nokia N95 8GB and his newer N97 mini and N900, looking at different functionality in daily life. It's fair to say that the older device is outgunned overall, but the margin is surprisingly small, bearing up my own opinion for years that the N95 8GB was the most powerful phone in the world.
New from SPB Software, arriving both fully formed and touch-only from day one, Quadronica clone 'SPB Quads' sees you trying to reveal and mark rectangle corners of the same colors in a field filled with color bricks. Sounds predictable, but there are six different types of bonuses, from Atom Bomb to Dynamite... Which sounds somewhat more fun! Screenshots and link below.
In All About Symbian Insight 109 (AAS Podcast 173), Rafe and Steve start off with a Sony Ericsson theme - they talk about the recent Satio firmware upgrade and some first impression views on the Sony Ericsson Vivaz. Steve then reports back on the latest release of YouTube for Symbian, Rafe shares news of Qt 4.7's preview release and the podcast concludes with a discussion of Ovi Maps' new pricing on older devices. You can listen to AAS Insight 109 here or, if you wish to subscribe, here's the RSS feed.
Courtesy of our friends at The Really Mobile Project, it seems that you can win a Nokia E55, E75 or N97 by simply being your normal witty self. Their post explains all, but they've given you three good alternative ideas to get you started. The three funniest entries win, apparently. And you can enter as many times as you like. So what are you waiting for?
Mobile Systems, far from being daunted by the Quickoffice juggernaut, have been plugging away at their competing OfficeSuite for S60 - the latest v5.30 can edit Google Documents directly, something of a breakthrough for the Symbian world. A hat tip to Wampyre here for both spotting the new version and doing a brief, illustrated write-up. Comments welcome if you're an OfficeSuite user and can add your recommendation.
Sony Ericsson's latest, their second generation S60 5th Edition smartphone, has arrived. It's smaller and lighter and more modern that you might believe, allied to superb camera and camcorder functions - but has Sony Ericsson made the same mistake as on the Satio and not put enough effort into the software? I find out, in the first part of my Vivaz review.
Ovi Suite, Nokia's new all-singing all-dancing Windows desktop magnum opus, has just had an important update, to v2.1.1(.1, if you're counting builds), with 'critical fixes' for synchronisation and device software updates, especially under Windows 7. Fire up Ovi Suite, if you have it installed, and click on 'Check for updates' on the main menu.
On the road on his USA gaming and new media trip, Ewan's been power-trialling a couple of accessories. The word 'power' is important here because that's what the Proporta USB TurboCharger 3400 and Powertraveller powermonkey-eXplorer provide - stored power for your smartphone and other electronics. Here are Ewan's on-the-road experiences with the two gadgets.
Some sad news, I'm afraid. You'll remember Sweden's Wayfinder navigation software from back in the early 2000s - I was a proponent, loving the fact that it would work on anything because it didn't need to have hundreds of Megabytes of maps preloaded (well, it seemed a lot at the time). Sydsvenskan is now reporting the Wayfinder story (including the Vodafone buyout over a year ago) and says that Wayfinder has now given up, in the face of free navigation from Nokia (and, to some extent, Google). Tough times, though the cycle of operating systems and ecosystems building in functionality which started out as third party add-ins has been going on for decades.
You may have heard myself praise Nokia's 'hero' battery, the Lithium-Polymer BP-4L, rated at 1500mAh, and used in everything from the E61 to the E90, most Eseries devices seem to be based on it, plus it's the core of the likes of the 6650 and N97. Anyway, it turns out that David Gilson (of this parish) reviewed a third party 'drop in' (i.e. no new phone back needed) replacement for the BP-4L, rated at 1900mAh, back at the end of 2009. Having updated it with new information (it works properly in the N97, but didn't in the original phone), I thought you'd be interested in having a read too.
Some say his beard is made of stainless steel. Some say he relaxes by hanging upside down from the light fittings. All we know is, he's called Ewan Spence. Part 3 of a series of short videos from Ewan is embedded below, along with some of his 'diary' commentary, as part of his gaming and blogging spring trip to San Francisco (GDC) and Austin (SXSW). Rafe set him a series of challenges (also known as a real world test of the Nokia 5230 / Nokia Nuron). In part 3, Ewan goes shopping, mapping and walking.
Our latest MWC video features a walkabout with Lee Williams, Executive Director of the Symbian Foundation, in Hall 1 of exhibition area. The video summarises some of the key messages of the Symbian Foundation from the event. There's discussion of the buzz around Symbian at MWC, the formal launch of Symbian^3, the Open Screen Project (which the Symbian Foundation had just joined), the importance and strengths of Qt to Symbian developers going forward, the Sony Ericsson Vivaz and the bright future for Symbian.
Google's drive for world domination around your country has been going nicely, judging from the fact that Street View just went live for virtually all the UK. Yes, every last track, every last estate road - it's all there in glorious technicolour on your smartphone. Google Maps for Mobile itself is available from the usual m.google.com/gmm and to see Street View you need to long tap on any location and pick 'Street View' from the pop-up menu.
The last year or so has seen one of the biggest changes in distributing mobile applications – the rise of the App Store. It has had a huge effect on all areas of development, especially in the gaming sector, which thrives on snack-sized gaming sessions. Here in San Francisco at the tenth Game Developer Conference (GDC), a number of sessions and panels have been specifically focussed on this new distribution channel. To call it a new channel though is a little bit short-sighted, given that stores have been around since the end of the twentieth century (such as Handango), and Nokia's N-Gage store is widely seen as the first mobile gaming app store for a single handset family. Read on...
Nokia is currently transforming itself from a hardware company to a hardware+services (solutions) company. At MWC 2010, we spoke to Tero Ojanperä, EVP of Services, in order to get an insight into current progress. Over a wide-ranging interview we cover a number of topics around Nokia's service strategy including how Ovi fits into Nokia's software platform strategy, the thought processes that led to free navigation, the importance of services compared to phone hardware, getting content onto the Ovi Store, the importance of partners and much more.
