One of the seemingly vast number of Java game titles that have been put up by Nokia in their Ovi Store, The Sims 3 doesn't seem too bad - it's playable and well thought out, once you look past the lowest-common-denominator interface. Here's Ewan's Sims 3 review, right here on Ovi Gaming (used to be All About N-Gage).
Nokia's exclusive strategy game Reset Generation was originally made available as a free online game for Windows PCs at resetgeneration.com, and the site has now been revamped to also be compatible with computers running Macintosh OS X and CentOS Linux. If you have a computer running any of these operating systems, all you have to do is visit the site to play the game, it's the full version including four-way online multiplayer and it's totally free. If you also want Reset Generation on your phone, it can be purchased through the N-Gage application. (via The Official N-Gage Blog)
Three years ago I wrote an article comparing text input speeds using various devices and form factors from the PDA and smartphone world. Here's the update, with some modern devices (including the iPhone 3G, HTC Touch Pro 2 and Nokia N97) included and tabled, plus a rogue's gallery showing Communicator keyboards through the ages. Am I obsessing too much? Is raw text input speed that important to you? Comments welcomed.
One of the hallmarks of web based applications in the last few years is the cost – for the most case they've been free to the users. Of course someone must pay for all the servers, coders and everything else needed to run a company. While the good times and the VC investment money flowed in, many companies have focused on growing the user base rather than build practical foundations of income. But are we in for a shock as our favourite applications start to reach into our pockets?
In All About Symbian Insight 74 (AAS Podcast 134) Steve, Ewan and Rafe round up recent news from the Symbian world including ST-Ericsson's SMP demo, Google's 'new' S60 Mobile App, the commencement of Nokia 5630 shipping and more. In the second part of the show Steve gives a few N97 impressions and the team answer a few listener questions. You can listen to AAS Insight 74 here or, if you wish to subscribe, here's the RSS feed.
Judging by our readers' interest in S60 Twitter clients, there are a lot of Twitter fans on All About Symbian, so you may be interested to know that a study of 300,000 Twitter users by Harvard Business School has found that the main pattern of Twitter use isn't as a social network but as a way for a small number of content generators to talk to a large number of listeners. Twitter now has around 30 million users, but 90% of tweets come from just 3 million users, with most users tweeting either once or not at all. If this study is accurate, it would suggest that Twitter isn't a rival to Facebook or SMS but more like an "RSS Lite", and much more a consumer service than a communication service.
In browsing the Ovi Store, Ewan has come across some new (to him) applications and lots of indications that the the Store is “more than just apps” and that it will prove to be one of the most useful resources to developers and consumers alike. So what delights has he found? Read on for a 'magnificent seven' of examples from the Ovi Store.
Just a quick tip of the hat to Ricky Cadden for unearthing the fact that, in the continued absence of Nokia's own Internet Radio application for S60 5th Edition, SomaFM have made five of their best music stations available in Nokia-optimised form. Here are Ricky's instructions on getting going on your Nokia 5800 or N97.
As well as a new promotional video targeted at developers that would make Terry Gilliam proud, the Symbian Foundation announced on their blog that the Symbian OS is now running under a symmetric multiprocessor system. Simply put, more than one CPU can connect to the main memory of a computer at the same time, allowing for any processor to work on any application thread, and have the tasks passed around the processors to keep everything running efficiently.
Google's incredibly popular social network, Orkut, is now available through a java based smartphone client, which is optimised for S60 phones. Orkut has a presence with as much, if not more, impact than Facebook or MySpace in both Brazil and India and providing greater access to the network.
Fring, the IM and Social Network client for smartphones has been updated to version 3.4, and the big new feature is consolidation. If you have a friend on Skype, AOL and and Gtalk, you can add those separate accounts into one single “mega profile” of your friend. This unification approach also extends to your Contacts data on the handset, with Fring able to suggest “I think person A in your phone is person B on MSN Messenger.”
There has been some interesting discussion online about the upcoming Palm Pre and the announced Media Sync capabilities that has raised some eyebrows in tech circles, specifically the ability of the Pre to sync itself to iTunes. Researchers (including 'DVD John') are theorising that the Pre is pretending to be an iPod when connected, which raises a lot of potentially tricky questions. But the fact is that connectivity to a multitude of media sources is vital for a modern smartphone.
One for the developers now, as Aleksi Uotila confirms, via the Developing on S60 blog, that Nokia will not be insisting that Java applications in the Ovi Store will require to have a Java Verified testing certificate. While it is still recommended, it is not an essential requirement - unlike signing the Java app via Verisign or Thwaite, which is required.
Over on ZDnet, Matthew Millar has taken a look at the four main Smartphone application stores, specifically the issue of what the stores will allow in terms of re-downloading previously purchased content, installing on multiple devices and the returns policy of the store. Alongside the newly launched Ovi Store, he considers the Apple App Store, the Android Market Place and Blackberry's App World.
In All About Symbian Insight 73 (AAS Podcast 132) Steve, Ewan and Rafe discuss SkyFire's 1.0 release, introduce Ovi Gaming and offer some perspective on the Ovi Store 3 days after the formal launch. In the second part of the show Rafe talks about the launch of the Sony Ericsson Satio (formerly Idou) and then the team discuss the E75 in 60 seconds. You can listen to AAS Insight 73 here or, if you wish to subscribe, here's the RSS feed.
