Mobile Jorge has uncovered another useful new entrant to the Java/S60 software scene, in the form of the strangely named J1CK.Tweet, a Java-based Twitter client that works flawlessly on S60 3rd and 5th Edition phones and which, from the screenshots, appears to be challenging the commercial Gravity client, with Twitpic support, multiple accounts, trending topics, and more. Well worth a look, seeing as J1CK.Tweet is (beta) freeware.
In All About Symbian Insight 90 (AAS Podcast 152), Rafe and Steve briefly touch on the Maemo Summit before moving on to a discussion of the relative roles of Maemo and Symbian and the importance of the cost of devices. Steve gives us a run down on the N97 camera glass 'scratch' issue and how to get things fixed (though note that this was before the Care Point trip). There are also answers to a number of user questions. You can listen to AAS Insight 90 here or, if you wish to subscribe, here's the RSS feed.
It's been some time now since launch, so how well is the Ovi Store doing for Nokia? Is it providing enough applications for end users and a good user experience? Are developers knocking down the web-doors to get listed in the store? Or is it all being hushed up because it's not gaining any mind share at all? I wonder aloud what's going on...
In All About Symbian Insight 89 (AAS Podcast 151), Rafe and Steve talk about the recent release of version 20 firmware for the Nokia N86 8MP. Rafe and Ewan report back from Over the Air (OTA) where they listened to presentations on Symbian approach to evolving UI and Nokia's Qt strategy. There's also discussion about Nokia's acquisition of Dopplr. You can listen to AAS Insight 89 here or, if you wish to subscribe, here's the RSS feed.
Yesterday's heads up from Google about a local search update left us scratching our heads. It was a redesign of the layout, as well as adding some category support, but fundamentally it was a tweak to the existing local search that's available in any city around the world by punching in http://www.google.com/m/local into your phone's web browser. Still, it got the blogs writing about the product again... read on for my thoughts!
Nokia is continuing to evolve the desktop version of its Ovi Maps service: the latest 'release' sees the ability to add 'Good Things' (user generated Points of Interest - PoIs) to the map. The functionality is aimed at allowing you to share interesting locations with the world, be it the location of your favourite coffee shop of the venue for an upcoming gig. In order to see and to add your own Good Things you will need to upgrade to the latest version of the Ovi Maps browser plug-in (via Symbian-Guru). Read on for more.
Rafe and I attended the Over the Air mobile developer conference this past weekend (expect to hear more about this on the next Insight Podcast) and a number of the presentation made are now online. Scott Weiss of the Symbian Foundation talked about "Open Source and the User Experience" which can now be found here.
In All About Symbian Insight 88 (AAS Podcast 150), Rafe and Steve talk about the release dates for some upcoming devices and preview the Nokia 5730. Rafe reports back from the Ovi Developer Day and Steve shares news of the latest Nokia 5800 firmware and upcoming firmware for the N86. There's also discussion about the Ovi Store and Vodafone 360. You can listen to AAS Insight 88 here or, if you wish to subscribe, here's the RSS feed.
Back in July I reviewed Mobile Task Manager, a Java powered To-Do list and was pleasantly surprised at the flexibility it offered. I also hoped it would continue to improve. Well developer Tommi Laukkanen has released v1.2 with plenty of updates and a handful of bug fixes, mostly focused on prioritising your to-do's to make the best use of your time. You can download the free app here.
It's coming close to the one year anniversary of Nokia's all you can eat music service, “Comes With Music”, and that birthday is pretty important to those who picked up the first wave of devices from The Carphone Warehouse. Because the 'all you can download' part was only ever going to last a year... so the flow of bits and musical bytes is about to run out for the early adopters. Or is it? Read on for my thoughts.
A new release of the Java-hosted Opera Mini is always a big event. This is a beta launch, but still extremely interesting, with Opera Mini 5.0 adding smooth font aliasing, multiple browser windows, a password manager and much better support for touchscreen phones. On the downside, the application is larger, at 220kb (still small in the overall scheme of things, though), and custom form and editing fields mean that you can't now copy and paste text in and out of the application. I was going to produce a walkthrough of the new features, but there's absolutely no point because our good friend Stefan has already done this in good detail. You can get Opera Mini 5.0 by going to mini.opera.com/beta in Web on your phone.
Are bulging App Stores overrated? Whichever Symbian-powered phone you own (or even if you have an iPhone, Blackberry, etc), could you manage with only three third party (i.e. add-on) applications? And if so, which ones would they be? Steve Litchfield conducts a spot survey and ponders a few personal theories...
While watching an interview recorded at the Gnomedex conference over the summer, I was struck with a statement from Micah Baldwin. In talking about the startup environment online with Jolie O'Dell, and specifically social networks, he said that any market can comfortably take three major players in the space. And given the crowded nature of the Smartphone OS market, do we have three clear heavyweights?
After the morning keynotes and interviews at Nokia World 2009, I decided to take a quick look round the 'experience lounge' at Nokia World. Following on from part 1 of the video, the tour of the show floor continues in part 2. You'll see the Nokia X6, Nokia X3, Nokia N97 Mini, Nokia 5230, Bounce Evolution running on the N900 and more software and services. There's also a quick look at some of the show floor features including a Twitter screen and side theatres.
After the morning keynotes and interviews at Nokia World 2009, I decided to take a quick look round the 'experience lounge' at Nokia World. In the video below you can join me on my first tour round the show floor, where I share my first impressions and analysis. You'll get a feel of the atmosphere on the show floor and there's a quick overview of some of Nokia's new service solutions, the Nokia Booklet 3G, Nokia Internet Stick (CS-18) and some third party software.
