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Recent News Headlines - S60 3rd Edition
The Phones Show 90/PSC 4
For completeness (and, yet again, to prove to ne'ersayers that I'm not in anybody's pocket), The Phones Show 90 is now out, with almost no Symbian content whatsoever (it's mainly about the HTC Hero). However, just to keep this news item on topic, Phones Show Chat 4 is also out, and this has large chunks of Nokia E71, Opera Mini 5 and musings on new qwerty phones.
Where Next for Comes With Music?
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.
FExplorer Pro surfaces
It was an early Series 60 legend - the file manager utility that also cooked the tea and did the laundry. And today FExplorer has surfaced into the modern Symbian age, fully updated for all S60 3rd and 5th Edition phones, courtesy of SBSH. The bad news: it's now commercial software, as Ricky Cadden reports, along with a selection of screenshots. However, if you don't think you can rise to the purchase price, there's also a launch competition to win 5 license keys.
Three Apps on my Smartphone, and I'm still rolling along...
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...
Nokia N86 next firmware to include Face Detection
Exclusive: as shown in the screenshots below, the next firmware for the Nokia N86 8MP includes a 'Face Detection' option, a feature not seen in a Nokia-branded camera phone before. With this, as you may have seen on some consumer Samsung phones, the Camera application can scan for human faces and will automatically focus on any that it finds. Also present in the next firmware will be significant photo quality improvements (less artefacts, better colours, also demonstrated below), a new Ovi Store client and, hopefully, a mountain of stability fixes - the N86 8MP v11 firmware is reckoned by some to be not fit for heavy use. [Updated with extra info and new screenshots]
Insight 87: Nokia World Services and SDKs
In show 87 in our Insight podcast series, the AAS team discuss the Ovi SDK and Ovi Maps API, plus we talk about Ovi Maps 3.3.54, Nokia Messaging (Social/Instant), Ovi Suite 2.0, N97 software version 2.0, updates for other devices (including the 5800), plus we answer a reader question about the Nokia N97 mini.
Phones Show Chat 3
For completeness, Phones Show Chat 3 is now online, and thanks to Tim Salmon, we've now got show notes for the three shows so far. There's also now, as of this morning, an official iTunes feed for the podcast, for convenience, as well as the main RSS feed. Comments welcome, as usual. Note that this audio podcast is cross-platform, so it's not totally Symbian-safe(!) Coverage also includes Android, iPhone and lots of N900/Maemo references.
Nokia Messaging IM Beta goes to 2.0
Nokia Beta Labs 'IM Beta', part of the Nokia Messaging 'empire', previously only available for the E75, has now been upgraded to v2.0 and also supports the E71 and E63, according to the Beta Labs blog. Version 2.0 also adds support for Google Talk, in addition to the existing Yahoo Messenger and Ovi systems. You can investigate Nokia Messaging IM Beta here.
Rafe's Nokia World 2009 tour (part 2)
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.
Evolution series launches with Bold theme
Top theme maker Tehk is branching out into the burgeoning market for 'premium' themes - with the complexity of modern Symbian devices, it's becoming harder and harder to create themes which contain icons and elements for every nook and cranny, and I don't think it's unreasonable for theme makers to charge a small amount for their time and effort. Tehk here introduces the first of a seven part design series, branded 'Evolution', with a variety of versions at various prices, from 1 Euro up to 6 Euros. Read on for a screenshot and some of Tehk's comments.
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