Symbian Press has announced a new developer's title: "Games on Symbian OS", by Jo Stitchbury. Full details here, with availability next month. From the blurb: "...shows the potential for creating mobile games for Symbian smartphones... It covers various aspects of mobile games on Symbian OS, with contributions from a number of experts in the mobile games industry, including Nokia'’s N-Gage team, Ideaworks3D, and ZingMagic, as well as academics leading the field of innovative mobile experiences".
Ah, never mind the official Java YouTube streamer, emTube is still streets ahead, and pulling further away all the time. The author has quietly sneaked a big update, v1.0.10, online in the last couple of days. This includes lots of tweaks and fixes, plus a new 'Sort by' option and a way of scanning your disks for flash video files. See below for the link and the changelog.
YouTube has announced an official mobile client application for a number of handsets including several S60 phones. The application allows you to watch any YouTube video and offers browsing by popular videos (most viewed, top rated, featured), related videos or keyword search. You are able to sign into your YouTube account and access your own videos, subscriptions and favourites. The application also allows you to upload video from your phone to YouTube directly.
Nokia today announced its Q4 2007 results. Nokia's overall phone market share reached 40% (smartphone market share is higher still) with net sales of 15.7 billion Euros. In Q4, Nokia's converged (S60) device shipments were 18.8 million (up from 11.1 million in Q4 2006). Converged devices made up 14% of Nokia's total shipments (133.5 million). 3 million Eseries devices were shipped along with well over 11 million Nseries devices.
Here's the first part of Rafe's definitive review of the Nokia N82 , looking at the form factor, the connectivity and (of course) the camera. Loads of close-up and sample photos and masses of considered opinions. Watch this space for part 2, coming shortly!
A new firmware update for the Nokia N82 is now available (from 10.0.046 to 11.0.117). The update appears to be relatively minor with a number of bug fixes and stability improvements. However it is notable for being the first Nseries firmware updates that supports User Data Preservation (UDP).
You may remember my Musician (open source) Python project for S60 - mini-piano, metronome, tuning notes? Well, it's been heavily tweaked (with help) and there's now support for the hi-res screens of the N80 and E70, in addition to all QVGA varieties. Plus it's faster and less likely to crash. Perhaps more importantly, it's also a better example app to learn from when starting out with Python? Here's Musician 3.1
Ah yes. Ogg Vorbis music files and the freeware OggPlay. I've still got a soft spot for them, even if the rest of the world seems to have largely ignored the format. But never mind, because, better late than never, OggPlay for S60 3rd Edition is now fully available. Do make sure you read the notes about skins, and note that installation is a two stage process.
Nokia has started to put up information and links to do with the upcoming Mobile World Congress (3GSM). Quite apart from any devices that may (or may not) be launched, OPK's keynote is trailered by "will share his views on the significance of 'disruptive changes' in the industry". Plenty of scope for Facebook/N-Gage/Ovi chat then?
While I'm sure there will be more surprises on the day, the Nokia See Into S60 blog has announced what will be demo'ed on the Nokia Stand at the upcoming 3GSM World Congress, including S60 Touch and the new sensor technologies. Don't forget, All About Symbian will be there to bring you the news, the scoops and the buzz from Barcelona if you can't personally make it.
Ah yes, few things stay 'exclusive' for long in the modern Internet - Stefan Constantinescu has unearthed some rather tasty music-oriented S60 3rd Edition themes , designed for the Samsung i450 but which also work on Nokia devices. 'Live on stage' and 'Classic Blue' are my favourites...
