...In which I ponder the respective build quality of Nokia's N and Eseries smartphones and conclude that the grass is rarely greener over on the other side - you'll still get mud on your feet...
User ohinkka has posted about a port of the classic shoot 'em up, Quake, to S60 3rd Edition Feature Pack 1 phones (Nokia N95, Nokia 6120, Nokia 6110). You will need an original Quake datafile along with the ported application engine (full details are in the forum thread). Of interest to developers is the fact that the port uses Symbian's PIPS libraries and the source code is also available.
A beta version of the new Download! for PC is now available via the Nokia Beta Labs website. Download! for PC allows you to easily download pre-selected content and copy it to your phone adding either a new look (themes, ringtones and wallpaper) or new applications and games. The PC version offers a way to reduce costs and to speed up download times.
During the Nokia Go:Play event, I had a chance to conduct a long interview with Dr Mark Ollila, head of Nokia games Publishing, on the new N-gage Platform. It's our latest podcast , and in it we talk about the history of the N-Gage brand, about the new platform, and some of the decsions behind it. And a bit more about renting the games.
Stefan Constantinescu (as Rafe and I discovered) is not only a young guy with enough life force to power a submarine, he's also very insightful - here's a great post by him on why Ovi is 'the next page in the Nokia story', a story that goes back around 140 years.
Fring, the free VoIP and ICQ/Skype/etc chat client, is now available for the Nokia E90, albeit that it doesn't support the E90's loudspeaker yet. (via My-Symbian forum)
It seems as though the USA version of the N95 8GB is going to be launched and demoed at the end of September. The Consumed by S60 blog has details of a special 'party' in the LA area, while Engadget Mobile has been showing off an actual USA spec (850/1900 MHz) model.
Steve Litchfield went along to the informal Go:Play:Reloaded event (ok, ok, a boat trip and lots of chatting) held the day after the main launch, to get some quality hands on time with Nokia's new devices and interface. Longer analysis to follow, but here are some of the most interesting images from today....
Good news and bad news. The bad news is that I think we'll be seeing a bit less of Krisse on AAS in the next few months. The good news is that Krisse is the driving force behind our sister site, All About N-Gage (RSS feed available here), with a terrific lead article on the really important points behind Nokia's N-Gage relaunch and the implications of it not being dependent on specific hardware, shops or operators.