Do you remember emTube, one of the first YouTube video clients for S60? Well, it's back (after a fashion), in the form of Open Video Hub, available* for S60 3rd Edition and 5th Edition and with additional support for Daily Motion and Metacafe videos. It's also now Open Source, which is great news. The only catch is that, currently, Open Video Hub needs (*)signing for a user's phone - see the screenshots, press release snippet and links below.
For those who are waiting for DreamConnect to be available for S60 3rd Edition note that the developer has just announced the availability of DreamConnect for S60 3rd Edition FP1 and FP2. Previously, it's only been available for UIQ 2, UIQ 3 and Series 60 5th Edition. There are some screens and info after the break.
Nokia today launched the Nokia 6788 - a TD-SCDMA Symbian phone. TD-SCDMA is a China-specific version of 3G, which is used by China Mobile. The Nokia 6788, which runs S60 3rd Edition Feature Pack 2, has a vertical slider form factor, a 5 megapixel camera, and 2.8 inch QVGA screen. The phone is expected to become available at the end of December 2009.
In the run-up to SEE 2009, I'd been mulling over which smartphones to take for blogging purposes - and one of my requirements, obviously, had to be something with a camera that was good enough. Below are my thoughts and findings, in which I discover that one of my own theories wasn't necessarily true...
S60 3rd Edition users might like to know that there's a new version 2.0 of Nokia's 'Here and Now' concept application available. It has a four-paned interface, with local weather, events, movies and restaurants. It's free and interesting, but note that the data sets aren't necessarily complete in your area and that all functions require clicking through to a mobile web page.
The Gadget Show's Jon Bentley is someone who usually manages to produce a good, informed account of anything technical, without dumbing things down too much. In Gadget Show Web TV 54, embedded in high quality below, he gives the Nokia N86 8MP a full review, concluding that it's a good successor to the N95 but doesn't match the N82 in some evening situations and feels, in 2009, a "little old fashioned". Comments welcome.
Yesterday the Symbian Foundation announced the release of the EKA2, together with supporting development kit, under the Eclipse Public License (EPL). This marks a major stepping stone is the process to opensource the entire Symbian platform, which the Symbian Foundation is currently undertaking. The microkernel is the heart of the operating system and comprises of a 'robust, fully multi-tasking architecture', which 'manages all system resources and frameworks necessary for the co-existence of the processes and applications that make up the complete system'.
It's one of the smallest S60 smartphones ever and yet (GPS aside) it's full featured and highly stylised. In any case, given the XpressMusic tag, we fired the Nokia 5630 off to Ewan Spence to review. On the plus side, it's loud and testosterone-inspired (apparently) - on the downside, the screen's a little small and the absence of location features has got to hurt in late 2009...
Good news for fans of Nokia's Sports Tracker application – the technology is being spun out of Nokia and into a new company. Sports Tracking Technologies Oy (STT) has been started by Jussi Kaasinen and Yka Huhtala, the core developers behind Sports Tracker. Nokia will continue to have access to the app, and will be a client of STT.
Guest writer David Gilson talks about his switch from Windows to Linux (Ubuntu) and his (successful) struggles to keep his desktop-S60 connectivity going, from PIM data to music to backups to tethering. Could you make the same switch? Are there any showstoppers for you? Comments welcome.
Just popped up in the Nokia Ovi Store are two new, free ZingMagic games, both based in the same genre. 'Alpha WordSearch' and 'Starts with WordSearch' are free to play, with no restrictions, I've included some screenshots below. There are also a batch of six new themed, bigger Word Searches, available as commercial titles. Details below.
In All About Symbian Insight 91 (AAS Podcast 153), Steve expands on his N97 camera and GPS experience from last weeks podcast. Rafe and Steve then discuss Nokia's Q3 2009 result in details, before Steve asks Rafe about his initial N900 versus N97 impressions. Our final topic is Steve's experience with Ovi Suite 2.0. You can listen to AAS Insight 91 here or, if you wish to subscribe, here's the RSS feed.
I can't imagine why I haven't done this exact same head to head, but AAS-favourite Rita el-Khoury has taken the time to pitch the cameras in the Nokia N82 and N86 8MP directly against each other, concluding that the N86 is a viable replacement, despite the lack of Xenon flash. [Steve wanders off muttering about the N82 still being King down the club or disco....]
Ahem. My monthly update to the 'Do It Yourself' Smartphone-choosing Grid sees new devices and new criteria. Pick your priorities and the page will pick you a winner from currently available smartphones... As usual, accusations of bias comments welcome!
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.