Guest author David Gilson provides a brief look at Tweets60, a freeware alternative to the well known commercial Gravity. It certainly lacks Gravity's polish, but how useable is it in real life? David also explains why he prefers freeware - it's to do with lack of hassle more than lack of cost, a very valid viewpoint.
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.
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.
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.
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...
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]
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
You can't help fail to notice the news around the net that the music service Spotify is now available on the iPhone. What you might not (yet) have picked up on is this subscription based mobile service will soon be on S60. Just to keep everyone happy and eager, the team (based in Stockholm and London) have debuted a video of the client.
You may remember that the Nokia N86 and photographer had a well publicised coming together recently, with the aim of shooting interesting characters and stories through the London night, armed only with a Nokia N86 8MP? Well, although the physical exhibition of these photos has now closed, the full set of 169 'Alive at night' photos are now online, with headlines, quotes and stories for each - interesting for these, and not just to see what the N86 can do. [updated: looks like the general public aren't being allowed access yet. Watch this space!]
Over on Ovi Gaming we've sighted the first video of a hardware-accelerated version of Bounce (on the N900), and reviewed a selection of games from Ovi Store for the 5800 and N95. See below for links.