If you are into microblogging, in particular, if you love twittering and using Symbian, this is the app you are looking for. Gravity v1.00 by Mobileways is now released, the first fully-featured and native Twitter client for the S60 platform (3rd Edition and 5th Edition). It supports multiple accounts, Twitter Search, Laconica, TwitPic and wraps everything into a gorgeous looking interface. Screens and more info below, while Ewan will be having a more detailed look at the app later this week.
Nokia is apparently clearing down stocks of its older smartphones - in this case what I'd call 'classic' smartphones - the still awesome N82 (in black or silver) is in the Nokia UK shop at the bargain price of £199 including VAT (sales tax), SIM/contract-free and unlocked. Staggering. The black version's there too, though 'Out of stock' messages have popped up recently - your mileage may vary. Anyway, grab them while you can. Xenon flash, candy bar form factor, accelerated graphics, you know you want to....
If you go to the official N-Gage Need For Speed website and click on the "Competition" pack of cards near the bottom left corner of the site, you should receive instructions on how to claim a free activation code for Mile High Pinball, Reset Generation or Pro Series Golf. This contest opened unofficially earlier in the week and some people had trouble getting their code to work, but hopefully they've fixed things now that the compo page has officially opened. Incidentally, if your activation code begins with the number 0 (zero), make sure you enter 0 (zero) and not the letter O.
The latest time waster from developer powerhouse Herocraft is an amazing logic game and a memory training tool in one. Read on for an extract from the press release and a video.
DreamSpring, the guys behind some of the leading UIQ titles, have turned their attention to S60 (including 5th Edition) and have contacted us to announce a beta program for DreamLife, their integrated Calendar and Contacts system. There's no mention of getting a free reg code at the end of the beta, but this is probably taken for granted if you provide useful feedback.
If you go to the official Need For Speed Undercover N-Gage site, you'll see a competition section labelled "coming soon". Try clicking on the words "coming soon", and you'll see a contest which tells you how to get free activation codes for Pro Series Golf, Mile High Pinball or Reset Generation. According to the n-gage.com NFSU game page, the code you require is NE3D 4 5P33D, though the prank form says NE3D 4 S433D. (via mavilacivert on the Arena forums) (UPDATE: It appears that the competition has been taken down as the "coming soon" link no longer works. We suspect they activated the link too early, as a lot of people couldn't get the codes to work.)
In a GDC-inspired AAS podcast special, Ewan sits down with Jakko Kaidesoja (Nokia's VP of Games, Services and Software) to discuss the current status of the N-Gage ecosystem. It's a wide-ranging discussion and there's a LOT of meat in here, despite it only clocking in at 16 minutes - a must-listen for anyone remotely interested in N-Gage.
It's definitely not a 'formal' release, but anyone with a penchant for fiddling with Python applications on S60 should note that there's now a build of Python for S60 that includes touch support. There's also an example 'Scribble' application, plus extra modules and easier installation. You can get PyS60 v1.9.3 here and here's hoping that a formal all-encompassing v2.0 release isn't far away. See the full change log here.
In a follow up to my popular series, from August 2008, investigating the practicalities of a S60 smartphone owner switching to an Apple Mac as the desktop counterpart, I report back after a couple of months of living the Mac life for real. What improvements have their been to the software available and does using a Mac and OS X now offer a more seamless smartphone experience than a PC and Windows?
With GDC in full swing now, it's topical for top S60 lady Rita El Khoury to run down, in detail, her top 15 games for S60 3rd Edition. There's a nice mix of free and commercial games here, genuinely something for everyone. Enjoy.
Astraware is selling Astraware Boardgames and Astraware Solitaire at the reduced price of $5 each until the end of this month. The games are available for Symbian S60 3rd Edition and UIQ3, and can be purchased at the reduced price from astraware.com: click here for their S60v3 section, and click here for their UIQ3 section. (Astraware's parent company Handmark is also having a sale until the 29th of March, with a "buy one, get one free" offer using the discount code "DEMAND".)
Long-time readers may remember we gave Lonely Cat Games' card game Mau Mau quite a positive review, and for those who don't know it's basically Uno played with normal cards. Well, it now appears that the game is available free of charge from LCG's website for all S60 editions and UIQ2 as well. Just download the file from the download page, then head on over to the free unlock code page and use your phone's IMEI. (UPDATE: Apparently there's the old annoying "expired certificate" problem with this file, but you should be able to get round this by altering your phone's date settings to March 2008 instead of March 2009. You can then alter the dates back to normal after installation.)
In All About Symbian Insight 63 (AAS Podcast 120) Rafe gives some insight into iPlayer, Steve talks about YouTube's S60 client application and both talk about their views on Samsung's Omnia HD. You can listen to AAS Insight 63 here or, if you wish to subscribe, here's the RSS feed.
Virgin Mobile, a UK MVNO (virtual network), is selling the Nokia E63 for £149 PAYG. The news is worthy of note, both because of the low price and its availability on a 'pay as you go' basis (rather than a contact). A similar example is the Nokia 6124 available on Vodafone for £75. Both of these demonstrates how Symbian devices are becoming more affordable as they are further pushed down into the mid tier market, potentially increasing their addressable market.
The San Francisco GDC conference is starting on monday and All About N-Gage's Ewan Spence will be reporting live from the event (there have been some interesting rumours regarding N-Gage news). To follow AAN's GDC coverage, you can visit our website of course, but we also have various other online presences such as our Twitter channel and our RSS news feed. And if we have any interesting vids to show you they should end up on our YouTube channel. Also see Ewan's personal Twitter feed.
