Extended Depth of Field (EDoF) cameras, also known as Full Focus, have enabled Nokia to make ever thinner smartphones. Rather than relying on the larger actuating auto-focus lens system to produce a sharp image, EDoF exploits image processing algorithms to create an image that is universally sharp. The trade off here is that capturing fine details (like text) is often not possible, and there is a minimum focal distance of 50cm. Well, Jade Bryan over at SymbianWorld.org has come up with a method to get around this limitation, and like all the best ideas, it is remarkably simple. Read on to find out more.
Mobbler, Symbian's Last.fm client, has a new beta version for Symbian^3 users. The new beta supports the new Scrobbling API and menu items for the radio stations recently discontinued by Last.fm have been removed. There is a long list of new features too, like Twitter sharing, artist biography pages, and improved lyrics pages. Also added is support for the new mix radio station created by Last.fm to replace discontinued stations. The Mobbler project is also asking people to install an error reporting agent (ErrRd.SIS) which will help the developers capture bugs in the new beta version.
As part of the Symbian Foundation's transition to a licensing only organisation the majority of the Symbian Foundation websites closed today. Together with the departure of the majority of the remaining staff, today marks the end of major operations by the Symbian Foundation. Of course, the Symbian platform will continue under the guidance of Nokia, who have committed to make the future development of the platform available via an alternative 'direct and open model'. Some comments below.
Asri Al Baker from i-symbian.com and friend of All About Symbian has been at it again with his Web Run-Time Widgets! This time, he has broken away from the Google world and treated us to a launcher for Facebook Touch. For those who don't know, http://touch.facebook.com offers a variant of Facebook optmised for finger-driven mobile browsers. As said previously, there's nothing stopping users from just adding a bookmark to their browser, but these WRT Widgets offer the benefit of an identifiable icon in both the application menu and home screen shortcuts.
Over on A List Apart, Peter-Paul Koch is taking a closer look at one of the current key elements of the modern smartphone, the web browser. Pulling numbers from the Stat-Counter Service, he not only points out that the leading browser is Opera, but that Nokia’s web-kit effort is sitting nicely on 17% of the global market, compared to Opera and Safari on 22% and Blackberry on 19%. Android, by comparison, is on 11%. What does that mean for website designers?
[sarcasm alert] I had to chuckle when I saw this blog post on one of my favourite sites about a third party extension to Android, enabling - shock, horror, amazement - folders, to organise one's applications. Maybe the developers are copying Apple, who famously added folders for applications earlier this year in their fourth iteration of the iPhone OS? That must be it. They couldn't possibly be copying what Nokia and Symbian has had since (ahem) 2002, eight years ago, could they? See below for the appropriate Android 'Folder Organizer' screenshots...
Quaintly described in the press release as "now available on flat pieces of dead trees", Tamoggemon Software, based in Germany, has written a book which "takes C++ programmers and transforms them into lean and mean Symbian coding machines". The book covers all Symbian versions from S60 3rd Edition onwards and covers Ovi Store and Symbian Signed - the only catch is that the book's only available in German so far - the writers are looking for an English language publisher. Photo and a link below.
After a little nagging from readers, I've done an update to my smartphone-choosing Grid, over on its new home at my own domain at stevelitchfield.com. New on the Symbian front are the N8 and C7, new as competition are the HTC Desire HD, Motorola Defy and Dell Streak. More devices going up over the next few weeks as I get more comments and feedback. Just plug in your own preferences and see what comes out as the suggested best smartphone for you.
The next version of Pixelpipe's social media sharing agent, Send and Share, has reached its final version, and is awaiting approval on the Ovi Store. For a number of months, the Pixelpipe team have been working hard on developing the Send and Share client, regularly sending test versions out to their beta testing mailing list. In a message to testers from CEO Brett Butterfield, this pre-release pattern will be changing and less frequent updates will be sent to testers.
You may remember that Opera Software recently ported their acclaimed proxy-based web browser to (native) Symbian? Beta 1 of Opera Mini 5.1 was great apart from some weirdness when it came to incorporating text input from the phone's own text input system (e.g. virtual keyboard). Now we have Beta 2, with this fixed and doubtless a multitude of other minor bugs quoshed.
Following on from last month’s beta 2 release, Opera has announced the final release of Opera Mobile 10.1, a native web browser for Symbian. Since the beta release, there’s been a further update to the javascript speed increase – now up to nine times faster than Opera 10.0. Along with the server side compression, geo-location plug-in, and their rendering engine, the Opera browser continues to be one of the leading Symbian applications. More, and links, below...
A new firmware, version 052.005, is now available for the Nokia E72. It is a minor update, with a number of small bug fixes (time zone corrections, keypad autolock fix, device management fix) and application updates (Adobe Reader). The update is available over the air or via the PC based Nokia Software updater. E72 owners should be automatically alerted when the updates becomes available for their device.
You'll remember Skyfire, the proxy-based (i.e. like Opera Mini) browser that also managed to somehow transcode flash video as well? Released originally for Windows Mobile and Symbian, it is now being officially phased out, with the proxy servers stopping working at the end of 2010. In something of a tunraround, Skyfire's new 'vision' is based around a local browser on iOS and Android, with a cloud 'booster engine' for handling video and social networking. See below for a surprisingly personal and heartfelt quote from the developers.
Asri al-Baker, from i-symbian.com, and friend of All About Symbian, has just released a Web Runtime widget for all Symbian devices which will load up the iPhone version of the GMail website. This version of the website offers the richest functionality for any mobile platform. Asri reports that this work was actually inspired by a tweet made by myself(!) Thanks for the contribution, Asri! Read on for more ...