The retro tank game My Little Tank has now been released for Symbian S60 3rd Edition devices (sorry, no UIQ3 version this time). You can download the demo or purchase the full game from Astraware's website, the game costs $9.95 which is around 8 euros or 6.5 pounds.
With the Sony Ericsson C905 arriving for review in The Phones Show, I couldn't resist doing a quick head to head between it and the Samsung INNOV8 - and the Nokia N82, for good measure.], so that I could evaluate the differences between 8mp and 5mp in the real world. The C905 is undoubtedly the phone with the stills camera of highest specification at the moment - but how good is it? Is it worth overlooking the many other factors involved in choosing a camera-phone/smartphone?
Rita El Khoury often seems to come up with discoveries that the rest of us overlook - in this case, it turns out that freeware star cCalc (a scientific calculator) has a big brother, cCalcPro, designed for the landscape screens of the Nokia E61 and E71. Here's Rita's write-up, with screenshots.
Geography enthusiasts rejoice! The long awaited quiz game from Herocraft - the makers of such great titles as Robo, Revival and Stolen in 60 Seconds - has finally arrived to keep the smart player happy for hours to come. Read on for the details.
For those happy to 'open sign' their utilities, note that Swim, the background sync tool for S60, has been updated to v0.41 and, notably, the scheduling problems of earlier versions are gone. In case you hadn't heard of Swim, it syncs your phone to Google or Ovi or GooSync, etc. automatically. And no, we still don't know why this functionality isn't part of S60 itself...
In AAS Insight 48, we talk about the launch of the new 'Facebook phone', the INQ1, we chat about the Nokia N96 and the new E63, plus we cover Qt, the cross-platform environment that Nokia bought recently. If you want to subscribe, here's the RSS feed.
Nokia's Beta development teams do seem to be working in parallel to a degree. With the launch of FriendView, their Chat extension to Contacts has now been updated to BETA 4, adding friend profile pictures on its maps, plus you can also now make calls from that view. There's also comprehensive access point selection (favourite Wi-Fi, preferred GPRS, etc) Which of the two chat/presence systems do you prefer?
Over on All About N-Gage, an editorial ponders whether Nokia's obsession with online rankings is ruining their Arena online gaming service by alienating both hardcore and casual users. Reports of cheating in a recent ONE high score tournament haven't helped matters either.
On Tuesday and Wednesday this week (19th-20th) Forum Nokia goes to Budapest for two events: a Developer Day and Code Camps on S60 5th Edition Touch UI and Web Runtime widgets. At the beginning of December it is the turn of Barcelona which has S60 5th Edition Touch UI and Mobile Web Code Camps. Both events are free to attend; all you need do is register on the Forum Nokia web site. I'll be in Budapest for both days of the Forum Nokia event, please do look out for me, introduce yourself, chat about the Symbian ecosystem and show me any applications or services you may be working on.
Ahem. Yes, another link over to Ricky Cadden's blog, but he and Rita do keep on producing interesting reads.... Here he goes over the key changes that AT&T made Nokia do in order to get the 6650 to market in the USA - an extra row? And you thought operator customisations were limited to themes, icons and home screens?
A lot of news over on All About N-Gage, with updates to the N-Gage app and new phones added to the platform, sales charts released, a new games announcement, and a couple of very interesting videos published. See below for the relevant links.
You'll remember Tagggit from my AAS video interview with SkyHook? It's a geospatial social networking tool for S60, i.e. it uses SkyHook's databases of urban Wi-Fi hotspots to find your location without GPS and annotate places and activities for others. Tagggit is now available in open beta, so anyone can try it out. See below for lots of screenshots of Tagggit and the official launch press release. Comments welcome after you've given this a try over the weekend?
Nokia Beta Labs today made available a preview of the next version of Share Online, Nokia's media sharing application. Share Online version 4 has an improved upload/download experience which allows asynchronous usage, adds an outbox to make it easier to manage uploads and has improved active standby indicators (including the ability to remove them). The new version is currently only available for the N96, 6210, 6220 and 5320. Read on for screenshots and more details.
The N-Gage platform's client is now available for the Nokia N78 and 6210 Navigator. The easiest way to get it is to visit n-gage.mobi/d (note there's no "www") on your phone's web browser, and select your phone from the list, which lets you download and install the app directly. Alternatively, you can download the app from the official N-Gage website and install using PC Suite. (Other phones compatible with the platform include the 5320 XpressMusic, N79, N81, N81 8GB, N82, N85, N95, N95 8GB and N96.)
In the final part, number eight, of my Camera Nitty Gritty series, I look at some of the top smartphone cameras again, but this time looking at their video capture potential, covering the Nokia N82, N93, E90, the Samsing INNOV8, the Sony Ericsson K850i and the HTC TyTN II. Obviously just a snapshot of the phone video capture world but hopefully nonetheless interesting. Your comments welcome if you can add any comparisons of your own!