Faced with a dead Nokia N86 that refused to charge, I didn't panic - armed with the luxury of some of other devices to hand, I was able to get the N86 and its battery revived and working properly. And, in the process, learned that all Nokia's batteries are electrically interchangeable. Maybe these concept will save the day when your precious S60 phone appears to have died? At the very least, add this to your 'Things to try' check list!
"Breathe, breathe in the air"... So sang Pink Floyd in 1973. And now it's competition time here on AAS. Inspired to give away some N79 hardware, I've put together a video competition, embedded below. All you've got to do is work out how many phones I'm showing and what they are. Easy, eh? The first correct answer in the comments wins. Only one go each, mind you, so guess well...
In All About Symbian Insight 77 (AAS Podcast 137), there is news of Truphone's extended support for Nokia and the 5800 continues its best selling streak. Rafe talks about Nokia and Intel's strategic tie up and reports back from the launch of the HTC Hero. Ewan shares news of AdSense for applications, which leads to a general monetisation discussion. You can listen to AAS Insight 77 here or, if you wish to subscribe, here's the RSS feed.
Ewan Spence trials the official Orange Nokia 5800 'Comes with Music' package - how well does CwM work, what exactly is included and what are the gotchas? From missing tracks to catalogue inconsistencies to DRM frustrations, it's clear that CwM has a long way to go, but Ewan still reckons that Nokia deserve credit for getting this far and that the mass market will enjoy the experience.
Three years ago I wrote an article comparing text input speeds using various devices and form factors from the PDA and smartphone world. Here's the update, with some modern devices (including the iPhone 3G, HTC Touch Pro 2 and Nokia N97) included and tabled, plus a rogue's gallery showing Communicator keyboards through the ages. Am I obsessing too much? Is raw text input speed that important to you? Comments welcomed.
Ovi Store had capacity problems on the day it launched as demand for the service apparently far exceeded Nokia's estimates, but they seem to have cured that and Ovi Store now loads reliably. However, another problem has appeared which is rather annoying and frustrating: some items seem to be disappearing and reappearing at random. All too often people click on a game, app or other content and are greeted with the message "Sorry, this item is no longer available." even when it should be available. Let's take a look at the availability problems one by one, hopefully someone high up at Nokia is reading this.
If you click on the Ovi Gaming site's menu bar item labelled Ovi Store Games, you'll see it now contains pages and brief info about all of the games currently in Ovi Store, along with reviews and screenshots for a few of them. Over time we'll be adding a lot more reviews, screenshots and perhaps even some videos too, slowly building up a comprehensive guide to Ovi's gaming world.
Possibly as part of the whole Ovi server shake-up, possibly as part of the new Ovi Maps server architecture, Nokia's Maps servers have now been 'fixed' and will, after a frustrating couple of months of being broken, successfully match full seven character UK postcodes. Phew - just thought you'd like to know.
The rather brilliant N-Gage-exclusive 3D platform game Bounce Boing Voyage has been updated to include motion control on those phones which have accelerometers, where you can tilt the phone to control the main character (or you can use the traditional button controls if you prefer). If you've already bought the game you can get the updated version free, and if you haven't bought the game you can buy it from the N-Gage showroom tab. Instructions for updating existing games are below.
In All About Symbian Insight 70 (AAS Podcast 128) Steve and Rafe talk about the upcoming N97 and the return of Comes with Music to the UK. However the main part of the show is taken up with answering questions from listeners. We touch on Ovi Store, Nseries branding, screen resolution and more. You can listen to AAS Insight 71 here or, if you wish to subscribe, here's the RSS feed.
In the third of his tutorial series looking at Nokia Messaging, Asri al-Baker looks at the email setup process, using the Nokia 5800 as a guinea pig device. This guide applies for all users who are not using the E75 (at the moment) because this has a different (newer) version of Nokia Messaging. Asri explains the decision point about dropping back to S60 Messaging or deciding to press on with the (beta, but soon-to-be-commercial) 'push' service, the core of Nokia Messaging.
Many people have noted that the Download! client now gives a message saying that it will be "temporarily unavailable" today, while at the same time the Ovi Store site currently asks for a name and password to access it. Could something be stirring behind the scenes at Ovi Store?
The N-Gage application has been updated to a new version. There don't seem to be any major changes visible, but apparently this fixes some score sync and predictive text problems, and possibly other bugs. If you want to update, open your N-Gage application, select "Options" and then "Check For Updates", then follow the instructions. Alternatively you can download directly from this link. Important Notes: The update download file may have the old app version number, but it IS the new version. Also, after installation the N-Gage icon may get moved from the front page to the Applications folder, you can move it back to the front page by using the instructions below.
You've got to love Ricky and Rita at Symbian Guru, here unearthing (and providing a brief tutorial for) another gem - Pixelpipe, a new plug-in for Share online which widens the photo (and video) uploading compatibility to encompass Facebook, Twitpic, Picassa, YouTube and others. If you've used Pixelpipe then your comments welcome.
So much for the quality stamp of being in the good 'ol BBC. Their latest Digital Planet podcast, going out worldwide, starts with an scaremongering piece which claims that the only reason why there hasn't been a mobile phone virus pandemic is that there aren't enough Symbian OS-powered phones out there yet. Completely ignoring the fact that the viruses mentioned are ALL for really old phones and OS versions, involve manual, deliberate installation and are aimed at really naive users. The Symbian Foundation's new PR dept would do well to fire a rocket into Gareth Mitchell, Jason Palmer and self-confessed expert Prof Barasbi, who, patently, haven't a clue what they're talking about. Pah.