The upcoming Ovi Store application is due to replace Nokia's existing Download!, MOSH and Software Market services, and there has been speculation about what else it might absorb. However, Nokia has now gone on record to say the N-Gage application will be kept as a separate service, at least for the moment, though they also said that their medium term goal is to "converge everything into a single distribution channel".
In contravention of the prevailing spirit of the age, I find myself unconvinced by a touch interface on a phone, having tried using both Apple iPhone and Nokia 5800 XpressMusic, both of which I've rejected as my main device for different reasons. And, for a change, there's survey data (see the postscript) to back up my crazed(!) opinions - it seems that the majority of the great unwashed also prefer physical buttons to touch...
Over the last six months on All About Symbian in my 'Camera Nitty Gritty' series, I've tackled a number of phone camera-related issues head on and tried to draw conclusions, even though they sometimes fly in face of phone marketing. In this article, I provide an index to all the Camera Nitty Gritty articles and also summarise some of the individual article conclusions. Xenon flash, resolution, apertures, branded optics, it's all here and neatly broken down.
Rafe's still pounding the floor at MWC 2009, of course, but he took time with MIR's Ben Smith yesterday to give his opinions of Nokia's latest camera flagship, the N86 8MP, in great detail. Below the break is the full six minute video interview, enjoy.
With so much news flowing through this front page over the last 72 hours, I thought a brief link summary might be in order. Sony Ericsson went first, with their display of their early prototype 12mp, S60 5th Edition Idou. Then we had Nokia's main keynote, introducing the S60 3rd Edition Nokia E55 and side-sliding E75, plus the Ovi Store. They also quietly dropped the 6710 Navigator and 6720 Classic. Samsung chipped in next with their launch of the Omnia HD, running S60 5th Edition and with 3.7" OLED screen and 8mp camera. Nokia then showed off the new N86 8MP at a breakfast launch, an N85 with significantly reworked camera. LG brought up the rear with their latest, the KT770, an otherwise unremarkable 3rd Edition slider.
Here comes a month of standby time, with the Nokia E55. Put alongside an incredibly thin profile and Nokia's new compact keyboard, placing two letters on each physical key, the E55 is aiming for those travellers with “a business state of mind.” Expected availability will be in the summer for around 265 Euros Sim free. More thoughts, details and pictures live from MWC after the break.
It's the 14th of February again, and in its honour you might want to download some themes for your S60 device. Pizero has a rather splendid "Valentine 09" available for both S60 3rd and 5th Edition devices (so that includes the 5800), while Babi has a theme simply called "Lovely" available for S60 3rd Edition. Those of you with the N-Gage versions of DChoc Cafe Solitaire or DChoc Cafe Sudoku should pop into your cafes today to see them decked out in Valentine's day decorations. (And if you've recently bought a 5800 and want to know how to install themes, check out our newly-written theme tutorial.)
Google Documents is a wonderful online resource, of course, but up until now spreadsheets have been rather off bounds to mobile users, with just an unfriendly column-by-column view. As long as your phone has a Web-kit-based browser (e.g. iPhone, S60, G1) then there's now a whole new view, with your spreadsheets looking (roughly) as they should and with full editing. Each row can have its elements edited in one go, which is a kludge but also kind of handy. On the downside, the weight of javascript involved does mean that the page isn't that light though, and largish spreadsheets can be slow to open and manipulate. Screens below.
Google today launched the beta of its new Google Sync service for mobile phones. The service, which is free, allows you to synchronise data between your phone and Google's web services. This, for example, allows you to synchronise the contacts on your phone with the contacts data used by Google's GMail. All recent S60 and UIQ phones are supported through the use of SyncML. However currently only the synching of contacts is supported. Read on for more details.
Regulars to AAS will know that I hate DRM (Digital Rights Management). Not because it stops me getting stuff for free, though that would undoubtedly be some people's reason, but because it gets in the way of how I want to use content that I've paid for. See below for a tale of woe - I was trying to give Nokia Music Store one last chance and it let me down yet again. Oh, and did I mention that I hate DRM?....
I often want to subscribe to a podcast that's not in the official Podcasting directory. At the moment, I have to bring up the RSS feed's address on the screen, write it out by hand on a piece of paper and then type it all in again into the Podcasting application. However, there's a quicker way, involving copy and paste. In this tutorial, I show how to subscribe to podcasts in Nokia's Podcasting system without typing a single podcast URL.
Quite a lot of people think you need a computer to subscribe to podcasts, but you don't. In another in our series of Nokia 5800 beginner's tutorials, Tzer2 explains how to browse, subscribe and download podcasts straight onto the phone, with absolutely no need for any kind of PC or Mac. The tutorial is, of course, equally useful and valid for using Nokia's Podcasting application on any other S60 phone. Also, see our new index page to Tzer's excellent tutorial series for the 5800 XpressMusic.
In this, part 12 of my long running series on smartphone cameras, I look at whether any or all of Nokia's fancy scene modes and adjustments make any significant difference and I work out which ones you should ignore and which ones you should remember.... Can you just leave everything on 'Automatic'?
To promote the N-Gage game Resident Evil: Degeneration, Nokia and Capcom have set up a dating site for the undead called Zombie Singles, which invites people to upload a photo and then "zombify" it with the site's online zombification tool. All Zombie Singles profiles are automatically entered into a contest to win a trip for two to the Tokyo Game Show in Japan, along with two Nokia N96s and a visit to Capcom.
Nokia's 'Tube' already has great battery life. But Tzer2 wants to go to the max and has penned an excellent 'how to' on maximising the battery life on the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic... and on just about any other comparable phone, for that matter. Some great (if sometimes extreme) suggestions here.