Nokia announced today that it will change its service branding from Ovi to Nokia. This will see the services change from Ovi Service to Nokia Service. For example, Ovi Maps to Nokia Maps. The transition will begin in July and is expected to be completed by the end of 2012 and Nokia says that the rebrand will have no impact on planned updates and improvements to the services.
As a big fan of the long running Desert Island Discs radio programme, I was interested to see that its entire archive is now up for grabs in smartphone-friendly form on the Web, with over 500 of the shows fully downloadable in MP3 form. Thousands of guests, tens of thousands of music picks and a huge amount of auto-biographical chat, all in MP3 form. Screens and links below. Download and enjoy.
Read on For Four Fabulous Friday links of interest, for perusal over your morning coffee or orange juice. Firstly, over at the somewhat prolific Ovi Daily App blog, you may have noticed a few AAS writers guesting in recent months? It's my turn now with my comprehensive review of Sparkle. You'll recognise it - shooting coloured balls from a cannon - but don't switch off, as it's also one of the best implemented games I've ever played. Yes, EVER.
At its Strategy and Financial Briefing event today in London, Nokia has outlined its "new strategic direction, including changes in leadership and operational structure to accelerate the company's speed of execution in a dynamic competitive environment". Some more quotes below, but in short this means a reorganisation into "Smart Devices" and "Mobile Phones", and adding a new OS platform to its portfolio, with Windows Phone becoming Nokia's "primary smartphone platform" and Symbian becoming "a franchise platform, leveraging previous investments to harvest additional value". More below, and more through the day, of course. Rafe's on the ground, see the other Coveritlive news item.
There have been various widget-making (i.e. Web Runtime shortcuts, in this case) systems tried out, but AppMe is possibly the easiest so far. Find a mobile-friendly web site you want to go to often (for example, something you'd normally set a bookmark in Web for....), paste its address into the AppMe wizard, choose an icon, and you're halfway there already. Read on for links and a walk-through. The end result: web sites on your menu or homescreen, properly labelled (on the menu) and with the icons of your choice.
A couple of links of interest from Mike Macias that I've just stumbled across and thought you'd like. Firstly, a piece from Mike himself in which he reminds us that there's a one-tap way to bypass Nokia Messaging service and thus gain reliable access to your Gmail account. And secondly, a pointer to a super (and comprehensive) Purple theme from the wonderfully named (for a computer guy) Logon Aniket that's available in customised versions for everything from S60 3rd Edition FP1 onwards.
Open up the Ovi Store client on your Symbian^3 smartphone and you should have a mandatory update available, which offers 'full Arabic Support, better installation support for Qt-based apps and numerous fixes', plus a new blue/green startup screen, miscellaneous other small fixes and, significantly, for all phones of all vintages, an upgrade (at Nokia's end) to their Search algorithms.
Our very own Rafe Blandford joined Tim Salmon and I (about 25 minutes into the 80 minute show) yesterday to record Phones Show Chat 72, worth a listen if you'd like to hear Rafe talking about not just Symbian, but all platforms and all phone tech. There's plenty of Symbian content in Phones Show 130 too, released this morning - skip over the Dell Streak review and you'll get a peek at my 'gear', plus a short spot about the 'gone but not forgotten' Nokia 7710 - remember that?
[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...
No, not that gravity. Gravity the much-praised social network client for Symbian. Here's an excellent 17 minute video interview (and written summary) with its creator, Jan Ole Suhr, taken at Nokia World 2010. Did you, for example, know that Gravity was originally intended to be a little freebie giveaway to attract visitors to Jan's other commercial products? The interview also answers whether Jan is worried about Nokia's new native Social application or about a future forced rewrite in Qt.
Never more than in the last year or so, smartphone enthusiasts have been decrying Symbian and advocating switching to an Android smartphone or Apple iPhone. "Enough is enough" they cry, "I'll be able to do so much more if I switch!". Errr... no. Not really. Having used many Android phones and having been using the iPhone and other iOS devices over the last two years, I've come to the conclusion that the grass really isn't greener on the other side of the fence - it's just a different colour altogether.
Having seen All About Symbian get a serious freshening up this week (design, discussions, structure, etc.), today sees The Phones Show also getting the spring clean treatment... in err....the autumn! As of Phones Show 120, released today, the show is 720p HD - and yes, it's still all filmed on phones. In this case the Samsung i8910, but it's appropriate that show 120 covers my verdict on the top 5 720p-shooting smartphones. You might recognise the no. 1 in the list - and you'll also recognise the E5, the subject of my hands-on video review.
Botond.FM's 'instant' games have a definite appeal for quick gaming sessions. This is the latest incarnation of MicroPinball Casino, for S60 5th Edition phones, now with 'multitouch' even on resistive-screened devices - no, really. Here's my review of MicroPinball, tested on both the Nokia 5530 and the Samsung i8910, over on our Ovi Gaming site. Also posted this morning is my review of the free Color Master, which you'll know better under its classic board game title of 'Mastermind'. Hey, there goes your afternoon's productivity!
Having been a smartphone owner for longer than most, I suspect, as an All About Symbian reader, you'll be very used to the daily routines of charging and power management. Even with some of Nokia's S60 devices (think 6650, E71, E52, E55, E72) running happily for several days at a time on a charge, the reality is that (especially when talking about large screened touch-driven devices) most of us need to charge every night. Or suffer the consequences. Acceptable for us, this requirement is something of a deal breaker for many 'normobs', those for whom mobile technology is merely a tool and not something they're prepared to nurse maid through the week....
Orange UK have announced a new service called HD Voice, which will give superior audio call quality over its 3G network on selected phones. Available free of charge, the service will initially be available to a small set of phones; Nokia's 5230, X6 and E5, plus the Samsung Omnia Pro. Having listened to test calls, it is a vast improvement, but not quite up to the claimed "Crystal Clear" quality as claimed. Click through to read our commentary.