Just in case you're huddling at home, in front of AAS or your RSS feed rather than being out at some party this New Year's Eve, you might like to see in the New Year with this crafted '2010' theme from master designer PiZero. Get it installed before the big moment for maximum effect!
The prolific Guru, Ricky Cadden, has done an interesting piece here, part rant, part tutorial, documenting his frustrations with Nokia Messaging and his switch to Email/Contacts/Calendar syncing direct to Google services. It's a little bit geeky, to be sure, but you just know you're interested in how it all works...
As part of the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas in two weeks time, 20 mobile apps have been selected to compete in the Mobile App Showdown. Perennial Symbian favourite Gravity (here's the AAS Review of the Twitter client) is currently running fifth in the public vote, which continues until Friday 8th January.
In a remarkable turn of events, Nokia's Ovi Store (e.g. see the client on your phone) has beaten another official outlet to the punch, with new versions of the free S60 YouTube client available - v2.2.21 for S60 3rd Edition phones and v2.2.29 for S60 5th Edition phones. No major feature changes, I'm afraid, and the menu is somewhat screwy on the latter version, but hey, it's free and it's new, right? Photo proof below.
In All About Symbian Insight 99 (AAS Podcast 163), we discuss recent news including Nokia's presence at MWC, Ewan's Le Web trip and recent Apple legal activity. Then there's discussion of the Nokia Booklet 3G and the future direction of such mobile devices and software platforms. Finally there some special Christmas related content making for a longer-then-usual podcast. You can listen to AAS Insight 99 here or, if you wish to subscribe, here's the RSS feed.
Guest author Julian Grail takes on a review of the alliterative Magic Message Manager, claiming to filter your emails and SMS in powerful ways. Unfortunately, it suffers at the end of the day from not being integrated tightly enough into Symbian OS/S60. Comments welcomed if you've had a chance to try Magic Message Manager yet.
Track and Protect, now available in beta, is a personal remote security tool for Symbian phones. It brings easy-to-use remote management and security features, such as remote locking and wiping, to a consumer audience and also includes a location tracking module. We've taken a closer look at the beta version in this in-depth review and conclude that Track and Protect should 'significantly improve the chance of having your phone returned to you', if it is lost or stolen. Read on for more.
How about that for an early Christmas present? Aimed at the Nokia N95 (which must be drawing its pension by now), Nokia have released a new firmware for the device. We're off to dust down the older phones (they must be in here somewhere) to find out what delights are in v35.0.001. Be aware that user data is not preserved in a firmware update on the N95 range, so you must back up your data first if you want to keep it. The N82 also gets v35, though this does have User Data Preservation, making the upgrade a little easier.
'Tis just a little thing, but oh so worthy - one of our favourite Symbian developers, Sittiphol, has come up with NorthPole, a free compass utility for the Nokia E72. Meaning that you don't have to boot up Ovi Maps just to find out where North is.
Paragon Software (who long term readers may know better as Epocware) have released version 2.0 of Handy Shell, a replacement stand-by screen for your S60 smartphones which provides huge levels of customisation and interaction over and above the regular active stand-by screen on your phone.
The application development system Python for S60 has finally reached the big version 2.0, at least in runtime form, and is being pushed out via SW_Update on selected S60 phones. I've done some screens of the availability and installation process below on the Nokia N86. I daresay an official announcement and a full development release is also imminent. Watch this space.
When it comes to S60, we are fortunate to have a choice of which mapping application we use, but which is best? Is it Ovi Maps (née Nokia Maps), with its worldwide pre-loaded maps, voice navigation and PC integration, or is it Google Maps with the power of Google search, high-res satellite imagery and the perfect price? David Gilson has been testing both, and here reports on his findings.
SPB Software has launched a glitzy new take on the weather forecast genre, with an interactive 3D globe and various weather animations, plus an N97 homescreen widget. More details and screens below.
In All About Symbian Insight 98 (AAS Podcast 162), we discuss the weeks news including closing Nokia Flagship Stores, Skype for Symbian Beta and Nimbuzz's Twitter integration. We also discuss some of the information that came out of Nokia's Capital Market Day, Steve's interview with Lee Williams (Executive Director of the Symbian Foundation) and offer insight into future Ovi Store developments. You can listen to AAS Insight 98 here or, if you wish to subscribe, here's the RSS feed.
Today seems to be the day for firmware upgrades, as the Nokia N85 gets a small jump to v31.002. Downloadable over the air (*#0000# on your handset as always), we always recommend a backup before you do this, even though in theory everything will remain untouched!