Nokia Photo Browser, a recent beta / preview release from Nokia's Beta Labs for S60 5th Edition, is now available for most S60 3rd Edition (Feature Pack 1 and 2) devices (e.g. N95, E71, N85, 6220). Photo Browser is an alternative way to view the photos stored on your phone. The current beta may, in the future, become part of a future update to Nokia's Gallery application.
I don't know, you wait for a native Twitter client forever and then two come along at once. Last week, Ewan looked at the Gravity client from Mobiways; this week it's the turn of Twittix from Mojo's Studio, with Ewan giving this slightly simpler and more S60 style-compliant client the review treatment - who's this new client aimed at?
Google Maps for Symbian on S60 (3rd and 5th Edition) has received a major update to version 3.0.1.4 (from 3.0.0.x). There are UI changes, notably to the context 'pop-up' menu (when you press in the D-pad), this has been restyled to match the application's other dialog elements. There are also many under-the-hood changes to how Google Maps works on S60 phones, see below for the full published changelog [added April 13th].
After much delay, the most anticipated third party N-Gage game Worms World Party is out now on the N-Gage platform. The centrepiece of WWP is of course its online multiplayer mode for up to four players, and it becomes the first third party game to offer such a mode on N-Gage. To download WWP, go to your phone's N-Gage application, go to the Showroom tab, select "Options" and then "Update Now", or alternatively you can find it in the "All Games" section. The official trailer is below, you can see screenshots on AAN's WWP game page, and you can see a list of N-Gage-compatible phones on the AAN FAQ page.
In All About Symbian Insight 65 (AAS Podcast 123) we welcome Ewan back from the USA and tell him about a few additions to the AAS team. We round up some of this week's news including Yahoo Mobile Home, Nokia Messaging 1.1, Nokia Point and Find Beta, Real Football for N-Gage, Nokia E71x and more. You can listen to AAS Insight 65 here or, if you wish to subscribe, here's the RSS feed.
Interesting to see Nokia still developing their Friend View application in the light of the elephant in the room, Google Latitude (though as even that can't seem to get traction, what hope has Friend View got? - discuss). The latest build of Friend View has background notification features, in that you can leave it lurking away in the background and it will ping you when a friend gets within a customisable distance from your current location. See this Beta Labs Friend View post for the full explanation and some handy shortcuts.
The Flahorn icon pack has become somewhat legendary in the Symbian world, featuring in a load of PiZero themes, and the man's done it again, this time with a theme for S60 3rd Edition phones that emulates the icon set and general look of the new S60 5th Edition phones. Why buy new hardware when you can simply pretend?...
Manikantan is a keen (Python and) Flash developer and has produced a prototype app, Translator, for S60 3rd Edition phones that leverages Google's recently updated language translation engine. A nice Web 2.0 example, even if it's not very polished yet. See below for screenshot and download link.
Nokia's application store, Ovi Store, is now accepting content from developers, and will launch in May. In our latest developer feature, Richard Bloor speaks to Eric John, Director of Media Product Marketing for Nokia Services, to discuss the developer proposition offered by Ovi store. There's questions on operator billing, supported content types, platform support and more.
There's been a lot of talk about Gravity, the Twitter client for S60, most of it very positive, and Ewan backs this up with a detailed and lavishly illustrated review, finally awarding it a rare AAS Mega-App award for a score of 90% or over. And yes, it hadn't escaped our notice that a second Twitter client for S60, Twittix, was released yesterday. We'll get Ewan onto that, too, don't worry.
In this comment piece, 'Should Gravity come down?', James Whatley shares his thoughts on mobile application prices. Have on-device stores, such as iPhone's App Store and Android's Marketplace, changed consumer's perception of the pricing of mobile applications? What constitutes reasonable value? Read our first Whatley Wednesday, then share your thoughts in the comments thread.
Nokia has released version 1.1 of its next-generation smart email system. Nokia Messaging 1.1 includes much wider language support, Windows Live Hotmail support, support for up to 10 IMAP folders and HTML formatting in emails (at last). To download it, go to email.nokia.com in Web on your S60 phone. Note that support for the 5800 and S60 5th Edition is coming in 'May'.
Nokia's long-demonstrated Point and Find service seems to have appeared in very early beta form, with many known bugs and issues, for most (but not all) S60 3rd Edition phones and for UK and USA regions only. Point and Find uses your device's camera to identify product barcodes and movie posters, linking through to relevant Web URLs. See here to get/try the beta and here for CJ's coverage.
In All About Symbian Insight 63 (AAS Podcast 120) we briefly cover the N-Gage news out of GDC (1 million profiles, accelerometer Bounce and device support). Steve and Rafe mull over the importance of the underlying changes in S60 3rd Edition Feature Pack 2, before chatting about the importance of homescreens, with reference to TouchWiz on the Omnia HD. You can listen to AAS Insight 64 here or, if you wish to subscribe, here's the RSS feed.
Gameloft's soccer simulator Real Football 2009 has been released on the N-Gage platform. Just go to the application's Showroom tab, select "Options" and then "Update Now", and it's also available in the "All Games" section. As always, a list of current and upcoming N-Gage compatible phones can be found on the AAN FAQ page.