StyleTap have now confirmed that their Palm OS emulation system is now in private beta for Symbian OS - I didn't get an invite into this stage, but by applying to be a beta tester, you might be lucky. After a short while, it will be opened up to all beta testers, etc. The significance of StyleTap is that there are still many people in the world who are hanging onto ancient Palm handhelds and Treos because they depend on one or more specific Palm OS-only apps - StyleTap will help them move fairly seamlessly onto S60 and Symbian.
Widgets on mobile seem to be a hot topic this year; we have already covered the technology several times on AAS. But now that the first S60 Widgets are becoming available what is the reality like? In this feature Ewan takes a look at some of the Widgets he finds most useful.
If you have an N-Gage-compatible phone (at the moment that means the N81, N81 8GB, N82, N95 or N95 8GB) you may like to take a look at this article over on AAN which details an ultra-simple method for installing the N-Gage application. It works entirely through the phone's browser, and doesn't require a computer at all. We've mentioned this method before in other articles, but it seems a lot of people missed it and Nokia doesn't really publicise it either, so here it is again in greater detail.
'Cool in the Valley' company Qik who's Qik application allows you to live stream video from your S60 handset, has today moved the service from private (invite only) beta to a full public beta status. In practice this means that anyone can sign up for the site and download the software for their mobile phone. While there are a number of live video services already out there, very few of them have a component that runs on a mobile phone - and Qik is one of the fastest of those providing mobile. More at www.qik.com.
Nokia's unified login system Nokia Account is now working again and accepting new registrations, just click on the "New Account" link below the login form. As we noted before, it's not yet in use by most Ovi services, but the plan is for your Nokia Account username to replace all the separate logins Ovi currently requires. If you want to make sure you get your favourite username, it's worth registering it on Nokia Account now so you're ready for the unification. (Note that the registration only requires an e-mail address OR a phone number, you don't have to give both.)
With the news that Apple have (unsurprisingly) had 10 million downloads from their on-device AppStore in the first weekend of operation, I can't help but reflect back on the continuing disaster that is Nokia's Download! system - read my rant below and see if you agree!
One for the US readers here, as Mark over on the Nokia Blog talks users of the US N95-8GB through the process of turning back on the anti-aliasing after a firmware upgrade. All nicely practically, but you have to wonder why it was turned off in the first place . I expect it'll be turned back on with a few tweaks (perhaps it's just a missing line in a .ini file?) but in the meantime, the instructions are here.
Nokia Chat is a new, GPS-aware software and instant messaging service which is being previewed through Nokia Beta Labs. Nokia Chat is an instant messaging and presence application with added location features. Generic location information can be shared via your presence message, via matching GPS position with selected existing (Nokia Maps) favourite places or you can send an ad-hoc exact location as a chat message. Read on for more information, a brief review and screenshots.
Joiku have announced JoikuSpot Premium is now available, discounted to 15 euros (from 25 Euros) for the launch period. Complementing the freeware variant of JoikuSpot, this version also turns your Wi-Fi enabled phone into a mobile hot-spot, but adds in encrypted browsing, and support for more protocols (the light version is web browsing only, premium offers the full range of network protocols, including email and VPN). It's available now from the aptly named JoikuShop.
Abbyy's Business Card Reader is a classic case of 'does what it says on the tin'. But, as commercial software, albeit with a one day trial version, how well does it do when faced with a sizeable stack of cards? I asked veteran conference goer Ewan to throw a few dozen cards at the utility. How well did Business Card Reader do? - find out in the review.
Starting up Nokia Software Update shows a brand new Windows Vista-ified version, v1.4.49, shown below, along with many driver updates to match. The NSU news page also shows an apology for the downtime for Vista users. Comments welcome, although the old version always worked for me in XP-compatibility mode 8-)
Nokia's Widsets have now opened up a number of tools for developers to get their hands on (writes the Mobile Games Blog). Where previously third party widsets were limited to RSS, the new SDK (v3) provides more tools, libraries and options.
There's a new version of Mail for Exchange out. v2.5.3 introduces support for the Nokia E66 and Nokia E71, as well as fixing Exchange Server 2007 SP1 compatibility. (via Eseries)
