Guest writer Luke Barton has been trialling the new CoPilot 7 satellite navigation system for S60 3rd Edition - here's his full review after using it for several weeks on his Nokia 6110 Navigator. Summary? It has some usablity issues, plus laggy voice instructions, but there are plenty of compensating features which will appeal especially to small businesses.
Typical - I take a day out to play golf (on the N95) and some updates I've been waiting for all happen. Nokia PC Suite v7 is now official - here's the download page. No huge changes, but plenty of detailed improvements and it always pays to stay up to date. And Flixwagon just went public and has a vastly improved S60 client. In addition, Nokia N81 users just got a firmware upgrade via Nokia Software Update. v20.0.056 brings the N81 bang up to date with demand paging and Flash Lite 3, among other improvements, according to p@sco.
Files on Ovi, which provides access to files on remote computers, is the latest Ovi service and is now available in beta form. After installing a software 'connector' on your PC you can then access files on your computer from any web enabled device (e.g. another PC or your phone). Files on Ovi is the results of last year's acquisition of Avevnu by Nokia.
Telenor and Nokia today announced a cooperation on mobile services using the Ovi service platform. Specific Nokia devices will be customised with services such as Nokia Maps, N-Gage, Telenor Music Store and Mobile TV with more to come in the future. Ovi services will be launched in the second half of 2008 and will be offered to Telenor customers in Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Hungary.
There was always going to be one big topic for in-depth discussion in the latest AAS Insight Podcast - the announcement of the Symbian Foundation. Rafe and Steve are joined by Stefan and Ewan to talk over the ground-breaking news, and shoot a bit of Midnight Pool into the bargain.
Nokia's free Mobile Web Server started out as a 'what's the point in that?' project, but with v1.4 released, including GPS and network location support, it has reached the 'hmm.... now that has potential' Bluesky-thinking stage. Worth checking out, though (as usual) watch your data use/tariff. (via Symbian Guru)
PyS60 (or Python for S60) has been evolving nicely and it now extremely useable as a 'quick' programming language for smartphones. And there's a shiny new version for wannabe developers to play with. See the announcement and changelogs at the usual place at Forum Nokia.
The 3D simulator Midnight Pool is now available in the N-Gage application's showroom. If you can't see it, click on the headline for instructions on how to make it appear. You can see some screenshots and the official trailer on AAN's Midnight Pool game page.
This is going to sound like I'm on some sad, geeky maps-watch, but... I've been on a sad, geeky maps watch and have noticed that there's a new version of Nokia Maps online, v2.0.2402 - and no, I've no idea what's new. There's also a new MapLoader, v1.3.12, promising 'improved compatibility'. Just thought someone out there might like to know.
Something we've heard and talked about over and over again recently is that Nokia and others have all recognised that the future belongs to 'services and software' and that the hardware has become 'a commodity'. This is all a bit jargonistic and in this feature Steve explains these phrases in plain english from the point of view of the consumer.
The Symbian Foundation website is now online, and carries a few more details on the project. The big news is the commitment to move the platform to be open source (using the Eclipse Public Licence) and have this freely available to all. The foundation itself is set to commence operations in the first half of 2009, and the annual membership fee will be $1500. Until the open sourcing, membership will be the route to obtain the platform royalty free for device manufacturers. Naturally, membership is not required to develop for the platform, that remains open to all, just as it is now.
Money management software remains perennially popular and there's now a fully fledged bank account/finance manager for S60 3rd Edition, with the appearance of Flying Money Manager. The developers claim it 'gives you access to your accounts' balances, credit limits, all your payments, deposits and transaction histories'. Flying Money Manager was already available for UIQ 3 smartphones.
Neither are huge updates, but Google Mobile completists like me might like to note that Google's native S60 search utility is now updated to a full 1.01 release and (the Java-based) Google Mail is now up to 1.5.0.1193. Search 1.01 does feature extensive help screens and extra informational menu options, but I can't see anything different in terms of functionality. As ever, m.google.com is your friend...
Missing Sync, a sync tool for Mac OS X, is now available as a beta preview for S60 3rd Edition and UIQ 3 phones. Missing Sync for Symbian can be used to synchronize / copy contacts (Apple Address Book), calendar entries (iCal), photos (iPhoto), videos (Quick Time) and music (iTunes) to and from the phone. The current version is a beta preview and as such should be used with caution.