Master theme maker PiZero has made all his 'premium' themes available at half price until the end of May. Paying for themes may sound a bit odd when most other themes are free, but having tried some of these, I can testify that they're very high quality, being fast, RAM-efficient and 100% SVG-based, so they'll work on anything. Err.... advert over!
I guess this had to come, given that Nokia's Sports Tracker already contained an accelerometer-driven pedometer. But as Sports Tracker has widened its scope, there's room for a cut-down little brother, Step Counter. From the Step Counter page: "It determines the distance you have covered and your energy expenditure. You can even compare your activity levels on different days by looking up the summaries stored in a handy diary."
The availability of a mature Python interpreter is gradually producing mainstream applications and not just novelties. Witness the acronymically-named IoUYoM (I owe yoU, You owe Me), which was just released and lets you keep track of what you've lent and to whom, plus what you've borrowed, etc.
Nokia Communication Center Beta is now available via Nokia's Beta Labs. It is an add on for PC Suite (a potential replacement for several existing modules) that allows you to manage contacts and messages on your phone from your PC. This includes the ability to send SMS and MMS messages, view the contents of the messaging folders and view, edit and add contacts. Read on for more details and screenshots.
Thanks to bery95 for spotting this surprisingly attractive/fun iPhone theme for S60 3rd Edition. I know, I know, I usually hate this sort of thing, but this one has iPhone icons in surprising depth and works well on many levels under S60 (240 by 320 pixel screens, at least).
Phone game developers Astraware have released the nautical adventure game Hidden Expedition: Titanic for Symbian S60 3rd Edition and UIQ3 smartphones. You can find out more about the game and purchase it on its official S60v3 page or official UIQ3 page. Naturally we'll be bringing you a review in due course. Astraware also asked us to mention that they're looking for S60 3rd Edition and UIQ3 beta game testers. Click on the headline for screenshots...
Papyrus, everybody's favourite S60 Calendar replacement, has been given a big update after a silence of 8 months. v1.4.01 contains a huge list of changes, so go read. The new version is a free update to registered users, naturally. (via Ricky) Here's our review of Papyrus, although with all the changes it's starting to look a bit outdated!
In a move that surprises noone, Nokia's free Location Tagger has just gotten its last ever update. But fret not, because future versions will simply be built into device firmware, which is as it should be, with geotagging working beautifully on the N82, for example. See the Beta Labs report for the news and changelog.
Nokia's Sports Tracker has proved to be one of the must-have GPS applications. It is now possible to share journeys recorded using Sports Tracker via the brand new Nokia Maps and Photography widget. Steve explains how the photo location actually works and runs through the steps needed to get your own Sports Tracker powered widget up and running, including how to embed it in almost any web page and with a tweaked example formatted for wider blogs and pages.
Shout me out if this is old news and I've somehow been sleeping, but I noticed that there was a new version of Nokia's (Download!) utility for uploading and sharing photos and video. Share Online is now up to v3.08(7) and, importantly, it seems that support for Microsoft's Live Spaces is back, having been removed for early variants of v3.0. The Share Online rollcall now reads: Ovi, Spaces, Flickr and Vox.
Yesterday Adobe announced the details of the Open Screen Project. This will see Adobe, in conjunction with partners, create a consistent 'rich Internet experience' across televisions, PCs, mobile devices and other consumer electronics using future evolutions of its Flash and Air platforms. Adobe will open up Flash and Air by releasing more technical information and removing license fees and format restrictions for Air and Flash.
Thanks to (the other) Ewan for pointing out the existence of Nimbuzz, which hasn't actually formally launched yet. It's yet another VoIP/IM client for phones, but it's distinguished so far by having a native S60 client (kudos) already, by supporting Skype chat (yay for the AAS office) and by having the slickest and smoothest Web 2.0 download, sign-up and install I think I've ever experienced. Mobile VoIP isn't truly there yet though. As with Skype Mobile, a chargable gateway is used, though full VoIP is apparently on the way, as per Fring.
There's an interesting article on Business Week about Nokia's unexpected success with their free Sports Tracker utility/service/web site, with users generating content based around uses that were far wider than Nokia originally expected. In related news, Nokia has now released their 'urbanista' (Sports Tracker) widget for general embedding in other people's sites and blogs. Here's the info page and here's a (blogged) test photo-walk I did yesterday to try it out. Make sure you have the very latest version of Sports Tracker, v1.71. There's a full AAS tutorial in the making too, watch this space.