DDH Software, developers of HanDBase, the cross-platform (including S60) database solution, have launched a competition, rewarding the best two 'Applets' (i.e. designed databases, such as Pet Health or CD tracker) with full commercial runtime licenses, 'enabling the winners to turn their entries into commercially-available standalone mobile applications'. Importantly, the 30 day trial version is fine for creating the applets. Press release below the break.
Ewan's been pioneering video-from-your-mobile for a while. In this feature he looks at all the various options, working out their pros and cons. Perhaps not surprisingly, the solution that works best is the one from a phone manufacturer, but each of the other solutions will also find fans - it's still very early days in this field.
Nokia has announced that Real Time Traffic Information is coming to Nokia Maps, courtesy of ARC Transistance, the European network of automobile clubs. RTTI in Maps 2.0 (already in beta) should enable proper, dynamic routing that takes into account real world conditions. The full press release is below.
Strands, The team behind the social music site, MyStrands, have updated their Social Music Player for Symbian S60 (and java) equipped phones. Picking up all the music on your device, Strands can recommend similar artists and songs, match you up with users that have similar musical tastes, and helps you navigate your musical neighbourhood. Conscious that other services are available, the big news for this update is the inclusion of support for UK based Last.FM, and the sending of your track information to that service as well.
Last week we covered the news of the next generation of the S60 WRT (widgets with contextual awareness). Voice of S60 is now carrying a podcast with Ganesh Sivaraman, head of global marketing of Web Technologies and Applications for S60, which discusses this topic, and there's also some updated information of the S60.com web site, including demos of various widgets.
It's All About Symbian Insight 22, a.k.a. audio podcast 71, in which we cover Skype Mobile, the new Nokia 5320 XpressMusic, new announcements in the world of Web Runtime and widgets, plus a discussion on whether touchscreen devices that require two hands to use will take off in the mainstream. Listen here.
With the announcement of LG's Secret, with 5mp cam, auto screen rotation, DivX VGA video playback, TV out, Office viewers, etc, I've been musing on what makes a smartphone 'smart'. How does my Nokia N95, for example, compare? I've been playing with the Secret's older brother, the Viewty and have been able to draw some conclusions.
I'm really not at all sure of exactly when this went live, but Internet Radio support for the Nokia E65 and E51 wasn't there a month or so ago and, well, now it is. Making my wife and a lot of other E65 and E51 users very happy indeed. Here's the Nokia Internet Radio download page - highly recommended. Comments welcome if you've got this working on non-listed compatible devices!
Tetris from Electronic Arts and Block Breaker Deluxe from Gameloft are now available to download via the N-Gage client showroom. The name Tetris will be familiar to most game players, but you can still check out the specifics in our review of the N-Gage implementation of the game. We're not sure the masses will be rushing to download this one, especially with the likes of S-Tris available for free. Block Breaker Deluxe might be a better bet - it is a Breakout clone which was the first new N-Gage game we reviewed.
Free software for our smartphones has never been so abundant. From Nokia's stream of useful freebies to technology demos from big companies to small utilities from home developers, everything now seems to be free. With so much freeware around, is there still a market for paid-for software? And which would be the top picks of the All About Symbian team, for both S60 3rd Edition and UIQ 3-powered smartphones?
Skype has released an official mobile client. The application is written in Java so it should run on a variety of phones including both S60 and UIQ phones. The application uses an Internet connection for status and contact information and for Skype chat (instant messaging). However while the application does allows you to make calls, it routes them through the PSTN (phone) network rather than over the Internet. This means you will be charged for both incoming and outgoing calls of any type. Read on for more.
The Mobitubia blog has announced and released the last public (as in free to the public) version of the popular YouTube access utility and Flash video player. v1.80 build 4 has a huge change list, central to which is smoother video playback. Great application. More details below.
Nokia today announced the next stage of its Widget (Web Run Time) platform for S60. The new version will allow widgets to access information and services on the phone (such as location through GPS) in order to enable context sensitive widgets. Also significant is a brief mention of Open C++ which will further extend the number of standard, platform-independent, programming libraries available on the S60 platform. Read on for more.
The Nokia Music Store is now available in France, with a pricing of 1 euro per song, 10 euros per album, or 10 euros a month to listen to all the store's tracks through a PC. As with the other Nokia Music Stores, tracks can be bought onto a PC and sideloaded onto a phone, or bought and downloaded directly onto certain phone models.