Nokia today announced that it plans to acquire Motally Inc., a privately held US company, which provides analytics services for mobile websites and applications. In addition to basic tracking and demographic reporting, Motally's main product offers the ability to track user behaviour within applications.
Here's a common scenario. You've acquired a spare battery for your smartphone, either by buying one on purpose or by inheriting one from another device. Yet, in order to charge each, you've got to power the device down and swap cells, effectively using the phone itself as the charger. If, like me, you juggle more than one phone and more than one battery for each, this can get very tiresome. Enter this latest mains battery charger from Mobile Fun, compatible with nearly every Nokia smartphone battery from the last few years and reviewed right here. Summary? It's a slam dunk.
With a new Foursquare app available for S60 5th Edition, is it time for an easy route into the location-based game? Ewan has a look in this full Symbian Foursquare review, concluding that, while a great start, a lack of search and discovery functions really hurts the app in real world use.
Just in time for this weekend's V Festival event featuring the likes of Kasabian, the Kings of Leon, Paul Weller, the Pet Shop Boys and many others, the official V Festival application has been updated and the new version is live in Ovi store (existing users should get notified of the upgrade automatically). There are some innovative features, including a customisable map and schedule planner, but it is also a great example of how a well executed application can add value to a real world event.
Never mind the date on the official download page, DivX Labs has officially released v1.0 of their ubiquitous mobile player for all S60 3rd Edition and 5th Edition smartphones (direct SISx links). Version 1.0 "has numerous updates and simplifications to the UI. It also has touch-screen support for S60 5th Edition users." Initial feedback shows that desktop class DivX files (unsurprisingly) generally have bitrates that are too high for the limited processor speed in most current Symbian handsets. A figure of 600kbps is recommended as a maximum.
Nokia Beta Labs add-on shot at an integrated 'social' experience has now been closed, pending the arrival on the High Street of a full commercial implementation of the ideas and feedback in both Contacts and Ovi Maps in Nokia's Symbian^3 smartphones. Note with the discontinuation of the Beta program you will no longer have access to the Nokia Messaging for Social Networks service.
As part on our on-going series of games reviews Ewan takes a look at BoxIt2 from inner Acctive. It's a Sokobahn style game, where the aim is solve the box pushing puzzle, over multiple levels. From the game play to the graphics, Ewan finds a well executed implementation of this classic puzzle game, which earns BoxIt2 a thumbs up and a recommended rating.
Multimedia content creation on smartphone usually revolves around photos and videos, but what about the humble audio file? Audioboo is a popular audio clip publishing service and has mobile publishing clients for Android and iPhone. However, there is no support for Symbian devices. Never fear though, David Gilson is on the case and, in this how to article, shows us how to publish to Audioboo via Nokia Share Online and Pixelpipe's Audioboo plugin.
Continuing his budget smartphone review mini-series, which is looking at the £100 ZTE Racer (powered by Android) when compared to Nokia's similarly priced 5230 (Symbian powered), Ewan evaluates the respective device's email and web browsing functionality. He finds that there's balance with plus and minus points on both sides. In part one of the series Ewan compared the relative merits of base hardware specifications of each device.
Nokia has taken the beta label of its free Symbian Signing program, demonstrating Nokia's long term commitment to lowering costs for developers placing their applications in the Ovi Store. Previously the cost for a developer to sign their first Symbian application was $215, with an additional $15 for every signing instance thereafter. In order to participate in the free signing program developers need only become Ovi Store publishers (necessary to publish content in the Ovi Store), which means paying a one-off fee of €50.
In the third part of his review of Nokia's new C6, David Gilson considers the user experiences and examines the remaining applications. David concludes that, with a hybrid form factor and an increasingly attractive price point, the C6 has offers a compelling entry into the mid tier market. Part 2 of the C6 review covered the camera and multimedia software bundle. Part 1 covered first impressions and hardware.
Nokia's unlimited music service, which launched as Comes with Music (CwM) in late 2008, has been steady gorwing its geographic footprint. Last year Nokia started branding new country (e.g. India) launches as Ovi Music Unlimited (OMU), more obviously linking the service with its Ovi service brand. An email to UK based users of CwM, which says that 'Comes with Music will soon be part of Ovi', suggests that Nokia is now in the process of switching CwM over to OMU, thus unifying its unlimited music service brand.
In All About Symbian Insight 131, we start with new of a firmware update for the 5800 and 5530, which leads to a discussion on firmware change logs. Ewan talks about his recent Android experience, with the ZTE Racer (Rafe chips in with details of the Vodafone 845), which leads to a general discussion of Android in the low end. In the final part of the podcast David continues his C6 briefing, with details of the phone's multimedia capabilities. You can listen to AAS Insight 131 here or, if you wish to subscribe, here's the RSS feed.
When you take a 2D block game into the third dimension, do you still have a winning game? Ewan finds out in his review of Blockfest by Arctica. "You’re in a 3D world, looking into the grid. Laid out flat before you, all you can see are the tops of the stacks, and the tile you are about to throw down."
The online service element of Sports Tracker, the application that lets you track exercise activities (workouts) and turns your Nokia smartphone into a GPS sports computer, is now available. The online service allows you to see at a glance information about each activity, easily visualise your workouts, make comparisons and share activities with others via the Sports Tracker website, Facebook or Twitter. Read on for more information and screenshots.
