Nokia's Podcasting is a wonderful media consumption tool. But, aside from its own somewhat limited 'Directory', Nokia doesn't make it simple to get new podcasts into Podcasting's feed 'system'. In this tutorial, David Gilson looks at way of using Google reader on your desktop computer to harvest interesting podcasts and import their feeds into your smartphone.
Looking for the third time (in seven years) at ZingMagic's Bridge title, Ewan reviews the latest "Omar Sharif Bridge 2" for S60 5th Edition and touchscreen phones over on our Ovi Gaming site, revelling in the mature game play and the interface that's now even more intuitive. It's also worth noting that it's a lot cheaper now than it used to be, making it a 'must buy' for Bridge lovers.
In Insight 117, Rafe and Steve talk over the latest industry Q1 2010 figures and other news items, including the newly-arrived Nokia 6700 slide, Own Voice for Ovi Maps release, the new Qt SDK releases, Ovi Store adverts, Microsoft Communicator for Mobile and we cover the plethora of App Wizard widgets, including ones for All About Symbian and The Phones Show.
With summer upon us in the UK and the sun burning down (well, some of the time, at least), I've been somewhat shocked at how bad all of the touch-screen-equipped Symbian-powered smartphones are when it comes to actually being able to see what's on screen clearly. Whether a map, a photo or an important email, surely you need to be able to read your device's screen in all light conditions? With this in mind, I went back to my store of older devices and could then feel another of my famous infamous comparisons coming on.
It may look nice in the screenshots, and the style of gaming has a strong pedigree, but Ewan's been arcading again and, in his Ovi Gaming review concludes that Gravity Surf, fresh from the Ovi Store, is pretty boring, clunky, and misses the mark, with a control system that's got nowhere near enough finesse. His overall rating of 54% speaks volumes, I reckon.
You'll have been following my adventures keeping the Samsung i8910 HD on the crest of an unofficial hardware wave by installing each of the 'HX' firmwares? Just over a week ago saw the release of what is by far the most adventurous HX release yet. I try to summarise (and comment on) the changelog below, for any other owners of what (for the next couple of months, at least) is still the most powerful Symbian phone in the world bar none.
Nokia has placed a number of full page ads in UK newspapers (see photo, below, in full story) promoting the Ovi Store on what the ad says is 'a big day for news' (it is election day here in the UK). The AP News, Evening Standard and Reuters apps are mentioned by name. The advert is notable because it is one of the few Nokia print ads I've seen dedicated solely to the Ovi Store.
Nokia continued to push both their mapping service and the customisation potential of the smartphone with the release of Own Voice this week, which allows you to record your own vocal package for the turn by turn directions in Ovi Maps. How easy is it to use? Ewan finds out (below)...
Nokia has today released beta versions of Qt 4.7 and Qt Creator 2.0. Qt 4.7 brings a number of important enhancements, including Qt Quick (easy UI creation) and update to Qt WebKit (increased stability and performance). The beta of Qt Creator 2.0 offers an early preview of Quick Designer (a WYSIWYG editor to layout application UI), which is built on top of the Qt Quick technology. Nokia has also released an updated version of the Nokia Smart Installer for Symbian, which aims to ease the installation of Qt-based programs on existing Symbian devices. Read on for further details.
Probably a minor bug-fix update (unless eagle-eyed readers can spot something I haven't), but note that Google Maps for Symbian just got an small bump from v4.1.0 to v4.1.1. As usual, grab it from m.google.com. Google Maps for Android also got a 4.1.1 update a couple of weeks ago, and this was given a big boost by a server-side switch-on of real time route instructions and voice navigation. Here's hoping we're just a few days away from the same being true of Symbian/S60?
A few weeks ago, David Gilson wrote up his thoughts on the N97 classic. While there was an awful lot to like about it, he found it to be undermined by an unstable OS, due to insufficient RAM & C: drive space. He was also curious to see if the N97 mini was really everything the N97 classic could have been, so he borrowed one and got to grips with it. What follows is a discussion of the differences between these two phones, and how each one lends itself to different usage scenarios. Hopefully this will help the with the venerable question "which should I buy?"
What has had the biggest effect on my smartphone usage? With all the applications out there, be they built in to the firmware, part of the manufacturer's additional software and services, or even the legion of third party apps, which is the one that makes the smartphone my smartphone? The music player. Read on...
Pizero's Earth theme has been downloaded more than one million times from the Ovi Store. Earth is an artistic and lightweight theme (default icons), with full support for portrait and landscape orientations, and is compatible with both S60 3rd Edition and S60 5th Edition devices. The one million downloads were achieved in 86 days, with an average of 11,600 downloads a day.
An All About Symbian application, which allows you easy access to the site's latest content, is now available in Nokia's Ovi Store. The application was built using Nokia's new Ovi App Wizard (more on that in a future post) and is based on the RSS content feeds. The content is divided into four channels: All About Symbian News, AAS Insight Podcast, AAS YouTube videos and the most recent AAS tweets. The application is free and is compatible with all of Nokia's Symbian^1 (S60 5th Edition) devices. Read on for further details and screenshots.
Do you want your smartphone to beep you (or play a sound effect) every hour or every 15 minutes? No, it would drive me bonkers as well. But apparently it can be a good organisational tool, or so reckons Ewan in his brief review of Time Chime, by Symbian stalwarts Cellphonesoft. Running on S60 5th Edition, the main blot on Time Chime's scoresheet is its price.
