Zum Zum is a lovely mix of arcade action and Tetris-like clearing strategy. While it's been done on countless platforms before, this version of the genre game Zuma, according to Ewan Spence, doesn't make any mistakes in providing a good conversion to the S60 platform.
In All About Symbian Insight 79 (AAS Podcast 141), we share news of Symbian^2's release and the first Symbian package to move from SFL to EPL. Then there's a mention of Nokia Android rumours, leading into a discussion about Maemo positioning and Qt. Finally we talk about a recent post from Robert Scoble. You can listen to AAS Insight 79 here or, if you wish to subscribe, here's the RSS feed.
Ewan takes a brief look at Tommi Laukkanen's new, free Mobile Task Manager, a no-frills to-do-list/project manager that still manages to knock spots off the built in S60 function. It's Java-based, but don't let that put you off, this is one lean and efficient concept app - let's hope it continues to evolve.
Nick Anstee wanted to add a load of RSS news feeds into a single widget slot on his new (and seemingly much loved) Nokia N97. In this tutorial he shares how he did it, with the aid of a rather useful third party service from, somewhat surprisingly, Yahoo. See also his PS for an even quicker way of achieving the same.
Samsung Italy have released a fairly major (I8910XXIG2) firmware update for the i8910 HD (Omnia HD, as it's branded in Italy). The biggest change is to re-enable AAC (8bit 16KHz. mono) as the audio codec for HD video recording. A video example, taken on the new firmware, is posted below.
A third member of the AAS team has now had a few weeks with the Nokia N97 (we're saving Ewan til last - he'll be reporting back from the Edinburgh Fringe with it in August) and here Tzer2 presents a brief look at what stood out, especially in comparison to the smaller, cheaper sister device, the 5800 XpressMusic, drawing comparisons with the N95 and 6120 from a couple of years ago. Summary: it's only arguably better, has the potential to be much better, but has to be seen as too expensive.
At last, at long last, the popular Twitter client Gravity has gained large fonts, for use by those like me who (ahem) have less than 20:20 vision in our advancing years. You'll need to go online in Gravity, move to the start page and click on the 'alpha' (and 'experimental') version 1.20 build 5570, but don't worry, it works just fine. You also gain, as shown below, the ability to have a different (e.g. a white) theme/backdrop, again greatly aiding visibility. v1.20 works fine on all S60 3rd Edition and 5th Edition phones.
Spin the numbers around the carousel, add in a Sudoku grid and a touch of frustration, and you have a new puzzle game. Will Rotoku, new in the Nokia Ovi Store, be enough to satisfy Ewan?
Telexy Networks has launched Network Commander, a collection of useful network utilities for Symbian OS. A while back Telexy released a piece of software called SymSMB - basically it allowed Symbian devices to connect to network shares via Wi-Fi. Very clever, but they encountered a small legal issue with a large Finnish phone maker. To cut a long story short, they shouldn't have been doing two jobs at once. Naughty. So SymSMB was pulled from sale, sadly. But there's now Network Commander and I've looked at it briefly below.
In All About Symbian podcast 138, Rafe talks to Daniel Rubio, Chief Architect of the Symbian Foundation, about his role (Daniel also heads up the Symbian Foundation Architecture Council) and the importance of SHAI (Symbian Hardware Abstraction Interface).
Launched today in Nokia's Ovi Store is a free Bing widget:- you'll recall that this is Microsoft's next-gen answer to Google's main search site. Offering Web, Mobile web, News, Images and Videos, the tabbed interface gives you results almost instantly, since content is cached for each tab/data type. Some screens and comments below.
Are you a panorama sort of person and do you feel left in the lurch by Nokia buying up the makers of Panoman? Not worry, for Scalado and RAVITEQ have teamed up to produce Autorama, a quick way to produce auto-stitched panoramic photos with next to no Photoshop elbow grease required. Here's my review of Autorama, one of the new arrivals in the Ovi Store on your Nokia 5800 or N97.
With Rafe indisposed, Insight #78 could have been a double header between Steve and Ewan, but that wouldn't be rock and roll enough, so James Whatley (The Really Mobile Project) joins us to chat firmwares, betas, messaging and travelling technology. Listen in on the fun or subscribe via the AAS Podcast Feed.
Mippin has released four news 'Buzz' widgets, optimised for the Nokia N97's homescreen, each covering a different area: general news, tech, gaming and gossip. On the N97's homescreen, the widgets scroll through the latest news headlines, with the full story (in full screen mode) just a touch away. The widgets also feature an offline mode and customisable refresh time and content areas.
Over on the Lazarus like Mobile Industry Review, the other Ewan in mobile has posted an ambitious yet simple plan to save the Ovi Store from itself. Simply put, Nokia would create three enclaves of coders (in London, San Francisco and Paris) and give them a monthly stipend of £3,500 and as much coca cola and pizza as they can eat. As long as they code one application every eight weeks, the proposed 100 developers per warehouse get to stay. Total cost? Roughly £2.34 per handset. That's quite high, but this is a fascinating idea that should be taken seriously.
