Nokia's much anticpiated N97, which combines the key hardware trends of touchscreen and QWERTY keyboard, started shipping this week. In his first impressions review of the Nokia N97 Steve takes an initial look at Nokia's summer flagship and offers an initial indication of how the N97 measures up to its competition.
Fring, the IM and Social Network client for smartphones has been updated to version 3.4, and the big new feature is consolidation. If you have a friend on Skype, AOL and and Gtalk, you can add those separate accounts into one single “mega profile” of your friend. This unification approach also extends to your Contacts data on the handset, with Fring able to suggest “I think person A in your phone is person B on MSN Messenger.”
Developers might like to subscribe to the new series of podcasts from Forum Nokia. The first episode is now available and Bill Volpe talks with Riku Salminen about the new tools and components available for S60 and S40 Flash Lite developers.
Plenty of good questions are starting to come from readers, so I thought I'd gather them together here and answer them more formally. See below. And add extra questions about Nokia's newest flagship to the comments on this thread and Rafe and I will do our best to answer them in the main body of the piece. [even further updated]
In this special edition of the All About Symbian Insight podcast we offer an audio unboxing (you'll see!) of the Nokia N97. We recorded this podcast in Regents Park (London) a few hours after receiving the full retail version of the N97. Rafe and Steve run through their first impressions of the device, the in-box contents, thoughts on software updates and on a homescreen that's alive... Plus bonus 'footage' of the keyboard 'clip-clop' sound(!)
There has been some interesting discussion online about the upcoming Palm Pre and the announced Media Sync capabilities that has raised some eyebrows in tech circles, specifically the ability of the Pre to sync itself to iTunes. Researchers (including 'DVD John') are theorising that the Pre is pretending to be an iPod when connected, which raises a lot of potentially tricky questions. But the fact is that connectivity to a multitude of media sources is vital for a modern smartphone.
Hot off the presses from the recent Sony Ericsson launch of the Satio, Rafe has put together a gallery of this pretty glorious touchscreen device. Sporting a 16:9 touchscreen, a 12 megappixel camera, xenon flash and a spec sheet that hits most of the modern high water points, the Saito is expected during Q4 this year.
Via David Cabeiro's Forum Nokia Blog and Symbian Foundation's David Wood comes the news that the Symbian Foundation Developer site is now open to all. Entry into the site currently requires registration, but the notice on the home page says that eventually the site will have complete public access. Screenshot and any comments below.
MooLan is a new, Lunar Lander-like game for S60 5th Edition and is one of the first breed of Ovi Store-only titles. Pity it's not that deep or that good, though, as I found out in one of my shortest ever game reviews, here on Ovi Gaming.
A Chinese website has posted screenshots and video of the N97 running the N-Gage application, see the third video for N-Gage. It seems the N-Gage app has been redesigned somewhat for horizontal use on the N97's large touch-sensitive screen, but the only game shown (Asphalt 4) seemed to be running at 4:3 aspect ratio rather than the full 16:9. (via brainimpact on Twitter)
The Nokia 5800 has a very large high res screen which is compatible with many touchscreen Java games in full-screen mode, for example Cooking Mama works on the 5800 in full screen. Unfortunately the default setting for many Java games and applications (including Cooking Mama) seems to have the on-screen "virtual keypad" switched on automatically, which makes the game or app shrink into half-screen mode. However, there is an easy solution to this problem which should let touch-compatible Java software use the 5800's entire screen. See below for a quick step-by-step guide...
One for the developers now, as Aleksi Uotila confirms, via the Developing on S60 blog, that Nokia will not be insisting that Java applications in the Ovi Store will require to have a Java Verified testing certificate. While it is still recommended, it is not an essential requirement - unlike signing the Java app via Verisign or Thwaite, which is required.
Over on ZDnet, Matthew Millar has taken a look at the four main Smartphone application stores, specifically the issue of what the stores will allow in terms of re-downloading previously purchased content, installing on multiple devices and the returns policy of the store. Alongside the newly launched Ovi Store, he considers the Apple App Store, the Android Market Place and Blackberry's App World.
In All About Symbian Insight 73 (AAS Podcast 132) Steve, Ewan and Rafe discuss SkyFire's 1.0 release, introduce Ovi Gaming and offer some perspective on the Ovi Store 3 days after the formal launch. In the second part of the show Rafe talks about the launch of the Sony Ericsson Satio (formerly Idou) and then the team discuss the E75 in 60 seconds. You can listen to AAS Insight 73 here or, if you wish to subscribe, here's the RSS feed.
Nokia today announced the BH-905, a high end stereo Bluetooth headset with active noise cancellation. The headset has a 'band-over-the head' with ear-muffs' form factor with music, volume and calling controls on the two ear pieces. The headset has ten microphones; two for capturing speech and eight for capturing sound for the active noise cancellation functionality. The headset can be connected via Bluetooth or a wired 3.5mm connection with adaptors for 2.5mm, 6.5mm and airplane connectors included in the box.
