I wanted to introduce Vesuvian software, who have built a new portfolio of Nokia 5800 applications using Java. Now, Java and the 5800 are traditionally seen as awkward bedfellows, but these are touch-enabled, work full screen and rather well. And they're all free. See Hack Proof Password manager, Notes on the Phone, Touch Calc (a scientific calculator), ScratchPad, XpressDrums (a fabulously intuitive drum machine/sequencer) and SuDoKu SoftTouch. Oh, and if you use a S60 3rd Edition phone, then most of these apps, plus a few more, are also available for your device, too. Enjoy.
It may be early days for this variant of S60, and of course many S60 3rd Edition commercial applications work fine too (though they won't be optimised for the new screen resolution(s) and touch), but if you own a compatible smartphone, which applications should you be willing to dip into your wallet for? Which are the best, in terms of both quality and value? It's telling that in these days of freeware and Open Source software, I had to dig relatively hard to come up with a Top 10 at all, but hopefully more serious commercial apps will be along in due course. Comments welcome and I'll (of course) keep the Top 10 regularly updated.
In All About Symbian Insight 65 (AAS Podcast 123) we welcome Ewan back from the USA and tell him about a few additions to the AAS team. We round up some of this week's news including Yahoo Mobile Home, Nokia Messaging 1.1, Nokia Point and Find Beta, Real Football for N-Gage, Nokia E71x and more. You can listen to AAS Insight 65 here or, if you wish to subscribe, here's the RSS feed.
Another in our series of beginner's 'How to's for the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic and S60 5th Edition, Tzer2 here walks you through every aspect of connecting up a Bluetooth wireless keyboard to the phone - it's not something officially supported but it does work extremely well - if you know how! (As always, you can see a complete listing of these guides on our 5800 tutorial index page.)
Yesterday marked 'day one' of the Symbian Foundation. This announced the commencement of the beta testing of its new web site and that 81 companies have applied for membership (50 of which are first time endorsers). The new logo of the Symbian Foundation was also unveiled: Symbian, in stylised letters, underlain by a yellow heart. Read on for more.
As CJ puts it, "It’s been a long time coming". The brand new ShoZu release for S60 5th Edition/touch devices is now live (v4.01). ShoZu is the premier third party photo and video blogging client and works with just about any service. You can download ShoZu for S60 (all varieties) from m.shozu.com on your phone.
Exclusive: the BBC has re-enabled the 'Download' system in their iPlayer widget for UK residents. In addition to the streaming option, video downloads were initially withdrawn because of lack of DRM compatibility with some Nokia 5800 product codes. The issues seem to have now been resolved and the Download! option is back. Thankfully. See below for screenshot proof.
Nokia Handwriting Calculator has just been updated for S60 5th Edition, with support for scientific functions like sin, cos, tan, ln, etc., although the symbols can't be written directly and have to be dragged from a toolbar at present. There's also a new help system and support for the maths constants ‘e’ and pi - which you can write directly.
There's now a build of the latest Python for S60 (PyS60) which installs without errors on S60 5th Edition devices like the Nokia 5800. v1.9.3 introduced quite a few enhancements, chief among which was support for touchscreens. Though this build will be of interest mainly to developers, I suspect several professional applications for the 5800 written in Python won't be far behind now. (via Croozeus)
There's been a lot of talk about Gravity, the Twitter client for S60, most of it very positive, and Ewan backs this up with a detailed and lavishly illustrated review, finally awarding it a rare AAS Mega-App award for a score of 90% or over. And yes, it hadn't escaped our notice that a second Twitter client for S60, Twittix, was released yesterday. We'll get Ewan onto that, too, don't worry.
From the Symbian Foundation and Texas Instruments comes the news that the Zoom OMAP34x-II mobile development platform will be the first reference platform for the Symbian Foundation. This is a test device, capable of running various mobile operating systems, that can be used, to test code, by those wishing to contribute to the open source platform. It is also useful for developers wanting to explore and conduct tests on upcoming Symbian platform releases.
Winding up his three week tour of the USA, taking in social media and gaming events, with a loan Nokia 5800 XpressMusic, Ewan arrives back in chilly Scotland, dons half a dozen sweaters and sets about summing up his experiences in the last part of his video diary, below. Perhaps tellingly, he says he's tempted to get his own as his main smartphone. If you'd like to see more video diaries, do please comment and let Ewan know!
In this comment piece, 'Should Gravity come down?', James Whatley shares his thoughts on mobile application prices. Have on-device stores, such as iPhone's App Store and Android's Marketplace, changed consumer's perception of the pricing of mobile applications? What constitutes reasonable value? Read our first Whatley Wednesday, then share your thoughts in the comments thread.
In this video, embedded in the story below, we exclusively preview a new Samsung Omnia HD feature - personal inductive charging. The Samsung Omnia Personal-ORiented Interface For Inductive Charging (SOPORIFIC) uses the electrical field generated by your own body to re-charge the phone's battery. All you have to is hold the phone and it recharges before your eyes. Apparently you get one minute's talk time for ten minutes of skin contact. Obviously there are limits to this technology, but it is great to see the technical barriers being pushed back.
