Nokia's 5800 XpressMusic has sold fairly well, but where does Nokia go from there? Well, you're about to find out as All About Symbian takes a look at the latest variant model: the Nokia 5800 Sauna Edition. Coated with a special humidity-resistant plastic and preloaded with a thermometer/hygrometer application, this is aimed squarely at the consumer market.
In All About Symbian Insight 63 (AAS Podcast 120) we briefly cover the N-Gage news out of GDC (1 million profiles, accelerometer Bounce and device support). Steve and Rafe mull over the importance of the underlying changes in S60 3rd Edition Feature Pack 2, before chatting about the importance of homescreens, with reference to TouchWiz on the Omnia HD. You can listen to AAS Insight 64 here or, if you wish to subscribe, here's the RSS feed.
I'm not sure S60 really needed yet another photo browser, but Nokia Beta Labs has gone and released one anyway, at least in 'experimental' form. Nokia Photo Browser offers a fluid wall of photos (see screens and video below), with 'magnifying glass' feature and 'face detection' (swipe from face to face in a group shot). It's very limited though, in that there are no menus or ways of actually doing things with your photos. My guess is that some of the 3D tech in this release will make its way into future S60 5th Edition devices. Anyway, enjoy for now.
Mobimate have updated their Traveller's Utility Worldmate for 2009. The major addition is a dashboard like home-screen that provides an overview of the most popular functions inside Worldmate, including flight tracking, weather and your current location, as well as the familiar Worldmate icons allowing you quick access to the world clocks, currency conversion tool and the comprehensive flight scheduling tools.
Rafe continues his in depth preview of the OLED-screened, touch-driven, S60 5th Edition-powered Samsung Omnia HD. In this, part 2, he looks at the multimedia capabilities of the phone, specifically the still and video camera interface and performance, plus the playback and other media functions. In part 1, he covered the general design and hardware. Part 3, coming soon, will cover the other software elements of the phone.
Why the big deal over problems with multitasking in a phone? Why the cries of "Can't be done" from the Apple world? I've been multitasking on just about every device I've owned since 1993.... What's really behind the current negative thinking over background applications on the iPhone? I put forward my experiences with Psion, EPOC and Symbian-OS powered devices over fifteen years as evidence that a well-written operating system shouldn't need kludges like Apple's 'Push notification' scheme.
In a regular new feature, here's a round up of the rest of last week’s mobile development news. This week FleaC, Rhomobile, and froglogic are in the news and there's a reminder of the Betavine Widget 2009 competition.
If you are into microblogging, in particular, if you love twittering and using Symbian, this is the app you are looking for. Gravity v1.00 by Mobileways is now released, the first fully-featured and native Twitter client for the S60 platform (3rd Edition and 5th Edition). It supports multiple accounts, Twitter Search, Laconica, TwitPic and wraps everything into a gorgeous looking interface. Screens and more info below, while Ewan will be having a more detailed look at the app later this week.
Winding up his three week tour of the USA, taking in social media and gaming events, Ewan decides to take a kitchen knife to his Nokia 5800 XpressMusic. No, really. In this, the eighth of his regular video reports, embedded below, letting us know how he's getting on with S60 5th Edition and the 5800, he talks about pricing, input options, N-Gage, Lifeblog, Music player, the stylus that's easy (for him) to lose and application compatibility. If nothing else, gasp as the aforementioned knife puts the 'soft' resistive screen to the ultimate test...
Another Nokia 5800 tutorial for beginners, this time we're taking a look at the e-mail options currently available on the 5800. We cover the basics of how to set up a POP or IMAP e-mail account on the phone's built-in messaging app, how to make new e-mails alert you just like text messages, how to set up multiple e-mail accounts on the same phone, and more. (We haven't covered the dedicated Nokia Messaging e-mail client or Gmail's Java client because they don't yet have proper 5800 versions.) As always, you can see a complete list of these how-to articles on our 5800 tutorial index page.
Another in our series of beginner tutorials for the Nokia 5800, Tzer2 looks at using GPS and Nokia Maps on this device and on S60 5th Edition. Items covered include how GPS and positioning work, how to send your location to friends and how to spy on top secret government installations(!) We've done over thirty of these tutorials so far, and you can see a complete list on the Nokia 5800 tutorial index page.
Rafe takes an in-depth preview look at Samsung's top of the line S60 5th Edition-powered Omnia HD, with 8mp camera, HD video recording and playback, 3.7" capacitive touchscreen and more.... In this first part of his detailed preview we cover the general design and hardware details of the phone. Parts 2 and 3 will cover the multimedia and other software elements of the phone respectively.
Yes, Ewan's heading off for a three week tour of the USA, taking in social media and gaming events. To try and add a little Symbian spice to proceedings, we insisted he take the Nokia 5800 with him, to really try it out 'on the road'. This is the seventh of his regular video reports, embedded below, letting us know how he's getting on with S60 5th Edition and the 5800. In this part, Ewan looks at the phone's camera, from the point of view of still photos and video, finding that it really struggles indoors and in low light, plus he finds the Camera application's interface less than seamless.
DreamSpring, the guys behind some of the leading UIQ titles, have turned their attention to S60 (including 5th Edition) and have contacted us to announce a beta program for DreamLife, their integrated Calendar and Contacts system. There's no mention of getting a free reg code at the end of the beta, but this is probably taken for granted if you provide useful feedback.
Below the break is the HQ, wide-screen version of the latest video demo/promo for the upcoming N97, now showing some additional screens and transitions. All pretty convincing, though of course the proof will be in the pudding, as we say in the UK! Watch this space.
