Symbian is looking to open Mobile World Congress (Barcelona 16-19 Feb) up to the Symbian/Nokia developer community and to give developers the opportunity to showcase their mobile phone applications on the Symbian Foundation stand. To take part, "the application should be compelling and built with S60 5.x". If it fits the bill, Symbian Foundation is giving developers the chance to present their applications on the Symbian Foundation stand at Mobile World Congress, along with free passes and tickets. See below.
Twitter itself seems to be going from strength to strength, the micro-blogging platform that thinks big. Twim is a brand new Java-hosted but very S60-friendly Twitter client, letting you do everything from the comfort of your phone, and Ewan's been trying it out. Here's his Twim review.
According to a report on mobiletoday.co.uk, Sony has refused to let Sony Ericsson use the PlayStation brand on its phones. Sony Ericsson (a separate company jointly owned by Sony and Ericsson) apparently asked Sony for permission to use the "PlayStation" name as a sub-brand on their devices, in much the same way they have already used Sony's "Walkman", "Cybershot" and "Bravia". Sony said no, allegedly. (via Eurogamer.net)
Although not listed on all Nokia support sites, the 5800 XpressMusic seems to have gotten its iSync profile at last, meaning that you can sync it officially to a Mac. Screenshot and links below.
With the sheer number of people now receiving the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic around the world and eager to show off how it all works, note that Warelex have updated their much-respected Screen Capture utility to support S60 5th Edition. Note that this is not just fixed screenshots, you can capture video of what you're doing on the device, for uploading later to your blog or YouTube. Connections between PC and the 5800 can be via cable, Bluetooth or Wi-Fi. v3.0.7 is the version you want, currently only available from the Warelex product page.
Nokia India has kindly released a number of free applications for their new 5800 XpressMusic, good to see this getting off to a fast start in most markets. SMS Timer and Smart Guard should work on all 5800s, while Marble Maze, Wave Secure, Touch Card Match and Touch Maneuver are regionally restricted to those with an India SIM card. Some of these applications, along with a few additional ones, are also available for the Hong Kong market.
The Nokia 5800 XpressMusic is now supported by the Nokia Software Update service. The currently available firmware is v11.0.008, which will not be new for most users. However, if you purchased your 5800 in the first half of December you may be running v10.x firmware. The update is relatively minor, but does fix a number of annoying bugs.
Nokia, in a strategically significant move, has announced that it will add a LGPL 1.4 (Lesser General Public License) open source licensing option for the Qt UI and application framework from the release of Qt 4.5, which is scheduled for March 2009. The new licensing is more permissive as it allows the use of Qt for proprietary commercial development at no cost, thus offering greater flexibility to developers. Read on for more.
In All About Symbian Insight 55 (AAS Podcast 108) we look at the UK launch of the Nokia 5800 MusicXpress, talk about the 'Curse of Silence' vulnerability (stops SMS messages from being received on some S60 handsets), before discussing our first impressions of the Palm Pre. You can listen to AAS Insight 55 here or, if you wish to subscribe, here's the RSS feed.
If you're a mobile game company interested in publishing your games on the N-Gage platform, you may want to check out their slightly updated Developer Application Process page. This page used to only mention becoming a first party developer. However, the application form now also says it can be used to apply to be a third party publisher, so presumably you can now publish your games on N-Gage without giving up ownership of them.
Well spotted Symbian World for this find: a complete, functional touch-driven painting application for S60 5th Edition (and thus the 5800 XpressMusic) over at Forum Nokia. Although Mobile Paint is only an 'example' app, you can still save your creations in JPG form. Don't worry about all the source code bits, you only need to install one of the SIS files, etc. Screenshots and links below...
Programme 73 is now live (and also via iTunes, as usual, in QVGA and VGA formats), mainly featuring a monster video review of a production sample of the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic. As per my AAS review, it's littered with both pros and cons, but there's no doubting that it'll find its very own market.
Nokia's first S60 touch device, the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic, also known colloquially as the 'Tube', will go on sale in the UK on Friday 23rd January for £249 SIM Free (includes VAT). For the first week, it will be available exclusively through the Nokia Flagship Stores in Heathrow Terminal 5 and Regent Street. From Friday 30th January, the Nokia 5800 will then become available through Vodafone, O2, Orange, T-Mobile UK, Virgin Mobile, Carphone Warehouse and Phones 4U. You can now also pre-order the 5800 from Nokia's online store.
