An Evernote client has been a constant request in the Symbian ecosystem for many months now and, late last year, a Web runtime version turned up, optimised for the Nokia N97 and compatibles. This has been regularly updated and, with version 1.0.70302, released last night in the USA, has reached the point where I can start to recommend it to the wider world. See below for screens, comments and some links.
It seems that new ideas and elements of upcoming Symbian incarnations keep getting backported and prototyped into existing products. Well done to Rita el-Khoury for noticing how the new Nokia X6 handles incoming Bluetooth-beamed files - straight to a folder on memory card rather than clogging up the Messaging inbox and disk C:. Very neat, and should save quite a few Symbian newbies from clogging up their internal disk in future....
Kudos to Jon at tehkseven for a couple of beautifully done 'simple' themes. Just White (in 5th Edition, 3rd Edition and Eseries-tailored versions) and Just Black (again in 5th Edition, 3rd Edition and Eseries versions), the latter with full Ovi icons. Recommended if you just want something clean, clear and efficient.
We're having an embedded video day here at AAS, at seems. Anphase, the guy who did the i8910 HD petition and then met with Samsung, has now done a video showing most of the changes for the upcoming big new firmware update and I've embedded this video below. Summary: similar partial implementation of kinetic scrolling as on the Nokia X6 and 5530, but improvements as well in Camera and Web. Anphase also shows some of the Qt and native OMAP3 demos.
Nokia just launched a free 'eco' game in the Ovi Store, for its S60 5th Edition phones. 'Climate Mission' is based around a series of environmentally aware mini-games, the stated aim being to learn about important ecosystems while having fun. The game trailer is embedded below and you can download the game straight from the on-device Store.
A few brief updates from the world of The Phones Show. Programme 99 is now available, with my nine minute recommendations of smartphones to buy for seven different categories of user (you'll remember that I shortlisted these on AAS?) Plus our very own Tim Salmon and I have finished Phones Show Chat 19 and 20, one hour audio podcasts, both now available for download. Comments welcome on any of this content.
You may remember the guy who did the umpteen page 'report' on all the things that are wrong with the Samsung i8910 HD? This was, I have it on good authority, forwarded around rather widely at Samsung HQ and, it transpires, that the author 'Anphase' was invited to a meeting with the appropriate Samsung product manager. Here's Anphase's report of the meeting, along with Samsung's responses, for your interest.
Coming out of the Symbian Foundation's developer wiki system is a handy Wikipedia widget that installs on any Symbian-powered smartphone with Web runtime (so that's most of them). Search results are all optimised for the small screen and it seems a quick and efficient way to access Wikipedia's content. I've included some screenshots from the widget below.
Published on Christmas Eve by Symbian Foundation Executive Director Lee Williams, there's an interesting article here detailing his thoughts on Symbian's role in the industry in 2010 and beyond. I've also quoted a few paragraphs below, with comment.
Just in case you're huddling at home, in front of AAS or your RSS feed rather than being out at some party this New Year's Eve, you might like to see in the New Year with this crafted '2010' theme from master designer PiZero. Get it installed before the big moment for maximum effect!
The prolific Guru, Ricky Cadden, has done an interesting piece here, part rant, part tutorial, documenting his frustrations with Nokia Messaging and his switch to Email/Contacts/Calendar syncing direct to Google services. It's a little bit geeky, to be sure, but you just know you're interested in how it all works...
You can usually trust James Whatley to have his head screwed on more or less straight when it comes to assessing the merits of various phones and smartphones - I suspect even more go through his hands than through mine.... Anyway, he's written up his judging process for The Really Mobile Project 'Phone of the year' and.... I think you'll be surprised. And then you'll go "Well, yes, I see his point". Interesting stuff, though my phone of the year is the less mass market Nokia N97 mini - it's just a shame this came in so late in 2009...
No, not a blatant Phones Show plug (though Phones Show Chat 18 is out), but a serious attempt to provoke thought and discussion. Ahead of a video feature on smartphone recommendations, I've opened up my thought processes to you below, in some detail, breaking down the market into a whopping seven stereotypes(!) Maybe you'd like to chip in with comments, recommendations and disqualifications of your own?
While still waiting to complete my own Satio review part 3, I was interested to read Michell Bak of the S-E (Sony Ericsson) Blog, who has produced an impressively long and graphical all-in-one Satio review. This is also interesting because it seems to be Michell's first S60 phone as well, giving a view of vanilla S60 5th Edition from a newcomer's standpoint.
Screen-capturing S60 5th Edition phones has been a little awkward in 2009 because the only tool available, Best Screen Snap, was really written for an older version of the OS and didn't like taking screens in a different aspect ratio to that in which it was started up. Luckily, it seems that SmartphoneWare have released Best Screen Snap v2.0 and this (besides also being free) also works flawlessly in terms of screen orientation. That's one less thing to worry about over Christmas!