I was asked a very good question last week: "Why do you stay with Symbian when there's a world of wonder with iPhone and Android?" I have to admit to finding a number of positives in these other platforms, sometimes accompanied by positives in their hardware, but it's true that I do keep coming back to Symbian as the OS powering my smartphone-of-choice. Investigating my own leanings and trying to justify them, here are the top 10 reasons why I stay with Symbian.
Nokia continued to push both their mapping service and the customisation potential of the smartphone with the release of Own Voice this week, which allows you to record your own vocal package for the turn by turn directions in Ovi Maps. How easy is it to use? Ewan finds out (below)...
Probably a minor bug-fix update (unless eagle-eyed readers can spot something I haven't), but note that Google Maps for Symbian just got an small bump from v4.1.0 to v4.1.1. As usual, grab it from m.google.com. Google Maps for Android also got a 4.1.1 update a couple of weeks ago, and this was given a big boost by a server-side switch-on of real time route instructions and voice navigation. Here's hoping we're just a few days away from the same being true of Symbian/S60?
Pizero's Earth theme has been downloaded more than one million times from the Ovi Store. Earth is an artistic and lightweight theme (default icons), with full support for portrait and landscape orientations, and is compatible with both S60 3rd Edition and S60 5th Edition devices. The one million downloads were achieved in 86 days, with an average of 11,600 downloads a day.
An All About Symbian application, which allows you easy access to the site's latest content, is now available in Nokia's Ovi Store. The application was built using Nokia's new Ovi App Wizard (more on that in a future post) and is based on the RSS content feeds. The content is divided into four channels: All About Symbian News, AAS Insight Podcast, AAS YouTube videos and the most recent AAS tweets. The application is free and is compatible with all of Nokia's Symbian^1 (S60 5th Edition) devices. Read on for further details and screenshots.
Do you want your smartphone to beep you (or play a sound effect) every hour or every 15 minutes? No, it would drive me bonkers as well. But apparently it can be a good organisational tool, or so reckons Ewan in his brief review of Time Chime, by Symbian stalwarts Cellphonesoft. Running on S60 5th Edition, the main blot on Time Chime's scoresheet is its price.
HipLogic has been a name that has floated around S60 circles for the last year or so. Ostensibly a Web-aware homescreen replacement, it turns out to be something more ambitious, albeit with a few minor caveats. I set out last week to intercept HipLogic's 'Chief Action Figure', Mark Anderson, and quiz him on the vision behind, and the implementation of, HipLogic on Symbian. Read on for more.
Ewan investigates Moove, a unique music playback utility for S60 5th Edition phones that claims to offer contact-less music control. Does it work and is the solution ready for the real world? It would seem not, but find out for yourself in his brief review.
Forum Nokia has released a tool, Flowella, which allows designers and developers to easily create design prototypes (mock-ups of how an application will look), without using a single line of code. Prototypes are built by using images of screen mock-ups and defining links between them (i.e. what happens when you click of a given area). The information is then used to create a Flash Lite application or WRT widget, which can be run on a Nokia phone or in the included simulator.
This week Nokia announced the launch and beta availability of the Nokia Qt SDK, a single 'easy-to-use' software development kit (SDK) for Symbian and MeeGo application development. The SDK is, effectively, an evolution of the Qt SDK, with specific focus on, and support for, Nokia's mobile devices. It provides a complete tool chain for creating, developing, testing, packaging and deploying Qt applications. The SDK is available for both Windows and Linux (Mac support is being investigated) and can be downloaded from the Forum Nokia website. Read on for more details.
Ovi Music Unlimited, which is branded as Comes with Music in some markets, has launched in India. The service, which can only be purchased with a new device, allows unlimited music downloads from the Ovi Music Store for 12 months. Music is DRM protected, but users are able to keep the music after their subscription period has ended. The service has been customised for India with a smaller Ovi Player (desktop client), local content from more than 150 labels and the ability to download music using different PCs.
Nokia’s Point and Find service has has an update, a short three months from the initial release. The latest build of the Beta Labs product improves the flickering problems some users encountered, and brings official support for the X6 and the 5230.
Sports Tracker isn't the only game in town when it comes to GPS-tracking your workouts. And especially not when it comes to sharing these with others, either for interest sake or to provoke healthy competition. Here, Ewan reviews Endomondo, a largely server-side solution that has a wealth of social features, in addition to the traditional mapping and logging summaries.
In All About Symbian Insight 115 Ewan, Steve and Rafe share their thoughts on the China bound Nokia C5-01 and Nokia X5 (TD-SCDMA handsets for China Mobile). We also take a detailed look at Nokia's Q1 2010 financial results with discussion of Nokia's Symbian^3 plans. Finally we cover Offscreen's 25 million Ovi Store downloads. You can listen to AAS Insight 115 here or, if you wish to subscribe, here's the RSS feed.
