Nokia's own Internet Radio application - or rather its absence on its S60 5th Edition phones - left a pretty big hole in the power user's software catalogue. In this feature, Ewan investigates a number of (mostly free) alternatives - can you still stream radio to your smartphone in 2010?
Google Maps for S60/Symbian just got itself an update to v4.1. No, not free real time navigation - that's still coming for Symbian - but voice searching, along the same lines as its existing Google Search applet. Just hold down the green (Call) key and say what you'd like to search for, etc. There are also minor updates to its Settings menu and a new 'Report a problem' function. Some quotes, links and screenshots below.
Offscreen Technologies, who have released a wide portfolio of games, applications and eBooks on Ovi Store, have announced that their content has been downloaded more than 25 million times. Offscreen has focussed on providing content for Nokia's touchscreen devices, including the Nokia 5800, N97, X6 and N900. They currently have around 100 titles in the Ovi Store; some of the applications, including Level Touch, Bright Light Touch and Labyrinth Lite Touch have been downloaded more than a million times each. More below.
After a few sporadic sightings yesterday, the full roll out of firmware version 50.0.005 for the Nokia 5800 Xpress Music has begun. The popular touch-screen device receives kinetic scrolling in the application menu, an updated version of Ovi Maps (free navigation and location sharing), minor updates to a number of other applications and the usual bug fixes and performance updates.
In All About Symbian Insight 114 Ewan, Steve and Rafe share their thoughts on Nokia's announcement of the Nokia C6 and Nokia E6. We also shares news of Sony Ericsson's Q1 2010 results, the renewal of Sports Tracker, firmware updates for various phones and Numo Solution's Ovi Store success. You can listen to AAS Insight 114 here or, if you wish to subscribe, here's the RSS feed.
New in the Nokia Ovi Store is Sports Tracker, from Sports Tracking Technologies (STT). STT is the company founded by Ykä Huhtala, Jussi Kaasinen and Antti Sorvari, who originally created Sports Tracker for Nokia as part of a Nokia Research project, to spin the concept out into a separate company. For those that remember the old Sports Tracker, this has all the usual track and workout logging facilities, plus mapping, courtesy of OpenStreetMap (and loaded ad-hoc) and extras like a countdown to sunset, plus additional export options. Links, comments and screens below.
It had to happen - someone's gone and done an Apple iPad theme for Symbian. The example screenshots are shown below, along with the link, though note that the home wallpaper is optimised for the Nokia 5800 (and similar) - it'll look a little odd on some other S60 5th Edition phones!
Last Friday, Nokia announced that it had acquired MetaCarta Inc, a privately owned firm based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, which specialises in 'geographic intelligence solutions'. MetaCarta is best known for its geosearch and geotagging products (e.g. NewsMap, which allows publishers to automatically created a map tagged with their news stories) and has partnerships with a number of leading technology firms. MetaCarta's technology will help Nokia improve its social location services, such as local search.
In All About Symbian Insight 113 Ewan and Rafe share news of Nokia's acquisition of MetaCarta, the preview release of Symbian Web Tools and the addition of E71 and E66 compatibility to Ovi Maps 3.3. The major part of the podcast focuses on the launch of Nokia's Comes with Music in China, before ending with some thoughts on Apple's iPhone OS 4. You can listen to AAS Insight 113 here or, if you wish to subscribe, here's the RSS feed.
Digital Chocolate, a well known mobile and web games developer, has announced that its products have been downloaded from the Ovi Store more than 4 million times. To celebrate the announcement Digital Chocolate is, in a limited number of European countries, making five of its game titles available for free via the Ovi Store during April and May (variants of Tower Bloxx, Rollercoaster Rush, Crazy Penguin Party and Dictator Defense). Read on for further details and links.
In All About Symbian Insight podcast no. 112, Ewan returns with a bang and, together with Steve and Rafe, brings you up to date with developments in the Symbian world. We start with news of the WordPress Symbian client, the beta release of Nokia Bots and the recent upgrades to Nokia's Ovi Store. In the second half of the podcast there are hardware thoughts on the Sony Ericsson Vivaz (Steve) and Nokia 5230 (Ewan). You can listen to AAS Insight 112 here or, if you wish to subscribe, here's the RSS feed.
David Gilson sneeks a peek at a couple of novel versions of a classic literary work, looking mainly at one by Offscreen Technologies, but also mentioning GoSpoken's more traditional ebook edition. What do you think of this trend of content being wrapped up in application form? Will it result in us drowning in icons? Comments welcome!
In an unusual double-header review pair, David Gilson looks at two new mini-apps from S60 5th Edition specialists and AAS favourites, Offscreen Technologies: Egg Timer Touch and Sticky Notes. I won't insult your intelligence by explaining what each app does here - the names are giveaways(!) - but you can read David's reviews by clicking on the relevant links.
Last week saw my departure from safe waters into the world of hardware modding, in an attempt to get round the problems in Samsung's latest firmware for its i8910 HD flagship, ending with me installing firmware 3.17 (which has itself since been updated!). In this followup article, I talk about what came next, some of the issues I faced, how I tried to overcome them and what I've had to learn to live without.
PDF+ has come a long way from Psion days, a lifespan of well over 10 years. But it seems that it's left somewhat wanting in 2010, as David Gilson pounds it with his PDF document collection and compares it to the Quickoffice Adobe LE PDF reader. PDF+'s developer is very active on AAS, so expect a lively response below and perhaps look out for an updated version and an updated review in due course.