Promised some time ago, N-Gage games have finally been made available through Ovi Store, in the form of free trials which can be unlocked into full versions through an in-game purchase or rental option. Although Ovi Store and N-Gage remain separate brands right now, it might make sense for Nokia to merge them, as discussed below.
In All About Symbian Insight 75 (AAS Podcast 135) Steve, Ewan and Rafe discuss the release of the Nokia E72 and 5530 XpressMusic. There's also discussion of the latest Ovi Maps for mobile release, updates fro Rest Generation and early reaction to the N97. The podcast concludes with Rafe sharing his first impressions of the Nokia N86. You can listen to AAS Insight 75 here or, if you wish to subscribe, here's the RSS feed.
Nokia's Point and Find portal, where you can point your smartphone's camera at contents (such as movie posters or adverts, bar-codes, or any custom artwork) in the real world and be taken to a relevant URL in your browser, is now allowing you to upload your own media and tag it, so you can “Create your Own Experience,” in the words of the blog post.
Nokia's next-gen Photo Browser utility has just received a big update, adding faster operation, easier access to the menu, folder sorting, send functionality and image rotation. This release is for all S60 devices, but future updates will be focussed on S60 5th Edition and touch-screen phones. Via Nokia Beta Labs.
Gameloft's rather good people simulator and adventure game Paris Nights has been reviewed by Ovi Gaming, and we've also added lots of screenshots as well as a ten minute gameplay video. It might not have the best graphics in the world but it's fun, it's got a fairly grown-up feel to it, there's an interesting plot and it only costs three euros from Ovi Store.
Ovi Store has been updated again, and it seems the latest content push has added about 79 new titles to Ovi as well as more apps and other content. The list of new games is below, and you can see these for yourself by going to store.ovi.com and selecting the "Any Phone" option, then "Games", then "Newest - Oldest" from the drop down menu. By our reckoning Ovi Store has around 350+ different titles now available, with lots more still waiting to be added for various technical reasons. Note that not every game works on every phone, so if you select a particular model on Ovi Store you probably won't see every game on offer. As always, you can find out more about Ovi Store on our Unofficial FAQ page.
Those Vesuvius software chappies sure like cranking out the Java-based S60 5th Edition apps - just released are Hack Proof Password Manager (go on, guess what it does...), MindBreaker (a rearranging tile puzzle) and Komikj (a comic reader - needs a PC to do conversion from Internet comic standards though). Might be worth these guys discovering the Ovi Store? Anyway, all their apps seem to be free, so what are you waiting for?
While Steve and Rafe are working on the full review of the Nokia N97 (initial impressions and multimedia thoughts are already posted), Ewan has been working on a little something for the weekend. An N97p for every AAS reader. Admittedly it's mainly made from paper (hence the p) and has limited electronics in it, but with the judicious use of a printer, scissors and glue, you to can appear to join in the revolution this weekend. See below. You will of course need a Bluetooth keyboard since the N97p doesn't have a sliding hinged qwerty keyboard. We'd be interested to see who can come up with the best "action shot" of their N97 (p) in action, so let us know where to find the pictures!
A new beta version of Ovi Maps 3.0 has been released via Nokia's Beta Labs website. Ovi Maps is the new name for the application previously known as Nokia Maps. The new beta adds a number of new features including weather information, premium POIs and, in selected countries, safety camera information.
Additionally the number of countries covered by traffic data has been increased, the underlying map data set has been updated, zooming and panning performance improved, numerous bugs have been fixed and overall stability improved. The new beta includes support for S60 5th Edition (Nokia N97 and 5800) in addition to the existing compatibility with S60 3.1 and 3.2. Read on for more details and screenshots.
Following on from the news that the BBC iPlayer is available for older Nokia S60 devices we can now also report that the BBC iPlayer is also now available for the Nokia N97. It uses the same widget as the Nokia 5800 and can also be downloaded from www.bbc.co.uk/mobile/iplayer. The N97 version includes full download capabilities.
The adventure game Mystery Mania has been reviewed by Ovi Gaming, and we've also done a ten minute gameplay video and lots of screenshots too. We've reviewed it on the Nokia 5800 but it is available for other phones too. You can get it right now from Ovi Store either through the website or the Ovi Store client. (Mystery Mania has been developed for EA by Danish company Progressive Media, who also did the absolutely excellent Sola Rola which won our very rare Mega Game award.)
Nokia Beta Labs has a graduate! Gizmo for S60 an application that allowed you to access the Gizmo5 service for IM and VOIP functionality on your handset is no longer in beta test – it's all grown up, left the program and is now available as a regular application in the Nokia Download! Store, although interestingly it is not yet in the Ovi Store.
Ovi Store had capacity problems on the day it launched as demand for the service apparently far exceeded Nokia's estimates, but they seem to have cured that and Ovi Store now loads reliably. However, another problem has appeared which is rather annoying and frustrating: some items seem to be disappearing and reappearing at random. All too often people click on a game, app or other content and are greeted with the message "Sorry, this item is no longer available." even when it should be available. Let's take a look at the availability problems one by one, hopefully someone high up at Nokia is reading this.
In All About Symbian Insight 74 (AAS Podcast 134) Steve, Ewan and Rafe round up recent news from the Symbian world including ST-Ericsson's SMP demo, Google's 'new' S60 Mobile App, the commencement of Nokia 5630 shipping and more. In the second part of the show Steve gives a few N97 impressions and the team answer a few listener questions. You can listen to AAS Insight 74 here or, if you wish to subscribe, here's the RSS feed.
Another Ovi Store game, this time surreal gather-em-up Java title Katamari Mobile has been reviewed by Ovi Gaming, and wins a Recommended award (the review also includes a 10 minute gameplay video of it running on the 5800 and lots of screenshots too). The mobile version of Katamari is perfect for anyone longing for a return to the simpler days of abstract arcade gameplay, and it also provides a nice slice of unhinged Japanese humour.