I don't know, you wait for a native Twitter client forever and then two come along at once. Last week, Ewan looked at the Gravity client from Mobiways; this week it's the turn of Twittix from Mojo's Studio, with Ewan giving this slightly simpler and more S60 style-compliant client the review treatment - who's this new client aimed at?
Google Maps for Symbian on S60 (3rd and 5th Edition) has received a major update to version 3.0.1.4 (from 3.0.0.x). There are UI changes, notably to the context 'pop-up' menu (when you press in the D-pad), this has been restyled to match the application's other dialog elements. There are also many under-the-hood changes to how Google Maps works on S60 phones, see below for the full published changelog [added April 13th].
I wanted to introduce Vesuvian software, who have built a new portfolio of Nokia 5800 applications using Java. Now, Java and the 5800 are traditionally seen as awkward bedfellows, but these are touch-enabled, work full screen and rather well. And they're all free. See Hack Proof Password manager, Notes on the Phone, Touch Calc (a scientific calculator), ScratchPad, XpressDrums (a fabulously intuitive drum machine/sequencer) and SuDoKu SoftTouch. Oh, and if you use a S60 3rd Edition phone, then most of these apps, plus a few more, are also available for your device, too. Enjoy.
It may be early days for this variant of S60, and of course many S60 3rd Edition commercial applications work fine too (though they won't be optimised for the new screen resolution(s) and touch), but if you own a compatible smartphone, which applications should you be willing to dip into your wallet for? Which are the best, in terms of both quality and value? It's telling that in these days of freeware and Open Source software, I had to dig relatively hard to come up with a Top 10 at all, but hopefully more serious commercial apps will be along in due course. Comments welcome and I'll (of course) keep the Top 10 regularly updated.
In All About Symbian Insight 65 (AAS Podcast 123) we welcome Ewan back from the USA and tell him about a few additions to the AAS team. We round up some of this week's news including Yahoo Mobile Home, Nokia Messaging 1.1, Nokia Point and Find Beta, Real Football for N-Gage, Nokia E71x and more. You can listen to AAS Insight 65 here or, if you wish to subscribe, here's the RSS feed.
Nokia's application store, Ovi Store, is now accepting content from developers, and will launch in May. In our latest developer feature, Richard Bloor speaks to Eric John, Director of Media Product Marketing for Nokia Services, to discuss the developer proposition offered by Ovi store. There's questions on operator billing, supported content types, platform support and more.
As CJ puts it, "It’s been a long time coming". The brand new ShoZu release for S60 5th Edition/touch devices is now live (v4.01). ShoZu is the premier third party photo and video blogging client and works with just about any service. You can download ShoZu for S60 (all varieties) from m.shozu.com on your phone.
Exclusive: the BBC has re-enabled the 'Download' system in their iPlayer widget for UK residents. In addition to the streaming option, video downloads were initially withdrawn because of lack of DRM compatibility with some Nokia 5800 product codes. The issues seem to have now been resolved and the Download! option is back. Thankfully. See below for screenshot proof.
Nokia Handwriting Calculator has just been updated for S60 5th Edition, with support for scientific functions like sin, cos, tan, ln, etc., although the symbols can't be written directly and have to be dragged from a toolbar at present. There's also a new help system and support for the maths constants ‘e’ and pi - which you can write directly.
There's been a lot of talk about Gravity, the Twitter client for S60, most of it very positive, and Ewan backs this up with a detailed and lavishly illustrated review, finally awarding it a rare AAS Mega-App award for a score of 90% or over. And yes, it hadn't escaped our notice that a second Twitter client for S60, Twittix, was released yesterday. We'll get Ewan onto that, too, don't worry.
In this comment piece, 'Should Gravity come down?', James Whatley shares his thoughts on mobile application prices. Have on-device stores, such as iPhone's App Store and Android's Marketplace, changed consumer's perception of the pricing of mobile applications? What constitutes reasonable value? Read our first Whatley Wednesday, then share your thoughts in the comments thread.
In All About Symbian Insight 63 (AAS Podcast 120) we briefly cover the N-Gage news out of GDC (1 million profiles, accelerometer Bounce and device support). Steve and Rafe mull over the importance of the underlying changes in S60 3rd Edition Feature Pack 2, before chatting about the importance of homescreens, with reference to TouchWiz on the Omnia HD. You can listen to AAS Insight 64 here or, if you wish to subscribe, here's the RSS feed.
I'm not sure S60 really needed yet another photo browser, but Nokia Beta Labs has gone and released one anyway, at least in 'experimental' form. Nokia Photo Browser offers a fluid wall of photos (see screens and video below), with 'magnifying glass' feature and 'face detection' (swipe from face to face in a group shot). It's very limited though, in that there are no menus or ways of actually doing things with your photos. My guess is that some of the 3D tech in this release will make its way into future S60 5th Edition devices. Anyway, enjoy for now.
Mobimate have updated their Traveller's Utility Worldmate for 2009. The major addition is a dashboard like home-screen that provides an overview of the most popular functions inside Worldmate, including flight tracking, weather and your current location, as well as the familiar Worldmate icons allowing you quick access to the world clocks, currency conversion tool and the comprehensive flight scheduling tools.
If you are into microblogging, in particular, if you love twittering and using Symbian, this is the app you are looking for. Gravity v1.00 by Mobileways is now released, the first fully-featured and native Twitter client for the S60 platform (3rd Edition and 5th Edition). It supports multiple accounts, Twitter Search, Laconica, TwitPic and wraps everything into a gorgeous looking interface. Screens and more info below, while Ewan will be having a more detailed look at the app later this week.