Asri al-Baker, from i-symbian.com, and friend of All About Symbian, has just released a Web Runtime widget for all Symbian devices which will load up the iPhone version of the GMail website. This version of the website offers the richest functionality for any mobile platform. Asri reports that this work was actually inspired by a tweet made by myself(!) Thanks for the contribution, Asri! Read on for more ...
You've got to love a labour of love - and that's what Vuk Vulovic (a.k.a. highdiver) has produced here for the Nokia N8. Starting with the idea for a page of helpful tips on getting the most from his N8, the post blossomed into the current 67 tips, most of which are also illustrated. Worth bookmarking and worth placing a bet that he gets up to 100 before Christmas?
Symbian Podcatcher, the Open Source project to provide podcast collection and playback (and especially useful on many Eseries phones and the new Symbian^3 devices that lack Nokia Podcasting), has received updates across the board. The Symbian^3 build has received a minor update to 1.0.9, while the Symbian^1 (a.k.a. S60 5th Edition) and S60 3rd Edition builds have received more major updates, to v1.0.32 and 1.0.1 respectively. Read on for the download link and a brief comment.
Have you ever jealously eyed up the battery usage stats in a friend's Android-powered phone? Now available in Ovi Store for all S60 5th Edition and Symbian^3 models is 'Nokia Battery Monitor', a joint development between Nokia and VTT Technical Research Centre in Finland. It runs in the background, gathers information on exactly where your battery power is going and predicts how long you've got to go before the dreaded 'power saving mode' kicks in. See below for links, screens and more details.
I have just read an interesting post by blogger @Smartfonefan, in which he goes into great detail deliberating about whether he should buy the Nokia N8 or upcoming E7. It's a rather empaphetic read, and anyone who is reading All About Symbian will instantly understand that difficult and pleasurable period we all go through when we try to find out every last detail (which hopefully AAS provides!) about our candidate devices, to make that final decision.
Nokia Beta Labs have released their Wellness Diary application, which they announced in September. Available for all touch-screen enabled Symbian phones, the application runs in the background monitoring the user's activity. For example, it uses the accelerometer as a pedometer to measure your physical activity, and a schedule can even be set for the application to periodically ask you how many snacks you've eaten! Users can set personal targets and share their progress with social networks. To find out more, read on.
Yesterday's news that Nokia would be taking over governance of the Symbian project was great for anyone wanting to publish a dramatic headline. However, to call this a failure for Symbian would, at best, be a cursory observation of what this really means for the platform. To many observers, the writing was on the wall for quite some time, and for others, it was the only logical conclusion to the Symbian Foundation experiment. Over the past year, I wrote two articles about the wider adoption of Symbian: "The risk of opening Symbian" and "Does Symbian have a service layer gap?". Now that the governance of Symbian has reverted back to Nokia, it's a good time to review both of these articles to help give readers some context to what the changeover means for Symbian.
Symbian's SEE show (Symbian Exchange and Exposition) takes place over the 9th and 10th of November in Amsterdam. Over the next two days we'll be bringing you the key news, views and information. This news story contains our live coverage, where you can see the latest photos and text updates; you can also interact with the team, asking questions and adding your own thoughts. Alternatively you can keep up to date by following our @aas account on Twitter, where we will be posting text updates and photos.
The well known WiFi tethering application, JoikuSpot, has expanded its range of supported Symbian devices. In addition to S60 3rd Edition and Symbian^1 devices from Nokia; JoikuSpot now supports recent Sony Ericsson devices (Satio, Vivaz and Vivaz Pro). Further expanding its compatibility with Nokia devices, the JoikuSpot have also released a Premium edition for Symbian^3 devices. Prices are currently reduced from 15 Euros to 9 Euros.
The symmetry behind the headline is slightly spoilt by the recent naming change of the main OS to just be 'Symbian', but the point remains: Nimbuzz, the popular IM and VoIP client, has now been released in version 3.0, fully optimised for Symbian(^3) and with significant interface improvements, but also available for all other Symbian-powered phones. You may remember that Skype has withdrawn access to Nimbuzz (and Fring and other apps of this kind), so there's no Skype messaging, but as you'll see from the video embedded below, there are still plenty of reasons to give Nimbuzz a try.
Buoyed up by the recent SYMBEOSE funding, there will be a distinct air of optimism at SEE 2010, Symbian's annual two day show, this year in Amsterdam. Rafe will be there on the show floor and reporting on any announcements on the 9th and 10th November. The keynotes look like being more important than ever in the current economic and technological climate - I've already quoted the full list of speakers, moderators and panellists, but listed below are the main keynote speakers - expect to see Rafe and his trusty laptop near the front on the day!
Now this is yet another piece of good news. While the N8 might have been the smartphone for the camera geeks and the C7 is the newest Symbian handset for the fashion conscious, it’s the C6-01 that I think is going to be the most important of the new Symbian devices (yes, even shading the E7). The small and affordable unit has now started shipping from the Nokia depots around the world, so expect it in the retail chain and available to buy at some point early next week.
Just released in the Ovi Store is Auto Trader Mobile for all S60 5th Edition and Symbian^3 handsets. Auto Trader, as the name suggests, is a huge online second hand car buying and selling system and this new solution works well, if quirkily, giving full information on search matches, looking up your location and allowing you to store server-side notes. See below for screenshots and comments.
SYMBEOSE, a consortium of organisations, led by the Symbian Foundation, has successfully applied for funding from the Artemis Joint Technology Initiative, which is partly backed by the Europe Commission and aims to facilitate public-private partnership for research and development activities in embedded systems. As a result, the Symbian ecosystem will see an investment of €22 million, which will be focused on improving the ease of device creation, improving a number of the platform's core enablers and meeting requirements for future embedded systems.
Now getting seriously mature is Symbian Podcatcher, an open source replacement for Nokia Podcasting and of serious use to all the owners of Symbian-powered smartphones without any automatic way of gathering in audio and video podcasts. Today sees the release of v1.0.8 for Symbian^3 devices, screenshotted below. Versions for vanilla S60 5th Edition and 3rd Edition phones are a little behind, but hopefully the developer can back port as many of the bug fixes as are practical. Next stop for Symbian Podcatcher? The Nokia Ovi Store, hopefully! In the meantime, get it here.
