Well spotted by Nokialino, there are new maps available for Nokia Maps, adding latest road information along with extra traffic coverage. Some screenshots below, you will want to seek out a Wi-fi hotspot before checking for the update, since the downloads are large (typically hundreds of megabytes) and can't be done over 3G.
Good to see Nokia porting some of their newer Maps Suite back to fill out the mapping and navigation options on older devices, with today's new v2.0.3 beta release of Nokia Public Transport for all Symbian touch-driven smartphones, including now for the first time S60 5th Edition and (also, some) pre-Belle Symbian^3 smartphones. New for this release are visual improvements, coverage information and extra language localisations.
The roll out of the Nokia Belle Feature Pack 1 firmware update for the Nokia 701, Nokia 700 and Nokia 603 has commenced. The update, which is available over-the-air (OTA), includes new homescreen widgets, improvements to the notification bar, an updated version of the browser (8.2), an improved multi-tasking view, Dolby Digital Plus functionality, and increases the speed of the processor (on the 701 and 700) from 1.0 to 1.3GHz. The update also includes a number of recent application updates, including Microsoft Apps (first phase) and Nokia Maps Suite 2.0.
Released in the last hour is the official version of Nokia Maps Suite 2.0, with the core maps component version-labelled as 3.9(4). It's now rolling out to all Symbian^3/Anna/Belle class devices (that have been upgraded to Belle) and without a 'beta' flag attached. Think of Maps Suite 2.0 as the latest versions of Maps/Drive, together with Transport, Weather and some fancy new widgets, all rolled into a convenient update.
We've seen Nokia's weather widgets in numerous demos and promo screens, but they're here for real now, albeit nominally in 'beta'. You will need a phone that's running Symbian Nokia Belle though and you will need to have the latest Nokia Maps Suite installed if you want it all running smoothly. Here's a walkthrough and some comments.
No, 'NFC Interactor' isn't a new smartphone particle weapon plug-in, it's actually a cool diagnostic for tag-reading purposes and an even cooler tool to let you write your own NFC tags, should you have some that are unlocked and writeable. And remember that if NFC is all Greek to you, check out my NFC Primer. NFC Interactor is cool in another way, too, in that it's one of the first Symbian applications to use in-app purchasing via the Nokia Store.
As part of Microsoft’s expanding support for mobile platforms, OneNote, Document Connection, Lync 2010 and PowerPoint Broadcast are now rolling out for most Nokia Belle devices. While these applications mostly benefit those in a corporate environment, OneNote has a general appeal and allows users to sync richly formatted notes between their desktop and their Symbian smartphone. The update also includes improvements to the Microsoft Exchange handling in Symbian Belle.
You may recall from last week that the Belle update for existing Symbian devices had an unintentional incompatibilty with a core Nokia piece of software - Social Networking. The then current release of Social, v1.5(214), didn't get kicked into action when you tried to 'share' an image from your phone's Gallery, producing an error instead. With the update to v1.5(215) this has now been fixed.
Nokia Drop, a desktop browser-based system for pushing content to your smartphone, has just received a big update, detailed below, with silent installations of apps from the Nokia Store and integration with the status drop-down pane in Belle. There's also a welcome tutorial to help new users.
The Beta Labs and official release versions of the Nokia Store client continue to leapfrog each other, with v3.22.054 released a few hours ago for all Symbian^3/Anna/Belle smartphones. This includes bug fixes and better 'alignment' with the Store back-end. Although it's not a compulsory client update, it's strongly recommended.
