Ozone web maxes out on standards compliance and speed

Ozone is now available for S60, at the same beta 0.9 version that appeared for UIQ 3 last year. Ozone is a web browser that "not only delivers advanced features such as client-side database support, application cache, zooming and multiple windows, but also provides the best web-standards compliant experience that's available". The beta download is at www.o3mobi.com. Comments welcome if you've tried Ozone.

More on Symbian release plans - Qt-based Orbit UI supersedes S60 AVKON in Symbian^4

David Wood, writing on the Symbian Foundation Blog, about reviewing the release plans, has highlighted some details of upcoming Symbian releases. Symbian^2, the equivalent of S60 5th Edition Feature Pack 1, will be functionally complete next week and in devices early next year. Symbian^3, for which the majority of the source code should be available, enhances communication architecture, multimedia and graphics functionality, and should reach devices in the second half of 2010. 

Symbian ^4 will see the full integration and optimisation of Qt into the Symbian platform. Further proposals includes the 'Orbit' extension library for Qt (replacing AVKON) and a new 'Direct UI' interaction and navigation logic. Put crudely, this means we will see an evolution of the existing S60/AVKON UI to a new Qt-based 'Orbit' Symbian UI for devices coming out in 2011. Read on for more details.

Art and Confusion

Every week seems to bring new themes for our smartphones, many of which introduce us to ever wackier and more artistic sets of icons for the applications we're familiar with. In this rantfeature, I argue that there's efficiency and elegance in keeping icons close to the originals, keeping the workload for our poor beleaguered eyes and brain down....  

Symbian Foundation: day one and a new logo

Yesterday marked 'day one' of the Symbian Foundation. This announced the commencement of the beta testing of its new web site and that 81 companies have applied for membership (50 of which are first time endorsers). The new logo of the Symbian Foundation was also unveiled: Symbian, in stylised letters, underlain by a yellow heart. Read on for more.

Whatley Wednesday - Should Gravity come down?

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.

Twice from Herocraft

The latest time waster from developer powerhouse Herocraft is an amazing logic game and a memory training tool in one. Read on for an extract from the press release and a video.

Astraware Boardgames and Solitaire at $5 each until end of March

Astraware is selling Astraware Boardgames and Astraware Solitaire at the reduced price of $5 each until the end of this month. The games are available for Symbian S60 3rd Edition and UIQ3, and can be purchased at the reduced price from astraware.com: click here for their S60v3 section, and click here for their UIQ3 section. (Astraware's parent company Handmark is also having a sale until the 29th of March, with a "buy one, get one free" offer using the discount code "DEMAND".)

Setting up developer support for the Symbian Foundation

Richard Bloor, a new addition to the AAS editorial team, recently talked to Thibaut Rouffineau, from the Symbian Foundation, on a range of topics including the challenges and opportunities in setting-up to support developers, how developers might contribute to the platform and the role of academia in the software industry.

AAS Insight 62 - SDK, Monopoly, N85 vs N95 video

In All About Symbian Insight 62 (AAS Podcast 118) we briefly discuss the recently released S60 5.0 SDK (and consider broader uses), follow up on kinetic scrolling on the N97, get Ewan's view point on Monopoly for the N-Gage. In the last part of the podcast Steve and Ewan relate their experience of video recording on the N85 versus the N95. You can listen to AAS Insight 62 here or, if you wish to subscribe, here's the RSS feed.

Opera Fingertouch - improving browser interaction

Opera, the Norwegian browser and web technology company, today introduced Fingertouch, a technology which aims to make it easier to interact with a web page on touchscreen devices. On such devices, especially those with smaller screens, when selectable page elements (e.g. links or form elements) are grouped close together on a web page, it can be difficult to accurately select the right element. Opera's Fingertouch looks to solve this problem by providing visual feedback and 'zooming in' on the clustered elements. Read on for more and demo video.