Astraware, arguably THE top name in PDA gaming, has finally started releasing titles for Symbian OS, with the simultaneous launch of "Boardgames" for both S60 3rd Edition and UIQ 3, supporting all the usual devices. The games include Chess, Reversi, Backgammon, Snakes and ladders, Nine Mens Morris and Checkers. Ewan's been playing with an advance copy for a while and he'll have a full review tomorrow, hopefully. See below for some screenshots and the full press release.
SlingPlayer, the streaming-from-your-home media solution made popular on S60, has been announced for UIQ 3 smartphones as well, with imminent availability. In a parallel statement, Sling Media also announced compatibility with the Nokia N95 8GB. The full press release is below.
To coincide with their UIQ 3.3 announcement, UIQ Technology have released five pretty new themes for UIQ smartphones: UIQ Wave, UIQ Snow, UIQ Lounge, UIQ Black Build and UIQ Chili. Very cool. Isn't it about time we had some new official S60 themes?
UIQ Technology just announced the availability of UIQ 3.3. The new release is built on top of Symbian OS v9.3 and adds among other things, Opera Mobile 9.5, supporting 'a full web-experience on mobile devices', Opera Widgets and UIQ Dashboard. Whether this will bring more UIQ 3 powered smartphones to the market in the near future or not remains to be seen. Full press release after the break.
Motorola today announced that it had commenced a process to split itself into two seperate companies: a mobile device business and a broadband and mobility solutions business (reflecting current divisions within the company). The move seems likely to avoid a direct sale of the mobile device business, but a joint venture with another company remains a distinct possibility.
Yup, I'm still maintaining my 'No Nags' lists of freeware over at 3-Lib - I've been tweaking my freeware list for all UIQ 3 smartphones (e.g. Sony Ericsson M600, P1i) - can you help to add to it? Anything I've missed out?
Ewan's been the perfect use-case for ShoZu, the media uploader, while he's been away on his 'Seesmarch' - lots of photos and video, flat rate data and a desire to share stuff with the world. Here's his report/review of the new ShoZu version 4. Suffice it to say that the application scores very highly indeed, with only a few small caveats.
Well folks, if you think the guys at Quickoffice are sleeping and didn't care about UIQ 3 users, think again because they just unveiled version 4.0 of their UIQ 3 office suite. With a total revamp of the codebase and heavy makeup in the design department, as well as the inclusion of Quickmanager, we think we have a winner! Read on for some screens and the full press release. Watch this space for a full review from yours truly!
In Insight #17 (AAS Podcast 66) Rafe, Steve and Stefan talk around Apple's recently announced SDK and Application Store and what Nokia and Sony Ericsson do in this area. We also talk about our favourite form factors where we recognise that device robustness is the most important factor.
The Widsets 2.0 beta (update: now live on main site too) site recently went live which means you can now download and test the latest version of the Widsets client. New features include better integration between Widsets and the rest of the device including the ability to initiate a phone call or open a browser window. Widsets is a way to get web content on your mobile via widgetisation. Read on for more.
Continuing his quest to find great time fillers for his transatlantic trip, Ewan's been looking at another Java game, Silver Ball. It's presented well and has classic gameplay, but it's let down by clumsy sound control and some overlong screen transitions.
IQ Technology has announced the winners of the UIQ Open, a
developer competition that ran until the end of Dec 07, with each winner getting a free UIQ 3 phone, free marketing help and event invites. Winners included FlyingMoney Manager, Mobile Documents, Handy Weather, IM+ All-in-One Mobile Messenger, Spodtronic, MicroPool, Paintball 2, Easy Search and GDesk, many of which are AAS favourites.
If you're anything like Ewan and myself, you'll enjoy a good brain-stretching, language-challenging word game - and these have been few and far between on smartphones. However, the appearance of Scratchy, reviewed here by Ewan, has helped a lot, keeping him entertained on his American travels. It's Java-based and basically works on anything, by the way.
Enthusiast Symbian blogger Norman John, based in Germany, has been reviewing the Sony Ericsson P1i - it's refreshing to hear a fresh opinion on this UIQ 3 smartphone. His verdict? It's a 'strong multimedia smartphone' but its 'UI is too tricky'. And he rightly says that you should ditch the built-in Opera for the also-free Opera Mini.
