The makers of the free Xmas game Snowed In have come up with a similar Easter-themed free game called Eggstreme: Sizzler Supremacy. It's available for every Symbian platform (S60 3rd, S60 1st/2nd, UIQ3, UIQ2, Series 80 and Series 90). The S60 3rd version supports all screen resolutions including the N80 and E90. You can download the relevant game file by going here, and you can get the free unlock code by going here.
Programme 54 is now live, with walkthroughs of geotagging and photo sharing using a Nokia N95, Location Tagger and Share Online and some promo video of the upcoming Sony Ericsson G900. There's also a spot on Blackberry Internet Service (on a Nokia E90) and a look at getting yourself a new Windows Mobile 6 smartphone for £60(ish).
Coolgorilla, a favourite of ours since they keep insisting on giving away everything for free, has launched the London Travel Guide, a 400 page mobile-optimised online 'book', with illustrations, maps and apparently even video. The content's kept updated and there are phone and web hyperlinks throughout. Guides are planned for other major cities in the near future. Press release below the break.
You'll remember that we've looked at Epocware's Handy Weather before, giving both the original S60 3rd Edition version and that for UIQ 3 well deserved AAS MegaApp awards. And now they've gone and improved it again, adding weather maps and streamlining the interface. Still a MegaApp? You bet, it's still one of the stars in the Symbian OS firmament - here's my review of Handy Weather version 5.01.
No, we haven't gone raving mad - it's just that Ewan (currently on walkabout in the USA) has been tweeting from Twibble. Err... that's sending Twitter updates by SMS, in plain English. It's a useful Java application, that's for sure, saving time and bandwidth. Here's Ewan's review of Twibble.
It's Monday and it's time for our new Insight podcast. In number 15 (aka AAS podcast 63), we look at news, geotagging privacy concerns, recent handset designs from Nokia and Ewan reports on truly mobile software. Give it a listen on the way home from work. Here's the RSS feed if you want to subscribe regularly.
CorePlayer has been inching up to a major new release, 1.2, for a while now. Registered users can upgrade to a special 'preview' version of 1.2, which includes better support for file type associations, streaming video, plus support for Speex and GSM audio. (via p@sco)
In times of inconsistent quality, it's good to reflect back on devices that have oozed quality, charisma or style, and sometimes even all three. In "Top 10 - Classic Smartphones", I count down the significant stars of the Symbian OS world from the last 7 years. Controversial? Biased? Probably. But I'll bet there are four or five of these on everybody's own personal top 10 from the same period! Comments and your own picks are more than welcome!
NS Basic, the cross-platform Basic programming language that was announced for Symbian OS at last year's Smartphone Show, seems to be finally coming together. NS Basic has now put a page up, listing it as 'coming soon' and with a bullet list of features. It'll work with both S60 and UIQ, too, which is good to see, though it's apparently implemented on top of the StyleTap Palm OS emulator for Symbian. If you've got as many concerns over performance as I had, check out their benchmarks page too.
Thanks to SWB for reminding us that Symbian's Open Signed Online starts next week for those without Publisher IDs, in beta at least and with some throttling limits in place. We haven't been featuring every last 'unsigned' utility that's flooded the blogosphere in the last 3 months because, basically, the self-signing has been too hard for the average user. Will the new system improve matters? Comments welcome.
Oxygen Software have been plugging away at their Phone Manager product for years, and they've just announced a major revamp, rebrand and relaunch. OxyCube is released yesterday and is compatible with a wide range of handsets and provides syncing and file browsing functions. (via SymbianOne)
This is something many UIQ 3 users have been waiting for (me included!). A native SIS client for Google Maps instead of a Java Midlet. The new client is fast, looks neat and has a function called 'My Location' which basically gives a guess of your whereabouts. No press release whatsoever, but for you who want to test it, head over to http://www.google.com/gmm using your UIQ 3's internet browser and download the SIS file. Screenshots after the break.
Now this is interesting. Here's a video tour of the upcoming UIQ 3-powered Sony Ericsson G900 (below the break). Watch it. Then watch it again a few more times, there's a lot to take in that I for one haven't seen before on UIQ 3. And all very iPhone-esque - which I guess is a compliment, looks like S-E and UIQ have been burning the midnight oil - now we just want to see the hardware out in the real world.
Michael Mace has written an interesting post on his blog Mobile Opportunity about the fall of (native) Mobile Applications. The basic thesis of the post is that native mobile development is declining because of platform fragmentation, issues around certification, and marketing problems. Michael goes on to suggest that mobile development itself is not dead, but that it will increasingly move to the web as a platform. Read on for more.
At last owners of Motorola's Z8 smartphone have something to be pleased about - in a long overdue move, Motorola have finally released a public firmware update for this phone. Details of the exact firmware version released are a little sketchy at the moment, as Motorola have quietly been shipping updated firmwares on new handsets for a while now, but head over to the Moto Smartphones website for the latest on this unfolding story.