Ewan continues his music-centric look at the latest Walkman-branded UIQ 3 smartphone from Sony Ericsson. In this part, having already looked at the main Walkman music player, he looks at all the OTHER music and audio-related applications. Do they work well and do they add significant value?
As Amazon announce plans to expand their music store, StrategyEye points towards Sony Ericsson’s similar plans for a music store. Details are limited, so there’s no word on what file format will be employed (and ergo what form, if any, of DRM will be used), nor on what countries will receive the service ‘by the end of 2008.’
Symbian Press has announced a new developer's title: "Games on Symbian OS", by Jo Stitchbury. Full details here, with availability next month. From the blurb: "...shows the potential for creating mobile games for Symbian smartphones... It covers various aspects of mobile games on Symbian OS, with contributions from a number of experts in the mobile games industry, including Nokia'’s N-Gage team, Ideaworks3D, and ZingMagic, as well as academics leading the field of innovative mobile experiences".
In the second part of this music-focussed look at the latest Walkman smartphone, the Sony Ericsson W960, Ewan's been picking apart the new Media Manager suite that's bundled on CD with the device. Is it polished enough for real world use? Ewan's not entirely convinced...
More cool applications have appeared for UIQ 3 users in the last couple of days. PowerMovie and TouchCalc are among them and, today, Bunch Launch has just been annnouced by CellphoneSoft. Basically, Bunch Launch is a utility to bring your UIQ 3 smartphone to a desired state, with all your apps running, in one go.
UIQ Technology today announced that it has added six new partners to its UIQ Alliance Program. UIQ Technology gives its partners extra support in creating and marketing UIQ related software and services. The new members are ArcSoft Inc., CleNET Technologies, Fring, Google, iSkoot and Mobica.
In AAS insight #9, Steve and Ewan discuss the Motorola Z10, the MacWorld keynote, the Sony Ericsson W960, and why you may never see the perfect smartphone.
More from me on the UIQ 3 front in Smartphones Show 51, with my video review of the Sony Ericsson W960i, plus (non-Symbian) iPhone tips from fellow AAS-er Matt Radford. View the Smartphones Show via YouTube here, or grab the MP4, or subscribe via RSS or iTunes.
In AAS Insight # 8 (AAS podcast 56) Rafe, Steve and Ewan discuss some of the news out of CES: the announcement of the Motorola Z10 and Nokia N95 8GB North American version. There's also information on the recent firmware update for the N95 8GB and the importance of runtime technologies for the Symbian platform.
The worlds of mobile and social networking keep circling each other but (the hibernating Jaiku aside) never seem to really hit it off. Ewan Spence has been looking at Zyb, an online sync host and social network that launched recently. How integrated is Zyb and is it worth signing up for yet?
I reviewed Meteor almost three years ago but Krisse, in the run up to the next-gen N-Gage launch in 20072009 2008, has been revisiting many Symbian OS classics and here reviews Meteor again in QVGA form on a modern S60 3rd Edition device. Has the game changed in the intervening years - does Meteor still hold up? It's available for all versions of S60 and UIQ, plus Series 80, by the way.
