If you have the time to come to London next week for Symbian's Smartphone Show, here's another event to attend, albeit with some overlap. Motorola, Sony Ericsson and UIQ Technology will host an informal evening for developers to relax, have fun and do some networking. Details below.
Guest writer Asri al-Baker has been trialling the brand new CorePlayer ports for both UIQ 3 (on his Sony Ericsson P990i) and S60 3rd Edition (on his Nokia N95). How well does this hallowed media player stand up to video and audio tests on both Symbian interfaces? Can it really play any media file in any format, codec or resolution? Find out in his CorePlayer Mobile review.
Symbian has just added a number of new speakers to its Smartphone Show agenda, including a VP of Samsung, the SVP of Freescale, the president of RIM and a director of Vodafone. Full details here, but I think it's safe to predict that there's going to be plenty to see and hear. And if you get into town early, see our own meet!
If you've ever looked at an aspect of the Symbian or smartphone world and asked 'Why?', then you know exactly how I sometimes feel. This being Friday, here are some of my puzzlers for weekend pontification....
More and more online data storage services are becoming available, letting you access anything from emails to video through the web rather than storing it on any particular device. But will they work if people don't trust these services to keep their data safe? Following up our review of SoonR, Krisse asks if we really want a Ken Dodd Internet?
I don't know him personally, but TV/media star Stephen Fry and I have been seemingly bumping along through the Psion/Palm eras together. And now he's started a blog, with a huge and interesting essay on smartphones. He looks at the HTC Touch ('thundering nuisance'), the Sony Ericsson P1i (less responsive than 'a dead walrus') and the Nokia E90 (a 'good product'), before loving but finding flaws in the iPhone.
Proporta do seem to snap up some of the best accessory ideas. They've just launched a 'Keychain GPS', weighing only 30g, with SiRF III chipset and USB (and 12V) charging. They claim it'll work from within a pocket, briefcase or handbag, meaning that provided you remember to keep it charged, you can pretend your Bluetooth-equipped smartphone has its own, private, invisible GPS.
There's a new beta of DivX Mobile Player on the loose for S60 and UIQ-based smartphones. v0.89 features restructured menus and softkeys, a new file browser with thumbnail previews, plus manual adjustment for A/V synchronization. See the DivX blog for links and more info.
Ewan's something of a wiz on the old Rubik's cube, making him a natural for reviewing Magic Cube on his Nokia N95. It's Java-based though, so should run on just about any other smartphone. With a neat keypad-based interface, Magic Cube gets the thumbs up.
It seems an update to the Motorola Z8 may be on the horizon. O2, a UK operator, has the Z10 listed in its coming soon section. The picture (see full story) shows the bottom half of a phone that bears a striking resemblance to the Motorola Z8 which runs UIQ 3.1 on Symbian OS. The specifications listed include a 3.2 megapixel camera (up from 2 on the Z8), 3G and 30 frame per second video.
A thread discussing the next steps of the Symbian Signed program is currently available on the Symbian Developer Network. Proposed changes envision three main types of signing: 'Open Signed' for use during the development process, 'Express Signed' suitable for many applications and 'Certified Signed' similar to the current process.
UIQ 3 users have been longing for something llike this since the beginning. GDesk by Gary Leach is a very customisable desktop/launcher application which can be set to replace the built-in launcher (i.e. the P990's Activity Menu). Oh, and it also has a nice little Calendar plug in to show appointments for 'quick view', supports multiple pages, page backgrounds, and more! Link and screenshot after the break.
Guest writer Asri al-Baker has been trialling the brand new CorePlayer ports for both UIQ 3 (on his Sony Ericsson P990i) and S60 3rd Edition (on his Nokia N95). How well does this hallowed media player stand up to video and audio tests on both Symbian interfaces? Can it really play any media file in any format, codec or resolution? Find out in his CorePlayer Mobile review.
If you've owned a Nokia E70, N95 or N93, or a Sony Ericsson P990i, the chances are that, at some point, you've had a 'Memory' error, usually in the context of 'Low memory' or 'Out of memory'. In this How to, I explain the cause of 'Memory' errors, discuss ways to avoid them and point out a silver lining.
Ho yes. Another year has flown by and we present the All About Symbian As-Official-As-It-Gets 2007 Pub Meet. Prizes, Demos, Speakers, Chit-chat and good beer. In case you haven't been to one before, here's AAS video podcast 21, in which I waffle on about what to expect from the pub meet and some other minor event happening the next day over in Docklands...