I'm sure Phil S of S60 is serious with this review of a new Nokia accessory, the CP-218, but I really, truly am not sure I'd trust a £500 N95 to the Nokia Wrist Band while I'm out flailing my arms around in the act of trying to jog/run....
The Next Gen N-Gage platform is due to go live some time in November, so we still have a fair while to wait until our gaming main course arrives. However, to whet our appetites, All About N-Gage has been serving up some Next Gen hors d'oeuvres, looking at the best S60 games that are compatible with Next Gen N-Gage phones and are available right now.
To be filed under 'Hey, S60 Web uses the same core code as the iPhone's browser', come these links: pages of Javascript-hosted quick games and the entire text of the King James Version of the Bible (with the 'thees' and 'thous', etc). The latter works fine in Web but some of the games are a bit hit and miss. Comments?
Ah, it's not just me that wants to also use my smartphone as a torch. Ever since the N93, I've wondered why this isn't a built-in feature. All In One Torch is a Python hosted script that offers pulsing of the camera LED in the likes of the N95 and E90, along with always-on white main screen. The only downside is that you have to go through a silly Rapidshare system to actually get the download. Shout here if you can't grab it. The usual warnings about knackering your LED hardware apply, of course. And familiarity with running a Python script will help (via Symbian blog)
If you've wanted to set multiple alarms in Clock but don't want to have to pay to upgrade to a S60 3rd Edition FP1 device just to get this feature, then note that coding wizard Jukka Silvennoinen's latest beta is YAlarms for bare S60 3rd Edition smartphones. Here's the YAlarms info and link page, give him some feedback! Also interesting seeing him use Nokia's MOSH for the project...
Interesting post by Vaibhav Sharma on his Symbian blog detailing improvements he thinks are needed in S60. Some of them I'm not sure I agree with but as a wishlist it's a good read. See what you think.
Official developer site Forum Nokia has published its detailed tech spec pages for the Nokia E51 and the Nokia N95-3 NAM, aka the American N95. Amongst other things, it reveals that the E51 has 96 megabytes of RAM (with 50 MB free for user applications), while the N95-3 NAM has 128 megabytes (with 81 MB free for user apps).
Woo! Nokia has launched a new application, Conversation, offering SMS sorted by contact (think 'threaded'). Conversation appears standalone and as a tab in S60 3rd Edition's Contacts. Feedback to Nokia on Conversation should be directed through Beta labs' Tommi's blog post.
It's that time in the fortnight, another Smartphones Show goes live, this time with video from the Nokia E51 and iPhone UK launches, a preview of the Symbian Smartphone Show in London (in less chatty form than the last AAS video podcast) and a review of the UBiQUiO 503G - no I don't hate Windows Mobile, but this is a classic example of how badly it can be implemented. Read on for show links.
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.
