If you ever wonder why Rafe started EpocHelp, Steve became a writer and programmer, and I started flag waving for a simple programming language, it was because we saw the promise in Psion. Here, for the first time, is a look back at the ghosts in the closets, the mistakes, the bad karma, and the fear of the last High Tech British company.
This weeks Carnival of the Mobilists is hosted by Route 79. There's the usual round up of writing from around the web with a general theme of the impact mobile has on art, entertainment and lifestyle.
The number of applications appearing for free from obscure Nokia outlets, ostensibly for a select range of S60 devices but working fine on many others, seems to be accelerating. Today's scoop belongs to the N95 Blog, which has found a great and configurable answer phone utility, MobiGenie, on Nokia's UAE site.
Oh, those crazy err..... New Zealanders. Over in the GeekZone forums, one guy has hacked (literally) into one of the Nokia N95's circuit boards, as a way to stop the red (privacy) LED from activating when recording video. Call me mad, but the only way anyone's going to prise my N95 apart is an authorised technician if the thing goes wrong...
I'd been hearing some very good things about the new beta client for Jaiku for S60, but the beta was closed and I seemed to have missed the boat. Well, it seems to be fully public and open again. Sign up and grab the free S60 beta of Jaiku here.
OK, I couldn't resist linking to this, but it is Friday, after all. The N95 blog has an article describing and picturing a radio controlled aircraft system that uses the N95 as its main real time aerial photo viewer and editor.
A new firmware, 7.24.0.3, is now available via the Nokia Software Updater for the Nokia E90. Details of some of the updates are in the comment thread, please add your own. In other E90 news Nokia has also recently added support for the Nokia E90 to its iSync page (also available for most other S60 phones).
Keeping a close eye on the goings on at Smart2Go (now Nokia Maps, to all intents and purposes), it seems that MapLoader 1.1 is now online and is allegedly ten times faster than the old version. But the Maps software itself is still showing only a tiny compatibility list. If you do chance a version on an 'unsupported' handset, do please report back, etc.
So there I was chatting to the AAS team yesterday and wondering how long it would take until the N95 received its next firmware update - and it turns out that v12 firmware is on the horizon at least, Ricky Cadden has got himself a preview and some screenshots. The main addition so far noticed seems to be Assisted GPS, in an attempt to solve the N95's legendary GPS lock-on problems.
Kudos to Nokia's S60.com lifestyle site for constantly coming up with interesting freebies. 'SMS Export' for S60 3rd Edition is this month's limited edition download, plus there are new themes to grab and more. Note that you do need to register on the site, but it's free.
The latest Airbus aircraft have been cleared to run the OnAir mobile roaming service (reports SMS Text News ). In essence a low powered base station in the sky, it will allow SMS, email and voice calls to be made while above the regulation 10,000 feet. Air France (France), TAP (Portugal), BMI (UK) and Ryanair (Ireland) have expressed an interest. Looks like I'll be continuing to fly BA and American then.
It's interesting watching some of the side deals being done around the iPhone. Apparently YouTube are going to make all their video catalog available in higher quality H.264 format. Ostensibly for iPhone compatibility, but note that all S60 3rd Edition FP1 devices and many older Nseries devices (e.g. N73, N93, N80, etc.) have H.264 video compatibility. Hopefully YouTube pages will soon come with a hook or link for smartphones to follow and play?
It seems that the Nokia N80 has had a major firmware update, to 5.0719.0.2 (from v4.x), which is already available in your Nokia Software Update. For unbranded/unlocked devices, anyway. (Via Symbian-Freak)
In advance of my more detailed AllAboutSymbian review, I've included a video review of the Nokia N76 in Smartphones Show 35. Also in this show is a feature on making the most of your smartphone's battery life. Show 35 is here in MP4 format on the page, here on YouTube and here's the iTunes feed.
