After three days of delays (FX: looks meaningfully at YouTube's system manager and the programmers of S60 Podcasting), The Phones Show 86 is now online - and available via RSS from the usual addresses. Subjects covered: News, Qwerty phones, my N86 video zoom demo and my verdict on the Samsung i8910 HD. See here for the video, RSS links and more info.
In this tutorial, Rafe explains how you can create your own shortcut widget for the TouchWiz-powered idle screen of the Samsung i8910. In this example, the widget links through to the AAS mobile site, but you'll have your own destination in mind. And, hopefully, will have your imagination inspired to create something more ambitious - and maybe even enter Samsung's competition to win some big cash prizes? See the bottom of the tutorial for full details.
Just in case you've missed it, Ovi Gaming is now also available as a mobile website at ovigaming.mobi. It contains the same content as ovigaming.com but in a reformatted style which should work on the majority of mobile web browsers and screen resolutions. It should also load a lot more quickly and use much less data, which may be useful for those on a slow connection or with expensive data charges. Have a look and let us know what you think...
The UK's biggest network operator, Vodafone, has announced that it's abolishing the 15MB data limit, set only a few months ago, in favour of a system by which customers can "browse the mobile internet as much as they like" for 50p a day on an ad-hoc basis. It's a system that works well, and one which I use often with a whole brace of PAYG SIM cards. Digging deeper reveals that the new limit is 25MB, not a massive increase, but this is now a 'fair use' figure rather than a hard-coded limit and (thankfully) you won't be charged extra without contact first from Vodafone to warn you about excessive data use (e.g. if you tether to a laptop or similar).
You've got to love a good Tomi T Ahonen rant. Fired up by a ridiculous piece by Forbes magazine, Tomi launches into a lengthy, enthusiastic, occasionally unbalanced and gratuitously violent rant against the piece's author and in defense of Nokia as an innovator in the mobile world. Like all Tomi pieces, it's long, so grab a coffee and sit back while he slams punch after punch into Forbes' so-called journalists. Note: it's not an anti-Apple rant - it's a rant against the US-centric media who, seemingly, haven't got a clue about the wider mobile world picture.
A nice bit of detective work by Devin has revealed that Files on Ovi (now just Ovi Files), always the least sexy of the Ovi services, has changed from a commercial into a free service. Possibly driven by poor take up, Nokia has simply made it free for all and is quoted as saying that existing unused subscription periods will be refunded. Interesting. I'd like to see them make pedestrian navigation free for all next in Ovi Maps - now that would put the cat among the (ahem) apples and blackberries...
One of my most essential Web Runtime apps, for S60 5th Edition, is Device Info - mainly for showing free RAM, but it does have plenty of other uses. It has now been updated to v2.0, with extra readouts, including IMEI. Grab it here for the 5800, N97 and Samsung i8910 HD. (via Wampyre)
Just a few quick notes of interest for Nokia N86 owners. Go into 'SW update', in your 'Applications' folder, and you should see an update to Ovi Maps, taking you from v3.0 to v3.1. This represents bug fixes and optimisations. The NokNok guys are also reporting that some N86 product codes are also showing Conversations 9.20, a threaded SMS system that plugs into Contacts, and which was previously only available from Nokia Beta Labs. Nokia also announced today that the N86, its imaging flagship, will shortly go on sale in the US, SIM-free, for $558.
Nokia has released their Q2 2009 results. Profits were down 66% year on year, but this was ahead of market expectations. Nokia cut its prediction for H2 2009 profitability and market share for 2009, which has driven down its share price. However the underlying results are encouraging, given the economic climate, although some concerns remain in the high end of the market. Converged devices sales (smartphone) were up at 16.9 million, compared with 15.3 million units in Q2 2008 and 13.7 million units in Q1 2009. The 5800 shipped 3.7 million units, while Eseries and Nseries shipments were 4.7 and 4.6 million respectively.
Steffen Geraner, despite English not being his main language, has put up a lovely little walk through and real world assessment of some of Ovi Maps 3.0's 'extra' features, including speed cam warnings, tunnel handling and 3D buildings. Worth a read. Maps 3.0 is turning into a pretty huge product - look out for more features on it here on AAS over the summer.
UK mobile network O2 joins Vodafone in agreeing a partnership with micro-blogging service Twitter to provide their users with free texts from Twitter to their handsets. From the 1st of August, every O2 user will be able to switch on this feature and receive both direct messages and '@' replies to their handset.
For all those with phones running S60 3rd Edition or 3rd Edition FP1, you might want to grab Birdstep's SmartConnect utility, which is now free. This removes the "access complexity" and combines all your Wifi and 3G access points into one access point, effectively mimicking the Destinations feature of S60 3rd Edition FP2 and beyond. The supported phones are listed below, along with a download link.
Samsung Italy have released a fairly major (I8910XXIG2) firmware update for the i8910 HD (Omnia HD, as it's branded in Italy). The biggest change is to re-enable AAC (8bit 16KHz. mono) as the audio codec for HD video recording. A video example, taken on the new firmware, is posted below.
A little off topic, but then this is Friday/weekend and we're all supposed to be letting go a little - I've been moaning a lot in the podcasts and on The Phones Show about how Symbian OS and other mobile OS roundly trounce Apple's iPhone (much as I love it in other ways) in terms of what I consider vital to a modern device: multitasking, something which Symbian OS pioneered in handhelds. Here's a very well written piece, and witty with it, written by Engadget's Editor-in-chief, Joshua Topolsky, talking about exactly the same issue. Mind you, if Apple responded and introduced proper multitasking, the iPhone would present an even bigger threat to the other devices and platforms. Comments welcome!
Google has now formally launched its mobile 'product search' system for users in the UK, USA, Germany and South Korea. I've put some screenshots below - essentially you can type in any product (e.g. while standing in a shop) and get a bunch of the best deals from around the web. In Web, go to (or create a bookmark for) www.google.com/m/products or www.google.co.uk/m/products (or similar for Germany and S.Korea).
