Bobba, the mobile online virtual world from the makers of Habbo, has added all non-Nokia S60 2nd and 3rd Edition devices to its official compatibility list. Practically every Nokia S60 2nd and 3rd Edition phone is on the list, and now so are Samsung, LG, Panasonic and Lenovo S60 models. There are no S60 5th Edition devices on the list yet, but the publishers Sulake say they are working on this and should have a rough version out soon, with a more touch-optimised version later.
If you click on the Ovi Gaming site's menu bar item labelled Ovi Store Games, you'll see it now contains pages and brief info about all of the games currently in Ovi Store, along with reviews and screenshots for a few of them. Over time we'll be adding a lot more reviews, screenshots and perhaps even some videos too, slowly building up a comprehensive guide to Ovi's gaming world.
If you've just been itching to get to grips with the Nokia N97's user manual - or if you just want to take heart from the fact that there's an official Support page for it on Nokia's web site now (meaning that the device is about to ship), then knock yourself out (via Vaibhav). In other N97 news, there's a detailed look at its insides here (gulp).
Ovi Store can be accessed from almost any Nokia phone by just going to store.ovi.com on the phone's web browser, but certain phones also have an Ovi Store application available which lets you use Ovi Store much more easily. Some people have managed to find the Ovi Store application available through the Download! icon, but it now appears that you can also download the app directly from the store.ovi.com website. The availability of the app seems to currently vary depending on which model you have and which country you live in, and the easiest way to find out if you can get it is to visit the Ovi Store mobile site and see if the link appears for you. See the screens below for details.
Nokia have continued to tweak their Ovi services with a few changes to Ovi Mail. The main visual change is that it is now integrated in the top icon bar of the main Ovi site, while in the background it will now automatically check for email and allow you to mark mail as read without requiring you to open said mail.
Just a brief note that Rafe's at Nokia's Design Day in London today and is posting updates on the AAS Twitter account through the day, so you might want to follow this, if you're not already.
Although specifically for the iPhone, Slide To Play have put together a Top Ten Things Developers For Mobile Games Need To Do and it's an article I want to send to everyone who makes a game on Symbian OS, including a number of N-Gage partners. On reflection, these are all pretty obvious, but the number of games that miss out these for no discernible reason could easily fill an online app store.
PyS60 enthusiast Croozeus breaks the news of another landmark test release of the next-gen version of Python for S60, v1.9.5. Significantly, this includes 'listbox' support for touch-screen devices, meaning that we're one step closer to a full v2.0 release that supports all recent S60 phones (touch and non-touch). In other related news, there's heated discussion going on about Nokia's decision not to allow Python-coded applications in the new Ovi app store.
The Ovi Store roll-out just reached the UK in the last hour for many device product codes, it seems that the store availability is still proceeding around the clock today, around the world, for up to 50 devices and (estimated) around 50 million customers. Go into Download! on your Nokia S60 device and hitting 'Refresh content', Ovi Store is now showing up, for example, on my 5800 XpressMusic (and my N95) in the root folder of Download. Screenshots, observations and comments below.
Nokia's Ovi Store has soft launched in Australia; the information we recieved indicates that Ovi Store is now accessible on a Nokia E75 on the Australian operator Vodafone (see updates, in full story, for other markets). Ovi Store is Nokia's content store and download application for applications, games, wallpapers, themes, ringtones and video clips.
We're expecting the roll out of Ovi Store, in other countries, to continue over the next few hours and days. It is likely that a formal launch announcement will be made this week. We'll be updating this story, and will have full coverage of the Ovi Store once it launches in the UK. For now read on for more details and the first live pictures showing Ovi Store in the wild!
Our sister site, All About N-Gage, has evolved into Ovi Gaming. The new name reflects an expansion in the coverage of the site. In addition to providing the usual comprehensive N-Gage coverage, Ovi Gaming (OG) will provide coverage of games available via Nokia's forthcoming Ovi Store, which we expect to arrive very soon. As before, we'll continue to feature the best of Ovi Gaming content, here, in AAS's news stream.
In response to popular demand, I've added the Samsung i8910 (Omnia HD) to my 'choose your perfect smartphone' Grid, along with the HTC Touch Pro 2 and the HTC Touch Diamond 2. How does the Grid perform for you now? It chooses the Nokia E71 for me, followed by the 5800 XpressMusic, which isn't a million miles out. Comments welcome!
