My Phones Show 67 just went live, with a hands-on preview and thoughts on the S60 5th Edition-powered Nokia 5800 XpressMusic ('Tube'), plus a cross-platform feature analysing 'Which phone should you buy?'. Note also the RSS feeds for the standard and hi-res versions of the show, for your feedreader, browser or iTunes. And yes, Rafe's official AAS preview of the 5800 is coming soon, don't worry....
Symbian has released Ruby for Symbian OS to the Open Source software developer community. Ruby is "a powerful dynamic language that reaches the heights of the pure Object Oriented Programming paradigm" and is popular in many developer communities.
There's an interesting piece today by the people who put together the Java runtime on S60, talking about how they want to streamline Internet connections by Java applets to involve less user prompts[link updated]. The plan is to put the new system in place in new devices and also in new firmwares for existing devices. About time, too, methinks.
As reported round the blogs, Nokia Beta Labs has released Map Loader 1.0 for Mac. Previously, loading your S60 phone with Nokia Maps ata required Windows. You can now load up with country maps using an Apple Mac. More info and links below...
The card game DChoc Cafe Solitaire 12 Pack is now available on the N-Gage platform. You can download it by going to the application's showroom section, then selecting "Options" and "Update Now". Alternatively you may want to try out the unofficial games Astraware Solitaire or some of the other card and board games available for N-Gage-compatible devices.
Australian developer DreamSpring have two announcements at today's Symbian Smartphone Show. The popular UIQ application DreamLife - an integrated activity manager providing additional integration between the core PIM databases in one single application – will be available on S60 early in 2009. They are also launching Riyala, a fully integrated suite of PIM services designed to sit alongside DreamLife.
Developer tools are featuring widely at this year's Symbian Smartphone Show, with two tools now available to help you code your Symbian applications. The Symbian Analysis Workbench (SAW) helps developers track down defects in code and help in the optimisation process. Built around a pre-packaged set of tools for Eclipse and is integrated into the Carbide C++ Developer Environment. The ARM Profiler aids the development process, providing clear information to help add enhanced function and, more importantly, reduce power consumption.
Symbian have announced a wide range of companies joining the initial ten board members of the Symbian Foundation. Set up with a view to provide an open source mobile operating system with a strong eco-system, there are now over fifty companies supporting the plans that were revealed in June 2008. From today, ARM, CleNET, Flander, Fujisoft, Huawei, Inmote, Innopath, RedBend, Scalado, Symsource, Trango and Visa are supporting the Foundation.
The N79 seems to be now making its way to shops across Europe, as Nokia's official site in Italy lists it as available now, and Expansys UK also has it in stock. You can find out more about the N79 from All About Symbian's extensive hands-on preview article.
It's fitting that the Carnival of the Mobilists should come from London this week, as the attention of the mobile world is focussed on Earls Court and Symbian's annual Smartphone Show. Carnival 146 is here and good reading on your travels into London...
Thanks to ares for the heads-up that Opera Software have been busy, releasing its Opera 9.5 web browser for UIQ 3 with widget support today. For technical reasons (lack of RAM?), it's only compatible with the SonyEricsson P1, W960, G700 and G900. Opera has also updated people on progress towards v9.5 for S60 - more on this in the weeks to come.
Announced first for Russia and then the rest of the world, Samsung have launched the I7110, with an OLED screen, similar to that in the Nokia N85, but is in a candy bar form factor and with familiar 5mp/GPS/Wi-Fi specs. More details below.
It's always interesting seeing long term tests of phones, i.e. from people who have lived with a device intensively for a while. In this case, Symbian Smashpop has lived with the Nokia N96 for a month (and no, I still haven't even seen one - go figure) and here presents a list of loves and hates. In other news, Vaibhav has been trying out the DVB-H TV in the N96 and comes away very impressed.
Sigh. Another month, another needless high profile security scare. The BBC should know better. In this case, they talk to a Mr Coney, who (surprise, surprise) happens to sell security software. He's quoted as saying "One of common types we see now runs amok on the Symbian platform. These viruses work their way through the contact book, sending themselves out to every subscriber who has been called or has called that handset." What a load of rubbish, timed to go live on the eve of the Symbian show, too. Read on.
An awesome application just got much, much better. Wavelog just hit the big v2.0 (v2.01, in fact). It's a native S60 client for Blogger, Wordpress, Drupal and Joomla, with ancillary support for YouTube and Picasa uploads and insertions. There's more about Wavelog on the Telewaving web site.
