In All About Symbian Insight 125, we welcome David Gilson to the podcast for the first time. This week we round up a lot of news including a rallying cry from Nokia's Anssi Vanjoki, details on SEE 2010, firmware updates for the E71, E66, N97 and N97 mini, SkyFire's market retreat, Nokia 5230 pricing and more. In the main part of the podcast David tell us about his experiences with the Sony Ericsson Vivaz Pro, Ewan talks about The Big Roll in Paradise and Rafe reports back from a 3UK briefing. You can listen to AAS Insight 125 here or, if you wish to subscribe, here's the RSS feed.
Another day, more major firmware updates from Nokia, this time for even older devices, again rolling Maps 3.3 with free navigation into the ROMs - excellent to have. v500.21.009 for the two year old E71 and E66 also brings the very latest editing version of Quickoffice and latest Ovi Store client, plus bumps to Music player and to Lotus Notes Traveler, among the usual minor improvements and fixes.
With my tongue slightly in cheek and with the news that sheds(!) are now firmly back in fashion, I wanted to mention a growing trend in the tech world - that of fiddling, customising and tweaking. Of devices, of their firmware and of their software. It's all huge fun, of course, but if you want to keep your life on track and blood pressure down then I'd suggest having a second, fallback device, also synced to everything you know and love...
In these times of recession, it's more vital than ever to watch your pounds (or Euros) - if you need (or lust after) a new(ish) Symbian-powered smartphone then why not think of getting something second-hand, on eBay, at a fraction of the new price? Or if you're trying to raise cash by reducing your smartphone stash that's been gathering dust under the desk, then read on for some comments and example selling prices as at the end of June 2010.
Ewan and I have a rule of thumb, that 95% of content in every mobile app store is complete rubbish, without significant merit. But, rather than dismiss this 95% en-bloc, or one at a time, we thought we'd do better to dismiss some of the worst offenders category by category, so that you can spot future offenders yourself more easily in future. The traditional way is to handle software roundups is to go for a Top Ten list. But, by way of something slightly different, here's some coverage of the Top Ten Lists we won't be compiling... naturally itself in the form of a (somewhat recursive) Top Ten List!
Nokia's quoted comments regarding the future of its Nseries devices have been causing much comment in the media in last few days. This editorial puts some perspective into the story - Nseries devices only represent around 12% of Nokia's Symbian portfolio and the evolution of the brand towards Maemo/MeeGo had been signposted since Autumn 2009. Moreover it is vital to understand that MeeGo and Symbian are complimentary parts of Nokia's overall software strategy. Read on for further analysis of the evolution of Nseries and a number of salient facts.
Over the last few years, I've had a burning conviction that's been growing and growing as I watch the current craze for 'Apps' blossom. Now, I've nothing against genuine applications or games, but it has to be said that a large number of so-called 'Apps' are simply scraping or managing exactly the same data as you can get right now, on any phone, for free. And, my way, there are no installations, no complications and no hassle. Apps? Pah - I've a new slogan to rival Apple's. "There's a Bookmark for that!"
As you'll have been aware, HyperX and his team have been pumping out various Samsung i8910 HD 'alternative' firmware updates for many months now. 'HX6-Speed', released today in 'Public beta' form, effectively gives you the fastest Symbian touchscreen experience available - at least until the Nokia N8 arrives to challenge. There's a feature summary below, plus links and other comments.
Nokia's Ovi Store has been updated, with changes to both the mobile client and the publish tool used by developers. The client for S60 3rd Edition and 5th Edition has been updated, from version 1.06(18) to v1.07(12). The key changes are the introduction of 'continuous' pages for content lists (behaving more like the Android Marketplace or Apple App Store), improved search and an updated category structure. The Ovi Publish tool has also been updated with changes to meta-data that developers would be well advised to pay attention to. Read on for more.
As part of the invitation to spend a morning with the Nokia N8 (ok, quite a lot of N8s - in various colours and states of readiness) on Monday, I grabbed Damian Dinning, Nokia's imaging supremo, to chat about the device and specifically its media capture capabilities. See below for the video interview and accompanying notes - there are several interesting points which I hadn't appreciated before.
Video calling on mobiles has been a reality in most of the world for five years now - and it's been a disaster in terms of take-up rate. Yet Apple comes on the scene with their new FaceTime - video calling - 'feature' and seems to have nailed it in terms of making people want it. Read on for my thoughts on what has the rest of the world been doing wrong and for the use case that Apple has, quite correctly, identified and exploited.
Thanks to a heads-up, we've learned that TV CatchUp, a free, on-demand all-channels system for UK residents, is now working with Symbian OS and Web. It's a public beta, so expect a few things not to work properly. Point Web at m.tvcatchup.com, sign up for a new account, and away you go. More details below.
