After almost eighteen months of silence, a Nokia forum moderator has finally made an official statement about the status of N-Gage on the N73, N93 and N93i. In short, N-Gage will NOT be coming to those phones. As many predicted, the relatively older OS versions and less powerful hardware on those models apparently weren't up to the job of handling next gen N-Gage games. The low sales of the N93/N93i wouldn't have helped either. Our editorial thoughts on this issue are below. (Click here to see which phones ARE getting N-Gage.)
Much has been made of the Apple iPhone and T-Mobile G1's capacitive touchscreens, with many proclaiming them superior to the humble 'resistive' touchscreens that have been used since the dawn of time (oh, ok, since about 1995). But is it as simple as the one technology being superior? What advantages does 'resistive' tech have and what else do you need to know?
Once again (Symbian's) David Wood's blog provides useful pointers to the future of the Symbian software world. In this post he discusses firmware upgrades and points out, specifically, that the old situation where firmware upgrades were limited by license to a particular OS Feature Pack level may not one day apply because of the way Symbian Foundation is open source and (commercial) license-free. Don't hold your breath, though, you're unlikely to ever see S60 5th Edition running on your old N95!
For an All About Symbian podcast with a difference, join Ewan, Ricky Cadden, Charlie Schnick and Molly Schonthal (the latter two from Nokia) on the show floor at SXSW in the States this week. The discussion's a little more chaotic than usual, but they cover devices, UIs and apps, before moving on to the organisational miracle that is Ewan's Filofax.... Presenting Podcast 119.
Just a quickie, since this has been reported in many other places, but for the sake of completeness, there's a new firmware for the North AMerican version of the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic - firmware v20.2.014 is now available, with many improvements, including (allegedly) a resolution to the 3G reception problems seen in some US cities when the device was launched.
Yes, Ewan's heading off (Twitter feed here) for a three week tour of the USA, taking in social media and gaming events. To try and add a little Symbian spice to proceedings, we insisted he take the Nokia 5800 with him, to really try it out 'on the road'. This is the fourth of his regular video reports, embedded below, letting us know how he's getting on with S60 5th Edition and the 5800. Ewan talks about connectivity, Twitter and TwitPic (using Gravity), plus the delights of using a predictive (virtual) keypad that's twice the size of a regular one.
YouTube has finally, finally, done something about their low-grade 176 by 144 pixel mobile video interface. For Flash Lite 3-compatible phones (which means most S60 phones made in the last couple of years, provided firmware is kept recent), videos are now served up from the mobile YouTube interface in Flash format. Once the video starts playing, you tap to bring it up full screen in Flash Lite's video player. Most significantly, the quality's miles better than the original QCIF version - 480 by 320 pixels for many videos. Screenshots and links below.
Yes, Ewan's heading off for a three week tour of the USA (Twitter feed here), taking in social media and gaming events. To try and add a little Symbian spice to proceedings, we insisted he take the Nokia 5800 with him, to really try it out 'on the road'. This is the third of his regular video reports, letting us know how he's getting on with S60 5th Edition and the 5800. Embedded below is part 3 of this series, in which he chats about connectivity, the touch interface generally, the contact bar homescreen and handwriting and T9 text input.
A while ago we asked the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation if they had an online OPML directory of their podcasts. They replied they didn't but would make one, and true to their word it has just gone live. You can now browse and subscribe to all CBC podcasts on your S60 device by adding the directory address http://www.cbc.ca/podcasts.opml to your Podcasting application. We will be publishing a more detailed article about this later, but for the moment see our previous article on how to add directories to the S60 Podcasting application (the link also has the URLs for the BBC and NPR podcast directories). Also see our guide to podcasting on the Nokia 5800.
Yes, Ewan's heading off (Twitter feed here) for a three week tour of the USA, taking in social media and gaming events. To try and add a little Symbian spice to proceedings, we insisted he take the Nokia 5800 with him, to really try it out 'on the road'. This is the second of his regular video reports, letting us know how he's getting on with S60 5th Edition and the 5800. Embedded below is part 2 of this series.
Hot off the press, Ovi just added support for S60 5th Edition phones such as the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic and N97. Each can now be added in the 'Manage your device' section and, crucially, you can now sync your Calendar, Contacts, To-dos and Notes to Ovi. For 5800 owners like me who have felt a little uneasy about the lack of OTA backup, then this is very welcome. Screen grab proof below.
The BBC's 'Mobile' site has been given (at least, in beta form) a huge refresh, with the code required so that you can customise the stories and features you see. Don't like Sport? Get rid of it. Live in Coventry? Make it your location for weather reports. And so on. Cleverly, there's also an inline panel showing top iPlayer content when the new custom page is viewed on compatible devices. Read on for more.
