Last Friday, Nokia announced that it had acquired MetaCarta Inc, a privately owned firm based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, which specialises in 'geographic intelligence solutions'. MetaCarta is best known for its geosearch and geotagging products (e.g. NewsMap, which allows publishers to automatically created a map tagged with their news stories) and has partnerships with a number of leading technology firms. MetaCarta's technology will help Nokia improve its social location services, such as local search.
In All About Symbian Insight 113 Ewan and Rafe share news of Nokia's acquisition of MetaCarta, the preview release of Symbian Web Tools and the addition of E71 and E66 compatibility to Ovi Maps 3.3. The major part of the podcast focuses on the launch of Nokia's Comes with Music in China, before ending with some thoughts on Apple's iPhone OS 4. You can listen to AAS Insight 113 here or, if you wish to subscribe, here's the RSS feed.
It's always good to get new developers contacting us. In this case, it's Anthony Rich, with the donation-ware Graphing Calculator, screenshotted and linked below. It's Java-based and optimised for smaller screens - it's also clearly early in development, I'm sure Anthony would be happy with some feedback and suggestions right about now if this is something you'd have a use for.
Digital Chocolate, a well known mobile and web games developer, has announced that its products have been downloaded from the Ovi Store more than 4 million times. To celebrate the announcement Digital Chocolate is, in a limited number of European countries, making five of its game titles available for free via the Ovi Store during April and May (variants of Tower Bloxx, Rollercoaster Rush, Crazy Penguin Party and Dictator Defense). Read on for further details and links.
In All About Symbian Insight podcast no. 112, Ewan returns with a bang and, together with Steve and Rafe, brings you up to date with developments in the Symbian world. We start with news of the WordPress Symbian client, the beta release of Nokia Bots and the recent upgrades to Nokia's Ovi Store. In the second half of the podcast there are hardware thoughts on the Sony Ericsson Vivaz (Steve) and Nokia 5230 (Ewan). You can listen to AAS Insight 112 here or, if you wish to subscribe, here's the RSS feed.
David Gilson sneeks a peek at a couple of novel versions of a classic literary work, looking mainly at one by Offscreen Technologies, but also mentioning GoSpoken's more traditional ebook edition. What do you think of this trend of content being wrapped up in application form? Will it result in us drowning in icons? Comments welcome!
Nokia today announced the availability of Ovi Maps 3.3 (3.03) for the Nokia E71 and E66. The updated version brings the free worldwide pedestrian and car navigation edition of Ovi Maps to these devices. Nokia says the release is a result of listening to consumer feedback: 'you spoke, we listened', says the press release. The E71 and E66 versions do not include the Lonely Planet guides due to technical constraints, but the core navigation offering is the same as that found on more recent devices.
In an unusual double-header review pair, David Gilson looks at two new mini-apps from S60 5th Edition specialists and AAS favourites, Offscreen Technologies: Egg Timer Touch and Sticky Notes. I won't insult your intelligence by explaining what each app does here - the names are giveaways(!) - but you can read David's reviews by clicking on the relevant links.
PDF+ has come a long way from Psion days, a lifespan of well over 10 years. But it seems that it's left somewhat wanting in 2010, as David Gilson pounds it with his PDF document collection and compares it to the Quickoffice Adobe LE PDF reader. PDF+'s developer is very active on AAS, so expect a lively response below and perhaps look out for an updated version and an updated review in due course.
Furtiv, the Share Online plugin maker, recently passed its 100,000th download on the Ovi Store, and has announced the end of its beta stage. Users who installed plugins from Furtiv's mobile site over a month ago are advised to upgrade. More below...
Ewan girds his sporran and risks valuable C: disk space to install the latest Qt runtime and Nokia's in-beta Wordpress client. For all its unfinished nature, this seems to be one client that reeks of quality and possibilities - if you run a Wordpress blog then keep your eyes peeled on this new way of managing your content from a touch-based Symbian smartphone.
In our latest video Ian Hutton (Technology Management at the Symbian Foundation and chair of the Feature and Roadmap Council) explains how the Symbian Foundation's roadmap is put together. We learn about how its community driven nature is directed and driven through external package owners and internal technology managers. Ian also talks us through some of the big themes for the next few releases of the Symbian platform including improvements to the user, developer and device manufacturer experiences. Watched as a whole it is also a great introduction to how Symbian is seeking to shape the future of mobile.
As a commenter in yesterday's story pointed out, the fact the Nokia totally broke their Ovi Store yesterday does have a potential upside: until things get fixed up, content aimed at specific devices is now available to other devices. Potentially dangerous, but one highlight is that the official Facebook client, only ratified previously for the E71 and E72, is now offered for other S60 3rd Edition devices. Grab it while you can. Screenshots below of it running on the N86, for example.
You'll have seen my previous 'retro' article, looking at pimping the Nokia E61i, an early 2007 device that can now be picked up for pocket money but which still has a unique form factor. The same applies, but 'in spades', to the Nokia E90, released only a few months after the E61i but sporting the full Communicator form and also S60 3rd Edition Feature Pack 1, plus SDHC support. Like the E61i, it too had a few performance bottlenecks, so how did I get on pimping the Nokia E90 to 2010 standards and might it possibly challenge the mighty (ahem) N97?
