Some say he's secretly part of Finnish Rock band Lordi. Some say he only needs 5 minutes sleep a night. All we know is, he's called Ewan Spence. Part 4 of a series of short videos from Ewan is embedded below, along with some of his 'diary' commentary, as part of his gaming and blogging spring trip to San Francisco (GDC) and Austin (SXSW). Rafe set him a series of challenges (also known as a real world test of the Nokia 5230 / Nokia Nuron). In part 4, Ewan takes on the Stig-delivered challenge of finding a party, having a drink and messing around with FourSquare.... [Hmm... sounds like a 'jolly' to me.... Ed]
The native Opera Mobile 10 and the Java-based Opera Mini 5 have finally graduated from their long standing beta status, with Opera Software officially announcing that the two applications are now "consumer ready". There's a quote and introduction video embedded below. Both work on all Symbian smartphones.
As part of the activities at its MIX10 conference Microsoft has announced that the Beta of Silverlight for Symbian is now available. Microsoft describes Silverlight as 'a cross-browser, cross-platform implementation of the .NET Framework for building media experiences and rich interactive applications for the Web on desktop computers'. The current Beta lets you run Silverlight applications and content in the standard Symbian^1 (S60 5th Edition) web browser.
In All About Symbian Insight 109 (AAS Podcast 173), Rafe and Steve start off with a Sony Ericsson theme - they talk about the recent Satio firmware upgrade and some first impression views on the Sony Ericsson Vivaz. Steve then reports back on the latest release of YouTube for Symbian, Rafe shares news of Qt 4.7's preview release and the podcast concludes with a discussion of Ovi Maps' new pricing on older devices. You can listen to AAS Insight 109 here or, if you wish to subscribe, here's the RSS feed.
Mobile Systems, far from being daunted by the Quickoffice juggernaut, have been plugging away at their competing OfficeSuite for S60 - the latest v5.30 can edit Google Documents directly, something of a breakthrough for the Symbian world. A hat tip to Wampyre here for both spotting the new version and doing a brief, illustrated write-up. Comments welcome if you're an OfficeSuite user and can add your recommendation.
Ovi Suite, Nokia's new all-singing all-dancing Windows desktop magnum opus, has just had an important update, to v2.1.1(.1, if you're counting builds), with 'critical fixes' for synchronisation and device software updates, especially under Windows 7. Fire up Ovi Suite, if you have it installed, and click on 'Check for updates' on the main menu.
Our latest MWC video features a walkabout with Lee Williams, Executive Director of the Symbian Foundation, in Hall 1 of exhibition area. The video summarises some of the key messages of the Symbian Foundation from the event. There's discussion of the buzz around Symbian at MWC, the formal launch of Symbian^3, the Open Screen Project (which the Symbian Foundation had just joined), the importance and strengths of Qt to Symbian developers going forward, the Sony Ericsson Vivaz and the bright future for Symbian.
Google's drive for world domination around your country has been going nicely, judging from the fact that Street View just went live for virtually all the UK. Yes, every last track, every last estate road - it's all there in glorious technicolour on your smartphone. Google Maps for Mobile itself is available from the usual m.google.com/gmm and to see Street View you need to long tap on any location and pick 'Street View' from the pop-up menu.
Nokia is currently transforming itself from a hardware company to a hardware+services (solutions) company. At MWC 2010, we spoke to Tero Ojanperä, EVP of Services, in order to get an insight into current progress. Over a wide-ranging interview we cover a number of topics around Nokia's service strategy including how Ovi fits into Nokia's software platform strategy, the thought processes that led to free navigation, the importance of services compared to phone hardware, getting content onto the Ovi Store, the importance of partners and much more.
The YouTube Mobile client for S60 has gone through more versions than I've had flavours of ice cream recently, but at last the one we've all been waiting for has appeared. Version 2.4 (build 4) has full support for YouTube favourites, plus search suggestions and a revamped layout on S60 5th Edition phones like the Nokia 5800. Read on.
As noted in Rafe's Maps interview thread, Nokia isn't keen to put resources behind creating a version of Ovi Maps 3.3 with free voice navigation for older S60 3rd Edition FP2 and FP1 (and vanilla 3rd Edition) phones. A good question is why Nokia doesn't then just make existing navigation licenses free, thus having much the same effect. It seems that they've gone much of the way to 'free' for older devices, with even a full 'Drive Europe' license now only costing 10 Euros for a year - this presumably to help cover admin and server costs. Photo proof and more below.
In this interview, recorded in Barcelona at MWC 2010, we talk to Christof Hellmis, Director Navigation & Routing Solutions at Nokia, about Ovi Maps and Nokia's location strategy. It is clear that location has an enormously important role to play as a key enabler in the future of mobile - and this piece will give you an insight to Nokia's viewpoints and attitudes. We cover the story behind the recent release of the Ovi Maps 3.3 with free navigation, potential future improvements to Ovi Maps, the Ovi Developer SDK, future directions and much more.
Always good to see a company from the now defunct UIQ world make waves in the S60 5th Edition world - CellPhoneSoft's latest is a port of their BigBen utility, a "combined clock screensaver, key lock, and reminder utility for S60 smartphones." Some screens and links below.
Thanks to CJ for the heads-up that Emoze, the third party push email aggregator that preceded Nokia Messaging, has just opened up its 'Pro' version for free. You can read more about it below and on the Emoze Blog but essentially you get rich HTML, multiple accounts, Gmail, Hotmail and Facebook support, plus a lot more.
According to the official Ovi Blog, the enormous HRS system is beginning to appear in the homescreen of Ovi Maps 3.3 (and beyond), offering hotel searching by proximity to your current location, with navigation to a hotel handled within the application. There's also integration with other phone functi
ons, to allow real time availability checking and booking. Initially HRS is appearing in just Germany and Finland, but other countries should see this rolled out quite soon too. Some quotes and screens below.
