Anyone with Symbian Belle onboard might like to check out two software items, both free. 'Nokia Car Mode' essentially takes a common subset of applications needed while driving and presents them in large fonted, finger-friendly form, to avoid distractions and make it easier to concentrate on the actual motoring. 'Nokia Play To' uses one-way DLNA to let you show photos and videos (and listen to music) on your mobile wirelessly on your TV/home hi-fi. Links below.
For anyone using Windows who likes to live a little on the wild side, there's a brand new version of Nokia Suite, 3.3, available over on Beta Labs today. There's emphasis on the ease of update to Belle when it becomes available, so I suspect that both backup and firmware handling modules have been improved, plus there are improvements to proxy server handling, to message syncing and organisation. And newer is better when it comes to connectivity, right? Some quotes and links below.
Nokia is clarifying the naming of the user interface of its Symbian smartphones. The user interface will now be referred to as Nokia Belle, rather than Symbian Belle. The operating system will continue to be referred to as Symbian. Thus devices, such as the Nokia 701, will be referred to as Symbian smartphones running the Nokia Belle user interface.
You'll remember that Nokia has been running through numerous iterations of a next-gen Store client over on Beta Labs, built in Qt and QML rather than relying on both Qt and Web runtime? This has now graduated ('deployed commercially') to the mainstream with the release of v3.20.050, offered over-the-air when a user starts up an older version of the 'Ovi Store' - now renamed to 'Nokia Store', of course. Don't panic if you don't get offered this now though, see below...
It appears that Google has finally withdrawn its official Gmail client, written in Java, for Symbian smartphones. Version 2.06 hadn't been updated for two years and I'm guessing that changes at the server end meant that at some point in the near future the client was going to stop working anyway. To avoid complaints, Google has simply pulled the download page for the client. A shame, given that many on S60 3rd Edition phones still use it and would have liked the option to re-install it when needed (though see the PS below).
Hot off the press today is a new beta of Nokia's next-gen QML-written Store application, grab it now for Symbian^3/Anna/Belle phones. New for v3.20.044 is support for the Nokia E6's VGA display, plus 'Registration Lite', allowing new users to grab up to 10 free applications without having to register a Nokia Account. Full changelog below.
Nokia's experimental augmented reality view onto its huge places of interest database, Live View, just got faster and easier to use, updated to version 2.03 r14137, with a more standard 'List' view to add to the standard 'Camera' view, plus a built-in tutorial. The changelog is below, plus download links and a reminder of the launch/concept video.
With the news that mobile (and especially Symbian) stalwarts SPB Software has been bought up by Yandex, a Russian search company, the future of star products such as the free SPB TV was in serious doubt. Happily, it seems that this application has been spun off into a separate, independent enterprise, under the company name MobiWorld Media. This should ensure SPB TV's continued existence for all mobile platforms. More below.
Not available in the Nokia Store yet, but downloadable from get.nimbuzz.com, is a new v3.3 of this popular chat client, picthed as having a completely 'redesigned' home screen and new shortcuts for 'recent' chats, for 'N-World' and for 'Groupchat'. As ever, the Nimbuzz folks offer a premium experience provided you live within the chat systems supported (Windows Live Messenger (MSN), Yahoo IM, AIM, GoogleTalk, Facebook and MySpace are the main ones). The changelog is below.
In the penultimate update to Angry Birds Rio, the furious feathered ones take on the might of a Smuggler's Plane. It joins previous episodes Jungle Escape, Beach Volley, Carnival Upheaval and Airfield Chase, and is a free update to those who already have the application - or you could pick it up in the Nokia Store!
With NFC baked into Symbian Belle (and a few Anna builds!), the number of applications with NFC capability keeps on growing. The latest addition to the number is Foursquare, as detailed in the NFC blog post quoted below. You can now just walk up to a Foursquare check-in poster at an event, tap your phone to it, even if the application isn't already running, and bang, you're checked in.
In June this year, we reviewed version 1.0 of Business Calendar. This was the first serious attempt in years at replacing the built-in Symbian Calendar application. Even though the 1.1 update addressed several of our criticisms, there was still some missing functionality. Fortunately, version 1.3 has been released with a number of new features, including multiple homescreen widgets. Read on to find out whether this is now the ultimate Calendar replacement.
The Nokia Store application is currently inviting users to claim a number of free gifts. The store has had several rounds of free gifts in the past where users could claim paid-for applications free of charge. On offer in this round of pre-Christmas cheer is: Camera Lover Pack, Angry Birds, Moodagent, Nimbuzz free and eBuddy. However, contents may vary from device to device. Read on for more details.
The best web browser for Symbian just got itself an update. Following the update to Opera Mini last week, its big brother, the full-on browser Opera Mobile has also now been updated, to v11.5.1. The main change is enhancements to language choice and predictive text in the search field, but there are also a ton of bug fixes.
Just updated in the Nokia Store but also available via the web directly, is the latest and greatest version of Opera Mini, v6.5.1, adding predictive text input and a choice of input languages in the search field. We've quoted the changelog below, along with the links you might need.
