During Nokia's Capital Markets Day event, held yesterday, a few screenshots showing Symbian^3 were shown off as part of Kai Öistämö's (Nokia EVP, Devices) presentation. While the big Symbian UI rewrite will not happen until Symbian^4, there are still some significant changes in Symbian^3. Read on for further details and commentary.
In All About Symbian Insight 97 (AAS Podcast 161), we discuss the release of Qt 4.6 and why it is important (Symbian and Maemo support, Qt Mobility APIs). We answer a range of user questions ranging from Ovi Suite for Mac, through N86 firmware and E72 software, to discussing what's the best current imaging phone. You can listen to AAS Insight 97 here or, if you wish to subscribe, here's the RSS feed.
Opera continues to improve on the recent first beta release of Opera Mini 5 (Java) and Opera Mobile 10 (native C++) for Symbian OS. Beta two sees numerous bug fixes, and the addition of a Download manager and Opera Link - which allows you to sync your bookmarks and browser settings to other Opera installations on your desktop or second smartphones. Point your phone's browser at m.opera.com/next for the new version.
Google Maps for Symbian just got updated to v3.3, with direct syncing support for your 'starred' places (to the full Web version of Google Maps). In addition, on the first sync, your Nokia/Ovi Maps favourites also get uploaded. You can get v3.3 by going to m.google.com in Web on your phone. There are a couple of screenshots after the break.
There's a handy new set of video tutorials for Quickoffice Premier 6.0 over on the main Quickoffice site, including 'Editing spreadsheets', 'Editing cells', 'Formatting spreadsheets' and 'Editing Word documents'. The content is a little clumsy in places because of the need to apply to both touch and d-pad-driven interfaces, but it's still well worth a look. And Quickoffice's perennial half-price offer still seems applicable - if you don't see it, try bringing up the page from a different PC or IP address.
As I observed almost a year ago, the pairing of a Symbian smartphone and an Apple iPod Touch makes a huge amount of sense in terms of their complimentary strengths. And now Mike Macias is rightly making similar observations, pointing out that the Nokia E71 armed with JoikuSpot (for sharing its data connection via Wi-Fi) makes a perfect partner for the latest 2G iPod Touch. The best of both worlds? Food for thought, at least!
iSearch is a delightful little widget for touchscreen S60 smartphones. It provides a very simple function – to take a search term from the user and direct it to one of many search engines online to help you find whatever you're looking for. Now you might think that this is the job of your bookmarks page, rather than an external application, and if you are a l33t power hacker then you'd be right. But iSearch is for everyone else, reckons Ewan.
The times, they are, as the bard quoth, a changin' - Google Maps Navigation now provides free turn by turn voice instructions on Android-powered phones in the USA, and it's only a matter of time before the licensing restrictions and map rollouts get sorted for real time navigation in many other countries. And all for free. But this still leaves a window of opportunity for Nokia to step in and change this landscape in an even bigger way - right now. And sell a truckload of phones in the process, worldwide. Read on for my thoughts.
For anyone else waiting for an iSync plug-in for the Nokia N97 mini, to enable Mac syncing, note that Jim @ Worded Wonders has produced one, currently best described as in alpha status, see his blog post about it here. Comments welcome if you've got time to try this today. Of course, if Nokia could just put in 10 minutes effort and do an official one....
Available for almost all recent S60 phones (touchscreen and non-touch), HP's free iPrint Photo software is now available in the on-device Ovi Store as a small 250k native Symbian utility. It's touted as a quick way to print 6" by 4" prints from your phone's photo albums. It's all done via Wi-Fi, so you will need a Wi-Fi-enabled printer, it seems. Comments welcome if you've printed using this by other means!
Nokia has released a new firmware update for the Nokia E71. The new version, 400.21.013, adds improved support for Nokia Email / Messaging and a pre-installed version of Ovi Contacts, contains numerous stability and bug fixes, and includes small updates for Internet radio, Quickoffice, Ovi Store, Email Setup Wizard, and Mail for Exchange. The update can be downloaded and installed using Nokia Software Updater, which is a module of PC Suite.
Finally a version of the Facebook widget has appeared for S60 3rd Edition, in the form of a download for the wide-screened Nokia E71 and E72 (anyone able to verify it also works on the E61i and E63?). Supported devices will find Facebook in the Ovi Store now, according to Clinton Jeff, who provides details and screenshots here.
Priced at only a (UK) pound, Mind is an interesting application from the Ovi Store - it takes a well recognised organisational technique, that of mind mapping, and places it in a Java application on your smartphone. With a system of vector graphics and smart links, there's a lot to recommend it, but ultimately the Java interface and necessarily limited screen size mitigate against it, or so reckons Ewan in his review of Mind.
In All About Symbian Insight 96 (AAS Podcast 160), we discuss recent rumour around Nseries in 2012 and the related Symbian / Maemo debate. Then there's news coverage of the Nokia 6700 Slide and Spotify on Symbian. We finish with a number of reader questions ranging from the web as a platform to buggy firmware and augmented reality. You can listen to AAS Insight 96 here or, if you wish to subscribe, here's the RSS feed.
fring (sic) today released, to selected Symbian devices, an updated version of their social communication application that enables Skype video calling functionality. This is the first, consumer ready, implementation of Skype video calls on a mobile phone. You can both place and receive Skype video calls from other users (including other fring users). It is an extremely impressive technology implementation and a good example of what is possible with the Symbian platform. Read on for more.
