More Convenient! More Productive! More Fun! Announced at CTIA in Las Vegas, the new version of Opera Mini, v 4.1, certainly sounds like it's at home with the lingo of the city of flashy lights. This is a beta release, but nevertheless with a speed increase of up to 50% and the ability to save pages and content without invoking any other application on your device, Opera Mini continues to provide strong competition to on-device browsers. Screenshots and more details below.
JoikuSpot, the phenomenal little utility that turns your smartphone into a Wi-Fi hotspot for your laptop and other hardware, just got significantly better, with the release of a new beta (1.2) that supports WEP encryption. Previously, your little Wi-Fi hotspot had to be open to allcomers, with predictable results. (via The Symbian Blog)
Fed up waiting for N-Gage to go live? Console yourselves with this brand new games compilation from PDA maestros Astraware. After yesterday's announcement, and after a week or so of actual pre-release gameplay, Ewan presents his review of Astraware Boardgames, for both S60 3rd Edition and UIQ 3. Summary: classic games, well pitched and well implemented, Boardgames only falls short of Megagame status by a gnat's whisker.
It's.... AAS Insight 19 (aka AAS audio podcast 68), mainly concentrating on the news of UIQ 3.3 and what it will mean, but also chatting about the split of Motorola, the v21 update for the Nokia N95 Classic and the usual software spots. Here's the Insight 19 listening link, here's the RSS feed for you to subscribe for the future.
Astraware, arguably THE top name in PDA gaming, has finally started releasing titles for Symbian OS, with the simultaneous launch of "Boardgames" for both S60 3rd Edition and UIQ 3, supporting all the usual devices. The games include Chess, Reversi, Backgammon, Snakes and ladders, Nine Mens Morris and Checkers. Ewan's been playing with an advance copy for a while and he'll have a full review tomorrow, hopefully. See below for some screenshots and the full press release.
Trippo popped its head above the software parapet a few days ago when it got added to Nokia's Download! service for the N95 8GB. But it's available to all and is in the AAS software shop. The big question is, can it live up to its claims? Ewan's been reviewing Trippo and both he and I were gobsmacked at how good the service is - and also at how expensive it might work out.
Download! has been significantly recorganised by Nokia for some devices, with increased use of folders and many new games (N95 8GB screenshots shown below). It's still a mile away from how comprehensive Apple's iPhone AppStore is going to be though. Can Nokia use its headstart to improve Download! across the board in time? Comments welcome. Also, do please comment if you've spotted similarly interesting Download! additions on any device.
SlingPlayer, the streaming-from-your-home media solution made popular on S60, has been announced for UIQ 3 smartphones as well, with imminent availability. In a parallel statement, Sling Media also announced compatibility with the Nokia N95 8GB. The full press release is below.
To coincide with their UIQ 3.3 announcement, UIQ Technology have released five pretty new themes for UIQ smartphones: UIQ Wave, UIQ Snow, UIQ Lounge, UIQ Black Build and UIQ Chili. Very cool. Isn't it about time we had some new official S60 themes?
Launched in October 2007, Mippin has managed to not only get
over the initial ‘what is this service?’ that every Web 2.0 property has to deal
with, but has continued to gain users and presence in its first six months. I
caught up with VP of Product Management Prashant Agarwal at the recent SXSW
Interactive festival, where he demoed two of Mippin’s latest features to me –
Mippin Video and Mippin Today.
In Insight #18 (AAS Podcast 67) Rafe, Ewan and Steve talk about this week's news (N-Gage First Access closing and Comes with Music). Rafe and Steve discuss their first impressions of the Samsung SGH-i450 and Samsung SGH-i550 (S60 phones) and afterwards Ewan talks about how he recorded and broadcast video on his trip to the USA.
Thanks to Ricky Cadden for pointing us towards the brand new beta of OwnSkin's Professional Theme Creator. It's a 100% online theme creation application for S60 smartphones, i.e. no messing around with Java tools or having to install an SDK. Be patient while it's loading up, it'll take a minute or so to load into your desktop browser but the end result's well worth it. Finished themes can be shared directly or simply downloaded as SIS files for your device.
Will the incredibly popular Y-Browser file manager ever get to the big 1.0? Somehow I doubt it, but in the meantime note that Y-Browser's now up to v0.88, released yesterday, with tweaked design, bug fixes (especially to help SP2 compatibility), menu shortcut accelerators, wildcard file selection, file association settings added, plus a proper plug-in manager. It's all a (fabulous and) free download over at DrJukka.
It's not often that Krisse struggles, but there seems to be a dearth of Easter themes around. For our article, we've only uncovered four Easter themes of varying relevance - can you help Krisse by suggesting other themes that fit this holiday better? Comments welcome!
Yup, I'm still maintaining my 'No Nags' lists of freeware over at 3-Lib - I've been tweaking my freeware list for all UIQ 3 smartphones (e.g. Sony Ericsson M600, P1i) - can you help to add to it? Anything I've missed out?
