So you've a messaging-focussed Nokia E61i smartphone and you keep eyeing up the models in the rival Nseries? Is it possible to have the best of both worlds? To whet your appetite for MWC, at which I hope that at least one crossover device will be launched, here's my guide to (nearly) turning your E61i into an Nseries powerhouse. Qwerty and media? No problem.
Yes, the 3rd party app that started tongues wagging months ago, Mobitubia, is now out, rivalling newcomer emTube, of course. It seems to be freeware, too, and has a sumptuous interface. Link, comments and screenshots below.
SymbianGuru (no, not that Symbian Guru) has released a handy freeware solution for one-way-syncing your Google Finance stock data down to your smartphone. My Portfolio runs under Java and works on all S60 3rd Edition devices. for Series 60-3 mobile phones.
While not set available for download, Keynetix's RockNscroll system for S60 has been demonstrated at CES, and will be on show at both 3GSM and CTIA Wireless. A software solution for the N95 to harness the accelerometers, their demo video of the software has raised many an eyebrow in the blogosphere. The software will be available from free on their website forum in the near future.
The best (also just about the only) database system for S60, HanDBase has had a big update. v4.0 was announced in December and has been going through test builds. v4.00.55 is now online and working well. See below for a changelog, links and some screenshots. Also of note is that the desktop client has also had a big update and looks a lot more modern.
Google has launched a revamped version of its mobile search for select markets. The service is available in the UK, USA, France, Germany and Canada. The new system offers blended results and has a stronger location-based element. Blended results mix in local and news search results with web search results. In practice this means that Google shows the result type that it thinks is most relevant first. Read on for more and lots of screenshot examples.
Ewan continues his music-centric look at the latest Walkman-branded UIQ 3 smartphone from Sony Ericsson. In this part, having already looked at the main Walkman music player, he looks at all the OTHER music and audio-related applications. Do they work well and do they add significant value?
Over on All About N-Gage, we're getting excited about an unconfirmed video which appears to be a trailer for Worms on Next Gen N-Gage. It's from a fairly reliable source, and it features the N81 plus graphics never seen on the original gen N-Gage version. Worms publisher THQ has already said they're supporting Next Gen N-Gage, so a new version of Worms would make a lot of sense.
Joining Rafe, Steve and myself on the latest All About Symbian Insight Show is Stefan Constantinescu from Into Mobile. Discussion this week centers around the differences between the Exx and Nxx series devices - fundamentally the same software, but wildly different smartphones. We also have a reader question submitted by Andrew Currie, asking us about our thoughts on the retail experience of smartphones.
Amidst the flurry of Location Tracker activity at Nokia Beta Labs, it seems Conversation (SMS threading) and Gizmo (free VoIP and chat) both received attention. Conversation has been relaunched (bug fixes, apparently) and the Nseries-only Gizmo has seen bug fixes and support for multiple locations.
It seems that Nokia Maps just got new data. Or at least when I started up Map Loader just now, a popup message informed me that there was new map data and that my existing map sets (on memory card) would be deleted and replaced. Alas, there are no clues as to what exactly has been improved, so comments welcome if you spot any changes in your neck of the woods!
Skyfire is a new proxy-based browsing solution that uses the Firefox 'Gecko' engine on the handset and which can apparently cope with Flash video and other advanced page objects. According to PhoneBoy, it's coming to S60 this quarter and should give both the Webkit-based S60 Web and Opera Mini 4 a run for their money.
Location Tagger, an application that enables the geotagging of photos captured on your phone, is the latest release from Nokia Beta Labs. Location Tagger serves as a preview release, Nokia are planning on building Location Tagger's technology into the core Camera and Gallery apps themselves. Much more below the break, with comment, screenshots and examples.
Nokia today announced that it would acquire Trolltech a company which provides software development platforms and frameworks. Trolltech is best known for its Qt product, a multi-platform graphical user-interface framework. Qt is used in KDE, the web browser Opera, Skype and Google Earth applications. Nokia intends to use Qt to enable cross platform development environments.
