Now that the excitement of MWC is over, we present another in our series of tutorials for people who are new to the Symbian world: How to update the firmware on the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic. As always, if you spot a mistake or have a suggestion please do let us know in the comments thread. Our previous articles in the series can be found in the Nokia 5800 Tutorials Index.
Over on All About N-Gage we've been covering quite a few stories lately, here are some of them: Fishlabs have just announced five games for N-Gage including the next gen's first RPG, AAN has started its own Twitter channel, a selection of N-Gage games have been greatly reduced in price, there are several N-Gage contests where you can win holidays, phones and games, the S60 Ambassador programme is giving away N-Gage games in a new campaign, and of course Nokia's recently announced six new N-Gage-compatible phones.
In all the rush of innovation and new devices, we missed the announcement by F-Secure that they are the first anti-virus company to support S60 5th Edition. Their Mobile Security 5 product is now available via F-Secure or Nokia Download, if you feel the need for some extra strength protection.
Rafe's still pounding the floor at MWC 2009, of course, but he took time with MIR's Ben Smith yesterday to give his opinions of Nokia's latest camera flagship, the N86 8MP, in great detail. Below the break is the full six minute video interview, enjoy.
Our final daily podcast from the Mobile World Congress as we look back at the GSMA awards, the environmental impact of mobile phones, chargers, Nokia messaging, SIM cards and almost the Android G2. Enjoy!
Ovi Store has been announced, and many people just saw another smartphone applications shop. But it's actually a lot more than that, and its launch could be the most significant thing Nokia has done since entering the mobile phone business, or so reckons Tzer2 in an All About Symbian editorial.
Working on the venerable Nokia N95, N82 and E90 (and compatibles - but not the newer devices with different chipsets), Nokia Magnifier is a new free utility that automates the use of a smartphone camera in focussing 'close-up' mode to provide a virtual magnifying glass, for looking at small print, for example. Video below the break.
At last night's GSMA awards, Nokia walked away with the inaugural award for Outstanding Environmental Contribution for their global environmental program that includes a recycling scheme for unwanted phones operating in 86 countries. Sports Tracker, while still a beta product, took the prize for Best Mobile Internet Service. Since the full launch in July 2008, it has seen over 2.5 million downloads, allowing users to track and share their daily fitness routines while out and about.
With so much news flowing through this front page over the last 72 hours, I thought a brief link summary might be in order. Sony Ericsson went first, with their display of their early prototype 12mp, S60 5th Edition Idou. Then we had Nokia's main keynote, introducing the S60 3rd Edition Nokia E55 and side-sliding E75, plus the Ovi Store. They also quietly dropped the 6710 Navigator and 6720 Classic. Samsung chipped in next with their launch of the Omnia HD, running S60 5th Edition and with 3.7" OLED screen and 8mp camera. Nokia then showed off the new N86 8MP at a breakfast launch, an N85 with significantly reworked camera. LG brought up the rear with their latest, the KT770, an otherwise unremarkable 3rd Edition slider.
Continuing to round up Mobile World Congress 2009, a few links of interest for Wednesday morning. Nokia Messaging just got itself an upgrade, with the return of Access point selection and a better experience for Yahoo! Mail users; well spotted Symbian's William, showing a veritable wall of Samsung Omnia HD phones all waiting to be carted off to AAS for review(!); plus our own Rafe has been busy overnight, see the live link above for his own photos and thoughts on the new phones announced; finally, Rafe was cornered by the chatty MIR team at the show and asked for his thoughts so far.
The team behind the internet telephony company Truphone have announced their Local Anywhere service at MWC. A SIM card based virtual network, it promises a full voice and data service with clear pricing for the users. Details on those charges should be available before the service launches later in the year.
Steve and I continue to look over the stories from Barcelona in the second of three planned podcasts discussing the MWC, before a full blown Insight Podcast when Rafe returns. More after the break.
As you know, the Symbian Foundation is all about Open Source, meaning that anyone, from the individual to the big company, can get involved with working on the OS source code. Membership is now open, and anyone interested in the process for becoming a member of the Symbian Foundation can now download and view the relevant set of documents here. For more information, see also David Wood's blog entry on the subject.
The GSMA has announced a plan for major phone manufacturers to produce one standard charger that would work with all handset brands, using a microUSB plug as the connection point (not miniUSB, as some sites have reported). The plan has the backing of almost every major phone maker, and if it succeeds presumably the rest of the phone industry will fall into line too. There are already some phones which do charge from microUSB, and the aim is to make most new models use standard chargers by 2012.
Nokia and Skype have announced plans to fully integrate Skype into selected Nokia devices. Kicking off with the Nokia N97, Skype will be part of Contacts, enabling users to easily see when their Skype contacts are online, to call and to chat using a data connection. Other selected Nseries devices are also likely to come with integrated Skype functionality, through initial inclusion and through firmware upgrades.
