Popping up at the start of the week was a significant alpha version of Gravity. Taking the popular social media client up to version 1.5a, it’s not quite polished and stable yet, so if you want to wait for the hardened version, then check back in January. But if you’re happy with a little bit of peril, then you’ll get a number of new features and improvements, including a portrait qwerty keyboard for touchscreen devices!

The biggest visible change is the addition of that keyboard – it could well be just a temporary addition as Nokia have said one is coming in the next firmware update (at least for Symbian^3 devices), but in the meantime this is a great substitute and mirrors the approach that Opera have taken. For a piece of code that has a limited lifespan, this is impressive.

The Gravity interface has also had a general spruce up, with more rounding on the corners, the Symbian^3 full screen mode available for S60v5 devices, transparency effects, some shadows, and more small flourishes to improve the UI.

There are also a number of changes in how Twitter and Facebook 'work', and the ability to preview images from Instagr.am in the client.

Available direct from author Jan Ole Suhr, there’s more on the alpha release at Mobileways.de, where you can just grab the SISx installation file direct.