The story so far. The N8 and other Symbian^3 phones came with Nokia Social networking 1.1, which was limited and slow. Version 1.2 was auto-detected and added limited social media sharing, but it was up to the 1.3 update to improve performance, insert status updates in Contacts, and extend sharing to full resolution uploads. Sadly, 1.3 was pulled after 3 days by Nokia for unspecified stability reasons, but the good news is that it's now available again, improved, fixed and facelifted, for all Symbian^3 phones over at Nokia Beta Labs and, presumably, available to a wider public on-device or in firmware at some point thereafter. Read on for new screenshots, comments and links.

The changelog from v1.3.143 to v1.3.189 is:

• Fix for installation issues for a small proportion of users.
• Fix for cache issue with Facebook module whereby photos wouldn't display on the first time into an album.
• Facelift, with new icon, tweaked graphics and revised layout.

All your existing accounts will be remembered but there's a change under the hood and you'll need to re-authenticate by supplying your password for each social network. Here are some screens of Nokia Social 1.3.189 in action:

More from today's post over at Nokia Beta Labs:

See live updates from your favorite social networks pushed to your home screen.  With social-enabled Contacts, now you can see what your friends are up to before you make a phone call.  Import Facebook events right into your phone's calendar. Seamlessly send photos and videos from within your phone's camera—simply shoot and share! Update your status with location and points-of-interest, making it easier than ever to share news, make plans and stay connected.

Whats new with Social 1.3, compared with 1.2?

Contacts improvement:
Status update directly in Contact Card
Linked contact indicator in Friends List

Share improvements:
Add caption when sharing photos from camera
Removing photo upload compression > high resolution picture upload

Facebook/Twitter enhancements:
Retweet
View followers list

We are working to provide more enhancements in future releases, such as automatic Contact linking, Facebook notifications, new widget functionalities, and more.  Stay tuned.

Here's the download page (once you're signed in to Beta Labs), it's a 3.1MB .SIS file. (As with Nokia Messaging and Nokia Ovi Store, you'll need a SIM card in your phone when you install and start it for the first time, so that the right social networks for your region can be auto-detected.)

This is going to sound a little melodramatic, but I've been using Nokia Social Networking 1.3 since its first release and have been impressed enough that I haven't really booted up Gravity very often since. Is Nokia Social as good as Gravity? Not even close. Is it good enough for most casual users now? Absolutely. I particularly like the homescreen widget that cycles through recent tweets and Facebook updates from your friends and contacts.

The only shame is that by releasing through Beta Labs, not many people will get to use Nokia Social 1.3(.189) for a while. Here's hoping for a wide and official release on-device within a very short timeframe.

Steve Litchfield, All About Symbian, 25 March 2011