All together now (again): "Why does the N-Gage get all the best games and when can we have them for our generic S60 smartphones?" Ewan's been playing High Seize and is quite impressed, there's strategy and atmosphere galore in this N-Gage swashbuckler. Here's the review.
There's been a huge amount of talking on the net about the S60 Yahoo! Go! client. Christian Lindholm's blog has a great post, although given he previously worked at Nokia and is now with Yahoo! maybe that much would be obvious. Tarek has a huge number of screenshots from his installation and first experiences, while CNet points out that the client will be pre-installed on Series 60 devices in ten countries (but handily doesn't say which ones).
TWT SMS reader claims to give you access to text messaging without needing to see your smartphone screen. Steve puts it to the test and finds it surprisingly clear, even if it does fail to handle simple text abbreviations.... Here's the review.
[Huge personal plug alert] Programme 1 in a new 'TV' series looking specifically at smartphones has aired. The show covers all software platforms and is currently free to download online. Read on for details...
There's a veritable flood of Internet-borne 'services' that you access on your smartphone coming out of America (and specifically the CES show) but what they're announcing makes no sense whatsoever in most of the rest of the world. Read on...
A few more Symbian related gems from CES, this time in the new Yahoo! Go service. The mobile sync section is just a small part of the service, but the Series 60 client allows you to keep Contacts, Photos and Email messages in sync with your Yahoo! account. There is also a client for Yahoo Messenger, allowing you to use Yahoo IM on your phone. In addition Yahoo Go Mobile acts as a shortcut, via bookmarks, to allow you to access many Yahoo Mobile services including games, and information (news, weather, finance movies). We'll have a more in-depth look at this next week once we've had a play.
"Anytime, Anywhere" is Nokia's promise for their latest N-Gage competition. If you sign up through the Arena, you'll get an alert saying it's time to play either Tiger Woods (a knockout competition), Colin McRae Rally or Snakes (both of those are Power Hour best score posted in 60 minutes format). The thrice weekly competitions start on January the ninth.
Forget those 'match and tap' puzzles, this is the real thing. The classic Mastermind game on steroids, Steve finds that Enigma is brain-manglingly challenging and slickly implemented for both Series 60 and Series 80. Read the review.
I'd been rather concerned that the Canalys figures throughout 2005 had been somehow 'missing' all the Windows Mobile smartphones branded by network operators. But according to Bill Gates himself, total worldwide sales of Microsoft-powered smartphones in 2005 were only about 3.6 million. This compares to Nokia's combined S60 and Series 80 sales of around 23 million. Symbian OS thus outselling Windows Mobile by 5 and a half to one. Now that's what you call a market lead.
MetrO is a freeware tube routefinder that works for many cities around the world, on all Symbian-based smartphones. Steve's been putting it through its paces on his Nokia 7710 to let us know what it's like.
As MobHappy puts it: 'Another problem is that people don't compartmentalize their music into "music I can listen to on my stereo," "music I can listen to on my computer," "music I can listen to on my MP3 player," and they won't add "music I can listen to on my phone". People just have their music, and expect it to travel across all their playback devices.' We couldn't agree more. Look out for some music 'How to's coming soon on AAS.
Following up on the Nokia Mobile Store in Russia, the Finns have come to an agreeement with CompUSA to brand certain in-store sections of branches of the popular American Retailer as "Nokia Experience @ CompUSA" (Mobile Burn). They'll be using this to demo units such as the 770 Tablet, N90 and 6682.
Steve Litchfield is surprised by the speed and efficiency of Roadmap of Great Britain for the Nokia Communicator (9210/9300/9500). An alternative to the voice-guided navigator that's distinctly handy to keep on your MMC. Steve also looks at the London street map sister product (for both the Communicator and S60). Here's the review.
Darla's spotted yet another outbreak of buck-chasing virus paranoia, this time from AhnLab. Read on for some priceless marketing quotes. And if you're worried about the threat of mobile malware then don't be. Read on...
