All About Symbian - News

Some top S60 Widgets for your phone

Widgets on mobile seem to be a hot topic this year; we have already covered the technology several times on AAS. But now that the first S60 Widgets are becoming available what is the reality like? In this feature Ewan takes a look at some of the Widgets he finds most useful.

S60 Widgets, small applications and utilities that look and behave like standard S60 application are starting to become available for download. Nokia's new widget library is a good place to start downloading the widgets (http://nokia.mobi/widgets/), as is their Mosh service (http://mosh.nokia.com/).

Read on in the full feature.

Let us know in the comment thread if you've found any S60 Widgets you find particularly useful.

Social Networks on your Mobile - 93% of Users Don't Use Them

If you have your mobile phone with you all the time, surely that's where you'd expect to see your social networks enabled? Well, even with dedicated mobile sites, and the occasional java utility to get to sites such as Facebook and MySpace, users aren't biting (reports the LSE in this PDF report). With only 47% using their mobile to check email or browse the web there's a lot of work to go before you can address the tiny 7% that use the mobile for social network usage.

Perhaps we need a social netork dedicated to mobile? Anyone know of a good one? More at MoCoNews.

Open Source Is Not The Only Answer....

As any sane person would realise, simply slapping code into the Open Source bucket isn't enough to build an eco-system, and it's good to hear from both John Forsyth of Symbian speaking at OSCON, and Janne Jalkannen (via Nokia Conversations, but speaking on a personal level) that this is point appears to be well understood in the respective companies.

The conjecture is pretty simple. You work with an open source project because (a) you have to because that's your job or (b) because you want to. Symbian at the moment has a rather huge amount in the first category, while there are significantly less in the second category. For a truly successful open source project, they need to be in balance.

"The problem with Symbian is that very, very few people touch it for fun. So I believe that while we can open source it, it is going to be very difficult to get people participate out of their own free will, unless we are prepared to make very serious refactorings to the entire system.

"Still, it is going to keep Symbian in the game a little longer. While many people dislike it (just go to any Finnish IT newspaper discussion board to verify this), the fact is that it does carry a significant amount of gold home every day. So we must be doing something right, and my bank account would very much like to us keep doing that."

More at Nokia Conversations.

E71 gets a big thumbs up from The Register

Well, at least they didn't give the E71 to Nokia-hater Andrew O.... Writer Dave Oliver gives the new E71 his seal of approval, concluding that it's "a brilliantly efficient piece of technology that does pretty much everything you might want it to do and it does it all extremely well. Like a technological servant of sorts, it serves up its many excellent facilities and a host of other titbits with a minimum of fuss - and no small amount of style."

UK rail times to Calendar

Lifted from the comments to a previous story, I wanted to highlight an addition to the excellent traintimes.org.uk. When accessed from your phone browser, the site now has the facility to add a UK train journey (via a vCal file, don't worry, it all happens seamlessly) into your phone's Calendar. Very cool, and the site only needs just over 100K of data per lookup, much less than the full Nation Rail equivalent.

A really really easy way to install N-Gage on a compatible phone

If you have an N-Gage-compatible phone (at the moment that means the N81, N81 8GB, N82, N95 or N95 8GB) you may like to take a look at this article over on AAN which details an ultra-simple method for installing the N-Gage application. It works entirely through the phone's browser, and doesn't require a computer at all. We've mentioned this method before in other articles, but it seems a lot of people missed it and Nokia doesn't really publicise it either, so here it is again in greater detail.

Automating Open Signed Online

Non-programmers look away now. Budding Python wizards might like to note Arkadiusz's scripts here that automate the building of an Open Signed SIS file, saving you having to do everything manually every time you change something in your code and want to build a new SIS for installation on your test device. (via Forum Nokia)

Get Quickoffice 5.0 for S60 for $1

Quickoffice are offering the chance, for one day only (July 22nd), to buy Quickoffice Premier 5 for just $1. [Offer now ended] The usual price is around $70 (or less if you buy via your phone). Quickoffice enables the reading, editing and creation of Microsoft Office files on your S60 phone. You can read our full review of software here.

Version 5 includes support for Microsoft Office 2007 file formats (and printing support for Eseries phones). This is an absolute bargain and we definitely recommend this as a 'must have given' the price.

Quickoffice is based in the US so we imagine that will be the criteria for the timing of the day.

N-Gage client queue gets hijacked

In a not unsurprising move, Nokia's XpressMusic 5320, Nokia N78 and Nokia N96 are now listed as receiving a compatible version of the N-Gage games client ahead of the older Nokia N73, Nokia N93i and Nokia N93. Let's hope the latter three don't drop off Nokia's to-do list completely.... [mutter]

A dozen Real World Tasks - the Nokia N95 8GB takes on all-comers

Spec-sheet comparisons are all very well, but how good are the Nokia N95 8GB, the Apple iPhone 3G and the HTC Diamond in real life? The AAS team has come up with a dozen things that we all like to do with our phones and Steve was then set to accomplishing all of them on all three devices. Can the sheer usability and likeability of the iPhone triumph over Nokia's N95 design and S60? Is the HTC Touch Diamond a competitor here? Find out in the full usability feature.

"Regular readers may know that, in the interests of knowing what to recommend, I'm fond of device advocacy, i.e. comparing the pros and cons of different phones to try and come up with some kind of ranking. Usually these pieces are centred around specification or feature lists, not unnaturally, but here I'm going to take a dozen real world tasks, things that you or I do (or would like to do) every single day, and then assess how easy and/or quick these tasks are to perform.

For the purposes of this comparison, I'm going to take the six month old Nokia N95 8GB, typical of the current S60 range, the brand new Apple iPhone 3G and the also-new HTC Touch Diamond. If Apple (and HTC's) marketing is to be believed, the iPhone should be an easy winner in a usability test, but the extra maturity and featurettes in S60 3rd Edition also make it a hard act to follow."

Read on

AAS Podcast - Interview with Alfie Dennen from Moblog.net

It's another interview podcast, this time with Ewan speaking to Alfie Dennen from Moblog.net, which launched a new version of the popular platform late last week. We cover the history of the Moblog company, how to deal with upstart services such as Ovi(!) and what makes a service like this 'sticky' in podcast #85.

The N96 to be available in September on 3

Network operator '3' just held a big launch event, showing off what's coming up on contract, and SMS Text News' Ewan (always entertaining) was there. In the absence of any actual releases on the '3' web site, he's our lifeline to news and video from the event, showing off the Nokia N96 (to be available in September) and white E71 (available now), among others. There's also a well-placed rant about the sheer uselessness of mainstream media and some of the freeloaders in that world - worth a read if only to reinforce why you read AAS and SMST!

Tweak Peaks UIQ 3 version 1.30

These guys dont know how to stop! CellPhoneSoft are still actively releasing new and interesting UIQ 3 apps, despite the prevailing mood in the industry. If you think your P1 or P990 is starting to be slow and can't cope with daily chores, then it’s time to get Tweak Peaks into action. Screen and notes below.

Version 1.30 just released which adds :

- Setting the start page for the built-in internet browser application

- Improved performance and speed boost on the latest phone models and firmwares

- Optional integration into the Control Panel.

Head over to Cellphonesoft to get this awesome utility! And it’s only $14.95, a small fee for a highly useful app.

Open Source Goes Mobile, Free San Francisco Developers Event

Forum Nokia are organising an "Open Source Goes Mobile" workshop at the upcoming LinuxWorld conference being held in San Francisco's Moscone Centre on August 6th. The event is free to all developers, and Forum Nokia are also providing a fee one-day pass to Linux World. Places are limited, so if you are interested the sign-up page is here.

Hat tip to Symbian One for the link.

Qik Now Available to All As It Moves to Public Beta

'Cool in the Valley' company Qik who's Qik application allows you to live stream video from your S60 handset, has today moved the service from private (invite only) beta to a full public beta status. In practice this means that anyone can sign up for the site and download the software for their mobile phone. While there are a number of live video services already out there, very few of them have a component that runs on a mobile phone - and Qik is one of the fastest of those providing mobile. More at www.qik.com.

It's also worthwhile signing up to the site even if you only plan to watch others, so you can take part in conversations and leave comments on video. Also rolled into the new version is the groups feature, so users may collate single videos into an easily identifiable collection. And to help with the problem of getting people to watch a live stream that pops up for only a few minutes, an events page is now being provided to help with scheduling.

More at Qik.com, where you can also sign up for the service.