The next version of Pixelpipe's social media sharing agent, Send and Share, has reached its final version, and is awaiting approval on the Ovi Store. For a number of months, the Pixelpipe team have been working hard on developing the Send and Share client, regularly sending test versions out to their beta testing mailing list. In a message to testers from CEO Brett Butterfield, this pre-release pattern will be changing and less frequent updates will be sent to testers.
Nokia Diagnostics is a little suite of on-device tests to help exercise core functionality of your Symbian smartphone and report back. It's a nice idea, driven by Nokia Beta Labs, and has had a big update (to v1.74) today, but only for S60 5th Edition phones (e.g. N97, 5800) - it seems that the S60 3rd Edition version is no longer to be updated. And Symbian^3 phones are also out of luck - so far - a version is promised for these 'soon'.
Recently added to the Ovi Store is a client for TheTrainLine.com - and I was going to review it but Jay Montano has beaten me to it, with a complete walkthrough. Highlights include a built-in portrait QWERTY keyboard, the re-use of saved pages and data, the speed and the full feature set. The application takes you right through to purchasing tickets and is free to download. A couple of screens and links below.
When C7 owners check their Software Update application this week, they will (network branding permitting) find a set of Over-The-Air updates for their device. First of all, there is the update for the Social application, available for all Symbian^3 devices, that we have already reported on. Also there is a 3.3MB update for core applications to "improve stability", and a 3.0MB update adding the "Midnight" theme.
Orange Wednesdays is the first of a series of 'Signature Applications' produced by Orange UK, using Qt to build for Nokia devices, and there's a fascinating interview with Mark Sage and Rafel Uddin of Orange Labs UK, talking about the app's development, about the use of Qt, the differences Symbian^3 brings to the table and the way private APIs are being replaced by the use of official, public Qt APIs.
You may remember that Opera Software recently ported their acclaimed proxy-based web browser to (native) Symbian? Beta 1 of Opera Mini 5.1 was great apart from some weirdness when it came to incorporating text input from the phone's own text input system (e.g. virtual keyboard). Now we have Beta 2, with this fixed and doubtless a multitude of other minor bugs quoshed.
There's a new beta of Ovi Maps 3.6 out over at Nokia Beta Labs, including 'map loading' of areas direct to your phone's mass memory or memory card (over Wi-fi). There are also some interface tweaks, listed below, including more Symbian^3-like long-tap functionality and popup tips and hints for new users.
Only a minor update, but noteworthy because the app's so central to Nokia's new Symbian^3 handsets, but check Sw_update on your N8. You should see a 2.5MB update to 'Social' and it will install over the air. Do note that a phone restart will be needed as well, presumably to add a newer version of the Nokia Social widget to the homescreen system. Comments welcome if you notice any actual changes!
The Ovi Blog has just covered an application for Nokia touch handsets to make discovering music in the Ovi Music store a little easier. Music Explorer is essentially an alternative search interface for the store. The application is available in the Ovi Store, and allows you to easily browse featured tracks by genre. The application comes with a home screen widget (for suitably enabled handsets), which will provide recommendations and special offers. Read on for a mini review.
Nokia is running a competition to promote its new C7 and C6-01 handsets. (See our in-progress C7 review here and here). The object of the competition is to win as many votes as possible via the "Nokia C7 social challenge" Facebook application, by giving a special hyperlink. The five most popular contestants will not only win a C7 for themselves and twenty of their friends, but Nokia says it will throw them a big party as well! To enter, head over to Nokia's Facebook page and click on the "C7 Contest" tab. Read on for comment and the promotional video.
Those folks at GSM Arena have obviously had too much time on their hands as they've put together all the latest smartphones from the main manufacturers and have tackled another subject close to my heart: screen visibility and contrast in all light conditions. Representing the Symbian world in the round-up are the Nokia C6-01 and N8 and, it's fair to say, both acquit themselves pretty well, with CBD and anti-reflective AMOLED screens respectively.
Well worth bookmarking for late evening reading over a beer or two is Andrew Orlowski's epic two part essay on the history of Symbian from creation in 1998 up to near the present day. Interviewing a number of past employees, admittedly, there's a strong aftertaste of 'these are all the bits that went wrong' and there's little in the way of acknowledgement of success stories, but Orlowski's text is readable and well researched. Here's part one: Dark Star, covering Symbian's creation and here's part two: The battle for Symbian's soul.
Between 9am and 10am GMT tomorrow, November 30th, three designers from Nokia will be answering questions on Twitter about Nokia's design process, with special emphasis on Nokia's C6-01 and C7-00. Questions should have the #NokiaDesign hash-tag to be seen by the guys at Nokia. Searching for that tag (just click the previous link) will allow you to view the conversation. Read on for more details.
Following the news that it would now become a licensing body, the Symbian Foundation has announced that all of its websites will close down on December 17th 2010. After that date, every site under the symbian.org domain, including developer.symbian.org, horizon.symbian.org, ideas.symbian.org and blog.symbian.org, will no longer be online. In addition, it has been said that the Twitter and Facebook accounts for the Symbian Foundation "are also likely to be discontinued". Read on for further details and ramifications.
