Over on Ovi Gaming we've taken a look at four touchscreen-based budget titles available for €2 each: crazy golf simulator Pirates Cove Mini-Golf, GClue's adaptation of Reversi/Othello, puzzler Electric Beams Touch and reaction timer Speed Tester Touch. There are also gameplay videos and screenshots of all four alongside the reviews.
Over on Ovi Gaming we've reviewed six games that are available in Ovi Store for one euro each: African board game Mancala Touch, Japanese-themed arcade game Go Sushi, turn-based puzzler Octopuzzle Deluxe, computer classic Mine Sweeper Touch, geographical tutor Flags Trivia and foreign vocabulary builder Dictiomania.
Solving a charging problem chez Litchfield, I was struck by the realisation that all chargers are not made equal. If this seems obvious to you then feel free to skip this chatty tutorial, but otherwise you might like to read how I sped up the charging time on my Nokia N86 by a factor of almost four simply by using the (ahem) right mains charger. Item of trivia: mains charging of a modern smartphone can be up to twelve times faster than microUSB trickle charging - quite a difference.
Over on Ovi Gaming we've recently been doing some reviews and videos of cheap, simple touch-based Ovi Store games for S60 5th Edition devices. Touch Card Match is a colourful version of memory, Spin The Bottle Touch is an underwhelming bottle-spinning simulator, Chessboard Touch lets two people turn a phone into a timed chess board, and Freecell Touch is a no-frills ultracheap version of the classic card game.
Over on Ovi Gaming we've been reviewing and videoing some freeware touchscreen titles for S60 5th Edition devices: Speedtouch is a minimalist but fun whackamole clone, Bubbles Touch is rather poor (in fact it gets our lowest score ever), and Fridge Magnets Touch turns your phone into a ouija board thanks to its internet connection.
Eric Pfeifer, Content Acquisition Director at Handmark provides insight into the world of application shops post Apple App Store and Ovi Store, with some interesting indication of applications and content demand from future stores.
Forum Nokia has released a beta of Nokia Platform Services 2.0, which provides a much simplified JavaScript API with which WRT widgets can use the features of Nokia S60 devices. In addition, support for use of a device’s camera has also been introduced.
Almost sixty official games graced the original N-Gage platform, so why aren't Nokia taking the proven hits from that era and bringing them back to the front? Here on Ovi Gaming, Ewan looks back and chooses five that are ripe for re-invention. Why not take a trip down memory lane with him and then ask Nokia very, very nicely...?
Forum Nokia’s Calling All Innovators competition closes to entries on 30 June, next Tuesday, so if you have not got your entry in yet you should be getting a move on. Remember, this is not only an opportunity to win cash prizes, but also to get your application unprecedented exposure within Nokia and with Nokia device users worldwide.
Last week Samsung Mobile Innovator announced that the Samsung Innovation Quest 2009 would be about widgets for the home screen of the S60 based Samsung i8910 HD. Adobe also provided hints that its BrowserLab would cover mobile browsers and Digital River expanded its e-commerce offering to enable application sales to mobile devices.
EA's mobile phone version of the classic board game Cluedo (aka Clue in some parts of the world) rejigs the traditional gameplay into a limited-turn logic puzzle game with an extremely slick graphical interface. Ovi Gaming has reviewed Cluedo for Ovi Store, and we also provide our usual gameplay video and selection of screenshots.
Promised some time ago, N-Gage games have finally been made available through Ovi Store, in the form of free trials which can be unlocked into full versions through an in-game purchase or rental option. Although Ovi Store and N-Gage remain separate brands right now, it might make sense for Nokia to merge them, as discussed below.
ZOMGitsCJ.com is reporting that the Nokia N79 has received a firmware update to v30.011 which apparently includes improved stability and tighter Ovi integration. The update should be available OTA (type *#0000# on the standby screen) or through the Nokia Software Updater application.
Gameloft's rather good people simulator and adventure game Paris Nights has been reviewed by Ovi Gaming, and we've also added lots of screenshots as well as a ten minute gameplay video. It might not have the best graphics in the world but it's fun, it's got a fairly grown-up feel to it, there's an interesting plot and it only costs three euros from Ovi Store.
Ovi Store has been updated again, and it seems the latest content push has added about 79 new titles to Ovi as well as more apps and other content. The list of new games is below, and you can see these for yourself by going to store.ovi.com and selecting the "Any Phone" option, then "Games", then "Newest - Oldest" from the drop down menu. By our reckoning Ovi Store has around 350+ different titles now available, with lots more still waiting to be added for various technical reasons. Note that not every game works on every phone, so if you select a particular model on Ovi Store you probably won't see every game on offer. As always, you can find out more about Ovi Store on our Unofficial FAQ page.