Recent News Headlines - Miscellaneous
Creating a shortcut TouchWiz widget for the Samsung i8910
In this tutorial, Rafe explains how you can create your own shortcut widget for the TouchWiz-powered idle screen of the Samsung i8910. In this example, the widget links through to the AAS mobile site, but you'll have your own destination in mind. And, hopefully, will have your imagination inspired to create something more ambitious - and maybe even enter Samsung's competition to win some big cash prizes? See the bottom of the tutorial for full details.
Phones to rule us all?
As I head out the door, I turn back, unlock the house, and sheepishly pick up my smartphone from the office desk. Probably a scene that we've all done once or twice, but have you ever wondered how much freedom the mobile phone actually takes away from you? In my musings below, I keep my tongue firmly in cheek and paranoia firmly in my brain. Read on...
Ovi Gaming mobile site
Just in case you've missed it, Ovi Gaming is now also available as a mobile website at ovigaming.mobi. It contains the same content as ovigaming.com but in a reformatted style which should work on the majority of mobile web browsers and screen resolutions. It should also load a lot more quickly and use much less data, which may be useful for those on a slow connection or with expensive data charges. Have a look and let us know what you think...
Review: Proporta USB TurboCharger 1200
Another year, another design iteration of Proporta's bestselling mobile charger range. This is 2009 and we now have the USB TurboCharger 1200 and the USB TurboCharger 3400, with the numbers helpfully telling us how many mAh of charge are stored within. I've been reviewing the (physically and electrically) smaller version - is it worth sacrificing charge for size?
N95 to N86 - Two years of evolution
I've mentioned the direct lineage between N95 and N86 8MP before here on All About Symbian, so let's break this down - how far HAS Nokia come in the last two years? And how much of this distance is covered by software updates that can also be applied to the N95? In another of my device head-to-heads, I compare the N95 'classic', as it was at launch in early 2007, with the N86 8MP of mid 2009...
Vodafone Pay-as-you-go Internet goes 'unlimited' for 50p a day
The UK's biggest network operator, Vodafone, has announced that it's abolishing the 15MB data limit, set only a few months ago, in favour of a system by which customers can "browse the mobile internet as much as they like" for 50p a day on an ad-hoc basis. It's a system that works well, and one which I use often with a whole brace of PAYG SIM cards. Digging deeper reveals that the new limit is 25MB, not a massive increase, but this is now a 'fair use' figure rather than a hard-coded limit and (thankfully) you won't be charged extra without contact first from Vodafone to warn you about excessive data use (e.g. if you tether to a laptop or similar).
Browser speed comparison - N86, N97, iPhone 3G, T-Mobile G1 and more
In this major feature, Rafe Blandford compares the relative performance of web browsers on various mobile devices, including the Nokia N95 8GB, Nokia E71, Nokia E75, Nokia N86 8MP, Nokia N97, Nokia 5800, T-Mobile G1, and Apple iPhone 3G. Which mobile device has the fastest browser? The results may surprise you - they did me.
How to: Charge your smartphone faster
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.
Nokia N97 and 5800 top Vodafone UK bestseller league
Never mind its geek-perceived flaws (e.g. pointed out by me!), I was interested to note that Vodafone just published their current top 10 selling phones (presumably for the month of July) and that the Nokia N97 was at no.1, i.e. it's the best selling phone on Vodafone right now. Snapping at its heels was the Nokia 5800, followed by a herd of feature phones. The Blackberry Storm and an Android phone were at the bottom of its top 10 - the full list is below.
AAS hacked? Yes, but don't panic...
Last night a message was posted by hackers to an existing new story on the front page announcing that the site had been hacked and that the databases had been deleted and user information copied. There was some additional damage to the forum database. The issues have now been fixed, but almost all forum posts (including news comments) from yesterday (July 14th) have been lost. I would like to apologise for the data loss and any inconvenience caused. More information will be added to this thread.
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