You'll remember that we've looked at Epocware's Handy Weather before, giving both the original S60 3rd Edition version and that for UIQ 3 well deserved AAS MegaApp awards. And now they've gone and improved it again, adding weather maps and streamlining the interface. Still a MegaApp? You bet, it's still one of the stars in the Symbian OS firmament - here's my review of Handy Weather version 5.01.
No, we haven't gone raving mad - it's just that Ewan (currently on walkabout in the USA) has been tweeting from Twibble. Err... that's sending Twitter updates by SMS, in plain English. It's a useful Java application, that's for sure, saving time and bandwidth. Here's Ewan's review of Twibble.
Nokia has announced at CeBIT that it will make Microsoft's Silverlight (think Flash clone) available for S60, as well as for Series 40 devices and Nokia Internet tablets. Silverlight is a cross-browser, cross-platform plug-in for delivering 'next-generation' media experiences and rich interactive applications. Microsoft will demonstrate Silverlight on S60 during the opening keyote at their MIX08 conference on March 5 and availability to developers is intended to be later this year. Read on for more details and analysis.
It's Monday and it's time for our new Insight podcast. In number 15 (aka AAS podcast 63), we look at news, geotagging privacy concerns, recent handset designs from Nokia and Ewan reports on truly mobile software. Give it a listen on the way home from work. Here's the RSS feed if you want to subscribe regularly.
CorePlayer has been inching up to a major new release, 1.2, for a while now. Registered users can upgrade to a special 'preview' version of 1.2, which includes better support for file type associations, streaming video, plus support for Speex and GSM audio. (via p@sco)
Oxygen Software have been plugging away at their Phone Manager product for years, and they've just announced a major revamp, rebrand and relaunch. OxyCube is released yesterday and is compatible with a wide range of handsets and provides syncing and file browsing functions. (via SymbianOne)
This is something many UIQ 3 users have been waiting for (me included!). A native SIS client for Google Maps instead of a Java Midlet. The new client is fast, looks neat and has a function called 'My Location' which basically gives a guess of your whereabouts. No press release whatsoever, but for you who want to test it, head over to http://www.google.com/gmm using your UIQ 3's internet browser and download the SIS file. Screenshots after the break.
It's not every day that you get direct feedback from the team behind a major manufacturer's software project. Following on from my Maps 2.0 preview, Nokia got in touch, answering some of my criticisms and giving more information about the future of the product. What's going to be added next to Maps, how to plan routes for free, why the satellite images aren't quite there yet, integration with Location Tagger and news of a future web-based map sync tool, it's all covered.
Yahoo!'s (is that even correct punctuation?) woes continue. The search provider has been dropped by leading mobile browser company Opera and Google will be the default search engine for downloadable copies of Opera Mobile for all platforms as of March 1st. Google will also automatically appear as the front page search engine for all Opera Mini users as well. Opera's press release follows.
Ewan's not one to beat around the bush - when he thinks that an application is essentially pointless, he comes right out and says so, here in his review of Yahoo! Go 3.0. In Go 3.0's defense, it IS pretty and it DOES make sense if you're a heavy Yahoo! user, but in essence it doesn't really do anything you couldn't do just as well using Yahoo's mobile site. Or Google's, and so on.
S60.com are giving away just about the noisest game EVER - Breaker. You'll see when you run it. It's microphone-powered and you're not advised to play it where you might annoy others! (Via the official S60.com Miami meet page)
Nokia's in-beta Location Tagger just got a lot more intelligent, making sure that your photos don't get delayed while waiting for a GPS fix, enabling a 'show on map' function and fixing a 'nasty, battery-draining' bug. All the details are over at Nokia Beta Labs. There's also a hint as to a big firmware update for the N82 'soon'.
Steve Litchfield has been putting in the miles and paces to test Nokia's new beta of Maps 2.0. This premieres the pedestrian navigation mode, significant upgrades to the driving mode, satellite imagery, plus many rewritten UI elements. What exactly is new, what's improved and what's been removed? It's all here in this in-depth, illustrated preview.
In this podcast we cover current developments around Nokia's Ovi strategy including Sync, Share, N-Gage, plus we chat about all aspects of the Nokia N96, following on from our hands-on preview. Finally, we rant and rave a little about Google's new native search 'client'. Here's the link: Insight no. 14, plus the RSS feed to sign up for the future.
One component of Nokia's Ovi which hasn't had quite so much attention is Sync. This just popped up on the main Ovi toolbar, trailing what Sync will offer. See below for the details.
