All About Symbian

Review: Tasks Widget

Tue, 22 May 2012 06:40:00 GMT

The unique Swipe UI of the MeeGo Harmattan-powered Nokia N9 has inspired many Maemo and Symbian developers. One aspect of its UI is the multitasking view which gave live previews of applications and could be zoomed from, say, a three by three grid, to a two by two grid; and to close applications. Whenever one tries to graft the user interface of one mobile operating system onto another, though, things are never going to fit perfectly, but compliments to the developer of Tasks Widget, who has given it his/her best shot.

Event and meet-up: 361 Degrees Live in London on 11th June

Mon, 21 May 2012 16:49:50 GMT

The 361 Degrees team are delighted to announce our first ever public event. Here's your chance to come and meet the team, and readers from All About Windows Phone, All About Symbian, Mobile Industry Review and Wireless Worker.

Video: Making the Nokia 808 PureView

Mon, 21 May 2012 14:45:11 GMT

Nokia Conversations has published an 8 minute video about the story behind the making of Nokia's latest camera break-through - the Nokia 808 PureView. It includes interviews with a few of the team of almost four hundred people who have been working on the device over the last five years, insights into the technology breakthroughs that have gone into the device, and the origin napkin story. And, of course, the video has been shot entirely on the Nokia 808 PureView itself.

361 Degrees Podcast - "Ewan wants a better phone than you"

Mon, 21 May 2012 12:52:35 GMT

In the third episode of season three of the 361 Degrees podcast, Rafe, Ben and Ewan M talk about smartphone fashion, specifically ways for you to distinguish yourself amongst your peers as someone different, someone knowledgeable, someone with style. It's a great podcast and is embedded below, along with some of my own thoughts - is it possible to stand out by going retro rather than high end?

Nokia Pulse also gets Facebook login, better Maps integration

Mon, 21 May 2012 12:04:26 GMT

Nokia Pulse, its cross-platform location-based social network, has also gotten itself an update that allows Facebook login, along with Nokia Maps integration and contacts handling improvements. Screens and links below.

Smart Office is free right now

Mon, 21 May 2012 09:12:48 GMT

Although the text on Smart Office's listing on the Nokia Store claims it's for the 'weekend', there's also the strap line 'May Mayhem continues on Ovi'. Either way, if you'd been eyeing up Smart Office ever since our full review, then now's the time to grab it.

The Nokia Store client moves on again, adds Facebook login

Mon, 21 May 2012 07:55:31 GMT

Having established a few days ago that v3.24.053 of the Nokia Store client had been formally released from beta into the wild, we're now seeing the client leap off on a whole new 'beta' arc, with new functionality for v3.28.025, including optional sign-in using a Facebook account, a UI change and several stability fixes. Screens and links below.

Spoilt for choice... since 2007

Mon, 21 May 2012 06:00:00 GMT

The 'my phone (or smartphone platform) is better than yours' debates across the tech world rage on, somewhat amusingly. Yes, I know that megabucks are involved, that sales of successful products now reach into the many tens of millions, that each launch is bigger and better funded than the last. But I also can't help notice that we've only been seeing gradual improvements for the last five years and that, in truth, I could happily use almost any top-end device from that entire period to accomplish all the things I need a smartphone to do.

CamEfx provides novelty photo 'FX'

Fri, 18 May 2012 16:14:00 GMT

Regular followers of me on Twitter will know how much I despise image-filtering monstrosities like Instagram. Having spent the last decade trying to take better photos on my smartphone, the thought of deliberately mangling them seems to be anathema, to me at least. However, these sort of apps seem to be popular, so in the public interest I briefly tried out CamEfx, available for free in the Nokia Store.

Latest Nokia Store beta client blessed with full release

Fri, 18 May 2012 14:45:03 GMT

The last Nokia Store client that appeared in Beta Labs almost two months ago, v3.24.053, has made it through testing without further changes (unusually!) and is now being rolled out officially as an auto-prompted update when anyone goes into the Nokia Store on their Symbian (^3/Anna/Belle) device. The main changes for this version, you may remember, were fixes for download queue and purchase bugs.

Place your order now - SUBWAY Express on Symbian

Fri, 18 May 2012 08:54:12 GMT

Yep, everyone's favourite fast-sandwich vendor is now available on Symbian. At least, it is if you live in the Greater London area - no doubt the system will get extended in due course. Screenshot proof below, but SUBWAY EXPRESS does seem well built (in Qt) and available for free now - you can place extravagantly detailed orders for a pick up time of you choice from any of hundreds of included restaurants.

Review: Belkin In Car Tunecast 6 Universal FM Transmitter

Fri, 18 May 2012 07:46:00 GMT

Something a little different for a Friday. Frustrated that a lot of the Symbian and Windows phones I wanted to try day to day didn't have a built-in FM transmitter (I'll explain why that's important to me below), I opted to grab the Belkin In Car Tunecast 6 Universal FM Transmitter and try it out and about in the UK. Summary: it works brilliantly, far better (surprisingly) than the few phones which did have the functionality built-in.

Fight: N8 vs HTC One S/X cameras

Fri, 18 May 2012 06:23:10 GMT

Ah. So there is someone else out there in the blogosphere who takes smartphone camera testing as seriously as me. Well, almost as seriously...(!) In this case, 'Deaconclgi' over at 'My Nokia Blog', who takes his beloved Nokia N8 and HTC One S and puts them through a set of demanding shots in varying light conditions, exploring the detail and coloration in their photos.

Coloring Book for your toddler(s)

Thu, 17 May 2012 10:40:40 GMT

You may remember that I reviewed Coloring Fun recently, a stab at producing a colouring-for-toddlers application to keep them happy for 10 minutes on a car journey or in a queue. I won't subject you to another full review, since Coloring Book is fairly similar, but I did want to highlight its existence in the Nokia Store and to provide you with some screenshots of this commercial application. And no, neither of the titles get the spelling of 'colouring' right. What's that? There's some magic land called America where they mangle words?....

Nokia Maps - updated maps, dated 30th April 2012

Thu, 17 May 2012 09:58:38 GMT

Well spotted by Nokialino, there are new maps available for Nokia Maps, adding latest road information along with extra traffic coverage. Some screenshots below, you will want to seek out a Wi-fi hotspot before checking for the update, since the downloads are large (typically hundreds of megabytes) and can't be done over 3G.

Review: IronWorm

Thu, 17 May 2012 09:28:10 GMT

It feels as if all the games I review lately are variations on established genres, so I was happy to find IronWorm, which seems to defy classification. In IronWorm (a remake of SwingWorm), you play a worm with a vendetta, and in his quest to chase down his nemesis, he has to climb and swing his way through increasingly complicated environments, with a gymnastic grace that deserves to be in the Olympics! His only weapon, and protection, is a mace-tipped tail, plus YOUR coordination and cunning.

Let's play.... hunt the higher capacity batteries

Thu, 17 May 2012 07:32:07 GMT

You may remember that I reported late last year on the newer, higher capacity versions of some of Nokia's most popular batteries? One such came with the 1300mAh version of the BL-5K that came with the Nokia 701, but this battery type also fits the Nokia N85, N86 and C7. And ever since, I've been watching for the point at which the new batteries starting being sold on their own. After all, what's not to like about getting a new, refreshed battery that's also higher capacity than the original, when your phone was new?

BelleChat brings IRC with style

Wed, 16 May 2012 16:08:36 GMT

BelleChat is an IRC client for Symbian^3 devices (running Anna or Belle). The app's UI follows the Nokia Belle style guide, giving a visually pleasing and coherent user interface that matches the native apps. Features include split screen keyboard text entry, ability to join more than one channel at once and support for rendering output in mIRC colours.

AAS Insight #213: beautiful phones and what next for N8 owners

Wed, 16 May 2012 13:57:21 GMT

In All About Symbian Insight number 213, we start with the news of a fix for Nokia Maps Suite 2.0 installation and details of latest beta of Nokia Transport. Rafe and Steve discuss mobile web versus client apps, prompted by recent updates to Twitter and YouTube's mobile website; and David talk about his experience with the DC-16 charger. In the second half of the podcast, we revisit Steve's feature on the top 10 most beautiful Symbian smartphones, before moving on to talk about the upgrade options for Nokia N8 owners.

Don't forget Vlingo - now updated

Wed, 16 May 2012 08:54:22 GMT

In all the fuss over Apple's (effectively bought in) Siri and Samsung's (effectively bought in) S-voice, Symbian owners eager for a little voice recognition action shouldn't forget about Vlingo, free for our OS and recently updated to v2.4.50, bringing better recognition, new settings and under the hood improvements. Some screenshots and examples below, just to refresh your memory!