All About Symbian - News Headlines

News Headlines

Pages: [1] « 4 . 5 . 6 . 7 . 8 . 9 . 10 . 11 . 12 » [407]

Review: AR Pirates

Ewan, with beard and a full head of hair to match, seemed perfect to set sail on virtual seas and go a-plundering for the day in a new S60 5th Edition virtual reality game, AR Pirates - out on the patio. If the thought of blasting ships off Caribbean islands in err... Edinburgh seems a lot to take in, then read the review for Ewan's explanation.

# Posted by Steve in Games at 14:56 BST, Jul 19th || 7 Comments

Defining the Smartphone

In leaps and bounds, the term 'smartphone' is being bandied about by manufacturers, analysts, journalists, developers and end users across the world. Which would normally be a good thing, except that there are many definitions, all totally different. What exactly defines a smartphone in 2010? What did it used to mean in 2007? Or 2003? With reports regularly quoting the word, it would be good to all agree what the word means, surely?

# Posted by Steve in Hardware, Miscellaneous, Industry, Editorial Thoughts at 7:29 BST, Jul 19th || 22 Comments

Can the cloud replace mobile applications?

David Gilson explores the relative benefits of native applications and cloud applications, both from a consumer point of view, and from the point of view of the developers who ultimately supply our applications. Will the cloud replace the traditional app?

# Posted by Steve in Software, Miscellaneous, Editorial Thoughts, Services at 18:14 BST, Jul 18th || 7 Comments

Nokia prioritize antenna performance over design

As a follow-up to Apple's emergency iPhone 4 press conference yesterday, in which Steve Jobs claimed that all smartphones suffered from similar reception problems when held tightly (and also erroneously quoted Nokias as having "stickers on the back that say 'Don't touch here'"), Nokia has apparently responded with a statement, quoted below.

# Posted by Steve in Hardware, Miscellaneous, Events at 7:50 BST, Jul 17th || 60 Comments

Let’s be cool... or what Nokia could do next

In all the talk of user interfaces, promises, updated software and hardware, there is one other area that Nokia need to look at. Making the Nokia name one that everyone is the world is happy to be associated with. How can they do that? Here are some thoughts.

# Posted by Ewan in Industry, Editorial Thoughts at 15:45 BST, Jul 16th || 39 Comments

Symbian Delivers Carbide.ui 3.0, Nokia plugs-in

Can’t wait to get your hands on a Nokia N8? Why not while away the time before you can lighten you bank balance by creating your dream theme. Carbide.ui Theme Edition 3.0 has been released on the Symbian Foundation website, offering the final version of the tools for creating Symbian^3 device themes.

# Posted by Richard in Developer at 0:47 BST, Jul 16th || 7 Comments

Opera Mobile 10.1 Beta released for Symbian

Opera have announced a new beta version of Opera Mobile for S60 3rd Edition and S60 5th Edition devices. Version 10.1 boasts a new rendering engine (Presto), new graphics library (Vega), and new Javascript engine (Carakan), all of which are also utilised in Opera's desktop browser. The end result is a significant boost in overall performance. Also new is geolocation support, which allows websites to serve up location specific content. The beta can be downloaded from the Opera website (visit m.opera.com/next on your phone).

# Posted by David in Software at 16:48 BST, Jul 15th || 18 Comments

Ovi Maps adds Maps Reporter function

A Maps Reporter module has been added to the 'More' menu of Nokia's Ovi Maps. It allows users to submit manual reports about errors in the application's mapping and associated meta-data. These errors can range from a missing street or path, whether a street is suitable for walking, to an incorrect speed limit. You will need to be running the latest version of Ovi Maps (3.04) in order to see the Maps Reporter module. Read on for further details and example screenshots.

# Posted by Rafe in Software, Services at 12:40 BST, Jul 15th || 17 Comments

Bug fix update for the popular Nokia E75

The popular QWERTY slider E75 has had a firmware update today, to v211.12 (from v210.12), not available over the air for me, but there via Ovi Suite and Nokia Software Update, as a 146MB download. The E75 has User Data Preservation, but backup anyway, just in case, beforehand. The update is mainly bug fixes, listed below.

# Posted by Steve in Hardware at 12:09 BST, Jul 15th || 5 Comments

Nokia's Terminal Mode (car integration) progressing

What's the next step for mobile phone and car integration? One option is Nokia's Terminal Mode technology, which proposes an industry standard for the integration of mobile phones (and their applications) into the car environment. Nokia has developed Terminal Mode in conjunction with CE4A (Consumer Electronics for Automotive) and recently held the Terminal Mode Summit at their Espoo offices in Finland. This gives us a good opportunity to review what Terminal Mode is about and what progress has been made to date. Read on....

# Posted by Rafe in Software, Hardware, Miscellaneous, Industry at 10:36 BST, Jul 15th || 6 Comments

Good Photos mean 50% Good Camera and 50% Good Photographer

The popular misconception about camera phones is that the higher the spec level, the better the photos you'll take. While I'll accept that there is correlation there, another big factor is the skill (or, more accurately, imagination and common sense) of the user. In truth, you don't have to own the current top-rated camera smartphone costing megabucks in order to turn out pleasing photos. Check out the sample photos at the top of this feature - I've got a mini-quiz for you...

# Posted by Steve in Hardware, Miscellaneous, Editorial Thoughts at 9:13 BST, Jul 15th || 21 Comments

Trivial Pursuit

With both classic and (ahem) 'pursuit' game modes, Trivial Pursuit in the Ovi Store has been impressing Ewan in terms of sheer playability and implementation - here's our Ovi Gaming review. The only flaws seem to be the relatively low number of possible questions and the lack of true multiplayer action, but hey, isn't this on sale at the moment as well? Run, don't walk around the TP board to the Ovi Store and grab this for the holidays right now.

# Posted by Steve in Games at 17:49 BST, Jul 14th || 2 Comments

Qt Developer Network opens in beta

Last week Qt quietly rolled out the public beta its new developer website, Qt Developer Network, which aims to provide a one-stop portal for Qt developers and consolidate resources that were previously spread across the main Qt website. It also provides a more vendor neutral destination for developers than Forum Nokia, something that could be important in helping drive adoption of the Symbian and MeeGo platforms by manufacturers other than Nokia.

# Posted by Rafe in Links of Interest, Developer at 12:53 BST, Jul 14th || 3 Comments

Furtiv brings Dropbox image uploads to S60

Furtiv, the creators of plugins for Nokia Share Online, have announced (on their blog) a new beta version plugin to upload photos to the popular cloud storage service, Dropbox. This provides the ability for a user to synchronise their files across multiple computers, and so photos uploaded from an S60 phone to Dropbox will be available to every computer a user has Dropbox installed on. Anyone wanting to try out this new plugin just needs to go to http://furtiv.mobi with their S60 browser and select the Dropbox plugin.

# Posted by David in Software at 11:20 BST, Jul 14th || 3 Comments

Ahonen and the USA's mobile tech 'lead'

Here's some Wednesday coffee break reading: you'll remember Steve Jobs claiming in 2007 that the original iPhone was five years ahead of the competition? Now AT&T's CTO has been bragging that "in the past 3 years, the US has been the clear leader when it comes to phones, design, operating systems and applications." Like a red rag to a bull - top industry analyst Tomi Ahonen here rips into the claims and points out the innovation from Japan and Finland, among others. His metrics also point to the USA now rising to 19th in the world in terms of mobile adoption and technology, now level with, ahem... Portugal. Grab a hot drink and treat yourself!

# Posted by Steve in Links of Interest, Industry at 10:54 BST, Jul 14th || 26 Comments

Review: HandyPaint

We've all seen the semi-viral videos, where someone (apparently) knocks up a faux-impressionist masterpiece using nothing more than a smartphone touchscreen. It may be that I simply don't have the talent, but I'm a little sceptical, given the sizes of phone screens. Mind you, with software like HandyPaint, reviewed here for S60 5th Edition and UIQ 3, at least the tools are there to get close to the picture in your imagination. HandyPaint is something of a labour of love and it shows - it's not perfect, but is powerful and still improving.

# Posted by Steve in Software at 10:14 BST, Jul 14th || 10 Comments

The Samsung i8910 HD gets HX7 'Black Pearl' and complete customisation

For those following the HX firmware saga on the otherwise neglected Samsung i8910 HD (aka 'Omnia HD'), note that the much-anticipated HX7 firmware, codenamed 'Black Pearl', just went live (video demo below). Among many other little fixes and tying up loose ends, HX7 offers a custom utility to le t you adjust a mountain of interface settings on the fly, right down to microphone sensitivity and kinetic scrolling mechanics, without having to mess around with patch files and extra SISx installs. There's also a new 'tsunami' homescreen...

# Posted by Steve in Hardware, Miscellaneous, Links of Interest at 20:17 BST, Jul 13th || 13 Comments

Ovi Store promoting Gaming with some special offer prices

The Ovi Store has regular discount offers on applications, and the current one is for some of the great games available for your Symbian smartphone. The list includes some favourites from Ovi Gaming, including Farm Frenzy (reviewed here), Doodle Jump (review) and UniWar (review). No word on how long this will last (or which regions it’s available in, so your mileage may vary), so have a look around and see if anything catches your eye.

# Posted by Ewan in Software at 16:26 BST, Jul 13th || 5 Comments

Is PR more important than specs for the smartphone ecosystem?

There's been a lot of noise on the internet this week about issues in the smartphone world. And while the initial reading of all these words is to tell a story, it's actually more about controlling the PR message and protecting a brand (and ergo sales) of software and hardware. There's a lesson in all of this for Nokia and the Symbian Foundation. You've either got it, or you haven't. And right now Symbian and S60 don't have it. Read on...

# Posted by Ewan in Developer, Editorial Thoughts at 15:18 BST, Jul 13th || 35 Comments

Resistive vs Capacitive: Moving the goalposts?

In an article written some 15 months ago, just after the first S60 5th Edition smartphone had appeared (the Nokia 5800), I went in depth into the pros and cons of resistive versus capacitive touchscreens, pronouncing both technologies as being equally valid, but for different use cases. We're now mid 2010 and it's clear that capacitive technology is winning out, for mid and high priced smartphones at least. So what's changed? Who moved the goalposts?

# Posted by Steve in Hardware, Miscellaneous, Industry, Editorial Thoughts at 7:16 BST, Jul 13th || 33 Comments