All About Symbian - News Headlines

News Headlines - Miscellaneous

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AAS Insight #126: News roundup, Symbian^3, Nokia N8 stills

With Rafe off enjoying the British Grand Prix build up, Ewan and I recruited AAS regular David Gilson and The Phones Show Chat co-host Tim Salmon to fill his shoes for Insight 126. Scampering through the week's Symbian-related news, there's plenty to listen to, see below for the full list of topics covered.

# Posted by Steve in Miscellaneous, Editorial Thoughts at 8:39 BST, Jul 12th || 1 Comment

More N8 tech examples from Conversations - this time, video capture

Damian Dinning, as promised, has put up the second part of his tech/examples series on the Nokia N8's camera, over on the Conversations blog. This time, he concentrates on the video capture side of things and, as before, we've summarised his main points below.

# Posted by Steve in Hardware, Miscellaneous, Links of Interest at 12:54 BST, Jul 9th || 5 Comments

A New UI is not needed for Symbian ^3, just make the existing one work

With Nokia and Symbian on the ropes in the tech media at the moment, and with User Interfaces (UIs) a particular battling point, Ewan points out that there's nothing fundamentally wrong with Symbian^3's UI and that every mobile device in the last 20 years hasn't looked appreciably different. The key, he explains is in consistency and user experience within the UI and he points out that this is where recent S60 versions have fallen down. Nokia job advert: "Wanted: Someone with obsessive attention to detail"...

# Posted by Steve in Miscellaneous, Editorial Thoughts at 9:08 BST, Jul 9th || 58 Comments

Not a Dedicated Follower of Fashion - 10 Reasons Why Touchscreens Suck

Playing devil's advocate, but only to a degree, Steve Litchfield turns the entire smartphone world on its head by rejecting its latest darling - large touchscreens. Ask any pundit in the mobile world about smartphones and you'll get the answer that it's all about touch. About large displays that can be caressed and programmed and manipulated with your fingers. Except that traditional, non-touch form factors have these 2010 'flagships' well and truly beat in many ways - here are the Top 10 Reasons Why Touchscreens Suck.

# Posted by Steve in Hardware, Miscellaneous, Industry, Editorial Thoughts at 11:53 BST, Jul 8th || 46 Comments

Sports Tracker / Polar WearLink with Bluetooth transmitter

Steve Litchfield dons his sports gear and trials the new Sports Tracker application with Polar wireless heart rate monitor. Can this new version of an old favourite, in conjunction with some Bluetooth accessory magic, help you improve your workouts, whether walking, cycling or jogging? (Short answer: Yes. With bells on!)

# Posted by Steve in Software, Hardware, Miscellaneous at 8:20 BST, Jul 6th || 25 Comments

AAS Insight 125 - News, Vivaz Pro, 3 UK and Big Roll

In All About Symbian Insight 125, we welcome David Gilson to the podcast for the first time. This week we round up a lot of news including a rallying cry from Nokia's Anssi Vanjoki, details on SEE 2010, firmware updates for the E71, E66, N97 and N97 mini, SkyFire's market retreat, Nokia 5230 pricing and more. In the main part of the podcast David tell us about his experiences with the Sony Ericsson Vivaz Pro, Ewan talks about The Big Roll in Paradise and Rafe reports back from a 3UK briefing. You can listen to AAS Insight 125 here or, if you wish to subscribe, here's the RSS feed.

# Posted by Rafe in Software, Hardware, Miscellaneous, Editorial Thoughts, Events, Games at 13:38 BST, Jul 5th || 8 Comments

Nokia Eseries updates - E71 and E66 firmware

Another day, more major firmware updates from Nokia, this time for even older devices, again rolling Maps 3.3 with free navigation into the ROMs - excellent to have. v500.21.009 for the two year old E71 and E66 also brings the very latest editing version of Quickoffice and latest Ovi Store client, plus bumps to Music player and to Lotus Notes Traveler, among the usual minor improvements and fixes.

# Posted by Steve in Hardware, Miscellaneous at 9:12 BST, Jul 2nd || 23 Comments

Yay for the fiddler - but have a rock-solid fallback

With my tongue slightly in cheek and with the news that sheds(!) are now firmly back in fashion, I wanted to mention a growing trend in the tech world - that of fiddling, customising and tweaking. Of devices, of their firmware and of their software. It's all huge fun, of course, but if you want to keep your life on track and blood pressure down then I'd suggest having a second, fallback device, also synced to everything you know and love...

# Posted by Steve in Hardware, Miscellaneous, Links of Interest, Editorial Thoughts at 6:52 BST, Jul 1st || 2 Comments

Scouting for Symbian-powered bargains: 2010 edition

In these times of recession, it's more vital than ever to watch your pounds (or Euros) - if you need (or lust after) a new(ish) Symbian-powered smartphone then why not think of getting something second-hand, on eBay, at a fraction of the new price? Or if you're trying to raise cash by reducing your smartphone stash that's been gathering dust under the desk, then read on for some comments and example selling prices as at the end of June 2010.

# Posted by Steve in Hardware, Miscellaneous at 7:02 BST, Jun 30th || 12 Comments

Hero or Zero smartphone? - Staying ahead of the need for RAM

Using a mixture of diagrams and literary quotes, Steve Litchfield re-examines the thorny issue of RAM, explains why it has been an issue for years and identifies the models that have been up to scratch and those that haven't. Where do the devices you've owned sit in the grand RAM pantheon? Finally, he asks whether the upcoming crop of devices have sufficient of this precious resource? Comments welcome!

# Posted by Steve in Hardware, Miscellaneous, Editorial Thoughts at 9:30 BST, Jun 28th || 36 Comments

The Top Ten List of Top Ten Lists we're (ahem) not going to cover...

Ewan and I have a rule of thumb, that 95% of content in every mobile app store is complete rubbish, without significant merit. But, rather than dismiss this 95% en-bloc, or one at a time, we thought we'd do better to dismiss some of the worst offenders category by category, so that you can spot future offenders yourself more easily in future. The traditional way is to handle software roundups is to go for a Top Ten list. But, by way of something slightly different, here's some coverage of the Top Ten Lists we won't be compiling... naturally itself in the form of a (somewhat recursive) Top Ten List!

# Posted by Steve in Software, Miscellaneous, Editorial Thoughts at 17:07 BST, Jun 25th || 7 Comments

The changing shape of Nseries - no scaremongering, just the facts

Nokia's quoted comments regarding the future of its Nseries devices have been causing much comment in the media in last few days. This editorial puts some perspective into the story - Nseries devices only represent around 12% of Nokia's Symbian portfolio and the evolution of the brand towards Maemo/MeeGo had been signposted since Autumn 2009. Moreover it is vital to understand that MeeGo and Symbian are complimentary parts of Nokia's overall software strategy. Read on for further analysis of the evolution of Nseries and a number of salient facts.

# Posted by Rafe in Hardware, Miscellaneous, Industry, Editorial Thoughts at 23:20 BST, Jun 24th || 129 Comments

There's a Bookmark for that!

Over the last few years, I've had a burning conviction that's been growing and growing as I watch the current craze for 'Apps' blossom. Now, I've nothing against genuine applications or games, but it has to be said that a large number of so-called 'Apps' are simply scraping or managing exactly the same data as you can get right now, on any phone, for free. And, my way, there are no installations, no complications and no hassle. Apps? Pah - I've a new slogan to rival Apple's. "There's a Bookmark for that!"

# Posted by Steve in Software, Miscellaneous, Editorial Thoughts, Services at 9:00 BST, Jun 23rd || 21 Comments

The fastest Symbian smartphone on the planet?

As you'll have been aware, HyperX and his team have been pumping out various Samsung i8910 HD 'alternative' firmware updates for many months now. 'HX6-Speed', released today in 'Public beta' form, effectively gives you the fastest Symbian touchscreen experience available - at least until the Nokia N8 arrives to challenge. There's a feature summary below, plus links and other comments.

# Posted by Steve in Hardware, Miscellaneous, Links of Interest at 21:24 BST, Jun 22nd || 8 Comments

Nokia N8 Preview Gallery

Rafe (and Ben Smith) were extremely busy at last week's Nokia N8 hands-on, taking dozens of top quality photos of the first Symbian^3 smartphone in all its OLED aluminium Xenon-equipped glory. In this interactive Nokia N8 gallery, Rafe takes the time to comment on each photo and what it shows. Grab a coffee and settle down to some serious N8 virtual hands-on time.

# Posted by Steve in Hardware, Miscellaneous, Editorial Thoughts at 17:23 BST, Jun 22nd || 35 Comments

Five uses for S60 Search

In another of our illustrated how-tos, David Gilson briefly highlights Nokia's built-in Search utility, showing how to use it to get information fast, including playing a specific music track, launching an app or finding a particular contact. See also All About Symbian's 'How to' index.

# Posted by Steve in Software, Miscellaneous at 7:36 BST, Jun 22nd || 9 Comments

Ovi Store gets a refresh and new client - version 1.07

Nokia's Ovi Store has been updated, with changes to both the mobile client and the publish tool used by developers. The client for S60 3rd Edition and 5th Edition has been updated, from version 1.06(18) to v1.07(12). The key changes are the introduction of 'continuous' pages for content lists (behaving more like the Android Marketplace or Apple App Store), improved search and an updated category structure. The Ovi Publish tool has also been updated with changes to meta-data that developers would be well advised to pay attention to. Read on for more.

# Posted by Rafe, Steve in Software, Miscellaneous at 20:45 BST, Jun 21st || 12 Comments

Interviewing Damian Dinning on the N8 and its media capture superiority

As part of the invitation to spend a morning with the Nokia N8 (ok, quite a lot of N8s - in various colours and states of readiness) on Monday, I grabbed Damian Dinning, Nokia's imaging supremo, to chat about the device and specifically its media capture capabilities. See below for the video interview and accompanying notes - there are several interesting points which I hadn't appreciated before.

# Posted by Steve in Hardware, Miscellaneous, Events at 12:56 BST, Jun 17th || 22 Comments

Video calling and FaceTime - Terrible name, Brilliant pitch - but a way forward?

Video calling on mobiles has been a reality in most of the world for five years now - and it's been a disaster in terms of take-up rate. Yet Apple comes on the scene with their new FaceTime - video calling - 'feature' and seems to have nailed it in terms of making people want it. Read on for my thoughts on what has the rest of the world been doing wrong and for the use case that Apple has, quite correctly, identified and exploited.

# Posted by Steve in Miscellaneous, Industry, Editorial Thoughts, Services at 16:54 BST, Jun 13th || 73 Comments

TVCatchUp now works for Symbian (in the UK)

Thanks to a heads-up, we've learned that TV CatchUp, a free, on-demand all-channels system for UK residents, is now working with Symbian OS and Web. It's a public beta, so expect a few things not to work properly. Point Web at m.tvcatchup.com, sign up for a new account, and away you go. More details below.

# Posted by Steve, David in Miscellaneous, Links of Interest at 13:59 BST, Jun 11th || 26 Comments