Stefan from Intomobile has posted the link to the S60 UI video which was originally shown at the Symbian Smartphone Show. I am somewhat impressed. I just hope Nokia doesn’t go the apple way and makes a pure touch device. A physical keyboard is an absolute must for me at least and I’m sure most of you will agree. The video demonstrates the UI feel of the new S60 variant on a dummy phone. What has raised my fears is that that dummy device was pure touch screen phone with text entry via a stylus, which I despise.
I’m sure Nokia’s next N9x will be a touch screen based device as it will be the first time a S60 device will sport a touch based interface thus being worthy of the N’9x’ tag. A few days ago Symbian World published a few rumoured N96 pics, I’m sure they are fake as the device just doesn’t look S60.
What I would ideally want is something like a conventional S60 device such as the N95 but with a touch screen, basically the touch screen being there in case I want to use it but the phone fully functional without it too. The screen resolution will definately improve, the screen size will become bigger, memory too. May be we see the VGA video being upgraded to a higher wide screen resolution capture?!
I’m sure there will be other tweaks/upgrades too but what do you think will the next Nokia flagship look like? Not like a iPhone clone I hope. Comments welcome!
Manko from over at Symbaali has made a ground breaking post! The post tells us how ‘hack’ the until so far caged Symbian directories.
The hack involves intercepting firmware downloaded by Nokia Software Updater. Making modifications to it and then flashing it to the device using the NSU itself. Pretty neat. Antony Pranata a Forum Nokia Champion has verified the hack and it really works!
Nokia has added IAC – Independent Artists Club to the list of items available via the Download! application. The IAC menu allows us to download, free of cost a selection of great home grown music covering Generes like Hip-Hop, Rock, Electronica and Pop amongst others.
This is huge! Our favourite Google Maps appliacation is now a native coded Symbian OS 9 client! This results in a much better overall performance, optimum RAM usage, faster loading and the greatest add on being support for internal and external GPS!
Being able to jump to an aerial view, in exquisite detail, of your current location, more or less anywhere in the world, without lifting a finger or giving the software any manual help, as Rafe and Steve put it is MAGICAL. You get lost, you open your N95 (or E90 or 6110, etc) and you’re almost instantly shown where you are and, after a couple more keypresses, given explicit directions to get home, overlaid on a traditional street map or the respected Google Maps satellite view.
One of the perenial problems that plague T9 predictive dictionary users is the fact that once your device has “learned” a new word and added it to the predictive lineup, there’s no going back. As was observed by Zach over at SiMo, every time he added a new word to the user dictionary it replaced a more commonly used word. Everyone makes enough mistakes with T9 so the last thing we need is “yes” being replaced by “WEP” every time we type it, as Zach experienced, just because he was talking to someone a month ago about WiFi security.
Fortunately he also posted a solution to the problem which allows us to reset the dictionary to the default. Jonny Bruha from over at Thoughts on S60 has also posted a solution to the problem, which allows us to correct the dictionary without having to loose all of our custom words.
Recently I came across PiZero’s Nokia Mobile Art theme site and I have only two words to describe it, ‘Absolutely Stunning’. He’s made some great elegant themes, themes which one can use forever, the kind you do not really grow out of. I for one don’t really like the cartoon/flashly kinda themes, if you also share similar tastes then a visit to his site is a must.
The Symbian Blog 
