S60 wizard Samir has officially released the rotateME beta 5 for the general public! It is one of the most widely awaited applications ever and is compatible with the N95, N95 8GB and the N82 while a special version for N80, N73, E65, N81 is in the works.
Beta 5 brings a world of improvements, the biggest for me is the ability to hide the application from the default task manager! This is something I really wanted as it makes the experience complete, it is as if the rotate functionality comes inbuilt! The options to adjust sensitivity and reactivity work well and allow you to control the angle of tilt at which the screen rotates. The auto start option is also present. All in all a complete package. Wonderful work from a great man! Cheers to you mate! In case you can spare it, donate Samir a few PayPal dollars.
Anuj from the Nokia N95 Community on Orkut reports that the Nokia Map Loader has been updated to version 1.3 and the maps have also got an update. While the Indian map data has only increased from 19.7 MB to 21.1 MB, China it seems has gotten a big upgrade and is now upto 190 MB. In case you spot a change, do drop a comment.
Nokia continues to release great free applications to go with their S60 phones. The latest in line is the Nokia Internet Radio application, it surprisingly is ‘officially’ compatible with the N95, N95 8GB, N91 and the N82. However it apparently works with most other S60 v3 devices too. Shoutcast playlists come up with a full directory of hundreds of compatible stations and there is no need to search for stations on the net. The quality of the stream at 128 kpbs is great! A must download.
Update: I just spent more time with the application and I also really liked its UI and ease of use. The streaming quality can also be selected according to the connection you are using to connect to the servers. Neat!
Update: Adobe has now released the public beta of the application for developers and is available here. They have however left out browser integration and there is no personalisation with screensavers either. For more on this jump over to The Nokia Guide. For a complete How-To on getting FLV to work read on.
Nokia PC Suite has been updated to 6.85 and with the updated has come quite an ovehaul and is available from the PC Suite page. The new UI looks great and here’s a rundown of some of the new featues it brings. I’ve been beta testing it for the past few weeks and must say I find this even better than the Nseries PC Suite!
The new Nokia N95 firmware v21 is generationg a lot of hype. The new firmware is suppossed to bring:
– Demand Paging
– Close to 30 MB free RAM on bootup
– Ngage Platform Support
– Integrated Search (On the Standby Screen)
– You Tube Playback directly from the browser! (More Info Here)
– New N95 8GB like Icons
– Grid view in the Camera options
– Music Store and Podcasts in a new Music Folder
– Camera Activation with the Capture button (Useful for the front cam)
– A new lease of life for the N95!
I personally can’t wait! For screenshots and more look here and here.
The N82 was launched yesterday after much anticipation, rumors and spy shots. Full Techical Specifications are available here. The virtual event and the product manager chit chat has been widely appreciated the world over and I myself love the idea thoroughly. It a great concept and I do hope continues with it, but what I really want is the idea being extended and given a new dimension.
Generally companies launch products with much fanfare and then their commitment dips to an extent. What I would love to see is such programs even after the device is shipped. We’d have way better Firmware upgrades this way and better overall consumer satisfaction and what not.
The Google Mobile Phone OS ‘Android‘ has just gone official. Android, is named after the start-up company that Google bought in 2004 for its mobile software. Google has also made it clear that it won’t be making or marketing any phones. It is more significant and ambitious than a single phone. In fact, through the joint efforts of the members of the Open Handset Alliance, Google hopes to make Android the foundation for many new phones and create an entirely new mobile experience for users, with new applications and new capabilities. The entire theme for the Platform is ‘Innovation’.
Outlining Innovation:
Android will deliver a complete set of software for mobile devices: an operating system, middleware and key mobile applications and because Android will cost nothing, it could undercut rivals who charge handset makers to install their operating systems. It also promises to make smart phones less expensive since manufacturers won’t have to pay for software.
Well this has nothing to do with Symbian directly but is far too important to miss. According to a post over at C|Net google is going to announce a new platform, a new mobile operating system that runs on Linux and is called Android! Such an announcement has been expected for long and now we have just one more day to go. On Monday Google is expected to reveal details on the mythical Gphone.
Google is calling the venture an “Open Handset Alliance” and it includes partners like KDDI and NTT DoCoMo and 30 others including Qualcomm, Broadcom, HTC, Intel, Samsung, Motorola, Sprint, and Texas Instruments.. The platform will supposedly be open source falling under the Apache License, Version 2.0. The flavor of Linux that Android will be built on top of looks to be that from Wind River.
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!
The Symbian Blog 