Nokia has released Nokia Chat, an IM application on steroids.
Nokia Chat is an IM application which lets you share your status and your geographical location with your friends.
Nokia Chat is based on XMPP/Jabber the open standard IM protocol behind Google Talk and a number of other IM communities. This makes Nokia Chat compatible/interoperable with Google Talk and other Jabber based communities. (more…)
Not sure exactly when Google Maps for Mobile hit the big Two Dot Oh but the most recent version of Google Maps for Mobile for Symbian S60 3rd edition devices, such as the Nokia Eseries, is version 2.03 2.05.
If you haven't tried the new version of Google Maps you should! (just go to www.google.com/gmm on your browser to download the new version)
One new features of 2.0 is the "My Location" feature.
The "My Location" uses information from mobile towers near you to approximate your location on the map. Naturally, it's not as accurate as GPS but if you don't have GPS and want to know your location it is very handy.
UPDATED below the fold
Wow - I am very, very impressed! I have just taken Nokia Sports Tracker Beta for a quick spin and this new service, functionality and strategic direction has left me speechless.
Let's start with a recap. Nokia Sports Tracker was released in March this year. It was released as stand alone application to be used with a Nokia device with built in GPS or with an external GPS receiver. I covered this excellent application many times on the blog.
The application tracks a variety of sports activities and measures the distance, speed, time etc and present the data in form of a workout sunnary. The data could be exported and used with a map application to track your activities. From the very start I was impressed by the application and the passion and dedication displayed by the team of people behind the application.
They were quick to listen to feedback and released new versions and new features with an impressive speed. However, for the past few months it's been rather quiet from the Nokia Sports Tracker team.
Now I understand. They have been hard at work perfecting the next logical step - exactly aligned with Nokia's Ovi annoucement - services!
Nokia Sports Tracker Beta is the name of the online service (graciously free of charge- thanks for that Nokia) for the Nokia Sports Tracker application.
Some of the highlights of the service:
You start with creating a free user account either from Nokia Sports Tracker Beta or directly from the application which can be dowloaded from here.
Windows Live Messenger has quietly showed up in the Download Folder on Eseries devices in certain regions and with certain carriers.
The Windows Live Messenger client was initially released for a number of Nokia's NSeries devices. However, the client which supports Windows Live Messenger, Windows Live Hotmail, Windows Live Spaces and Live Search is now officially available for Eseries.
However, once again, it should be noted that distribution seemed to be tied to certain carriers (read SIM) and certain regions.
I personally think that Nokia Beta Labs is one of the more exciting initiatives Nokia launched in the first half of 2007. It is a powerful tool to foster new applications while soliciting honest and straightforward feedback from the core user base.
Tommi Vilkamo of S60 Blogs has scored what must be the most exciting and stimulating job at Nokia, as the General Manager of Nokia Beta Labs.
Congratulations Tommi, you have already improved a great concept. I expect many, many more exciting new applications, services and ideas to come out of Nokia Beta Labs.
The latest addition to Nokia Beta Labs is a threaded SMS application called - Conversations. The lack of a built in threaded SMS application in Series 60, especially the Nokia Eseries devices, has been my pet peeve.
Nokia creating a threaded SMS application is a great step forward. The application is integrated with the address book, it creates an additional tab where all your conversations are stored. The application is easy to use and if the text is too long to be displayed on the screen the message text will automatically scroll so that you can easily read the message.
However, I have to say that I am rather disappointed with this first version of Conversation.
Sometimes you can be missing something without even knowing it.
Something simple that you perhaps didn't even think of but when you find it you wonder how you ever could get along without it.
Such is the case for me and the amazing little application called Remind Me.
The application was created by the developer, MobiFun Software, as a direct result of a suggestion from an end user - the way it should work when you are a small, nimble and talented software developer.
The application let's you set up a number of different reminders for events such as received voice mail, missed calls, received SMS/MMS and of course email.
I've gotten hooked on a new drug and I cannot, will not, give it up.
The name of this wonderful new thing that is making my life better and more productive is SpinVox.
SpinVox is the British company with an impressive motto: "Any Voice, Any Phone, Any Screen"
SpinVox converts voice messages left on your phone to a text message delivered to you as an SMS or via email.
I'm often on the phone or in a meeting so I end up getting quite a lot of voice mails. Since my days are often action packed and I run from one fire drill to the next and from one meeting to the next I frequently forget (or don't have the time) to check my voice mail.
Wow! what a difference one year can make.
Last time I used Seven Always On was in the shape of Cingular Xpress Mail (Seven powers Cingular's AT&T's Xpress Mail service) on my Nokia E62.
I was *not* impressed with the service.
Well, the boys and girls over at Seven have been working hard. I was mightily impressed with Seven's beta of their upcoming new version. I recommend giving their new version a try - the beta is open to the public.
DataViz recently announced a free update to their Exchange ActiveSync Client - RoadSync. (We briefly covered RoadSync in this post)
The updated version contains a number of fixes, many of them for the Nseries devices:
Nokia Media Transfer now works with Nokia E70 without any hacks!
Nokia Media Transfer, which enables you to transfer pictures, videos, podcasts, music, and files between your Nokia mobile device and your Mac, was released two weeks ago but it only supported Nseries devices.
However, Nokia has quietly introduced support for Nokia E70. (Thank you Nokia!) The device is not yet listed as one of the supported devices but there is a profile available for the Nokia E70.
Kaizen* is the Japanese management concept of incremental and continuous improvement - something the two main gentlemen behind Nokia Sports Tracker seem to have adopted.
They are continuously updating and improving the application at an impressive pace. These updates are often the direct result from end user feedback via the web. Very impressive!
The new version - v1.49 contains the following enhancements/changes:
Tommi writes that Nokia has started to love Mac. Sure, with release of the Nokia Media Transfer application which enables you to transfer pictures, videos, podcasts, music, and files between your Nokia mobile device and your Mac, you would think so but…
Sadly though, this is currently only for the Nseries devices….
Nokia Media Transfer supports file transfer of photos and video from iPhoto to the device and music, podcasts and videos in iTunes to your Nseries device - exactly what I would want for my Nokia E61i and for my future Nokia E90…
Some people might know of SYSOPENDIGIA as the company behind the MegaPhone - the 170cm tall jumbo phone running S60 which actually works.
The impressive creation is used for display/training purposes at various trades hows and events.
However, SYSOPENDIGIA does so much more.
They are a virtual powerhouse when it comes to Symbian expertise and have a wide array of services and products for operators, handset manufacturers and also end users.
One such product for end users is Corporate Phonebook.
Corporate Phonebook is more of a supplement than an replacement to the built in address book application.
Corporate Phonebook allows you to import your address book information from a backend system such as Outlook, Exchange, LDAP, CRM, and other Databases.
Thank you Symbian Wave for creating SMS Chat For S60 3rd edition - a *really great* threaded SMS chat application for Nokia Eseries!
Many of us "switchers" coming to Nokia Eseries devices from Palm Treo really miss a more robust SMS application. Well, look no further. I would go as far as to say that SMS Chat For S60 3rd edition is almost as robust SMS application as you can get.
The application is stylish and has a very professional look and feel.
One shortcoming of the built in address book application of the Eseries devices is that you cannot search contacts by company name.
Sure, there are additional software that you could add/use to overcome this issue (we will get to those applications later) but here is a quick solution for which you don’t need any additional software.
Just open up a new text message, type the company name in the “To” field and then press in the center key. The contact information which includes the company name you searched for will be displayed.
A big THANK YOU to Krion for introducing me to spodtronic - a great alternative to Nokia's Open Source Radio Client.
spodtronic is a sleek looking radio and podcast client previously available on S60 2nd edition and now available for the Eseries and other S60 3rd edition devices.
The application is branded by Virgin and does contain some other pieces of advertising as well.
However, as annoying as advertising and commercially sponsored applications can get, this is not bad at all. Also, given the fact that the application is free and that there is an open source alternative, spodtronic is a welcomed addition to the field of radio applications.
One one of the most commonly asked question I receive is:
"How do I increase the font size on my Nokia E61?" or "How do I make the text in BlackBerry Connect larger?" I cannot tell you how often I receive that question.
An interesting tidbit is that there seem to be a large number of BlackBerry Connect users who are looking for this.
Anyway, up until now my response have been that certain isolated 3rd party applications such as Alon Contact Guide and RoadSync support increasing the text size. That was true until yesterday.
Today Psiloc released Font Magnifier a great application which lets you increase the font size on all applications.
As with all Psiloc's applications it is intuitive and easy to use. It lets you control the font size of all the installed fonts.
You use a slider to set the font size and then restart the device for the changes to be made. If you want, you can make the font size *REALLY LARGE*.
After a rather lengthy beta period (the creator behind Salling Clicker - Jonas Salling, really, really pays attention to details and produces rock solid products) Salling Clicker 3.5 is now publicly available.
I was fortunate to be part of the beta process so I have been able to use the new version of Salling Clicker for a few months.
Before I take a brief look at the new features; if you are unfamiliar with Salling Clicker I have written about it before, but in essence it is a great piece of software which lets you control your PC from your Eseries device. Although I concentrate on the Mac features Salling Clicker supports Windows as well.
Thinking about starting to watch videos on the Nokia E61 but don't much about the subject?
Do you already watch videos but are not satisfied with the quality?
I've got a great article on this topic to recommend.
The author tested specific parts of certain video clips that were prone to distortion, and graded each part on a scale from 1 to 10 for picture quality and smoothness of motion.
In all he tested well over 100 different optimization settings. Based on the result he created optimal SUPER settings available for download.
Read the article, I promise that you will learn a lot. Especially in regards to tweaking video quality.
Great article Nico~!
I've meant to take RoadSync (Dataviz implementation of ActiveSync - Microsoft Exchange based push email) for a spin since RoadSync 3.0 was released back in December.
RoadSync got an upgrade early April which prompted me to finally give it a try - I'm glad I did.
RoadSync sports an impressive feature set. Needless to say, the push email experience including automatic sync of addresses and calendar works great.
