Although not the first Google Mobile client to feature voice searching, Google have now released that functionality for their BlackBerry client too. More importantly, this client also supports British English for the voice searching.  It should work on any BlackBerry running OS/4.2 and above, although it is not currently compatible with the BlackBerry Storm, and of course, cannot be installed if your corporate BlackBerry has been locked such that additional software cannot be added.  It also has the “My Location” functionality built in, allowing you to search by location too.

A little more information available direct from Google here.

The Nokia N97 is going to be one of the key releases for Nokia this year.  It’s timed to arrive around the same time as the updated iPhones, which may or may not work in Nokia’s favour, depending how much revolution Apple add.  However, in the meantime, here’s a video of the new Nokia with recaps of some of the main features of the device….

If the video does not display for you, please click here.

Last week, Google released a YouTube client for Symbian S60 (and Windows Mobile devices).  It supports a wide range of handsets, including all the current popular devices (Nokia N95 8GB, Nokia E71, Nokia N86) and offers automatic selection of the best stream quality based on device and network connection speed, including Wi-Fi streaming.  Users simply need to head to m.youtube.com where you should be offered the download.

After the update released a couple of weeks ago for Windows Live Messenger on the INQ1 phone, an email update is now available too.  You can either go to Menu > Apps > MShop > INQ and then select to download the new email client, or shortly it will also be available as an automatic update which you will be notified of simply by logging into the email application.

Both of these parts seem to be part of the Update1 we have mentioned before, so we may well see more updates coming.  We’re still keen to see enhancements, not just bug fixes, though.

For a long time there have been very few good options for accessing Twitter on a Symbian S60 device (except dabr, a web based service which we recommend all users should try to see the whole range of features a twitter access client should offer).  However, some people don’t want to use a web based service, and although there are some Java clients, these never quite take full advantage of the Symbian S60 experience.

Well, now, it looks like there will soon be at least 2, if not 3 twitter clients to choose between (plus other options).  Today, Gravity (by mobileways) has been released, and from the feedback from the early testers, this is one very well developed twitter client.  mobileways have produced products like their wirelessIRC client, and so are well used to developing clients like this.  In fact, they have already started talking about which additional Social Networking sites they will add support for in upcoming versions.

Later this week, Twittix from MojosMobile will be released too.

This looks like it will offer a similar experience, and it will be interesting to be able to compare the two.  Neither will be free, but trial versions may well be available over the next few weeks.  MojosMobile are behind other interesting apps, such as GreenPhone, which aims to schedule different brightness levels on the phone at different times of the day to handle the different lighting conditions you will encounter, and to help preserve battery life.

Finally, Marcelo Barros de Almeida, the developer of WordMobi, a Symbian wordpress client, has already released IAmDoing, although Marcelo admits some key twitter functions are currently missing.  However, this particular product should remain free, so is a potential alternative.  It relies upon Python, which although this shouldn’t be a big issue for most people.

If that’s not enough, fring have announced that later today they will roll out “full twitter” support within their S60 and Windows Mobile clients too!

Right now, our money is on Gravity, but mainly because of the plans to expand the functionality into other Social Networking sites too.

Gravity screenshot courtesy of Gerry at nokiAAdict.com, one of the early testers of the product.

Last year, Twitter had to turn off their SMS notification service due to the costs involved to them.  Now, Vodafone UK have announced that for their customer, the service has returned.  Even better, for the “first few weeks”, this service will be absolutely free, and after that, sending SMSes will come out of the customer’s text bundle, or will be charged at their out of bundle rate. However, for the foreseeable future, all SMSes sent by Twitter to the Vodafone customer will remain free, although this is subject to a fair use limit of 500 SMS per month.

This service is provided via a short code, so if a Vodafone customer wants to send a tweet, an @reply, or a request to follow another user, they can by sending an SMS to 86444.

To receive messages, you need to configure twitter with your UK Vodafone mobile number, and select which users who wish to receive messages from (this part is especially key with that 500 message limit).

This is an interesting development, and it’s nice to see Vodafone first; Vodafone seem to be leading the way with providing services across multiple devices (see their last.fm client from last year), whereas the other networks have either concentrated on simply providing internet access.  Of course, 3UK have the INQ1 phone, but that is a single phone, and even that device does not yet support twitter.

Let’s see which is the next network to offer free twitter support, or will this mean Vodafone become the network of choice for people who want to stay connected with other people whilst out and about…

Vodafone’s announcement is here, and Twitter’s here, although I’ll note neither publicise the 500 limit at all.

Fancy a new phone, but don’t want to be tied into a new contract?  Want to try out 3UK, but don’t want to risk being tied into the network for 18 or 24 months.  How about a 6 month contract then?

3UK have recently improved their 6 month contract options, and you can now get a wider range of phones, including the INQ1 handset.  This allows you to try out the new Social Networking INQ1 handset for £15 or £18 per month, and get 300 or 500 cross network minutes, plus a whole range of extra (free voicemail, an additional 300 3UK-3UK minutes per month).

In Mobile Broadband news, 3UK are now offering their 15GB per month service for only £15 per month (on a 24 month contract).  This represents very good value for high usage users, and is a great saving over their 18 month contract option.

Finally, 3UK are also currently offering the Nokia E71 at only £20 per month on their Texter Plan.  Now, the only downside is that the Texter plan does not come with free voicemail, but to make up for this, at £20 per month (18 month contract) this includes 200 cross network minutes, “unlimited” texts (now now 3UK, it’s not unlimited, it’s capped at 3000 texts), internet access, and “unlimited” 3UK-3UK calls (again with an actual limit).

You might want to move fast though, if you are interested, as these offers are currently set to expire at the end of the month.

We’ve been a big fan of mobbler, the Symbian S60 client for last.fm, which allows you to scrobble your tracks (record what you have listened to), and also access and play last.fm radio streams.  However, this week, last.fm have made two statements which may not help mobbler…

Firstly, due to the lack of an established ad business, last.fm have found it difficult to find advertisers to cover their costs outside of 3 main countries, UK, USA and Germany, and hence all subscribers outside of those countries will need to subscribe and pay €3 per month for access what will remain the “free” service here in the UK.

However, the key issue is their second announcement, which signals the end of 3rd party clients using unofficial API calls to access the streamed music.  These old APIs will be switched off (potentially by the end of next week) and new music streaming APIs will be used instead.  These new APIs are available to developers to use within their clients, so, unlike some news reports, last.fm are not preventing 3rd party clients from working, simply ensuring that they use the right code to access the streams.  There are 2 key points:

Firstly, only subscribers will be able to stream music, unless the developer of the client enters into a specific deal with last.fm

Secondly, last.fm have said that their license prevents the streams being streamed to mobile phones.

Ironically, further clarification seemed to have muddied the water even further.  last.fm have stated that this decision is not “set in stone” (which seems bizarre if it’s a licensing issue).  Also, last.fm official Android and iPhone/iPod Touch clients do not seem to be affected by this.  Finally, they have confirmed that the Nokia N810 Internet Tablet, as it is does not contain a SIM card, is not affected, and the 3rd party client Vagalume will still be ok (presumably if it supports the new API).  What’s odd about this is that a common method of connecting the N810 to the Internet is via Bluetooth and a mobile phone, so ironically, you will be able to listen to last.fm on an N810 whilst out and about, but won’t be able to listen via your Nokia E71 using Wi-Fi at home (as it’s a device issue, not the actual network connection)…

last.fm need to reconsider this; limiting music streaming to paying subscribers should help ensure a steady revenue model to cover the costs of paying royalties, and allow all users to continue to enjoy the music they want to listen to.

It should be pointed out that there are other 3rd party clients affected, the Pocket Scrobbler on Windows Mobile and FlipSide on the BlackBerry will also be affected.  However, neither the Vodafone S60 last.fm client nor 3UK’s INQ1 phone will be affected, as these only supported scrobbling (which remains free and unchanged) and had no music streaming support.

Update: last.fm have now stated “I’m working with third-party mobile client authors at the moment, and I’m fairly confident that we can allow them to use the new API in mobile mode for subscribers” and “I am working to make sure that existing mobile clients like Mobbler will get grandfathered in”, and last.fm have re-confirmed that only paying subscribers will be able to stream music; why they didn’t simply state this, along with the change in API we don’t know, instead of announcing and now, in essence, withdrawing their statements over mobile phone streaming.

Here’s the new Canon EOS 500D, shown with it’s US Rebel branding.  This new camera takes functions from both the Canon EOS 50D and the Canon 5D Mark II, resulting in the following spec:

• 15.1 megapixel CMOS sensor
• HD video capture
• 3.0-inch Clear View LCD (920,000 dots/VGA) monitor
• Auto Lighting Optimizer, Creative Auto Mode and Canon’s Live View modes
• continuous shooting at 3.4 fps for up to 170 large/fine JPEG images or up to nine RAW images in a single burst when using a class 6 or higher SD or SDHC memory card
• ISO speeds from ISO 100 up to ISO 3200 in whole stop increments, along with two additional high-speed ISO settings – H1: 6400 and H2: 12800
• nine-point Autofocus (AF) system
• 16:9 720p HD video capture at 30 fps
• Full HD 1080p video capture at 20 fps
• record video up to 4GB per clip equaling approximately 12 minutes of Full HD video, 18 minutes of 720p HD video, or 24 minutes of SD video depending on the level of detail in the scene
• built-in monaural microphone to record sound
• HDMI (High-Definition Multimedia Interface) output
• three Live View AF modes – Quick, Live and Face Detection Live mode
• EOS Integrated Cleaning System

It looks like it will sell for less than £1000 with the 18-55mm Kit lens.

O2 (well, Telefonica) and Vodafone have announced that they have reached a milestone in their plans for mobile network infrastructure sharing.  Across Germany, Spain, Ireland and the UK (and possible the Czech Republic in the future) the two companies will work to share sites.  They will look to share new mast sites (ie both co-locate their equipment at the same site), but also consolidate existing sites, resulting in potentially less sites overall, but still offering the customer good coverage.  They also talk about sharing existing antennas, although they add “In the UK and Ireland, the elements of the network to be shared include: masts, antennas, sites, cabinets and power supply. The network electronics Nodes B (3G), BTS (2G) and the radio network controllers which are linked to the core network are to remain independent.”

In particular:

• Germany: Both companies to share existing 2G and 3G sites. Shared masts can also be used for microwave backhaul.
• Ireland: Both companies to open all network sites for sharing by the other party. New build will also be conducted jointly where roll-out plans are aligned.
• Spain: Both companies to extend existing site share agreement from 2007, which includes the shared usage of power, cabinets and mast. To date 2,200 sites are shared under this agreement. During 2009 and 2010 additional sites will be included.
• UK: Both companies to focus on joint build of new sites and consolidation of existing 2G and 3G sites.

This should benefit the user in both increased coverage, and by reducing operating costs, it will allow the companies to concentrate on “developing innovative products and services for customers”.

This is similar to the T-Mobile / 3UK agreement just over a year ago.

We’ve covered HandyWi before here and here, but apparently there are currently experiencing problems, such that you can’t login into FON hotspots from their application at the moment.  They say they are working on a solution, and hope to have it working again soon.

Do you have two mobiles? Maybe a work phone / BlackBerry and a personal one?  Well, if you do, how do you handle using them legally in the car; some people have two forms of Handsfree, but Bluetooth Multipoint is likely to be a better answer.  Multipoint allows the Bluetooth device to establish multiple connections *at the same time* to the various phones, and then when a call comes in, will route that phone to the headset / handsfree kit and allow the call to proceed.

It can also be used at home to allow your SIP / Skype VOIP client and your mobile to share a single headset.

For more information on this fairly new innovation and a list of devices that support it today, head over to Mobile Fun’s website where they have written up a list of devices supporting Bluetooth Multipoint.

Out of the range featured, we quite like the Movon Bluetooth Car Kit MK30, as it also features an OLED display, allowing you to leave those 2 mobiles in your jacket / handbag.

Picture courtesy of Mobile Fun.

When we covered SatMap’s new Route Planner and Route Share last week, we noted that this would no longer be free to new purchasers of the Active 10 from today (and existing purchasers only have until the end of March to register for free access).  Well, SatMap have today extended their range with the Active 10 Plus, which will include free access to both these services.  On top of the standard Active 10 device, it will also offer postcode based lookup facilities, a new function not previously available on the Active 10, and due to license limitations, will not be available for retro-fitting to the Active 10 either.

The Active 10 Plus will retail for £379.99, compared to £299.99 for Active 10.  As well as access to the Route Planner and Route Share services (via a voucher in the box), the Active 10 Plus also ships with a World Base Map, a Lithium Polymer Battery (the unit will also take AA Batteries), a wall charger (with multi-country adaptors), and another voucher for 1/3 off a 60km² site-centred map (worth £35).

The new 1:5 million World Base Map allows better use of the device outside of the UK (or the main area you have bought maps for), providing some basic level of mapping.  For comparison, the Active 10 Plus ships with this 1:5 million base map, a UK 1:1 million high level OS map, and a 1:250,000 raster road map of the UK.  For those existing Active 10 users who would like this world base map, it is available as an upgrade for £39.99 plus postage.

The World Base Map is part of the European wide launch of the device, with plans to release OS type mapping for a number of Western European countries by Easter this year, including The Netherlands and Norway, where the device is already on sale.

Given the range of extras the Active 10 Plus ships with, it’s likely to count for the majority of sales moving forward.

Although still a little expensive (even as a waterproof GPS unit with access to UK OS Maps), if SatMap improved their geocaching support within the device’s software (and their FAQ says they are looking to incorporate in the future), we think they would sell even more units.

More information direct from SatMap here.

Nokia has updated it’s SportsTracker application again. However, having visited the download page, it appears it’s not yet available for all variants of Symbian devices, with some devices still only having access to v1.78, as opposed to the latest v2.05.  The other way of obtaining the update is to use the “Check for Updates” within the SportsTracker application itself.

The main changes in this new version, though, are:

• Step Counter (originally a separate Nokia Beta Labs application) is now included
• The Polar Bluetooth Heartrate Monitor Belt (which ships with the Nokia N79 Active) is now supported, although some users have reported issues with this working on other devices
• Better support for the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic in terms of map navigation

It’s a shame that Nokia still have no plans to release the Polar Bluetooth Heartrate Monitor Belt for direct use with other phones than the Nokia N79 Active, as it would surely sell well.

We are big fans of the Nokia E71 here, but appreciate not everyone can afford to commit to an 18 month contract, or don’t want to pay over £250 for the device without a long term contract.  Well, the E71’s brother, the Nokia E63 maybe the answer, and at only £150 from Virgin (on PAYG), it’s even affordable for everyone.

Now, the Nokia E63 has to lose some features to justify the price difference, and the device does feel “cheaper” alongside an E71, but still stands on its own as a decent phone.  The main loss is the GPS (All Nokia E-Series devices feature Wi-Fi, and hence the GPS functionality was dropped), but with Google Maps, which can use mobile network cell ID (and Wi-Fi) to help locate you, and will generally provide you with a good overall position.  The other difference is the camera is only 2 megapixels, compared to the 3.2 of the E71 (and with the latest E71 firmware improving that camera this maybe another reason to prefer the E71). To counteract this, the E63 has a few extra keys near the spacebar providing handy access to some frequently used symbols, although the E63 does lose the volume control keys on the side of the device.

Which would we go for? We would spend the extra for the GPS and better camera, but the Nokia E63 shouldn’t be dismissed out of hand, and at £150 is quite a bargain.

Thanks to Gerry at nokiAAdict.com for pointing out this price to us.

Although the INQ1 phone has a good Facebook application builtin, there’s no way to use this to get Facebook information onto the Home screen.  However, Adam at Adamsrants has realised that you can get RSS feeds onto the Home screen, and has written a tutorial of how to access Facebook RSS feeds to feed this information onto the Home screen.  For those who rely upon Facebook, this maybe a useful guide for how to get auto-updating information on the Home screen.

Thanks to Sam at 3mobilebuzz for alerting us to this information.

Apple launched their 3rd generation OS for their devices this week, announcing v3.0, which is suitable for the existing iPod Touchs (both generations) and the iPhones.  This OS update brings a whole range of features which seem to answer many of the small niggling issues that people have complained about; Copy and Paste support, MMS, Global Search, Tethering support (using the device to connect a PC to the internet), better Bluetooth support (including A2DP) and turn-by-turn SatNav capability.

However, it’s not all good news; the MMS functionality is not available on the iPhone v1 (2G), and existing iPod Touch users will have to pay to get this upgrade (as with previous major OS upgrades).  For 2nd Generation iPod Touch users, this OS update will also unlock Bluetooth support.  Also, although the capability of turn-by-turn SatNav is included, it can’t use the existing Google Maps support, so SatNav vendors will have to supply their own maps, which will potentially take up a proportion of the available internal memory.

The tethering support is said to be carrier dependent, so we won’t know until closer to the time whether O2 intend to allow this functionality in the UK.

Analysis of the beta firmware seems to indicate references to new devices, including 1 or maybe even 2 new iPhones, and possibly 2 iPod Touches (one may simply be the existing model with the new OS as standard).  We’ve been hearing rumours of an iPhone Nano, a cutdown device with a smaller screen and possibly some features, such as GPS and even 3G removed, and a new top of the range device is likely to keep hardware sales up, and the obvious features will be a better screen resolution, video capture support via a higher resolution camera and more internal memory.

The general consensus of this update is that it helps to close the gap on those little nuances, however, it’ll be interesting to see how Google’s Android reacts.  Apps like Locale for Android show the true power of that OS, allowing a whole range of actions to be taken based on triggers (entering a location for example); ringtones, volume, wallpaper, even sending tweets to twitter, sending an SMS etc can all be configured; although there are a large number of apps for the iPhone, something that offers automated actions based on triggers is something that’s been prevented by the limited access to the phone to developers so far (and the lack of being able to leave an application running in the background) and would complete the device.

Most people are aware of Apple’s shift away from DRM, with the ability to pay to upgrade your iTunes library to DRM-free music.  However, in the last couple of weeks, we’ve seen 2 other companies announce similar initiatives.  Firstly, Vodafone have announced their MP3 Music Store is going DRM-free, and on top of that, all Vodafone customers who have purchased from their store can get the tracks they have already purchased turned into DRM-free MP3 tracks for free.

Secondly, and this is a little bit more vague, but it looks like Nokia’s Music Store will be going DRM free, with their statement that “DRM-free is also on the roadmap for the future integration of Comes With Music”.  It looks like that in the coming months, Nokia will be removing DRM from their store, although as the exact details have not been published, it’s not yet clear if this will apply to existing tracks or whether it will apply to the whole Music Store, or just those with Comes With Music subscriptions.

Either way, it’s certainly likely that by the end of this year we will all have access to more choice of where to get our DRM-free music from.

Over at nokiAAddict.com, Gerry has managed to obtain the Changelog for the new v210 Firmware.  Head over to his site to read all the details of the changes.  Generally the main improvement for most people is the camera, which is no longer casting a purple tint across the photos, and for this alone, it may well be worth the hassle of upgrading.

fring have announced that they are now supporting a whole range of recently announced Nokia handsets, including the Nokia N86, Nokia 5630, Nokia 5730, Nokia 6710, Nokia 6720 and finally the Nokia E75.  On top of this, they have released a fring symbian theme for S60 3rd and 5th Edition devices (shown above running the fring client) to allow you to customise your device. The theme is available for download here.