Nokia have released, via the Nokia Beta Labs, an update to the Free Ovi Maps solution, now at v3.04.  The new features are:

• Improved positioning speed and accuracy
• Map zooming with faster speed
• Improved search for cities with zoom out to city level

This is good to see, and if you want to try it out (remember it’s a beta version, so may not be perfect), then head over to the Nokia Beta Labs to download this new version.  If you think your device (whether S60 3rd Edition FP2 or S60 5th Edition) is not supported, it’s worth trying one of the other similar models (within the same OS group); eg if you are using a Nokia N86 or Nokia E75, then try the 3rd Edition FP2 version even though your model is not explicitly listed; strangely some people seem to have had success with this method, and others not, so it’s not clear whether or not other devices of the same OS (other than the original 10 or so Nokia announced) can access this software or not.

One word of warning; if you are using a Nokia 5800 XpressMusic, you need at least v31 firmware, which is still not available for some Orange models and all 3UK Nokia 5800 XpressMusic devices, and this despite 3UK giving assurances last month that they were working at fast as possible to get this update out to their users.

Now, about all those of us with S60 3rd Edition FP1 devices; Nokia released a statement (via a Q&A session) about supporting existing and elder devices with the Free Ovi Maps service.  They said they were working to extend the compatibility to other current devices (although I believe they meant FP2 devices), and from now on, all GPS enabled devices will be supported with Free Ovi Maps, but could not give any timelines or guarantees over elder devices; although a ray of hope was that their exact comment was “We can’t say when it will be available”, which seems to imply there is still a chance it will happen.

What I can say is that the Beta of v3.04 isn’t available in an FP1 version, so it’s fair to say it’s going to be a while longer before it comes out, if it ever does…

We’re hearing that Vodafone will be removing the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic from their range by the end of the week, and it’s likely as we progress into March that the other networks will follow suit.  As the phone has been out for a while, it seems it’s being replaced by the Nokia 5230, which although is a nice phone, has some less features compared to the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic.

Firstly, it’s got a 2 megapixel camera, compared to the 3.2 megapixel on the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic, and it doesn’t have WiFi (not a problem for many people, but still worth pointing out; whilst at home, my phones often download larger files and data, which would quickly cut into the data limits placed on phone contracts).  It does, however, have built in social networking features (although adding a copy of Gravity to a Symbian phone only costs around £8, and is well worth it in my opinion).  It does also have more flexibility when it comes to the home screen layout, which may appeal to many.  With the move to Ovi Maps v3 now being free for S60 5th Edition phones, both can have free Navigation, although with the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic you may well need to update the software and maps before you get free navigation, whereas it’s more likely (although not confirmed) that the Nokia 5230 will ship with the free version out of the box.

So, if you are after a new phone, the Nokia 5230 is worth a look, but if the lack of WiFi will be an issue, then you might want to act quickly before the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic disappears from the shelves for good!

Yes, finally, after all these years… Nokia (well Nokia Beta Labs) have released a Custom Dictionary Editor, which allows you to read, edit and delete the words in the customer dictionary on your phone.  Of course, as with all things Nokia, it’s not that simple, so read on before you head off to install the software…

Firstly, it’s mainly aimed at the latest phones, so devices like the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic and the Nokia X6 are fine, and there’s a dedicated version for the Nokia E71 and Nokia E63 which works fine too, but most other devices will struggle in one way or another, and not have the full functionality, which includes…

• View all the words in your custom dictionary
• Add new words to it
• Edit and Delete existing words
• Export the dictionary as xml file
• Import words from an xml file
• Scan text files to import all the words
• Transfer your dictionary to another phone

Although many devices are generally supported (most S60 3rd Edition and S60 5th Edition devices should be able to run the application, although most S60 3rd Edition FP1 phones will have limited functionality), the best support is limited to the 4 supported phones (even devices like the Nokia N97, Nokia E72 and Nokia E75 are listed as having “minor issues”).

This is a good forward step by Nokia though; many people, myself included, have been annoyed by the lack of edit capability of the dictionary over the years.  One useful piece of advice Nokia have now provided though; the dictionary is limited in size, and, once full, when it adds a word, it deletes the least used word from the dictionary.  This will explain for many why some words disappear over time.

As always, if you want to try it out, head over to the Nokia Beta Labs to see it, and the support for your phone.  Also, if you hadn’t visited the Nokia Beta Labs site recently, you’ll need a Nokia Account (you’ll already have one if you use the Ovi features) to download the application.

Last week I attended an event hosted by 3UK.  In attendance were a variety of 3UK staff from Marketing & PR, Products & Services, Customer Services, and the Networks team.  I had a chance to chat with people for each area and was able to ask a wide range of questions, especially those that you had added as comments to my request last week.  As a result, I’m able to provide a glimpse into what 2010 holds for 3UK (although nothing truly exclusive and brand new was announced, there was some useful information provided)…

Please read the questions and answers after the break…

(more…)

Brightkite have released their Symbian app (we first talked about it here over a year ago!), and it’s available in the Ovi Store here right now.  As you may work out from the screenshot, it’s for the touchscreen devices, and so is limited to S60 5th Edition devices (Nokia 5800 XpressMusic, Nokia N97, Nokia N97 Mini etc.) but even so, it’s an interesting step in the right direction.

In fact, maybe combining this with the Maps Booster application I discussed this morning would provide that nice alternative to Google Latitude I was looking for…

When Nokia made Ovi Maps free for a whole range of devices last week, one thing which wasn’t so strongly mentioned was the minimum firmware versions needed for certain devices.  Take the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic for example; although many devices shipped with v11 (and since then Nokia has released v20, v21, v30, v31 and v40 firmwares), you actually need a minimum of v31 to be able to install this latest version of Ovi Maps.

Obviously for anyone with a generic unbranded device, this is easy; a quick firmware check on the device, or using Nokia Software Updater on your Windows PC will soon confirm that there is a v40 firmware, and you can easily install it; but what about the UK network operators?  If you have a branded device, are you in luck?

Well, generally, the good news is yes, you are in luck.  It looks like the majority of UK branded product codes have had v31 released (although none that I checked actually had v40 released yet), so overall, you have a good chance of being able to upgrade the firmware in your phone, and then install the new free to use Ovi Maps.

However, all is not perfect; I did say “the majority”, and I’m sorry to say, the Orange product code for a Nokia 5800 XpressMusic Blue edition (the early devices Orange first sold) seems to be stuck on v30, and hence, although fairly up to date, not sufficiently up to date to allow the new Ovi Maps to work.  Ironically, the Black variant, which, being newer, has strangely always faired better for firmware updates seems to have v31 available, so those users are fine.

If my research is correct, that’s a silly situation to be in; depending when you bought your phone determines which colour you have, and with Orange, that can mean the difference between being able to install Ovi Maps or not.  Let’s hope Orange resolve this with some speed given the amount of advertising Nokia is putting behind their new Ovi Maps versions.

However, that’s not the end of the story; it appears 3UK are also stuck on v30, and hence anyone with a Nokia 5800 XpressMusic from 3UK will not be able to run the latest Ovi Maps either.

Obviously, I am not able to check every single colour and operator variant, but I checked over 10 different product codes to write this article; if you have a device from Orange or 3UK that has access to the v31 or v40 firmware (without changing the product code), then please add a comment and let me know the product code (from underneath the battery in the form of 0559360) and what firmware version you have access to…

So, to recap; well done to most UK operators (T-Mobile, O2, Virgin, Vodafone), and not so well done to Orange and 3UK for either not having v31 available, or having a mix of firmware versions.

This is only just been announced, so I’ll provide more comment later, but if you own, or are planning to buy one of these Nokia models:

• Nokia N97 Mini
• Nokia E72
• Nokia E52
• Nokia E55
• Nokia 5800 XpressMusic
• Nokia 5800 Navigation Edition
• Nokia 6710 Navigator
• Nokia 6730
• Nokia 5230
• Nokia X6

then as from today, you should be able to download a new version of Ovi Maps, which not just offers free GPS Navigation in over 70 countries, but offers more too…

• Free Drive navigation
• Free Walk navigation
• Free maps and map updates
• Free Events guides
• Free Lonely Planet guides
• Free Michelin guides
• Free Weather updates

That’s an impressive list, especially the guides and weather being free too.  This is obviously a reaction to Google announcing plans to make navigation free for all, but with Nokia supporting offline navigation (with all the maps and routing being stored on the device) this is likely to be a much preferred solution for many (especially those travelling abroad where roaming data charges would make Google’s solution impractical for many).

We’re also hearing that traffic and safety camera information will be free too!

Nokia have stated they plan to increase the range of devices further in the future (I, like many others have already commented on the lack of the original Nokia N97).

For more information, head to the Free Navigation Forever page from Nokia.

Update: We understand the Nokia N97 is likely to need a firmware update first to be able to support the new version of the Ovi Maps (this is more about a lack of free space on the C: drive than anything in particular within the firmware), and it’s possible that the new Ovi Maps will be included within the firmware itself, and that we may see that firmware before the end of the month.

Update: We have seen a number of comments from Nokia that imply more of their “older” devices will soon be included within this Free Navigation programme, and we hope it covers the majority of S60 3rd Edition FP1 devices, especially those like the Nokia E71 which are still on sale today as brand new devices.

Update: It appears there will be a Free version for the Nokia N900 Maemo device, but this is some way off.

I’ve covered Swim before, a tool for automating syncs on your Nokia (Symbian) phone.  I use it every day with GooSync to keep my Google Calendar and my local Symbian calendar in sync with each other, but one problem was that Swim only worked on S60 3rd Edition FP1 phones.

Well, the team behind Swim have apparently been working direct with the Symbian Foundation to resolve the issues, which they have managed to do succesfully, so they have now released an updated version with S60 3rd Edition FP2 support (eg Nokia E72) and S60 5th Edition (Nokia N97, Nokia N97 Mini, Nokia 5800 XpressMusic) too.  It should be noted that the updated version only supports these new platforms, and for regular FP1 users, there is no new version at this stage.

This is one of those utilities you really should consider with Symbian, and it’s a shame it’s still not included automatically by Symbian; if, for example, you go and buy an Android phone (especially a Google Experience one), you simply enter your Google details, and your calendar (even multiple claendars, if you are a power user of Goolge Calendar) will be automatically kept up to date with your device with no further intervention by you… it’s these little integration points that make Android so popular at the moment…

Just like buses, you wait for ages and then two come along together…

It’s been a bit of a week for firmware updates, and many recent devices have seen updates this week.  The Nokia E72 has now got the v22 firmware, The Nokia N86 gets v21, and the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic gets v40.  Each of these offers improvements for the device, and are worthy of investigation if you own these devices.  Of course, the operator-specific branded firmwares will take a little longer to be released.

For example, the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic changelog includes:

• Additional Kinetic Scrolling
• Changed UI in the homescreen similar to the 5530XM
• Updated Nokia Messaging
• OVI Contacts pre-installed
• New screen alarm when locked
• Keyboard updated: when in vertical mode it’s alpha-numeric, if you turn your phone to landscape mode, it automatically changes to full qwerty
• Keyboard updated: when you press a “key” the key that appears on top is now bigger
• Software updater is now updated and has some more options
• When phone key lock is on and you receive a call you see a slide to unlock and a slide to answer bar

However, the Maemo based Nokia N900 has had an even better week…

Earlier in the week, a small minor firmware update was released, which allowed the Ovi Store to become available for the Maemo platform, and then over the next day or so, the PR1.1 first major firmware release will start appearing on devices for applying.  This brings many little minor fixes to the platform, many of which were reported via the Maemo bug tracker direct to the developers, but probably the single biggest bugfix that is directly relevant to the UK is that 3UK SIMs are now supported by this firmware update.  So, if you have a 3UK SIM you want to use with a Nokia N900, then apply this update (2.2009.51-1) and then you should no longer suffer from “SIM card rejected” messages.

If you are yet to buy a Nokia N900, and have been put off by the high SIM-free price of the device, then Vodafone have announced they will be selling the phone soon.  There are rumours that stocks are already in store, but sales are being held to prevent it impacting on the launch of the iPhone on Vodafone, but I doubt whether anyone will be swayed from one to the other, as they seem to attract a very different customer.  Either way, this new firmware will be well worth applying to your Nokia N900 as soon as it’s available for you.

If you want to access this major update as an OTA (Over The Air) upgrade, you’ll need to apply the more minor upgrade from earlier in the week first, and then shortly afterwards this new firmware should become visible, however, if you use Nokia’s PC based Software Updater, you are able to jump straight to the latest firmware without the intermediate step.

The only issue with this firmware update is that is does not bring the portrait-mode support that was expected, so it’s likely we’ll see another firmware update for the Nokia N900 in the coming months to address that oft-requested feature; also, MMS is still missing, although there is a third party app providing MMS support if you really need it (see here for more details, and here for another program by the same author which allows a secondary APN to be defined on the device, which is often needed to be able to send MMS).  However, we should point out that Nokia and Maemo are aware that the OTA firmware update will not work if certain other software is installed (especially applications from the extras-devel repository, which is not enabled by default on the Nokia N900).  If you are directed to perform the firmware update via your PC, one option is to turn off this repository, and uninstall any applications installed from it, and see if that fixed the “under-the-covers” software problems.

If you really want to see a fairly complete list of fixes, then head to the Maemo PR1.1 release information, although be warned, it’s quite technical, and quite long too!

Finally, if you want to get the latest version of Vagalume (the Maemo Last.fm / Libre.fm client) streaming Last.fm on your Nokia N900, then nokiAAddict has also written up the information on how to achieve this here.

Nokia 5800 XpressMusic Changelog courtesy of nokiAAddict.

Nokia BetaLabs have released an update to their Nokia Messaging for Social Networks beta product, which now features improved Facebook access, and also adds the first round of Twitter support.  Nokia have also commented that they will be adding other Social Networking sites over time.

As well as the initial version, which offered to let people view, post, and comment on messages, share their location and status while keeping up with their Facebook friends, the new version adds the following Facebook features:

• Upload pictures and videos
• Events: View upcoming events, birthdays and import to device calendar
• Search friends
• Click-to-call / click-to-SMS / click-to-FB Email

In terms of the Twitter support, it includes the ability to see your friends’ tweets, reply to them, and open links in their tweets, but more advanced functions like Direct Messages, Trends, and Follower information all have placeholders, but are marked as coming soon.

The application also has some location sharing features, which are built on top of Ovi Maps, and it also offers a Homescreen widget.  This app is, however, limited to the Nokia N97, Nokia N97 Mini, Nokia 5800 XpressMusic and the Nokia X6 right now.

This does look an interesting application, and may, over time, become a useful tool for those wanting to keep online from their device.  This is the sort of functionality we are seeing built directly into other phones as they ship (eg the INQ Mini 3G, and the INQ Chat 3G), so it will be nice when Nokia are shipping this by default on their phones to offer a similar experience as other manufacturers are managing.

It’s been a busy few days.  Firstly, Nimbuzz announced a fairly major upgrade within their client such that they now have much better twitter support within their application (shown above).  The full feature list for this new version includes:

• Full Twitter client – Timelines, Tweet, DM, Searches, Trends, Profiles and much more!!
• Kinetic scroll – available for Symbian 5th edition touch screen phones  (e.g. Nokia 5800, Nokia N97, N97 mini, Nokia 5730, Nokia  X6 )
• Chat History – see all your past conversations
• Pop-Up notification – for new chats and other events whenever Nimbuzz runs in the background
• DTMF tones in calls – now you can press 1 in a call
• NimbuzzOut rate calculator – see the rates for calling to different countries
• Upgraded UI -  new chat screen layout & contact list layout

Also, NokiAAddict wrote a handy guide to setting up and configuring the Nimbuzz client to support a SIP VOIP account, which may be useful for those trying Nimbuzz for the first time, but want the additional benefit of standard SIP support, and as NokiAAddict are UK based, the guide shows using a UK VOIP provider.  See here for their article.

Then, Skype announced the launch of their Symbian client entering Beta for a select range of handsets (S60 3rd Edition FP1 and FP2, but no S60 5th Edition touch devices at this stage).  This includes:

• Free Skype-to-Skype calling
• Call phones with Skype credits or subscription
• Receive calls on your Online Number
• Instant Messaging
• Group conversations
• File sending and receiving

Now, remember that this Skype client uses the 3G / WiFi connection to actually make the call, Skype are recommending users have an unlimited data contract, and of course, for 3UK users, you will still be better using the slightly more limited Skype for 3 application, as this uses the 3G voice infrastructure for the call, and doesn’t come out of your data allowance.  More information can be found here and the user guide can be found here.

Finally, Truphone have just announced a major design update to their iPhone application.  This new version includes:

• New look and feel
• Streamlined sign-up
• In app guided tour
• Tru Friends presence
• Speaker phone support
• Improved IM and chat with multi-chat switcher
• Full Twitter integration

What’s certainly clear is that all these 3 companies are innovating in the mobile space, and offering their customers alternatives to traditional mobile calling plans.

Since it’s initial launch we’ve had the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic phone, then we had the Comes with Music version released, and now we have the Nokia 5800 Navigation Edition.  This new version of the phone concentrates on providing a SatNav experience on the device, and to that end, ships with a lifetime voice guided Drive and Walk navigation license.  Of course, Nokia provide map updates for free for their devices, and software updates are free too, so this really does look like a good deal, and certainly could work out cheaper than buying a phone and navigation license separately (as long as you keep the phone for at least 2 years).  The Navigation Edition also features a slightly modified housing, with the silver effect instead of the red or blue colour band.

Unlike earlier devices in the range, this version will ship with the latest Ovi Maps pre-installed, although it’s not clear what mapping will be included on the device (additional maps can either be download Over-The-Air, or via a PC, which is often more convenient).

Just in case you thought that wasn’t enough, Nokia have also included within the box a car holder, easy mount (windscreen suction mount) and swivel adaptor, allowing you to mount the phone conveniently for use.  The box will also feature a car charger, a key component when using phones as a SatNav due to the additional battery drain of the GPS, the data connection (if used), and keeping the screen display lit.

This version of the device will retail for around £250, which is a good price given the accessories and navigation license that’s included, and will be available during Q3 (err, that means September we suspect), although if you can’t wait, you can either get the original Nokia 5800 XpressMusic from Vodafone, or, as from today, it is now also available from 3UK as well (with their usual additional apps).

If you do buy the original device, you should be able to buy the Car Holder / Swivel Adaptor / Windscreen Mount as accessories (often sold separately so watch out you know what you are purchasing!), and of course, you can purchase Nokia Navigation Licenses either from the internet (normally cheaper) or direct on the device itself, giving you the same overall experience, just without the silver colour!

Nokia have this week released a new firmware for the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic phone (v30).  As this phone has UDP (User Data Preservation), normally no applications or data would be lost in installing a firmware update, but this firmware isn’t quite like that…

Along with a range of stability and bug fixes, Nokia have added the ability for Nokia Messaging to add email notifications onto the homescreen.  However, this additional feature requires a hard reset of the device to become activated, thereby losing all installed applications and data.  So, although we normally still recommend taking a backup before performing a firmware update, this particular firmware update will involve starting afresh to get the most out of it.

As always, this firmware update is not yet available to all branded firmwares, we’ll keep an eye on the situation and report back as to how quickly each UK network operator makes this firmware available…

Over at “The Nokia Phone Blog“, Ang has put together a nice complete step by step process for how to encode video for best viewing on these devices, namely the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic and the Nokia N97, and it’s well worth a read if you are looking to ensure you use the optimal settings for the correct quality to allow good video without taking more than necessary disk space.

There’s been quite a lot of activity over the last couple of weeks within the Symbian marketplace, mainly related to the release of the Nokia N97, and many people releasing new or upgraded apps to support the new range of touchscreen devices, so we thought we summarise some of those activities that we haven’t already mentioned…

last.fm and mobbler

Firstly, to one of our favourite S60 apps; mobbler.  mobbler, a last.fm client has been through a vetting process with last.fm and has been given the seal of approval, such that it can continue to use the new API for accessing streaming music to S60 mobiles.  To clarify, you need to pay a subscription to access this though.  A few months ago, when last.fm first talked about the new API, they said users in the UK (Germany and the US) would not need to pay due to last.fm receiving sufficient ad revenue in these countries; so why the need to pay?  Simply, because mobbler doesn’t show you ads; if you “only” use the last.fm desktop application (which does show ads), then last.fm are happy you don’t need to pay, but as mobbler doesn’t offer last.fm ads, last.fm feel it’s fair to charge (and at £3 per month, it’s only a small outlay).

If you don’t want to pay and don’t want access to streamed music, there is an alternative to mobbler; the Vodafone last.fm client, but, having seen both, we still prefer mobbler (although if you have a Nokia 5800 XpressMusic it appears mobbler cannot record the music you listen to yet, whereas the Vodafone client can).

Nokia E75 IM Beta application

Nokia Beta Labs have released an IM client.  At this stage, it only support Yahoo and Ovi chat, but Nokia have stated it will support more IM platforms in time, and of course, they will extend support beyond the Nokia E75.  Our only comment on this is that it’s a Java application, and not a native S60 app, which seems a little strange for Nokia.

Other Ovi updates

Nokia also announced this week that Ovi Maps 3.0 (aka Nokia Maps v3.0) has moved from Beta to being released.  This brings with a range of new features within the mapping client, and offers the ability to sync your favourites between your phone and your Ovi online account (as this is both ways, it allows you find and record destinations on the PC, and then download to your mobile).  This, although only just released looks an interesting proposition.  Unfortunately, the Map Loader application remains Windows only, although the actual SIS files for the map clients are already available on the internet.

Nokia has also updated their Ovi Contacts application to support the Symbian S60 5th Edition touch devices.  Included with this new version, for Nokia N97 users only, is integration with the homescreen; you can integrate your contacts with the Contacts addressbook on the phone, such that you can see their status within the standard addressbook, and if you have that contact in your favourites on the homescreen, their IM status will appear there too.  Symbian S60 3rd Edition users shouldn’t feel left out; Nokia have updated this version too, although without the homescreen integration.

Pixelpipe support for the Nokia N97

Pixelpipe, a service we’ve recently been supported, have also released a QuickPost widget beta too.  “The widget aims to provide a simple and efficient method of updating your status or posting to blogs/micro-blogs while on the go.  Just keep it running in the background, pop it open when you have something to say and post it to any of Pixelpipe’s 95 supported services.  You can even use our Routing Tags feature to selectively post to specific services or groups (eg. @twitter, @facebook, @friends).”

It’s available now and can be downloaded OTA directly to your handset or desktop at http://tr.im/qGxu, although Pixelpipe would be grateful for any feedback to beta@pixelpipe.com.

Mippin Homescreen Widgets

Finally, Mippin have produced a number of widgets for Symbian S60 5th Edition devices *and* Android phones.  They have released 4 “Buzz widgets”;

• Buzz Widget – the very latest up-to-date news

• Gossip Buzz Widget – the latest celebrity news

• Gaming Buzz Widget – the latest gaming news

• Tech Buzz Widget – the latest technology news

These widgets will work on all S60 5th Edition devices, and can also be incoporated onto the homescreen on the Nokia N97, and you can control some elements of the content (eg selecting UK news) and the refresh rate.  As a default, they only collect new news every 30 minutes, but as they store the data locally, they will still work in areas of no signal coverage, or when the phone has been put into Flight Mode.

Right now, only the News Buzz widget is available from Nokia’s Ovi Store, so if you want, you can download the widgets direct from Mippin via these links…

Downloads for Nokia N97, 5800 / 5530

• Download News Buzz widget

• Download Gossip Buzz widget

• Download Gaming Buzz widget

• Download Tech Buzz widget

Well, I’m afraid to say, we’ve got very little to report in terms of Branded firmware updates, but let’s go through the variety of devices we monitor, and provide any key information:

Nokia N95 – No change at all (v31 the latest); with 3UK the only network not providing v30 or v31.

Nokia N95 8GB – No change at all (v31 the latest); with Vodafone not providing v30 or v31.

Nokia E71 – v300 was released this week for generic unbranded devices; 3UK are still only offering v100 for their customers.

Nokia E75 – as we covered a while ago, v110 is now out for generic devices.  This device is not common on the main UK networks, although Orange have now started selling it.

Nokia 5800 – most networks are now offering v21 for their customers, except certain Orange variants, still stuck on v11.

Nokia N79 – although v30 has been released, it appears that the Nokia Software Updater is still only offering v20, so you may want to use the OTA (Over The Air) firmware update option.

Nokia N96 – just like the Nokia N79, the v30 is only available via the OTA firmware update option, and not NSU.  All UK networks still seem to be offering v11 or v12 (in fact since Nokia have released v20, T-Mobile have upgraded from v11 to v12).

Nokia N97 – v11 was released this week for generic unbranded devices, although there seems to be some issues with UK devices getting this firmware.  It will be interesting to see how quickly the network branded firmwares are updated…

Hopefully next time we report, we’ll be able to show that the UK networks are happy to keep the latest Nokia phones up to date…

iPhone users are still reeling over the decision by National Rail to be sticklers over the licensing rules for a (now no longer available) free iPhone app for accessing live train timetables, and then releasing their own paid-for app.  However, Symbian users are more used to simply accessing the free National Rail WAP site for the same information.

However, one Symbian user has created a S60 5th Edition WRT (Web RunTime) widget (and has plans for a S60 3rd Edition version too) to access the rail timetable.  Now, this doesn’t yet include live data, but at least does allow you to see what trains should be running, and how long journeys will take.  Best of all, it’s free!

Of course, there are other options; beyond the National Rail WAP site already mentioned, there is also traintimes.org.uk, which is mobile-friendly, and can provide similar information to this WRT widget.

This story and picture are courtesy of Daily Mobile, from where you can also get access to the widget.

Truphone have announced their low cost international calling solution is now available on 12 new handsets, which includes the Symbian S60 5th Edition models (both the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic and the Nokia N97), as well as a range of additional S60 3rd Edition handsets.

Not just that, but Truphone have now got their application into the Ovi Store for many of the supported phones too.

Some of the new phones aren’t yet able to work over Wi-Fi (but will work over 3G).  Adding these new phones to their existing iPhone, iPod Touch and Android support shows Truphone to be a valid option to consider irrespective of your choice of platform.

We’ve covered the lastminute.com fonefood widget briefly here and here, but their webruntime widget is now available directly from the Ovi Store.  This is designed for Symbian S60 5th Edition devices, and allows the user to find local places to eat via lastminute.com’s fonefood service; as with many other apps nowadays, it uses the GPS location to filter the results.

However, as with many other problems that we’ve seen with Ovi Store, we were able to search for it, but when we tried to select it, we were told it was no longer available from the Ovi Store.  If you get this, you can still download it directly from m.lastminute.com.

One complaint levelled at Nokia’s Share Online service is that it’s limited to 3 services (Flickr, Ovi and Vox).  Well, that’s not quite true.  Although no other services are available for configuration from Nokia (and you can’t add your own manually), it seems some companies have fathomed out what’s involved, and will allow you to connect Share Online to their services…

Firstly, one of the popular twitter image sites, mobypicture have provided simple instructions for using Nokia Share Online (and Nokia Lifeblog for elder phones).  These instructions are here.

Secondly, pixelpipe, an up and coming competitor to ShoZu, have also setup the ability to use their services via Share Online, therefore saving the need for the installation of an additional app just to upload photos.  Pixelpipe support a whole range of upload options; email, MMS (strangely very popular right now for iPhone users!), and they also have support for iPhones directly, Nokia phones (using Share Online) and finally an Android app for Android phones.  More information on all these options can be found here.

Actually, pixelpipe support a whole range of upload options, ranging from Windows app, Firefox, Linux and Mac utilities, and they even have facilities for uploading via instant messaging! pixelpipe currently support 75 services to post that content (text, photos, video, even audio files) to, with a full range of social networking sites, photo & video services, and blogging and micro-blogging platforms.

The only downside with using Share Online instead of ShoZu is that ShoZu does have the facility for offering an automatic upload option (and also can ask you to confirm before sending), whereas with Share Online it’s more of a manual process (also, ShoZu is much better at queuing multiple requests), but for some, ShoZu either doesn’t work, or isn’t worth the memory used to keep it running in the background to provide these services.

Finally, although we’ve not compared the list to work out whether it’s absolutely true; pixelpipe claim to support at least 25 more sites than ShoZu…

We’re impressed companies have worked out how to link into the limited Share Online functionality, and it’s nice to see a greater range of choice of how to upload your photos and videos, and with two of these services supporting a single upload and making the file available on multiple sites, these are worthy of further investigation for many as a method of keeping data usage down.