This is a screenshot from the latest Boxee Beta.  Boxee is an XBMC spin off which should work on Windows, Mac, Linux and Apple TV, and there have been a number of worthwhile articles about it if you are interested.

Firstly, Lifehacker have produced a Beta Walkthrough, which covers looks of detail over the software, including looking at some of the application addons that include Social Networking sites.

Now, if you are looking for a complete guide to installing Boxee, then head to Liam Green-Hughes site, where he has covered the install on the Acer Aspire Revo in sufficient detail to allow anyone to be able to get it installed and working.

Of course, if you are not keen on installing the software yourself, or don’t have an Acer Aspire Revo, then one option is to wait for their own hardware (in conjunction with D-Link) to be released…

This will be produced with a nice stylish RF remote (with a QWERTY keyboard on the back for performing searches and entering information).  It’s due to go on sale in the US for only $200, although it’s not clear what it will cost (or whether it will even be available) in the UK.  Just in case you’re worried that it’s a large ugly box, the height of that box is about 6 inches!

Whereas 2009 seemed to be the year every smartphone was exclusively with O2, it appears 2010 maybe Vodafone’s year, as they currently have the exclusive on the Nokia E72, will be selling the iPhone 3G (and iPhone 3GS) within a couple of weeks, and they have announced they will be the network to bring the brand new Google Nexus One Android phone to Europe. Google have said:

“Manufactured by HTC, the Nexus One features dynamic noise suppression from Audience, Inc., a large 3.7″ OLED display for deep contrast and brilliant colors and a 1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon™ chipset for blazing speeds. Running on Android 2.1, the newest version of Eclair, the software includes innovations like a voice-enabled keyboard so you can speak into any text field, fun Live Wallpapers, a 3D photo gallery for richer media experiences and lots more. Of course, it also comes with a host of popular Google applications, including Gmail, Google Voice and Google Maps Navigation.”

The full tech specs include:

Size and weight

• Height: 119mm
• Width: 59.8mm
• Depth: 11.5mm
• Weight: 130 grams w/battery

Display

• 3.7-inch (diagonal) widescreen WVGA AMOLED touchscreen
• 800 x 480 pixels
• 100,000:1 typical contrast ratio
• 1ms typical response rate

Camera & Flash

• 5 megapixels
• Autofocus from 6cm to infinity
• 2X digital zoom
• LED flash
• User can include location of photos from phone’s AGPS receiver
• Video captured at 720×480 pixels at 20 frames per second or higher, depending on lighting conditions

Cellular & Wireless

• UMTS Band 1/4/8 (2100/AWS/900)
• HSDPA 7.2Mbps
• HSUPA 2Mbps
• GSM/EDGE (850, 900, 1800, 1900 MHz)
• Wi-Fi (802.11b/g/n)
• Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR
• A2DP stereo Bluetooth

Power and battery

• Removable 1400 mAH battery
• Charges at 480mA from USB, at 980mA from supplied charger

Talk time

• Up to 10 hours on 2G
• Up to 7 hours on 3G

Standby time

• Up to 290 hours on 2G Up to 250 hours on 3G

Internet use

• Up to 5 hours on 3G
• Up to 6.5 hours on Wi-Fi

Video playback

• Up to 7 hours

Audio playback

• Up to 20 hours

Processor

• Qualcomm QSD 8250 1 GHz

Operating system

• Android Mobile Technology Platform 2.1 (Eclair)

Capacity

• 512MB Flash
• 512MB RAM
• 4GB Micro SD Card (Expandable to 32 GB)

Location

• Assisted global positioning system (AGPS) receiver
• Cell tower and Wi-Fi positioning
• Digital compass
• Accelerometer

This is an interesting development, if only because Google are happy to either sell the phone subsidised (currently on T-Mobile in the US, but Vodafone will be coming for European support in “Spring 2010″), or you can buy it unsubsidised (and unlocked) for $529, and you can even have up to 2 lines of text engraved on the back (although along with many engraved Apple products, this does limit your ability to send the phone back unless it’s faulty).

Expect to start seeing these phones in the UK very shortly…

For those who have bought an Amazon Kindle and were hoping to use the Kindle for iPhone application to additionally read their eBooks, we can announce that Amazon have finally released the iPhone / iPod Touch application for the International market (60 countries, including the UK), and it’s now available to download from the Apple iTunes Store.

When we reviewed the 3UK Mobile Wi-Fi unit (MiFi) here, we said it allowed devices such as the iPod Touch to gain extra facilities by being connected to the Internet whilst mobile.  Well, it looks like 3UK agreed, as they have just announced a bundle deal whereby you can get a 3UK MiFi on a 24 month contract for £23 per month, but for that, as well as the 5GB of data each month, you’ll also get an iPod Touch.

Now, the MiFi would normally be £17 per month (18 month contract), so ignoring the extra tie in period, it’s an extra £6 per month for 24 months, which is, to be fair, £144, so although the exact spec of the iPod Touch hasn’t been announced yet, it’s not an unreasonable sum for the device (it’s certainly not massively overcharging for the device).

Details should appear on the 3Store at some point next week, but maybe this might be worth it as a Christmas present for someone special…?

Update: This deal is now available in the 3Store, and features an iPod Touch 8GB along with the 3 MiFi and 5GB of data per month (24 month contract).  It even throws in 80 free text messages per month, although I’m unsure how these can be used from the iPod Touch…

As we seem to be talking about music today, this week saw the launch of the Spotify client for Symbian S60 (both 3rd Edition and 5th Edition), and it seems to have been generally well received.  Granted there are maybe a few minor issues with the UI (it’s difficult to tell what music is available in offline mode) and some have (quite rightly) questioned the £120 per year cost of being able to listen, but not own the music.

Basically, if you like to listen to lots and lots of different music, potentially more than you own (in both music tastes as well as disk space limits) then Spotify may well be the solution for you.  It’s more expensive than Last.fm (which is more geared around giving you access to music you already own or is similar to your own music), but for many it’s worth the extra cost.  If, on the other hand, you don’t buy much music each month, and your current music collection fits happily onto your music device of choice, then maybe the cost of the Spotify Premium account would be better spent on buying more music, but for those that want to use the service, Spotify have added the Symbian client to their existing Android and Apple iPhone clients.

As we mentioned with the Spotify bundle deal with 3UK (here), you need to be careful not to over-use any 3G data connection you have, as music streaming can quickly eat through your monthly allowance, but by careful use of offline playlists and Wi-Fi connections, you should be able to listen to fresh music on a regular basis via Spotify.

To access and download the client, simply point your mobile browser to m.spotify.com, once downloaded, you’ll need to enter your Spotify account details (which needs to be a Premium account at £10 per month, no minimum contract period).  Even better, this version supports all Symbian devices, including those from Samsung and the Sony Ericsson Satio, so isn’t limited to Nokia devices.

Offline playlists are limited to 3,333 tracks (assuming you have enough space for all of those tracks), and every 30 days you will need to resync; if you go abroad, you can continue to use Spotify Premium in a country not normally supported by the service for 14 days, so you can have your music as long as your holidays aren’t too long (and you can afford the data roaming costs; if not; use the offline facilities which gives you a little longer anyway).

Another key difference between Spotify and Last.fm is that Spotify allows you to select an album to play, whereas Last.fm concentrates more on the artist, and will give you a selection of their songs, but not in strict album order.  Finally, both services limit you to 1 live online music stream, even if the same account has been configured in multiple devices.

With the limits on 3G data usage in the UK, and the higher cost than Last.fm (which can also be used on hardware devices), it’s difficult to see many people paying this subscription in the long term, but at least they are supporting a wide range of mobile devices.

The iPhone has been locked to O2 since they first launched the device, but now the device is available from other networks (currently only Orange, but it will be available on Vodafone in the New Year too), O2 are now offering people the ability to unlock their iPhone.

If you are a Pay Monthly customer, then the unlock is free, and can occur at any time during the contract; you will still have to continue making the monthly payments until the end of the contract (and it’s not clear whether or not O2 will let you port the number away from O2 during this contract period), but O2 will unlock your iPhone for free.

If you are a PAYG customer (and many iPhone 3GS were bought like this, as it proved an efficient way of getting the iPhone upgrade before the customer’s iPhone 3G contract term was up) then it’s a bit more complicated.  Firstly, you need to have had the iPhone for over 12 months, and it will cost £14.69, so you need enough credit for that too.  Also, if the iPhone 3GS was registered with the PAYG SIM, you’ll need that number to perform the unlocking, as that’s the number linked to the phone sale.

If the phone was bought from an O2 store, Carphone Warehouse, or Apple UK, you should have no problems getting your iPhone unlocked; from any other source, and you will have to speak to the company you bought it from to sort out the unlock; ebay sales may run into problem unless you have the original SIM and number used to originally register the iPhone.

You need to complete an unlocking form, and the process can take upto 14 days, and to complete the process once you have entered the code O2 supply, you’ll need to have a non-O2 SIM to place in the iPhone, and then connect to iTunes via a USB cable to get the final confirmation message.

It’s nice to see O2 offering this service, although it’s a shame that due to the subsidies, PAYG customers have to wait 12 months (whereas other networks with less subsidised phones can often provide the unlock code within hours of first registering the phone), and for those who find their iPhone is linked to a SIM they don’t have or can’t find may have problems unlocking at all.

For more information, head over to the iPhone unlocking webpage at O2.

Available for many generic product codes (with other operator specific codes apparently to follow in the next few weeks), Nokia have this week released the v20 firmware for the Nokia N97, which is heading towards providing the software the phone should have shipped with when first launched.  There are a couple of rumours that Nokia has pulled this update, but either way, the firmware update should be available to all over the next few weeks.

The new features include:

Usability Improvement

• Kinetic Scrolling: Allowing kinetic scrolling in the menu, contacts, and other applications with long lists
• More Space: The new memory allocation brings around 20-30MB more space for applications and themes
• Visually enhanced Music Player and Photo Menu
• Improved accessibility to Symbols and Numbers: Holding a key for 1 seconds will activate the alternative character, no need to press the blue key first
• Improved memory and battery performance
• Improved image and video stability

New Experiences

• New Homescreen Widgets: CNN, MySpace, ESPN, Elle and more have now been added
• Newer Version of Ovi Maps: More features and a new service menu
• Voice UI Improvements: Support for Voice over IP

Now, despite the Nokia N97 having User Data Preservation (UDP), it appears a number of early adopters have found a range of problems with the new firmware, and the only solution was a hard reset (and then only restoring data, not a full restore of all data and applications); this doesn’t bode well for Nokia; neither Apple nor Android devices seem to suffer from these types of problems after upgrade problems, and Nokia really need to resolve them on their flagship devices.

Changelog details courtesy of Symbian World.

Although we’re all waiting to hear more news and more details about the deal and the exact pricing options, Orange have confirmed that they will be selling the Apple iPhone 3GS “later this year”.  This ends the “multi-year agreement” that O2 have had in place since 2007 (which for some while has been rumoured to have only been 2 years).  Little more has been announced by Orange, except that you can pre-register your interest by accessing this web page.

With a lot of people coming to the end of their 18-month contract for the original iPhone 3G in the next few months, it will be interesting to see how many remain on O2, and how many jump across (or back) to Orange to get the latest version of the phone.  For existing Orange customers, it will be interesting to see how supportive of keeping their own customers Orange is; traditionally most of the UK networks offer worse “upgrade” deals than the deals they offer to “new” customers, forcing many to move away from their preferred network.

Of course, if you are an Orange customer, and want the new iPhone 3GS, and Orange don’t offer you a good upgrade deal; one option is to port your number to another network and take out a 1 month rolling contract, then cancel that after 1 month, and port back to Orange as a “new” customer.  Isn’t it daft how we have to go through these hoops; I wonder if Orange will just offer their existing customers the same deals; I also wonder whether any other network will be selling the iPhone in the coming months too…

Since the release of the new OS, v3.1, a number of applications have had some “issues”.  Well, some of them are now fixed, so we thought we’d lay out some of the updates that application vendors have informed us of…

Skype have released v1.2, which has the following new features:

• You can set up call forwarding from your iPhone – forward Skype calls to a phone number when you’re not signed in, so you can pick up calls even when the Skype app isn’t running on your device
• Improved performance and better audio quality when making Skype-to-Skype calls
• It’s even easier to send text messages (SMS) – you can now send SMSs from the Call tab

Devicescape have confirmed, that after their earlier problems, their Easy Wi-Fi client is now fully functional again, and have stated:

• First of all, Apple’s special support only applies to the original Easy Wi-Fi multi-network application (the one with the white icon).  If you’re using any of the other Easy Wi-Fi apps, like the AT&T or T-Mobile version, you’ll need to install the original version too.  It’s free in the AppStore.  You don’t need to use it: just the act of installing it has the effect of telling the iPhone OS not to do “smart” stuff with your Wi-Fi connection in hotspots.
• Previously, we recommended installing Boingo because we knew it had the same effect.  You don’t need Boingo anymore (unless of course you’re a user, and maybe you should think about becoming a user, it’s a great service!)
• Finally, if you’re one of the many iPod touch users who never upgraded from 2.x firmware, ignore all of this.  You’re fine.  The issue only occurs with iPhone OS 3.0, and if you upgrade you’ll be jumping past that version from now on.

Navigon have updated their Navigation application too (although not specificially for the new OS).   As well as recently adding text-to-speech and iPod controls, they have now launched lifetime traffic (it needs a one time fee to activate).

TruPhone have addressed their problems with the latest OS, and they have confirmed that v3.0.3 of their iPhone client now works fully with the new OS.

Something that’s never quite so prominently featured is the security vulnerabilities within the iPhone / iPod Touch OS (to be fair, this applies to many phones, and Apple at least release OS updates that can currently be applied to all devices ensuring no one is left behind with an insecure OS; Nokia, I’m looking at you here!).

So, whilst yesterday Apple made a big song and dance about the new features in their iPhone (v3.1) and iPod Touch (v3.1.1) OS updates, they made a lot less mention of the security fixes that are in there too.  Now this information is public, I can reveal some of the vulnerabilities that have been fixed:

• A malicious AAC or MP3 file could be accessed and this could cause application termination or arbitary code execution.
• If connected to Exchange, it was possible to configure the device to allow access to Exchange even after the Exchange Administrator configured timeout period.
• The Spotlight find facility could search and display deleted emails (it looks to me like they have simply fixed Spotlight to no longer display the search entry if it was from a deleted email, as opposed to actually completely removing the contents in the first place, but I may be wrong here).
• It was possible to bypass the the passcode request via the Recovery Mode.
• A maliciously crafted SMS could cause service disruption.
• Passwords when entered could be made to briefly appear on the screen.
• 4 WebKit vulnerabilities were fixed.

That last point is interesting; Nokia use the same underlying WebKit engine for their products, yet we don’t see speedy firmware releases from Nokia addressing these issues, and especially not for phone more than a year or two old, which may well still be vulnerable, but are “out of support”.  It’s good to see Apple addressing vulnerabilities, and with their capability of notifying owners of new versions, at least their devices should be safe against these attacks once the new OS is commonly used (and of course, within a week or so, all owners will have been offered the new update via iTunes).

Oh, and for a large (200MB+) download, it’s surprising to see Apple don’t support resumable downloads, so if the update stops or fails for any reason, you have to download it all again.