The Maemo Last.fm client, Vagalume (which also works on a variety of Linux OSes), has been updated to v.0.8.1.  This new version (which has been released for the existing OSes as well as the new Maemo 5 OS), offers a range of new features…

• Implemented the Last.fm Web Services API v2.0
• Support for Libre.fm and other Last.fm-compatible services
• Support for Maemo 5 (Nokia N900)
• New icon that replaces the classic Vagalume logo
• New CD case image to place the album cover artwork
• New feature to stop playback after a given time (”sleep timer”)
• New menu option to play any user’s tag radio
• New “Add bookmark” and “Bookmark this radio” menu entries
• New configuration setting to download free tracks automatically
• Add {station} keyword to the IM status template
• Use system-wide Gnome audio settings
• Mixer support to change the volume in non-Maemo targets
• Added Polish translation
• Autocompletion support for combo box entries
• Make url and email clickable on the about dialog
• vagalumectl: new commands to show and hide the player window
• Fix some timeout problems in HTTP requests

What’s nice to see is support for Libre.fm, which is a similar setup to Last.fm, but designed around Free music, and hence as no subscription to pay.  It uses a very similar API to access the music as Last.fm, so it will be interesting to see whether we start to see other clients, such as the Symbian mobbler client also supporting this site.

Since the initial v0.8 release, a minor update has already been released which fixes a minor install issue with the Nokia N900, and also falls back to the old Last.fm API should the new one not work.

For me, it’s nice to see this client not abandoning the elder Nokia Maemo devices, and I hope many other Maemo applications offer continued support for these devices (eg Nokia N800, Nokia N810), which still function perfectly well, even if they can’t run the latest OS.

If you aren’t seeing Vagalume in the Application Manager on the Nokia N900, then follow Gerry’s advice here to activate the “Maemo Extras” application repository to get access to more applications.

We’ve been talking about these two devices for a while now, but what exactly are they, and what’s the difference, and, possibly more importantly, which is the “flagship” device for the Nokia N-Series?

Well, the Nokia N900 is a Maemo based Internet Tablet (following on from the Nokia N810, N800 and 770 Internet Tablets), but it adds phone capabilities, and not just to improve data access, but to also act as a phone.  Having said that, there does appear to be an element of just bolting the phone software on top of the existing platform; the phone application is pretty much the only application that supports the portrait mode (at launch). We make the point about “at launch” because many of the apps included on the device are by third party developers, who may well provide portrait support in their apps faster than Nokia and Maemo can achieve the same for the core applications.

The device includes a 5 megapixel camera, 3.5″ 800 x 480 touchscreen display, 32GB onboard storage, plus microSD support, A-GPS with Ovi Maps, 3.5mm headphone jack, FM transmitter, TV-Out, Bluetooth, and DivX Support.

Now, the Nokia N97 Mini is another key device launched at Nokia World.  It is basically a slightly cutdown Nokia N97, although it still features many of the high technical specs of the Nokia N97;

• It has 8GB storage, as against the Nokia N97 32GB
• It has a 1200mAh battery, compared to the N97’s 1500mAh
• The screen drops from 3.5″ to 3.2″, but retains the resolution

The main other difference is the removal of the D-pad on the keyboard, which is replaced by a set of four cursors keys to the right.  Of course, it will retail at a slightly lower price too.

So, which is the flagship device; well, that’s for you to decide; the Nokia N97 Mini is a smaller, lighter, lower spec device than the Nokia N97, but that slight size reduction may make it more popular at time goes on; as for the Nokia N900, it is lacking some of the all round features of Symbian S60 (and application support), and so right now, we reckon the Nokia N97 remains the top device, but whether it can retain this crown throughout 2010 as Maemo apps improve is another question…

These are pictures of a Nokia prototype called RX-51.  Now, the Nokia N810 Internet Tablet was the RX-44 and the N800 was RX-34, so it’s fair to say that with a product code of RX-51 this is likely to be the new Internet Tablet running the new Maemo 5 OS, and it may well be labelled the N900 by Nokia when announced (expected next month at Nokia World).

Mores pictures and technical specs after the break…

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Mauku is the Twitter / Jaiku Social Networking client for the Nokia Internet Tablets, and the author has released a number of screenshots showing the new version which will be available on the new OS, Maemo 5 (codename Fremantle).  More screenshots are available here.

This new version currently supports Twitter, Qaiku, Identi.ca, and should support Facebook in a future beta (the client actually connects to a server where a lot of the links to the Social Networking sites takes place, potentially allowing support for new websites without requiring a new client).

We should point out that the new UI and OS that comes with Fremantle (and mirrored in Mauku) are not available on the existing tablets, so your Nokia 770, N800 or N810 will not be able to run this new OS, and it looks, in essence, as if there will be no further OS updates for these devices.

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.

Nokia have been busy of late.  Firstly they sneaked out an update to FriendView beta, and have now launched a mobile friendly FriendView website (which simply offers the client for download, but it’s better than before).  They’ve also stated that this client shares the same map cache as the v1.82 Sportstracker beta, so although neither use Nokia Maps right now, at least the online map data is only downloaded once.

After quite some time in beta, Nokia viNe has now been released too, which we have covered before, but basically will allow Sportstracker to be limited to true Sports activities, with all others activities slowly moving to Nokia viNe instead.

They’ve updated Nokia Wellness Diary, which now supports the Nokia N79, Nokia E71, Nokia N85, Nokia 6210, and Nokia 6220, and is compatible with the v1.82 Sportstracker beta too.

Nokia have updated their Nokia Maps data, so if you haven’t checked recently, it might be worth checking via the Nokia Map Loader to see if there are any new maps for your region.

Also of note; if you are an Nokia N810 Tablet user, and have upgraded to the latest firmware, then use the Map information menus within the “Maps” application, and you’ll see updated maps too (these have been available for some while, but very few seem to be aware of the new maps, as it needs the new firmware and the new Maps software that it brought to gain access to these maps).

In terms of non-map related updates;

• Nokia have updated Nokia Chat to v1.0 Beta 4
• They have graduated Nokia Photos (now v1.5, or part of the latest Ovi Suite), which means it now features on the main Nokia website, and comes with full support from Nokia
• Finally, they have also updated the Multimedia Transfer Application for Macs to v1.4.

Today is the start of Nokia World, and a fairly key announcement is due from Nokia first thing this morning.  We’ll report on this as soon as we’ve received the information and fully digested it.  We wonder if it’s the phone codenamed IP08 that we featured here…

Back in June, Nokia released the new Diablo OS for the Internet Tablets.  One of the key features included was the ability to update the base OS without having to reflash the unit again, and yesterday Nokia released the first update to this OS.  This, as expected, can be applied without going through the reflash and reinstallation of all your apps.  If you are already running the Diablo OS, then the Update Manager should automatically alert you to this new OS Feature Update in the next few days.  The main updates are Email and Browser stability fixes, but without the reflash, it should be an easier decision whether or not to apply it.

The UK Nokia Shop is currently selling the N800 at £145 and the N810 at £299. However, Quidco (you’ll need to register) is currently offering 30% discount on all purchases from the UK Nokia Store, bringing down the prices to £105 and £240 respectively. Equally, the N82 smartphone (normally £315) is down to £220.50, so plenty of bargains to be had. As we said before, you’ll need to head to Quidco and register.

A number of pictures of the new Nokia S60 Touch User Interface have been leaked over at Symbian Freak. One of the most interesting points is the move to a full VGA screen resolution, which bodes well for future devices.  The other interesting point is that the screens look like they are designed for both stylus and finger based input, which, like the VGA Nokia N800 and N810 Internet Tablets, have found to be very useable with fingers and we hope this finger based support continues.

If you have a Nokia N810 Internet Tablet, and have been fed up with the slow GPS lock times, then there is a solution.  Firstly, you need to install the new OS firmware (Diablo) onto your machine using the Nokia Internet Tablet Firmware Updater (Windows only).  Then, you need to install the A-GPS additional program. The A-GPS program, will help locate you whilst the GPS continues to try to lock.  You give the application a very rough location in the world (by clicking on a map), and it will then use an internet connection to improve that link.  However, as well as supporting a link via Bluetooth to a mobile phone (which will use the phone’s cell tower IDs to locate you), it’s also possible to locate you via WiFi.  It achieves this by feeding the initial GPS data back to a central computer at Nokia which helps process those fragments of GPS information to produce a location faster than the lock.

This update makes the Diablo update well worth applying.  Although things are perfect yet (most apps need the author to confirm compatibility and provide their applications to the new application repositories), you can still access the old “Chinook” software respositories (unlike the last major OS jump, everything is binary compatible this time).

Now the only thing remaining is for Nokia to have a word with Wayfinder and get them to update the actual maps.  The maps included with the tablet are from 2006/7, and since then Nokia have updated the Nokia Maps (for Symbian) a couple of times, so there’s no reason why they shouldn’t sort this out.  In the meantime, you may want to look at Maemo-Mapper, which uses OpenStreetMap map data, which is constantly being added to and updated, and because Maemo-Mapper uses the built in GPS support, it also benefits from the new A-GPS faster lock times.

Having just released the new N800 / N810 firmware, which supports new firmware updates without the need for a full reflash, Nokia have produced their first (in a long time) OTA update for a mobile phone, the N78. Although it’s only just started shipping, the firmware improves areas such as Bluetooth stability, music playback, optimized camera performance and navi-scroll sensitivity. The key point is that this update also does not need a full reflash, and hence all settings and software are kept intact. In fact, Nokia has (currently) gone as far as only releasing this update as an OTA update, removing the need to use the Nokia Software Updater at all (which is good for some, as they’ve still not fix the Vista compatibility issues). With many other Symbian phones supporting OTA updates, it will be interesting to see whether Nokia continue the trend and release all firmwares this way.

Nokia have announced two major updates today. Firstly, they have announced they are purchasing the remainder of the Symbian shares they do not already own, and will therefore take complete control of Symbian. As part of this purchase, Nokia have also announced that they will turn portions of Symbian (the OS), S60 and UIQ (controlled by Sony Ericsson and Motorola) into Open Source, via the new Symbian Foundation. This process will take a couple of years, but follows in the footsteps of the work Nokia has put into the Maemo community (for their Internet Tablets). This bodes well for the future of the platforms.

In other news, Nokia have also released a major OS (firmware) update for the N800 and N810 Internet Tablets. Apart from lots of bugfixes, and some improvements in the applications, the key new feature is that future OS updates will be able to be installed without a full reflash of the firmware back to factory condition.

GPXView started out as simply as a viewer for the geocaching.com GPX files used by geocachers. However, it’s now expanded, and offers a near paper-less experience for those who own a Nokia Internet Tablet, and even has basic GPS support for those with a Bluetooth GPS or an N810 (with built in GPS).

The author plans to integrate the program into with Maemo Mapper or into navit, but in the meantime head off to his website for more screenshots and the install link.

Nokia has released details of it’s newest Internet Tablet, the N810 WME (WiMax Edition). Although it will only be available (for 2008 at least) in the US, it still brings some interesting features to the current range. It’s based on the N810, so still features the QWERTY keyboard and built in GPS added with the N810. On top of that, Nokia have added WiMax (which adds a little extra depth to the back of the unit to accommodate the WiMax antenna). Nokia have managed to keep the WiFi and Bluetooth connectivity options for when WiMax isn’t available (or you are at home /work, and want to utilise your own existing connections).

The most interesting features, though, come with the new version of the OS. This includes a number of bug fixes and an improved email client. However, it also features “Seamless Software Update” which Nokia claims to remove the need for periodic system updates. It’s not clear whether this is an automated version of the current Application Manager update process, or whether it’s similar to the User Data Preservation feature of some of the newer Nokia N-Series devices. The new OS should be available in the Summer for both the N800 and N810 devices.

There are rumours flying around that Nokia will announce the WiMAX version of the N810 Internet Tablet on 1st April at CTIA (the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association event). This would seem to match the logical timeframe to meet Sprint’s plan for having their WiMAX network available to the public during 2008. Although not yet directly relevant to the UK, WiMAX is likely to come in the next few years.

If you own a Nokia Tablet and a recent Windows Mobile smartphone, you’ll be aware that many Windows smartphones now only support PAN (Personal Area Network) to allow external devices (such as Tablets) to use the phone for Internet access. Unfortunately, the Nokia tablets ship with only Bluetooth DUN (Dial Up Networking) support built in, meaning that although they will work fine with Nokia phones and many other phones (including the 3 SkypePhone), they don’t work with the WM phones… until now.

You need to be running the latest OS2008 to be able to use it, but the application integrates nicely into the OS to make it appear like the functionality was always there.

Head here for more information. [Via jkOnTheRun]

Nokia have released a minor firmware update for the N810 / N800 OS2008 version. If you are still using the 770 Internet Tablet, there’s an OS2008HE version for you, although you’ll need to read the Maemo website to fully understand the problems / issues you will face using this OS.

Head to here for more details, and a link to the download page (it’s on the right). However, this new firmware only fixes one thing – “This release fixes the power on (boot) problem only.” It’s recommended if you are not suffering from this problem to skip this update. As usual, the Nokia download servers are struggling a little, so you might want to wait a day or two as well.

Update: Having said that, it appears Nokia’s Europe Support Site says it includes stability enhancements, and recommends everyone upgrade – we still say hang tight for a day or two.

Update (2): There are about 4 other fixes included, which relate to underlying libraries, which may be more issues for developers, and not problems that a normal user will see.  As such, it’s probably still not worth upgrading, unless you really really want to.

The above picture was spotted by a keen InternetTabletTalk.com user in a Best Buy Mobile buyer’s guide in the US. This has a new black finish with an orange backlit keyboard, and is believed, by some, to be a WiMax version(Best Buy have used the same product code, so it’s not 100% clear). Zooming in on the picture seems to show an N830 label, which may well imply some hardware changes, and WiMax is the most likely. More news as and when we have it.

Story and picture courtesy of Tablet Guru.

Although technically only available in the US, the Chumby (which we featured before here) has just had a major firmware update, and is now on general sale in the US. We note that the device includes compulsory adverts, a feature which has not featured heavily in their advertising. With these ads being US-centric, we expect this will be one of the reasons limiting the device to US only sales right now (they’ve told us that once sales in the US are established, they will look to broaden into new markets). Chumby have recently updated their website too.

If you are interested in the Chumby, here’s an interesting option – Thoughtfix over at Tabletblog.com has written an article on how to get the Chumby emulator working on an Nokia N810 Internet Tablet.

A lot of people have been complaining about the slow GPS fix times (ie time taken to get an initial GPS fix) with the N810. It appears that a bug has been found in the underlying gpsd code (actually a leap year bug) where the gpsd software is getting the date wrong by 1 day. Correcting this date seems to improve the fix times. Although a bug report has been filed for this, the problem should apparently correct itself on February 29th anyway, although there’s a chance, if it’s not fixed, it will reappear on January 1st 2012!

So, if like us with our N810, you are experiencing long GPS fix times, you may want to hang tight until the end of the month to see if things improve.

Update: Unfortunately, Jussi has now confirmed that the leap year bug fix doesn’t actually improve GPS fix times, so we’re unlikely to see improvements magically at the end of the month. However, as a number of developers are looking into the problem, if it’s possible to fix we may well still see a fix some time soon.

Thanks to Jussi Kukkonen (who has also submitted a fix for the problem to Maemo).