Although it’s been delayed, today Twitter finally switch off the ability to use a username/password combination to access the Twitter API (used by many third party applications to access your twitter account).  Instead, a more secure system called OAuth must be used.  Now, many twitter clients have either moved to OAuth, or offer a choice of methods.

So, from today, the old method will no longer work; if your preferred twitter app has stopped working, first of all, check to see if there is an OAuth option, and if not, you might want to check for a software update to see if that resolves it.

Some apps will simply no longer work; fring have announced that in the short term their twitter addon for the Android version of fring will no longer work.

Of course, with many manufacturers building in twitter (and facebook) support into their phones, and many of those vendors being less helpful in providing any form of firmware update service, it’s possible your mobile phone app will no longer work either.

It’s not all doom and gloom though; when twitter were last planning this, I did a little research, and found that the majority of the mobile phones built in applications seemed to be using OAuth, and hence would not be affected.  Have you been affected? Has your preferred twitter client stopped working, and there’s no update? Let us know via the comments…

Screenshot of Gravity on Symbian courtesy of nokiaaddict.com (now gerrymoth.co.uk), and we should point out that Gravity has supported OAuth for some time, so as long as you are using a fairly up to date copy, you shouldn’t have any problems with Gravity.

Although a number of applications (SociallyApp and Gravity) include support for FourSquare, there’s no standalone Symbian client (in the same way there is for BrightKite).  Now, although not developed directly by FourSquare, ThinkChange have announced a beta test for their FourSquare client called Symbian FourSquare.  You can either download an unsigned copy from their website and sign it yourself (if you have a certificate specific for your phone allowing you to sign apps), or you can apply to join their beta test and they will create you a version specifically for your phone.

This is a Touch only client (this is true of the BrightKite client too), so if you have a non-touch phone, there’s no point in applying for the beta programme, but if you do, then it might well be worth a look; if you are coming to Symbian from another platform, you may well find this FourSquare client looks similar to those on other mobile platforms, and it’s nice to see that there’s a common feel to the FourSquare clients.

It’s also nice to see that since originally announcing the beta trial, the unsigned version has been released, and also they’ve already updated the Symbian FourSquare website to show that it also works on the Nokia C6, which is starting to appear in shops.

Although it’s still just getting the final approval by Nokia, very shortly the new Tesco Shopping App will be available from the Ovi Store.  This not just allows you to perform the whole shopping order (from selecting a delivery slot to selecting the items and handling the checkout), but, as it links into the Tesco Shopping API, also allows you to make minor adjustments to an existing order.  So imagine, you prepare a large shopping order on your desktop and select a delivery slot a few days in advance, and then, the next day, you are out and about and suddenly remember you need to add another item; instead of needing to go home, instead of starting a new order, you can use your mobile phone to add and update the existing order.  That’s a nice feature, and the sort of integration we like here at UK Gadgeteer!

For lots more screenshots and a better understanding of how the product works, head over to the Tesco R&D blog here to see it in action, and look out for it in the Ovi Store soon.

Although play.com announced that they were accepting pre-orders for the Nokia C6 Black variant (at £269.99), they have now also listed the Nokia C6 White as available to order.  Although the White variant is listed as “Temporarily out of stock”, it’s possible to purchase it now, and they will deliver it once it comes into stock (for completeness the Black variant seems to not be available for order at the moment).

Even better, they are selling the Nokia C6 White at only £249.99, a saving of £50 over the retail price of £299.99.  This buys you a SIM free phone with a great range of features, and if you compare that to the Nokia N97 Mini, which launched at a much higher price, this appears to be a bit of a bargain… If you are worried about the size of the device, especially as it has a QWERTY keyboard built in, it’s only 1.3mm thicker than the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic…

If fact, a quick search shows that Mobile Fun have the Nokia C6 Black at the same £249.99 (and available for pre-order as stock is expected later this week / early next week), so you should be able to get either colour for around £250…

If you are interested in the Nokia C6 White, then head off to the play.com website to place your order, or head to Mobile Fun for the Nokia C6 Black instead.

After a good few weeks of using an Android phone for the majority of tasks I perform (except receiving calls), how have I found the phone? Thanks to 3MobileBuzz, I’ve had an HTC Hero on loan, and although not the newest of phones, it’s still interesting to see whether it can handle all my needs.  In fact, just before the phone I wrote down the 30 most important tasks I currently use my Symbian for just to remind me the sorts of applications and tasks I needed the phone to perform.

So, a small caveat; as the phone came preconfigured with a SIM, Google Account and Spotify Premium account, I haven’t used the phone with my Google Acount (ie Mail, Calendar etc.) and I haven’t used it for receiving calls (as none of my friends know this phone’s number). Finally, as a loan phone, I have limited myself to *free* Android apps.

The Good – In nearly every task I’ve thrown at it (including a few extra ones), it’s excelled, and the phone has worked well.  Applications have been available to help with the task at hand.  Spotify (in both online and offline mode) proved to be a useful application (although quite why, when you have a track in the local cache, it continues to consume online data I don’t know).  In the majority of tasks I wanted to perform, there was a free app to help out (something that’s not true of Symbian, although it’s close), and in many cases, the best app appeared to be the free app too.  Apps were available to integrate into the phone; although it’s against the T&Cs to export phone numbers from the Facebook site, the Facebook widget was at least able to offer to dial numbers direct for you.  The phone was not too heavy, and easy to use one-handed as well as with two (and not suffering from the way I held the phone   Many options were configurable, or 3rd party tools are available to help achieve a little tweak here or there.

The Bad – Not every app though performed well; a few have crashed regularly, making it feel a little like when you beta test software; some of the apps that crashed had 1 or 2 updates during the time, yet still continued to crash.  Whether or not this is a result of the phone still being on Android v1.5 I don’t know, but this is at least being fixed (hopefully) this month.  Another thing missing (not that Symbian is any better, but the iPhone is) was that there was little consistency in the UI between the different programs from different authors, and little consistency between the widgets available too.  Also, although everyone berates Symbian for constantly asking you which connection you want to use, there were a few times when I actively wanted to use 3G over Wi-Fi (accessing 3UK’s Planet 3 website or knowing that I was too far from the Wi-Fi for it to work reliably), and this level of control is not available.

So, overall, I enjoyed the phone, and the Capacitive screen made me realise what an impact this has on the whole UI, and whether even the newest phones from Nokia which continue with Resistive screens can be as much as a success (of course, the new Nokia N8 is Capacitive).  Having said I enjoyed it, the third party apps crashing regularly did put me off a little.

The ugly? It may have been this particular phone, but it struggled to hold a connection to my Wi-Fi.  Whenever it lost it (even when in the same room), it brought home that the 3G radio signal was equally awful (The HTC Hero seems to have a reputation for having a poor 3G antenna design especially in poor signal areas), meaning I was often left without net access at home (although in many other areas where the 3G was stronger it performed well).

Would I buy an Android phone? Yes, but more likely the HTC Desire (also available from 3UK), which offers a later OS version and is more powerful, but I would like to see some improvements in the overall experience.

Thanks again to 3MobileBuzz for the loan of the phone.

3UK have announced this week that they now have two new Android smartphones that you can purchase on 3UK, and not just that, but you can get them on the new One Plan we covered here which offers fantastic value for money if you are a heavy mobile user.

Firstly, they are now offering the HTC Wildfire, which is a cut down version of the HTC Desire.  Although cut down might imply “cheap”, and it’s fair to say it doesn’t have the spec (or the price) of the HTC Desire, but it’s actually still a very capable Android device; in fact the only compliant I’ve heard about it is that moving forward over the next year or two, the screen maybe too small to allow major OS upgrades, as Google has now specified a minimum spec (including display resolution) for the future, and the HTC Wildfire falls a little short.

Having said that, it still rivals many other phones, and is still a better display than many other phones of last year! The 3.2″ screen is still a good size, and the 5 megapixel camera is still better than many, and it offers Android v2.1 with HTC’s Sense UI too.  All the usual Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, etc. are there too.  Also interestingly, although it’s available now in “Metal Mocha” colour, it will also be available on 3UK in Red from August, and the Red colour will be exclusive to 3UK.

If you aren’t an HTC fan, then there’s always the Sony Ericsson X10 Mini Pro, which again, is a smaller smartphone (the “X10 Mini” part), but features quite a key differentiator; the “Pro” means it also features a QWERTY keyboard!  This is a slide out keyboard (in the same way as the Nokia E75, Nokia C6 or Nokia N900), and although it blatantly doesn’t feature the HTC Sense UI, it does feature some key Sony Ericsson UI customisations instead.  These include the ability to specify 4 corner navigation and 3 homescreens, and it also features Sony Ericsson’s Timescape, which brings together your Facebook, Twitter, email, text messages and calls into one place.  This sounds an interesting feature, although with many of these manufacturer applications, it may be a little limiting to the “serious” social networker, especially if it can’t be expanded to support other social networks.

The Sony Ericsson X10 Mini Pro is available in Black from 3UK, and also in White, which will (like the Red HTC Wildfire) be a colour exclusive to 3UK.

If you want either of these phones on the new One Plan, they are available for £30 per month (24-month contract), and remember that comes with 2000 cross network minutes, 5000 3UK-3UK minutes, 5000 texts and 1GB data; if you want to buy them on PAYG, the HTC Wildfire is £199 and the Sony Ericsson X10 Mini Pro is £249, both very competitive prices in their own right!

I like the way that whilst historically 3UK were not able to arrange model exclusivity agreements, they are now sufficiently recognised by the manufacturers to at least able to negotiate colour exclusives, and you never know, maybe this time next year, we’ll see a worthy smartphone launch exclusively on 3UK…

Last week Nokia released 3 key new firmwares.  Firstly, the Nokia E71 (and I suspect the Nokia E66 and Nokia E63, as they seem to share a common base and seem to get updates at the same time) was updated to v500, although at the time of writing, this was not yet available for either the generic EURO1 codes nor the operator branded versions in the UK, but hopefully it will become available over the coming weeks.

v500 contains the following updates:

• Maps v3.03 Lite which has Free Navigation support
• Music Player upgrade
• Quick Office v6.2 which has Office 2007 support
• Ovi Store upgraded to 1.6.0.18 and Download! Removed
• Ovi Suite included in Memory card
• Functionality improvements in E-mail configuration
• Qwerty keypad improvements
• Emergency call termination with RSK key corrected
• Corrected Bluetooth link drop when an outgoing call is made in a carkit
• Corrected localization issues in world clock
• Fix provided for selecting desired mailbox when multiple mailboxes are configured

Probably more important is the Nokia N97 firmware update to v22, and the Nokia N97 Mini firmware update to v12.  Given the Nokia N97 is always accused of not having enough memory and space on the internal C: drive, then having to install Ovi Maps (over 10MB) to that area is always a burden. Well, this new firmware at least includes v3.03 Ovi Maps within the firmware, removing the need to have that additional 10MB application install (although we note that v3.04 is now out with the added cell ID and Wi-Fi based positioning, so without using a third party app such as Maps Booster, there is still, ironically, a need to install Ovi Maps in addition to the version in firmware for some of us).

The other new features include:

• Ovi Maps v3.03 with free Navigation built-in
• Nokia Messaging stub built-in
• Default screen brightness raised to 75%
• Default theme now the jet black ‘Nseries 2′, giving longer battery life than the previous ‘Nseries 3′
• RAM optimisations
• Miscellaneous bug fixes, including “Default Nokia tune is played as ringing tone for incoming calls instead of the one user has defined in Profile settings. Also sometimes device has stopped alerting for incoming calls. Both issues are now fixed” which has plagued a good few users.

As with all firmwares, you will need to decide between the impact of applying a new firmware (and the need to wipe the phone and start again with all your contacts, bookmarks, application and settings) against the fixes provided by the new firmware.  As always, expect to wait longer (and potentially forever) for operator branded versions to arrive; for example a 3UK Nokia E71 is still on v300, having never released v400 (or v410) for their devices, so the chance of v500 being released is quite small (it’s not all 3UK; an Orange N97 will still be stuck on v10, as they have never released v11, v20 or v21, let alone the new v22).

Nokia E71 firmware information courtesy of Symbian World, Nokia N97 Firmware information courtesy of All About Symbian.

We first covered the Nokia Bots here, and now Nokia has added another Bot to the collection, with an impressive learning capability.  The Nokia Contacts Bot not just learns your most dialled contacts to present them on the homescreen, but it also learns your “work” and “home” locations, and it will take this intthe learning process for the contact, so this Nokia Bot will not just learn what you do, but it will learn where you do it, and use that location knowledge to good use.

This is a clever trick, and if it works well, provides a useful feature for the phones that support the homescreen widgets (currently the Nokia N97 and Nokia N97 Mini only, although new phones are due with homescreen widget support soon).

This, and the other Nokia Bots, can be downloaded from the Nokia Beta Labs website.

3UK have launched a new phone tariff, The One Plan.  This is a very interesting move by 3UK.  It’s available on all their phones, and they claim it should be big enough for everyone!

The plan (a 24-month contract) comprises:

• 2000 cross network minutes
• 5000 3UK-3UK minutes
• 5000 texts
• 1GB Internet access

Having 2000 cross network minutes was something we first saw on the Apple iPhone 4 plans launched last week, and although none of these values are being stated as “unlimited” (for which we are very supportive), it’s also fair to say that most people will actually have a challenge getting through any of this limits, except maybe the 1GB Internet data, but even that is more generous that many of their competitors (Vodafone offer 500MB with most phones, as does Orange).

This plan will cost from £25 per month (*), depending which phone you get it with, so, for example, the iPhone 4 will be between £35 and £45 depending on the model and how much you pay upfront for the phone.

3UK have also announced that as from July, they will no longer use the word “unlimited”, something Vodafone announced last year (but only for data), and let’s hope this is the catalyst to encourage all networks to remove this misleading term from their marketing and actually compete with each other on quality and measurable quantity.

On top of that, they have massively clarified their old Internet tariffs too.  Since the introduction of the 24month contracts, they offered “unlimited” internet, which was really “only” 500MB.  To start, they will be converting that 500MB into 1GB for all existing customers on Internet Texter 500 or 900 plans and the Internet Talker 900 plan (over the next few months; you’ll get a text telling you what’s happening).  For elder contracts, although occasionally bundled into a deal, the majority of people pay £5 per month to get 2GB of data (at times it was sold as “unlimted” or 1GB, but in most cases it was actually 2GB); now this option still exists today, so people who were on 2GB per month will remain on that; no sly reductions here, and even better, 3UK have confirmed that the customers who are getting 500MB or 1GB free with their new contracts can still pay the £5 per month to add an additional 2GB of data to their contract.

So, it would appear you could take the new One Plan, and for £30, get all those minutes listed above and have a total of 3GB Internet allowance per month too!

Yet again, 3UK are leading on their tariff options, and these internet options make 3UK a very realistic option for many.

(*) We should point out that at the time of writing, the One Plan seems to cost at least £28 buying the cheapest phone, so although in time it will be offered for £25 with certain mobiles, it seems to cost a little more right now. The £25 per month option is for the SIM only 12 month option, offering the same level of contract, but for just £25 per month, and only on a 12-month contract.

So, looking at some popular phones right now, these are all free on a 24-month One Plan contract, with a monthly cost:

• INQ Chat 3G – £28 per month
• Nokia E63 – £28 per month
• Nokia 5230 – £30 per month
• HTC Wildfire – £31 per month
• HTC Hero – £34 per month
• Nokia E72 – £35 per month
• HTC Desire – £35 per month

Given the phone is free, these are all very good value, especially given the amount of service you are buying.  The Internet Texter and Internet Talker plans still exist for those who don’t need this amount of minutes / texts.

As always, these offers are available from the 3Store.

Android does it (directly on the phone), and iPhone can do it too, but up until now, a Nokia phone could not tell you that there were updates for your installed application available.  Well, it’s starting to happen finally; although not yet directly on the phone through the Ovi Store, but hopefully that will come in time (there’s limited support already, but it needs further work to be properly useful).  Although being able to provide firmware updates is now built into the main Ovi Suite on your PC, Nokia still have the standard Nokia Software Updater, and a new version of this has been released by the Nokia Beta Labs team, which now supports providing application updates too.

It’s also not clear whether this will only provide updates to Nokia / Ovi application on your mobile phone, or all applications installed via Ovi Store, but it’s a start.  The beta is due to run until the end of August, so it’s possible we’ll see (assuming all goes well) some formal announcement on the way forward at the Nokia World event in September.

3UK have updated their selection of refurbished handsets that are available for purchase.  The current range includes (of note):

• Nokia 5800 XpressMusic
• Nokia 5230 (although announced, it was not available on the website at the time of writing)
• Nokia E71
• HTC Hero

In my opinion these are all good phones (although in different ways), and if you don’t need the latest greatest device, but are looking for something cheap, then you might well want to consider one of these devices.  Although they are generally available with a new contract, some are available on PAYG, such as:

• HTC Hero £169.99
• Nokia E71 £139.99
• Nokia 5800 £109.99

These are also very good value options for someone who has a simpler phone today and is looking for something a bit more special.  Don’t forget you really need an Internet connection to get the most out of these phones, especially the HTC Hero.

Last week we mentioned that there was a minor firmware update coming to prepare HTC Hero devices for the Android v2.1 firmware.  Well, that firmware (which was not needed for all UK variants) has been released and now the v2.1 full firmware has started to arrive on European devices, but it appears that, as we predicted, it won’t be arriving for all devices.

HTC have confirmed that in the UK only SIM-free devices will be seeing the firmware in the coming days / weeks (it does take time to roll it out to all devices), with some of the networks apparently not yet approving the firmware for release at all.  The networks who have approved the device should have their branded firmware release starting in the next few days, whereas there is no ETA for the update on the other networks; I would like to suggest which networks this is likely to be, but I’ve received conflicting information from different sources, and hence I’m not confident about which we’ll see, only that I do know we won’t be seeing all network branded versions receive the firmware update this month.

Remember that the delays are caused by the network who either have to make or request changes to the stock firmware and then test both those changes and the overall package on their network; some networks are fast at this process, and some don’t even seem to bother with it at all, so whether your device will ever see the v2.1 firmware is down to the network who supplied the device.

This is the same situation we’ve seen for years with Nokia devices (many other brands don’t release any firmware updates to the public so get away with not having this problem), and as we’ve commented before, the only exception to this is Apple, who force firmware updates onto the networks (and generally prevent operator branding in the first place).

A couple of fairly major changes have recently happened with Nokia’s Sports Tracker application, which might actually benefit those who like and use the application in the long term.  A while ago, Nokia sold the application off to a new company (which does appear to be staffed by some ex-Nokia people) and they have established a new website and a new application.  Right now, you can’t use the full service in the way you could with the old Nokia based solution, but it’s coming.

As of 30 June 2010, Nokia will shut down the old Sports Tracker website.  However, you can pre-register at the new website, and there’s an option to import your journeys and records from Nokia.  Right now, you can’t view them, or do anything else with the website, but it will come.

The new team have released new versions of Sports Tracker for both S60 3rd and 5th Edition, and although these will in time have the capability to upload your details to allowed them to be viewed and shared on the website, again, this needs the website to be fully functional.

However, good news; at one point, Nokia offered one phone with a bundle of a Heart Rate Monitor (via Bluetooth).  At the time, everybody pointed out that it would be good if the heart rate monitor was also available to those who already had that phone (or any other supported phone); well, although Nokia never managed it, Sports Tracking Technologies have done so, and have this week created an online store where you can buy a heart rate monitor for €69.90 + delivery (they accept PayPal as well as credit cards), although shipments won’t start until 1st July, so even if you order today, you’ll have to wait a couple of weeks for it to arrive.

From a personal viewpoint, I note this version uses OpenStreetMap for the maps, and I think that’s a wise (if only short term) approach. The Nokia solution used maps which had to be downloaded (even though many devices had local Ovi Maps installations); although towards the end, it did at least share this download map cache with Nokia FriendView.  I think moving to OpenStreetMap is a good idea, as it reduces any costs of providing commercial mapping, although I do hope that in time Sports Tracking Technologies are able to link into the Ovi Maps SDK and use the maps where present on the device.

It’s nice to see this application being developed further and the support of a heart rate monitor will make the whole solution more attractive to many sports enthusiasts; however, if you have ever used the old Sports Tracker website don’t forget you need to register and import your old information within the next week.

Brightkite have updated their Symbian app (which is available for free in the Ovi Store here).  The new version adds the following features:

Group Text

Nokia users now join iPhone & Blackberry, Mobile web and SMS users with the ability to use Group Text. Group Text allows users to text up to 25 people at once – when one person replies, everyone gets the message.

Likes

You can now Like posts, just like you can on the web

Photo Library integration

Now you can post photos from your Photo Library – not just ones you take with your camera.

Comment and Mention streams

Now you have dedicated areas in which you can see your comments and mentions

Better battery and GPS usage

We’ve changed the way the app accesses GPS on the phone, which enhances battery Life.

Bug fixes

Assorted tweaks, enhancements and fixes.

As before, the app is only available on the newer touchscreen devices, so if you still have a non-touch phone, you’re out of luck (and I don’t yet know of a decent 3rd party clients with Brightkite support either).

Bringing the Symbian client up to the level of the other major mobile platforms, Spotify have updated their Symbian mobile client to now support the following new features:

• Support for playing and wirelessly synchronizing local files to your phone
• The Inbox and Starred features have been added
• We’ve added support for the Sony Ericsson Vivaz Pro and Nokia C5 phones

This version also adds support for the new Spotify Social Features that are proving to be popular with Spotify users. To get the new version, simply head to to m.spotify.com with your Symbian phone.