When we covered the firmwares that Nokia released last week (here), we forgot to mention some of the other devices which have had firmware updates in the last month or so.  If you have any recent Nokia device (and to the list of devices we covered last week, you should add the Nokia N95, Nokia N95 8GB, Nokia N82, Nokia N79 and the Nokia N96) you may well want to perform a full backup, and then connect your phone to your PC and run the PC Software Updater to see if your phone has any updates.

Don’t forget, if your phone came from a network operator, it will have an operator specific firmware, which will take longer for the updates to be released.

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…

As with all things Nokia, people want to customise their phone, and as with all things Nokia, the operators try to stop you.  However, with the Maemo based Nokia N900, it appears that changing the operator logo is easier than, say, recent Symbian phones (where it’s quite difficult, although not impossible).  As such, Jay over at My Nokia Blog has written up how to perform the operator logo change, with screenshots and a video…

It’s well worth a look, so head over to here to read how to perform the change.

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.

In terms of the majority of the software on the phone, it’s very similar to the INQ Mini 3G that I covered here and here, so what’s different about the Chat, what’s good, and what’s bad?

Well, that QWERTY keyboard is the main physical difference, and it is a very nice keyboard.  It’s similar to the Symbian QWERTY layout, and just slightly different to the BlackBerry layout (the Symbol and Shift keys are reversed compared to a BlackBerry, which makes it a challenge to get used to if you are a long term BlackBerry user).

A GPS is the other key difference to the INQ Mini 3G, and to be honest, it sometimes took it’s time to get a fix, but generally worked ok.  The included Google Maps worked well with the GPS.  Unlike Symbian devices, there is no configuration control over the GPS settings, so no facility for changing the Positioning Server over to Google to help speed up the initial fix.  One downside of Google Maps was it was expecting numeric key input, and that meant pressing the Symbol and the relevant key to emulate a number; it was a shame it wasn’t aware of the QWERTY and mapped keys allowing a single key press for functions.  As with all Brew OS devices, there is no cell ID location function within Google Maps, which limits you to waiting for the GPS to find a fix; if you are used to a device that can also use cell ID location information, then this seems to impact the fast “locate me” type functions when you know roughly where you are and just want to seatch for something local to your position…

In general terms, the integration of the Social Networking apps remains a key selling point of this phone, bringing together Skype, Facebook and Twitter, and linking the first two into the Contact List too.  Personally, it felt like the Twitter app was more of an add-on, with less integration than the other two, and no facilities for downloading contacts or avatars like the Facebook and Skype apps offer.

It’s nice to see the INQ Hub included as standard on the INQ Chat 3G (see here for how to access from the INQ Mini 3G), and overall the phone seemed a nice device.  For a device which can be described as a smartphone (although only just, given it’s limited to Java apps) the battery lasted well over a day, and unless you are using Twitter, Facebook, Windows Live Messenger and Skype constantly, should easily last two days.  With all 3 apps turned on, it still managed to last over a full working day, which is certainly a key timeframe.

Compared to Symbian, the lack of worrying about Access Points and just letting the device go ahead and connect to the Internet for you was a nice refreshing change, although for many it may fell like a level of control has been taken away from you.  Of course, with no WiFi support, the only option is 3G connectivity, which helps with the simplification.

So, overall, you may think my opinion is that this is a good, cheap phone worthy of consideration…? Well, I’m afraid it wasn’t as perfect as I would have liked…  Firstly, start running all those Social Networking apps together, and the phone often freezes when one of them is performing an update in the background, which can leave the phone locked for a minute or two, and although it doesn’t come with the Social Networking support out of the box (yet), buying a Nokia E63 and adding Gravity (plus the 3UK specific Skype and WLM apps) gets you very close, with the additional benefit of a true multitasking OS, and WiFi support too (although no GPS).  If it wasn’t for the device feeling so underpowered, then I would be supporting it as a worthy device, but it did occasionally leave me very frustrated.

So, if you don’t want to run all the Social Networking apps all the time,but want a device with a QWERTY keyboard, and the ability to use your favourite Social Networking sites out of the box, then certainly go and try out the INQ Chat 3G; you may be pleasantly surprised at the functionality on offer given the price, and hopefully a firmware update, or software updates will resolve the responsiveness issues I found.

As always, thanks to 3mobilebuzz for the loan of the device, and if you want more information, or to purchase an INQ Chat 3G, then head to the 3Store to see more.

A couple of short articles (from GPSReview.net here and here, who are reporting from CES), have stated that TomTom maybe bringing lifetime map and traffic updates to devices later this year.

In terms of map updates, it appears that some new devices launched in 2010 will feature lifetime map updates, although it’s not yet clear whether there are any real limits; it’s likely to be tied to the device, but even so, TomTom may limit the updates to a set number of years.  TomTom generally release quarterly updates, and have in the past offered an £80 offer for 2 years of updates, so although a great saving, it will still be helpful, and it will be interesting to see how the other manufacturers respond.  With Nokia and Google already providing free updates for their mobile offerings, it certainly looks like the cost of mapping data is getting cheaper…

For the traffic updates, things are less clear right now; TomTom have talked about a new traffic receiver with lifetime traffic.  It appears this maybe an RDS-TMC based receiver, and of course, this may be a US only offer.

Either way, it’s nice to see manufacturers like TomTom react positively to the likes of Nokia and Google, and to continue to try to differentiate their products with services that will make people continue to buy their solutions…

More information when we have it, and when we can confirm how this will affect new TomTom units and accessories sold in the UK.

Two little stories have caught my attention this week regarding the Nokia N900, Nokia’s new Maemo based Internet Tablet Phone.  Firstly, from Liam Green-Hughes (who has written up his First Looks review of the Nokia N900 here), and in that article he mentions a little third party utility called FM RDS Notify.  As the Nokia N900 ships, you have support for an FM transmitter, which when you connect to an RDS-compatible stereo (such as in the car), you will see “Nokia” displayed when music is playing.  However, FM RDS Notify takes that capability a stage further, and puts more useful information into the RDS data information of the FM signal, allowing details of the current music track playing to appear on the stereo instead.

However, it doesn’t stop there; it can also display the details of the current caller (should be be on the phone), or even display SMS messages.  Although the application is currently only in the Extras-devel repository, and not the more mainstream Extras respository, I’m sure it will move over in time, as the application develops.  It already has some impressive functionality for what is v0.3, and the first version was only released back in late December!

The other interesting app for the Nokia N900 is Barriosquare, which is a FourSquare client for the Nokia N900.  Now, FourSquare is only starting to become popular in the UK, but has been running for some while in the US.  FourSquare combines the Social Networking aspects of sites like Twitter and merges in the location, and there is even an element of competition on who can “login” to an individual location the most and claim the “Mayor” badge for that location.  Using the public API to the website, a single developer has managed to create the application.

And that’s the power of the Nokia N900; individual developers can create a free app for the device and release it via the repositories and then everyone can access that new utility, that new feature which enhances the whole device just a little more.  The same sort of idea is available for most platforms through their App Store, but Maemo developers have embraced the idea of the Linux repositories offering free applications, and many of the enhancement applications are going to remain free, even when Nokia release a paid App Store for Maemo.

Although in my mind it will never be an iPhone killer, the Nokia N900 is certainly a phone that any serious techie should at least consider seriously; even with all the work that’s gone into Maemo 5, it’s still a little bit specialised to recommend the Nokia N900 to someone not used to smartphones and tinkering with their phone, but for the target market, apps like these will continue to make the Nokia N900 shine.

Some content around Barriosquare courtesy of thenokiablog.

Mobbler, the very versatile Last.fm client for Symbian has been updated to v0.08(237).  This now includes the following changes:

• Open a map in Google Maps (if installed) for an event location
• Can now view a list of queued scrobbles through the Tools menu, and delete unwanted scrobbles
• Open a QR Code to let friends download Mobbler
• Now downloads avatars in shoutboxes
• Radio now works on Nokia E52 and E72 (disabled equaliser for these devices)
• mobblerhelper.sis is no longer needed for 3.0 phones
• Some minor defect fixes

The first is a nice feature, showing integration amongst different applications, and the second feature, although not something I’ve ever needed, I can see the benefit of.  As mentioned within the list; if you have a S60 3rd Edition (non-FP1 or FP2) phone, and have mobbler installed, you’ll need to uninstall the mobblerhelper application before upgrading to this new version.  If you upgrade with it still installed, you’ll get an error as part of the upgrade, and the new install will fail.

Although many people have Google Maps installed, it would be nice to see mobbler use the Ovi Maps application which is pretty standard across the Symbian devices, and which recently announced an API allowing other applications to be able to access the data as required, and using Ovi Maps instead may well happen in the future if the mobbler authors are able to organise it.

Update: It’s now been updated again, and this new version v0.08(241) adds the following two fixes:

• Non-subscribers can now listen to the radio again (error was made in some tidying up changes)
• Should no longer get an update error if mobblerhelper is installed

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.

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.

Firstly Spotify have updated their Symbian client (v0.3.22), with the following improvements:

• A fix for disappearing offline tracks.
• A fix for the problem when adding tracks to existing playlists on touch screens.
• Text input of special characters now added, e.g. Norwegian and French.
• Text input on special types of keyboards now added, e.g. non-touch phones with dual keyboards.
• New devices supported include the Nokia E72, Nokia N82, Nokia 6110 Navigator, Nokia 6210, Navigator,Nokia 6290, Nokia N79.

Also, they have upgraded their Android client (v.0.3.24) with the following improvements:

• URI support – Open/Share Spotify URI’s to or from SMS, email, the Facebook or Twitter apps, etc.
• Updated player with cover art swipe support (similar to the iPhone version).
• Android 2.0/Eclair support. Spotify now runs on the popular Motorola Droid phone.
• Home screen widget – control Spotify from the home screen!

It’s nice to see Spotify working to try to unify their features across multiple devices, although we’re still hoping they can add support to scrobble tracks to Last.fm from their mobile clients soon.

This tip has come from the Maemo community, but applies to all Nokia devices, and may help if you are having a problem with GPS lock times. By default, your Nokia device will be set to the supl.nokia.com positioning server to help the A-GPS system locate you whilst the GPS catches up, but its been suggested that changing that to supl.google.com speeds up the intial positioning in the US.  Now, it’s not clear if this is due to Nokia having less A-GPS data for the US, or whether it’s to do with Google having less loaded servers, or Google having better algorithms for that initial position location, but it seems to be helping some people.  Although we have no evidence it will necessarily help in the UK, if you are having problems, why not give it a try, and report back on whether or not it helped…

Although not the first UK mobile network to provide a statement on the Nokia N900, Vodafone are the first to announce that they will be selling the phone as from January (according to their website).  This is good news for this popular Maemo device, and the word on the street is that the amount of firmware customisation by Vodafone will not be too heavy.

As the phone is still at the “pre-register for updates” stage, Vodafone have not yet released pricing, but it’s likely to be inline with the Nokia N97 and Nokia N97 Mini pricing and tariffs.  It’s also interesting to see the iPhone 3GS is still marked as “Coming Soon”, whereas the Nokia N900 already has a date attached to it.

If you are interested, head over to the Vodafone website and register for updates.

Oh, and the other network? 3UK have already indicated they are unlikely to carry the Nokia N900 as it’s a little bit of a niche device for them…

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.

Over at mynokiablog.com Hiren has written a very comprehensive review of the new Nokia N900, covering a lot of aspects of the device, including a large number of screenshots.  If you are interested in this particular Maemo device, then head over to the mynokiablog.com website here.

Google have improved their Google Maps mobile product by now adding support for syncing of your “Stars”, or favourites.  Both the Windows Mobile and Symbian version have been upgraded to v3.3 this week and now offer to sync these favourites so that they will also appear in Google Maps in your desktop browser.  Of course, on Symbian, Google Maps shares the Location Favourites with Nokia Maps / Ovi Maps, which can also sync to the Ovi browser solution too.  For those who are not using the Ovi Maps browser support, you can now use Google Maps to find favourites and sync them to your phone, as well as having a nice safe backup of the favourites.

Once you have installed the new version, and performed the initial sync, the stars should appear on your Google Maps in your browser.  For me, I had to star a new item for them to appear, but once they appeared, they remained visible irrespective of the zoom level selected.

Obviously, for me, as someone who regularly uses different mobile phones, the ability to have my list of favourites synced from device to device as well as from device to my PC (and any PC I happen to use) is a very useful feature, and one I am already using on a near daily basis, despite the feature only being released in the last few days.  Google have confirmed they will be bringing this same functionality to the other Google Maps Mobile platforms as soon as possible.

This short video (from Nokia Conversations) shows how the Hermes application works on the new Nokia N900.  It can go and collect information from Facebook and Twitter (although only Facebook is shown in the video), and match up your contacts with your online friends, and then it will bring your friend’s latest avatar picture, birthday information, and profile URL into the local Address Book.  It’ll even import those birthdays into the Calendar too.

It can either be set to Retrieve (which collects the missing pieces of information from your contacts), or Refresh, which will overwrite all the local information from the online information.  We like this level of integration, and hope the developer continues to develop it to offer more functions.  This offers a similar base function to that of the INQ Mini 3G (although we don’t believe that Hermes brings status information into the Address Book.  If you have a friend on Facebook, but not already in your Address Book, and the only information available from Facebook is their birthday, Hermes will even create a generally empty Contact record to allow the birthday to still be recorded and stored in the Calendar.

The developer, for example, is working on a facility to keep a history of downloaded images (avatars), to allow you to select one, even if your friend has moved onto a different one, and he’s also looking at an auto-update facility, especially for Facebook.

Here’s another video of it in action (courtesy of thenokiablog.com)

Nokia have released the first major firmware update for the Nokia E75 (v201).  Weighing in at 153MB, it may never be available using the Over-The-Air option, but is available via PC using NSU.  All About Symbian have said the changelog includes:

According to this website, v400 firmware for the Nokia E71 is just starting to become available, and the changelog includes:

NEW FUNTIONALITIES:
Gimlet v9.5 (v9.5.3.72)
Quick Office 5.3
Ovi Store 1.5 (v1.5.2)
Ovi Contacts – Preinstalled
Mail for Exchange 2.9.176

CHANGES AND IMPROVEMENTS:
Email Setup Wizard update
WLAN Corrections
Internet Radio v1.16 – Increased functionality
Camera functionality improvement
Incoming call hang issue fixed
Turkish SMS character input improvement
Many functionality and Stability improvements in MfE
Support for Russian and Ukranian keymats
Phone activation Baseline updated
Yahoo account hack fixed

GENERAL
Stability and functionality improvements
Email and WLAN functionality improvements
Increased robustness in handling SMS and incoming calls
Memory leak fixes and crashes
Email and WLAN functionality improvements

CALL HANDLING
Fix for Incoming call hang issue and fast call crash
Fix for making emergency call when the phone is locked

CALENDAR/CLOCK
Minor Functionality improvements
Time display correction when the phone is locked

CONNECTIVITY
WLAN functionality Improvements and fixes for crashes
Improvement in WLAN authentication
mVPN authentication improvements and general functionality improvement

CONTACTS/PHONEBOOK
Functionality improvements for search functionality

EMAIL
Email setup wizard updated
Fix for Yahoo account hack while setting up Gmail account through Nokia Email
Fix for mails getting duplicated after restoring backup
Mail for Exchange upgraded from 2.9.158 to 2.9.176
Gimlet updated to v9.5
Many functionality and stability improvements in MfE
Robustness and functionality improvements in email items.

INTERNET RADIO
Improved functionality
Increased application stability

QWERTY KEYBOARD
Usability improvements
Keyboard mapping corrections for Russian and Ukranian keymat

MESSAGING
Improvement in Turkish SMS characters input
Fix for delivery report for SMS with more than 22 characters
Increased robustness in handling SMS

It’s nice to see Nokia not neglecting the elder phones!  Once this becomes available in the UK, don’t forget the Nokia E71 does not hae UDP (User Data Preservation), so it will wipe everything off the phone when you apply it.  Certainly with the memory leak fixes and the time display correction, this may be an update worth applying.  As always, the network operator branded firmware versions will take longer to be released.

Now available in the Ovi Store is a Symbian Facebook  for the Nokia E71 / Nokia E72.  To see more screenshots, head over to ZOMG its CJ’s website here.  However, from our point of view, it’s not enough…

On much cheaper phones (eg the INQ Mini 3G, reviewed here) the Facebook support is actually much more integrated into the phone; it will happily take the Facebook contacts and add them to the local addressbook, it will bring their picture down, and it even puts their latest status updates right in the addressbook for you to see if you are about to ring, text or IM them.  The Sony Ericsson T715 we recently reviewed (here) also had support for Facebook, with the ability to upload pictures to Facebook as soon as they were taken, so why aren’t we seeing this level of integration on Symbian?

None of this is difficult, and if it can be achieved for a £50 phone, then surely it can be achieved for a £300 phone…

However, it’s a start, and one we hope that Facebook and Symbian work on to improve.  Also, we’ve no idea why this application is limited to these two phones, although we can understand the need for a portrait version and a separate landscape version given the way Symbian works.

Screenshot courtesy of ZOMG its CJ too.