Anssi Vonjoki, Nokia’s VP of Mobile Markets, has stated that Nokia will launch a whole range of touchscreen phones in 2009, not just high end smartphones, but “from the very low segment to the highest one featuring this type of functionality.” We’re not sure that Nokia would want to redevelop both S60 and S40 to support touchscreen, so these phones are likely to bring S60 phones down to more consumers.

LG have had some success with their touchscreen phones, from the Viewty to the latest LG Secret, and of course there’s the iPhone.  Whether Nokia can achieve the consumer experience to the same level as Apple waits to be seen.

Google have announced that they have now made a customised version of the Picasa Web Albums for Nokia S60 devices. As well as that, Google have translated it into 36 languages as well.

Simply head to picasaweb.google.com to access the new version.

fring have updated their S60 VOIP client (to v3.35), which now offers improved stability, less interruptions, less logouts, improved voice quailty and they have added a speakerphone option. They’ve also added a file transfer capability via Yahoo! or Skype. More details here, with the download here.

Truphone have updated their mobile phone VOIP S60 client to v4.0, and included Truphone Anywhere. This allows you to route as many of your calls as possible over the Internet, which will reduce your costs. Clever logic in the program means it will offer a variety of options from a local area number, Call Back and true VOIP calls. If you have included bundled minutes, then Truphone reckon their service will still save you money on your international calls. Head over to the Truphone website for more information and a download link.

As well as the existing Nokia Internet Tablet range, Nokia are definitely preparing Linux based cellphones. The comments have come from Nokia’s CFO, Rick Simonson. Whether it’ll be their own OS, Android, or LiMo, is unknown, as is whether it’ll use Trolltech’s Qt UI, a company Nokia bought earlier this year, but we can be sure of one thing; it’s likely Nokia will not stop at a single device, and we should, over the coming years, expect to see a whole range of devices. We don’t suspect Nokia will give up on Symbian S60 anytime soon, so it’ll be interesting to see if the Linux phones compete in the high end smartphone sector, and how much overlap of technology and applications they bring from the current tablets.

Story from Thumb Report, a new smartphone news service, which tried to encompass the news within 160 characters.

Here’s an interesting snippet of information. Google have released an updated version of their iPhone version of their Google Reader, and it’s been noted that any device can access the URL, which is http://www.google.com/reader/i/. This version works well on both Symbian S60 smartphones, as well as the Nokia Internet Tablets, both of which seem to benefit from the additional effort Google has put into the user interface. It offers a better interface over the traditional mobile version by offering you easier access to each post. If you are a regular Google Reader user, and have never got on with the mobile version, then give this version a go…

On top of all the other Nokia Beta Labs applications that have been released or updated recently, they have just added another application; Nokia Step Counter. This is the equivalent of a pedometer, but it uses the accelerometer built into some recent S60v3 Nokia smartphones (N95, N95 8Gb, N82). A couple of known issues exists (you have to enter your height and weight in metric units irrespective of the units you have chosen to display), but it’s a good start. Head over to the Nokia Beta Labs website for more information and to download.

The Symbian Guru has written up a comprehensive article that answers this very question, comparing the mobile GMail application, accessing GMail through the web browser, and using the built in messaging app and accessing GMail via IMAP. He has also included the Pros and Cons of each option. A useful article if you are looking into GMail access from your phone.

The article can be read here.

Psiloc have just released their latest S60 application, it’s called Psiloc Connect, and as the name implies (just), it’s a connection manager for your phone. Once configured with all your details, it creates an additional AP connection called Psiloc Connect. Simply use this within your application and it will do everything else for you. It will search through all available WiFi access points, and connect to one of them if available. Failing that, it can either not connect at all, or if you have a good unlimited data connection, it will happily use a 3G / GPRS connection to connect the phone with the Internet. It costs €9.95, so is well worth a look.

More details here.

Scheherazade is a new Audiobooks player for S60v3 from PlatySoft in Australia. It requires python to be installed, but the author has released two versions, one for those who already have python, and another which includes python. Once installed, all you need to do is to put your Audiobooks into a folder called Audiobooks and Scheherazade will automatically find them and play them for you. Even more, it’s free!

Download it from here [Via Symbian Guru].

Nokia have been updating a number of their Beta applications over at Nokia Beta Labs. Firstly, they have updated PC Phone including performance updates, bug fixes, and a few other updates. Secondly, they have also updated the less popular Nokia Channels, with a new simpler interface, bug fixes and new features.

Here’s a useful guide - it’s a step by step guide on how to configure the built in email client to use Google Mail on your Series 60 handset. It covers every step of the way, and although it’s only useful once, it makes getting the settings right a breeze.

Step by Step GMail on S60 [Via HandyWi, which also includes a video]

If you are into your music, and have a last.fm account (which allows you to publish your music tastes, and what you are and have been listening to), then Michael Coffey has released a native last.fm client for Symbian S60 phones. It has a simple interface (you provide it your last.fm username and password and that’s it!), and whenever you play music it will silently in the background update your last.fm account (it also remembers the music should you be disconnected and will upload the data when a connection is available again).

Download it here.

Here’s an interesting rumour we’ve picked up on via the internet. It appears that Nokia might be trying to beat Apple to the launch of the first 3G touchscreen smartphone, by announcing the 5800 Tube in advance of the iPhone announcement in June. Although they’ve both been beaten to touchscreen mobiles (like the LG Viewty), it would be an interesting turn of events if Nokia beat Apple to this crown. It’s unlikely, but an interesting rumour nonetheless…

This above picture comes from Symbian Freak, a picture of the new Nokia Tube, which will be the first 5th generation S60 device with a touchscreen. This model should be available in early 2009, and will be a mid-spec model, with a high spec model shipping later next year. Having said that, the spec of it is still impressive; a high resolution screen, which is at least 3″ and 16:9 format, a camera (though unlikely to be 5 megapixel), a front facing camera for video calling, 3G, Bluetooth, WiFi, built in GPS (with geotagging support), all in a device roughly the size of the N73. It won’t, apparently, feature multi touch, but will have haptic feedback.

Information and picture courtesy of Symbian Freak.

As we predicted, JoikuSoft has been updated again to include WEP support, which now adds a simple level of security to the connection. This may not be enough security for many, but it is at least a start. Another new feature is the ability for the software to shutdown when the battery gets too low. As always, the software can be downloaded from here.

SlingPlayer have announced an UIQ version of their Mobile client, but have also updated their Symbian S60 client too. These new versions are due out in the Summer, so we’ll provide you more details nearer the time on the new functionality.

Y-Browser has been updated to v0.88.  Y-Browser is a well respected third part File Manager for Symbian S60 devices.  Even better, it is available already signed and ready for installation from the author’s website here.  The main updates are:

• Lots of layout change fixes
• Some bug fixes to improve stability (Especially with FP2 devices)
• File modified time changed from UTC to local time
• Added Command short cut accelerators to the menu items
• Edit-Mark, menu has now two additional options: Mark with wild card & inverse selection
• File association settings added
• Plug-in manager added
• Email folders shown now as well (with Mail folders plug-in)

In the last few weeks, there have been all sorts of agreements over various technologies on mobile devices, so we thought we would summarise them all…

• Adobe has announced it will be producing a Flash player for the iPhone, despite Steve Jobs not being happy with it (claiming Flash Lite was too light, and normal Flash was too “bloaty” for the iPhone)
• Nokia has announced the new Microsoft Silverlight technology will become available on Nokia Symbian S60 devices, traditional S40 devices, and their range of Internet Tablets.
• Microsoft has signed a deal with Adobe to bring Flash Lite to Windows Mobile devices, which will be used within the Internet Explorer Mobile browser. The deal also includes Adobe Reader LE for reading PDF documents.

It’s nice to see the main competitors supporting each other’s technology, and not limiting us users, and ensuring each technology has a future irrespective of your chosen mobile device.

Early this year we covered the first release of JoikuSoft, which allows your Symbian phone to act as a WiFi Access Point, allowing other devices to share the phone’s internet connection. Well, it’s been updated to v1.1 which includes a number of bug fixes, stability improvements, and the ability to change the name of the access point (although only in the format JoikuSpot_xxx).

However, within the next month or so, we should see a further update which adds WEP support into the software. Although WEP isn’t the latest greatest standard, it should be sufficient for a short term connection between your devices and your phone, and adds an important level of security to the current version.

Currently, HTTP and HTTPS should work (although HTTPS needs some configuring on the clients), but protocols like IMAP and FTP do not currently work, although the authors claim they will have a solution for those for the final release.

We’ll keep an eye on this software, and let you know how things progress.