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.

Having already announced and released the iPhone Kindle application, Amazon have now confirmed that they will be releasing their Android version at some point during the Summer.  The application itself will be free, but will give access to the whole Kindle catalogue of over 540,000 books.  It will also give them access to their purchase books, and will sync bookmarks across the whole range of software (Kindle device, PC, Mac, iPhone, iPad and BlackBerry) giving a true integrated experience.  Also, unlike some other platforms, the Android version will also allow in-app purchases of new books.  The only downside to this application is you need at least Android v1.6 OS, which (at the time of writing) was not what, for example, the HTC Hero has available in the UK, leaving a lot of UK devices unable to even consider this application.  We hear, however, that the HTC Hero Android v2.1 OS update might be available before the end of the month, and may be as early as Wednesday this week…

In other Kindle news, it appears that the v2.5 firmware update will start rolling out to users shortly as a wireless update.  Personally, I think you’ll need to already be on the 2.3.3 firmware to even have a chance of getting this new firmware, and even then it’s not 100% clear whether this will be made available wirelessly to Kindle Glocal users.  More news over the coming weeks as the situation becomes clearer…

Wow, what a refreshing article to write; here’s a company who, when they offer unlimited internet, do not have a hidden data usage cap or “fair usage policy”, here’s a company who, when they say “we think free should mean free”, allow 0800 freephone numbers to be dialled free of charge from your mobile.  Yet they only charge 8p per minute to call other mobile networks, charge 4p per text, and a £10 TopUp (giffgaff call them goodybags!) will give you unlimited (yes they mean this) texts, and unlimited (yes, again, actually unlimited) internet access, along with 100 minutes of free calls (all lasting 1 month).

Now, nothing is perfect, and there are a couple of minor caveats to the “unlimited” internet; it must be personal use only, commercial and automatic use (whatever “automatic” means?!?) are not allowed, and finally, you are not allowed to connect your PC via your phone (tethering).  I wonder if the fact my phone has a scheduled connection once a day to synchronise my calendar would count as “automatic”; I suspect not, although something that happened every 5 minutes may be a different matter…

However, it’s a breath of fresh air seeing a company thinking like this.  The company? giffgaff, the new virtual mobile operator, owned and utilising the O2 network.  They are SIM only, so you need to purchase / bring with you an unlocked phone, and they are keeping their costs down (and being able to offer such offers) via community support, and no call centres.

So, if you have an unlocked phone, are outside your contract and currently spend more than £10 per month, or topup by more than £10 per month, can cope with remembering to topup every month, and the O2 network is an option for you, then you might well want to consider giffgaff…

Thanks to Jonathan Jenson who pointed out these offers to me.

Update: James Body has been in touch (see comments) and confirmed that giffgaff do have an element of a Internet fair usage policy; it’s 100MB per day, but it appears it’s likely you’ll need to go over that limit multiple times in a week before they issue a warning to reduce your usage, and only if you fail to act will they bar a user.   So far, they have warned 2 users, and not barred anyone.  Of course, 100MB per day equates to 3GB per month, which is far in excess of any other network, and would be a serious amount of usage by anyone (although a limit is still a limit in our eyes).

To put that “100MB a day” in perspective, if you don’t stream music / video, and aren’t uploading lots of pictures every day, many people find the 150MB free Internet that 3UK offer can easily last 1 month, so for most users it shouldn’t be a problem.

Here’s an interesting application, which was pointed out to me today; it’s called Juice Defender (despite the screenshot saying Juice Control), which allows you to create a set of rules to limit certain battery draining functions; for instance, you can set it to only activate 3G & WiFi for a minute every few minutes, and whilst it does the activation, it will also check for updates and emails, but will then shut those connections back down to help save battery.  There is a element of being location-aware, so you can set rules based on location too (although you’ll need Ultimate Juice for that, which is available from the Android Market).

There are 5 main triggers:

• Battery – when battery level gets low (less than 15%), disable APN/WiFi, and re-enable them when battery level is restored. APN/WiFi will also be enabled while the device is being recharged.

• Schedule – regularly enable APN/WiFi for a short period of time, to let background data sync occur (email, Twitter, Facebook, stock quotes…). If Quick is disabled APN/WiFi stays enabled for a longer period, useful if your data connection is very slow or you need to sync lots of data.

• Night schedule (requires UltimateJuice) – disable APN/WiFi during night time; you can also optionally put the phone in Silent Mode.

• Screen – enable APN/WiFi while the screen is on to allow browsing, tweeting, procrastination and general internet-powered enjoyment, regardless of scheduled events and battery level.

• Location (requires UltimateJuice) – this trigger controlled by the ‘AutoWiFi’ button. It disables WiFi when the device is not in range of any known WiFi network. The location is determined via the cellular network, so it’s usually quite coarse. It’s a fully automatic set-it-and-forget-it WiFi manager!

The priority order of the triggers is 1) location (WiFi only), 2) screen, 3) battery, 4) night schedule, 5) schedule – this means, for example, that when the screen is on APN/WiFi will be enabled even when the battery is low, or that the regular schedule won’t occur during the night period.

This looks a very interesting application, although whether Locale (which we covered here) offers more facilities (especially if you have regular access to a power source).  If you are interested in Juice Defender, then see the authors website here.

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…

Last week we covered the news of the new v3.3 for Symbian and Windows Mobile, and today Google has launched v3.3 for Android as well.  However, it’s not quite got the same feature set, with some additional features, and some missing features too.

Firstly, they now have the “What’s Nearby” feature, which lists nearby businesses, and can often provide useful information on cafes and restaurants nearby.  To access this, just long press on the map and tap on the bubble, and look for “What’s nearby?” in the menu.

Secondly, they have added a range of Labs features (in essence, Beta features that you may want to use to make the program a little better); these include:

• A scale bar on the map
• Showing a terrain layer which adds a level of height and the ability to see a shaded relief map
• Search for popular categories
• Turn the blue dot into a compass to show which way you are facing when stationary
• Added Layers support to be able to see Traffic, Satellite mapping, Latitude users, and Transit lines (eg the London Underground)

There’s also a “Report errors in the map”, but that’s definitely US-only, so won’t be available in the UK.  It’s worth noting there is no mention of the star / favourites syncing that comes with the v3.3 on Symbian and Windows Mobile.  It’s not clear whether any other of the Labs features are US-only, but it’s nice to see Google still managing to innovate and provide new features into the products, even if it’s not consistent across their full platform range.

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.

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:

Well, I’ve had an INQ Mini 3G (courtesy of 3mobilebuzz) for a couple of weeks now, and overall, I’ve been quietly impressed by the phone.  From the automatic importing of Facebook and Skype contacts into the Contacts list, to the fact the phone has support for these Social Networking sites, and Twitter support, and all for less than £50!

Now, let’s be honest, I’m used to smartphones, and there are a number of little things that annoy me with the device; the start up sound can’t be cancelled by pressing a key (as per Nokia devices), and the whole menu system is a little bright and colourful for my taste (and with no theme support, no opportunity to change it either), but these are minor niggles, and certainly don’t detract from the phone.

Supporting Social Networking sites directly in the device, combined with the standard 3UK support of Windows Live Messenger makes this a well supported device, and well worth a look.  I liked the fact the homepage supports 3 widgets (I used weather, world clock and an RSS feed of the BBC website, all options built into the phone), although I have heard some people warn there may be a memory leak, as I’ve heard of people needing to reboot the phone after a long time turned on with widgets in use.  That’s a key issue to me; I rarely turn my phone off, so long term stability is key, and it maybe that a firmware / application update is needed to resolve these issues; hopefully they will be addressed before the INQ Chat ships.

The phone also shipped with Google Mail and Google Maps (v2.3.2; nice!), which was useful for people like me who use Google a lot, and the phone can be used with GooSync to sync data from the likes of Google Calendar too.  Personally, I found the calendar a bit simple when entering new entries, but I suspect most people will use the phone linked to Google or Outlook, and not enter directly onto the device (again, I’ve been spoilt by smartphones offering a decent Calendar app).  In fact, the only thing missing is the Last.fm scrobbling support that the INQ1 had, and it’s still not clear why INQ dropped this function, especially with the likes of Last.fm and Spotify moving more into the mobile space…

Again, a personal point, but it uses miniUSB (not the end of the world, although many manufacturers are moving to microUSB), which is used for both the headphones and charging.  With Bluetooth support for a headset in the car, this isn’t the end of the world, but I’m not a fan of the combined port; let’s hope when INQ move to Android next year we’ll see a dedicated headphone socket on their devices.  Whilst I’m looking at the hardware, I wasn’t a big fan of the way the rear cover clipped on (it did have a release button at the top, which makes it better than the Sony Ericsson T715 I reviewed here), but only just, and I couldn’t find any sight of the other 6 coloured interchangeable backs on the 3Store, so right now you’ll be stuck with the red back).

Let’s be honest, for the price and based on the software on this device; if you are not in the market for a smartphone but want connectivity options to keep upto date with your Social Networking sites, then the INQ Mini 3G should be high on your list of options, if not at the top.  Here at UK Gadgeteer, I’ve covered a number of hints and tips over the last few weeks, and INQ Mobile should be congratulated for providing online support, and being willing to engage with their customers.

When the INQ Chat arrives with the QWERTY keyboard, and GPS, it’ll be interesting to see whether INQ can still compete in the mid-tier marketplace against devices like the Nokia E63…

Oh, and finally, a small point, but having performed a master reset of the device to return it, the phone still had all the contacts on it, plus the sign-in details for Skype, so if you ever decide to sell your INQ Mini 3G, be careful about removing all your personal data as well as performing a master reset.

This is an innovative desk stand for your phone.  As well as including an 8-in-1 memory card reader, a 2 port USB hub, having a variety of connectors to charge your phone, and running solely off USB power, it also claims to be able to hold any phone in portrait or landscape formats without any additional support!

The Desk Genie is apparently made from a special rubberised material, which is strong enough to hold an phone in portrait or landscape positions, and should even still hold the phone in place when the phone is vibrating, yet should leave no sticky residue on the phone.  For only £15 (+ delivery) this looks an interest device, if only to hold your phone at the right angle for use on your desk, let alone all the additional properties it has.

Mobile Fun do warn that with time the rubbery surface’s ability to hold a phone will fade as dust collects on the surface, but a quick wipe with clean water should restore it back to normal.

As for those mobile phones charging connectors: iPhone, Nokia (both 2mm and 3.5mm), Sony Ericsson, Samsung and LG are all supported, as are the miniUSB and microUSB formats (the latter being the standard connector for many manufacturers moving forward).   This power connector does not use either of the USB ports on the device, although it would appear at first glance that this is a power only connector, so it may not be possible to sync and charge many devices (unless you use Bluetooth to sync between the device and your PC/Mac).

You can see more of the Desk Genie at Mobile Fun.

This article will take two separate techniques, and show how to combine them to get Facebook Events into your Symbian phone.

Firstly, using Sean Bonner’s guide, you can configure Google Calendar to subscribe to your Facebook Events, which will result in your Google Calendar now having an additional calendar which contains these events.

However, we want to get them into our phone.  To achieve this, you’ll need to sign up at GooSync and pay for a premium account.  This then allows you to configure GooSync to synchronise multiple Google Calendars, and you’ll need to include this additional Facebook Events calendar in the sync process.  GooSync costs £20 for 12 months, £30 for 24 months, or £40 for a lifetime subscription.

Then, and finally, you need to use the built in SyncML services within Symbian to point to GooSync (GooSync will lead you through this process) which will then result in the calendars all coming down to your Symbian phone.

Finally, if you want to make the whole process look even smoother on your Symbian phone, invest a few extra pounds for a copy of SBSH Calendar (formally Papyrus), which has built in GooSync support to separate out the multiple calendars into different categories, which will allow you to colour code them too (something we find very useful).

If you don’t want all the hassle and faff of paying and setting up all these different tools just to achieve this single function, then head to an Android phone, as these natively support multiple Google Calendars, allowing you to achieve the same thing for free!

I know INQ will be moving to Android next year, but the INQ Mini and INQ Chat are two key devices for early 2010 for INQ, and from the first looks, this phone may well achieve great things for INQ…

When you turn it on, the homescreen includes access to the Switcher app, which allows you to scroll through the key applications on the phone.  Included on that list, right next to Contacts, are Facebook and Twitter icons, showing the Social Networking aspects of this phone are key to INQ. Not just that, but having inserted a SIM into the phone, there were no lists of access points to choose from (as you would with Nokia’s Symbian) and in fact, the phone seemed to benefit from easy internet access, offering and performing updates in the background.  The level of integration is impressive; the Facebook app will not just download your Contacts from Facebook, but will include their photo and their latest status update direct from within the Contacts app; it can’t bring phone numbers down to the phone, but that’s a licensing limitation by Facebook, not a technical limitation in the phone.

The phone supports 3 widgets on the homescreen, the first two are weather (which needs configuring with a city) and world clock.  Obviously the phone has the normal range of additional 3UK specific applications, which we’ll look at as part of our main review of the phone.

There are many more features of this phone to study before we publish a more detailed review, but on first looks, this phone shows some very impressive features.  At only £60, it’s a bit of a bargain too, with little touches like SyncML support (so sites such as GooSync can be used to sync your Google information to the phone), and with the QWERTY keyboard and GPS support, the INQ Chat should be even better, even with it’s higher price…

What’s Vodafone 360 I hear you ask… Well, it’s a new, revolutionary set of services from Vodafone, which claims to gather up all of your friends, communities, entertainment and personal favourites into one single place.  From the intial press release, it looks like Vodafone is attempting to achieve across a broad range of phones what companies like INQ and LG have attempted with single phone models…

So what does the service comprise, what phones does it work on? Read on…

Firstly, the service is designed to be embedded within the phone, and Vodafone are using the LiMo operating system to help achieve this.  At launch, there is 1 phone, developed by Samsung, which will be labelled as the Vodafone 360 H1, which will support the capabilities natively on the device.  A second device is due from Samsung soon, which will offer customers a range of “colours” and models.

Also, at launch, the service will be pre-loaded on 4 Symbian handsets in Vodafone’s current phone catalogue, and the full service will be available for download on another 10 Symbian devices.  However, “part or all of the service” will also be available for download onto “over 100 popular phones”.  No word as to whether this is still limited to Symbian phones, or whether it is using Java / mobile web browser technology to allow them to support wider than just Symbian; however, Vodafone have stated they plan to support more handsets (from multiple manufacturers) and operating systems over the coming months.

So, the service itself:

• The main key element is Vodafone People (and this function will be available across all 100 phone models) automtically syncs all contacts from your phone, Facebook, Windows Live Messenger, and Google Talk.  Soon, that list will be enhanced with Twitter, Hyves and studiVZ (the last two are leading Dutch and German social networks).
• This address book should also sync with your PC and Mac, although it’s not clear if these platforms will sync with the same internet server, or whether that will be direct to the device (the latter is hinted at).
• The internet services is said to include “apps, games, music and mapping services”.

Vodafone have stated that “Customers will have integrated contacts, music, photos, and mapping services and can share their favourite music choices and even their physical location, how and when they choose, with their chosen group of friends”.

If all of this is not enough, Vodafone are opening up the website that manages all of this to non-Vodafone users too, to allow the system to be used by all, although you’ll need to be a Vodafone customer to benefit from the mobile side of things.

A little more on the Vodafone 360 H1 (as pictured above); all we know right now is that it has “a 3.5 inch multitouch, high definition OLED screen, 16GB memory, WiFi, a maximum talk time of over 400 minutes (3G) and a 5 megapixel camera.”  It also has integrated GPS, as will the Vodafone 360 M1 to follow, although that has a smaller 3.2 inch TFT screen, 1GB memory, no Wi-Fi, and only a 3 megapixel camera.

However, Andrew Grill from London Calling, has provided info on some of the apps involved, including a Vodafone Mclaren Mercedes application providing news and live telemetry from their F1 cars, and Tube Exits (a popular iPhone app which gives you advice on where to board London Underground trains for the most efficient exit).

More information is now available at www.vodafone360.com.  Screenshot courtesy of Andrew Grill.

This is the new Nokia Booklet 3G, a small form factor laptop (similar to many other devices, like the Vodafone netbook / Dell Mini units).  This, however, as well as featuring what appears to be a Windows OS, will also include some special features.  Firstly, like some other units, it will have 3G capabilities built in, possibly via a hot-swappable SIM card slot (allowing you to change or remove the SIM with the machine booted up).  It will also have A-GPS facilities for location based services.  Now, let’s remember that other devices, such as the Dell Mini 9 have similar capabilities, so this isn’t yet a unique device.

It will though, ship will access to a number of the Ovi Services, which will make a difference, including Ovi Maps (device widget), Nokia Music Store (including music streaming), Ovi Files (cloud based file storage), and Ovi Suite, allowing syncing with your mobile.

The spec, what little is currently known, looks good on paper: 10″ glass fronted screen, 3G, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, 120GB Hard Disk, HDMI port, integrated SD card reader, stereo speakers.

If you want to know more about this device, head over to All About Symbian.  More information is likely to be revealed by Nokia next week at their Nokia World event, where we expect a number of the phones we’ve covered recently to be announced as well.

Historically, the Skypephones and INQ1 were launched more by 3UK than by the manufacturer, but this has now changed; INQ has today released details of their two new phones, which will be in stores in time for Christmas.

Firstly, and after the success of the Nokia E71, we suspect the more popular device, is the INQ Chat.  This is a QWERTY based device designed to concentrate on Social Networking.  As well as the Facebook, Skype, and Windows Live Messaging support of the INQ1, these phones Twitter support, something we predicted a while ago.  This Twitter support includes providing the latest updates on the homescreen.

The INQ Chat also has a 3.2 megapixel camera, whereas the INQ Mini will feature a 2 megapixel camera, and both support upto 8GB (we’re guessing via a microSD card).  Both devices can operate as HSPA Modems for your PC, although whether this is inline with the 3UK T&Cs is another matter.

However, one interesting additional point is that via the third party DoubleTwist software, INQ plan to make it possible for both phones to be able to sync music with iTunes.  Although not aimed as iPhone killers, the ability to use a single source and program to manage your iPod and your mobile phone may sway some users into buying these devices.

We expect both will be available on 3UK around October time; although the Nokia N97 was the Top Seller with 3UK for a few weeks, the Nokia E71 is back in the top slot again, showing how popular the QWERTY format has been for 3UK, and remember that INQ and 3UK will be aiming these phones between £69.99 and £109.99 on PAYG; they have a good spec and are likely to be big sellers for 3UK when available.

Update: We’ve now had it confirmed that the INQ Chat does have GPS, but the INQ Mini does not; our main complaint against these devices (and their predecessors) is that Google Maps’ My Location feature (and by implication, Google Latitude) is unlikely to work on them, as there is no GPS, and Google Maps does not support Cell Based location on BREW based handsets, leaving no method to locate the phone.  This doesn’t apply to the INQ Chat, which will feature GPS and includes Google Maps.

Finally, it will be interesting to see whether or not we’ll see an update to the INQ1 Slider to offer Twitter support for the existing users; although it would be very nice to see, we suspect it may not happen (or at least not until well after the initial sales period for these new phones).

Some content courtesy of The Guardian [Via TRMP]