I’ve been after this for a while, simple S60 application for your N95 that will send what you listen to on your Nokia N95, and submit it to last.fm. mobbler - Google Code
When I first heard that Skype had released a beta client for mobiles, I was rather excited. I’m probably not the only N95 user that expected they could finally make VOIP calls easily through Skype. I wasn’t prepared for the disappointment that I couldn’t.
To be fair, it is listed in the details that it will make a local rate phone call to allow you to place Skype calls, but why? If I’ve got a Wi-fi connection, why can’t I use it? Okay, for long-distance and international calls, it will save me money, but that’s not what I was after.
The client itself is simple to install and set up, and once logged in, sure enough I could see my contacts fine (over the wi-fi connection). It is lacking in features compared to the full client, but the main reason for having it is to place calls, and this works well. It could really do with the same test call function that the full client has, as this is very helpful to make sure things are set up properly.
The beta Skype client runs on a range of Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Motorola and Samsung phones, but in terms of the Nokia N series is only listed as working for the N95 and N80 (if I didn’t have one of these though, I would be tempted to try it out anyway just in case).
It would be perfectly acceptable if it did what I expect Skype to do, make calls online, however at the moment it just seems broken not being able to do that.
Related Posts:
Skype Beta for Nokia N95 now available
Getting Skype on the Nokia N95 with Fring
This is a great tip for N95 users from Symbian-Guru.com, the iPhone Google Reader site really does look nice on the Nokia N95. I would add my own advice, and suggest using the Nokia browser rather than Opera Mobile (if you have that), for some reason it didn’t load in Opera for me, but worked well on the built-in browser.
Finally, Skype have released a beta client for a host of mobile phones, including the Nokia N95. It works neatly, although it isn’t a native Symbian application, having been written in Java. Didn’t take too much to set up, although I haven’t been able to test it yet (unlike the normal Skype client, there is no test call facility). This could be very handy if I can get a few people onto it, and once I have I will report back.
Related Posts:
Review of the Skype Mobile Beta on the Nokia N95
Getting Skype on the Nokia N95 with Fring
Comes with Music is a long-awaited Nokia product for its phones which allows their customers to download for free songs from several of the major labels. It is also rumoured to have been Steve Job’s preferred model for iTunes, that never quite came together. I’ve heard rumours myself that it will only come on a few new models of phone, rather than be released for all Nokia phones in one fell swoop. I hope not. I’d quite like the reward for having my N95.
Anyways, paidcontent.org detail what they know of the deal Nokia have made with Universal:
Updated: Nokia Paying Universal Music $35 Per User For Comes With Music? | paidContent.org
Quick review and comparison by Symbian-Guru of the Sony W960 and the Nokia N95. Interested me because someone had asked me about the relative merits of both phones, as they wanted something with an FM tuner built-in, which meant they wouldn’t consider an iPhone. I couldn’t deal with transfer speeds like the W960 is described as having, I need to do a quick sync in the morning before I go to work, so I have all my podcasts up to date. Sounds like I would never get to work on time if I had the Sony.
Facebook now suggests “people you may know” - Download Squad
I’ve tested this out, and my own results seemed rather sensible, they were indeed by and large people I knew. I’m waiting for the “people I knew and lost touch with” feature though, that might be more fun. Or “people you were bullied by at school”.
Okay, you’re a member of several Social Networks now. There is probably one you use a lot, likely the one you started with, but you haven’t done much with the others. What if you could post messages or updates to several of them at once? This is where ping.fm comes in. Presently supporting Facebook, Jaiku, Pownce, Tumblr and Twitter, and soon to add support for Myspace and Bebo, this is a simple web-based app that will allow you to post to all of these networks at once. Nice and simple to set up, and it does what it promises fine. It’s still in a private beta at the moment, but let me know if you want to try it, I have a code that may (or indeed may not) still work for signup.
You can also bundle up what you’ve been doing at the other end too. Friendfeed will gather together feeds of your activities on several social networks, blogs, photo sites, Youtube, Last.fm and several other places, and offer them all up as a single feed (this is mine). You can also add all your friends, and follow their feeds too. I personally find that last element a little intrusive, as you can do that without asking. You can do so and choose to keep it private, but for now I won’t do either for anyone that hasn’t tracked me down and added me in Friendfeed.
There has been a little surge of these bundling services, taking the API or feeds of several different sites, and offering them up as a whole new site. Both definitely offer something to the user, and I’m using both daily now. I do wonder though if they strip away some of the individual features of different sites to fit what all of them have. I am sure there will be several more such ideas coming in the next few months though.
Twitterfox is a handy little Firefox Extension for all users of Twitter. It keeps you up to date with your friends twitters, and gives you a nice quick interface for posting. It takes up a tiny piece of real estate on your status bar (an issue if like me you have a lot of extensions that place things there, I have run out of space on some of my installs, and Firefox gets a bit ugly when that happens).
What is also worth mentioning is that it is really nicely designed, the alerts and interface for reading/posting twitters is tiny and well done. I suspect that the style may well end up influencing other similar extensions, as it is the way to do it. I’d love similar for status updates to Facebook for instance.
Last week Apple announced its software development kit for the iPhone. The demo and announcement was generally met with enthusiasm, especially with demos of Super Monkey Ball being shown off, interoperability with Microsoft Exchange, and many other examples being shown alongside it to help underline the potential of the platform.
However, with a little hindsight some people are now seeing flaws with the agreements required for the SDK, and the cut that Apple will get from sales. Alexander Wolfe at informationweek.com outlines some of the anger at Apple’s tight control over the SDK. It was expected already that apps would only be available through iTunes. However Apple are also charging $99 for the full documentation for the SDK (a more rudimentary version is available for free), and then 30% of any revenue on applications sold through the iTunes store (however apps can be distributed through it for free if they themselves are free).
This contrasts sharply with the attitude of other mobile platforms. Symbian and Google Android have no such restrictions, and there certainly is no restricted marketplace for Windows Mobile apps. Apple are very much in contrast to the rest of the market on this. There certainly is a lively developer community for Symbian and Windows Mobile, and Android is starting off well. I don’t think it will be a barrier to entry for the bigger developers, but I think it could affect the smaller dev companies or individuals. I’ve seen some fantastic apps on Symbian that might not have existed if the student developer was being charged for the means of getting full access to the OS.
The iPhone as a platform is clearly very well designed with a lot of potential for both creativity and making hard cash, but I do wonder if shunning the true open source software approach may damage its potential for some real cutting edge development.
Latest Comments
RSS