Symbian in Motion

Thanks to this blog, I have been able to develop great relationships with countless mobile developers over the past year and a half. Anyone who knows me knows that I am extremely pro-developer; Symbian developers are, after all, the very thing that makes S60 such a terrific platform.

An issue came up this past Wednesday that you’ve all read about already. I dubbed it “N-Gagegate” over on BGR but it really isn’t a laughing matter. On the one hand, it’s a stunning testament to just how responsive Nokia can be in some situations. Two sentence recap: It was discovered that N-Gage games were locked to a device IMEI so if the purchaser acquires a new handset, all games are lost forever. Two days later, a solution was announced to be in the works. Awesome job Nokia - users (and press) spoke, you listened.

I did want to comment on James’ post from Nokia Conversations however. Here’s a quote:

As it stands, you can transfer your profile and associated info, but due to piracy issues, not the games.

I’m not shooting the messenger here but Nokia, this is not only a bad excuse, it’s a terrible one. Rookie, even. Rule number 1: Don’t damage your relationship with paying customers in order to prevent “non-paying customers”. Never. There is no question that this issue came up many times during the N-Gage development process; if we tie games to the IMEI, piracy will be made more difficult but users will be pissed! The fact that the N-Gage product was ever released in this fashion is inexcusable in my opinion.

As I’ve discussed with many developers, 95% of “pirates” would not have paid to use your application even if a pirated option was not available. To be honest, I’ve yet to find a developer who would disagree with that statement. Developers need to focus on potential business, not a bunch of children with no money who are using pirated copies of their software. Yes, of course you should implement a certain level of security - no need to tempt real customers over to the dark side. To take the route that Nokia did with N-Gage though and attempt to make games disposable is a joke. But…

The interesting thing now is that this will be a change for mobile gaming. More often than not, games and apps are tied to a specific device and can’t be transferred to a new one.

No. Not good enough. Nokia is supposed to revolutionize! Furthermore, the system itself dictates game portability. Let’s not get crazy here. Thankfully, James goes on to say:

As N-Gage games are tied to a profile and a device, it’s more realistic to be able to port them. That said, it isn’t without it’s challenges, but thankfully those are being figured out. Finally.

In the end, I’m glad that Nokia found a solution to the problem [that they should have never created]. Response time was fantastic, so kudos for that. Project Management should have thought this one through a bit better though because we all know how news is - 75% of the sites who posted “the bad news” won’t post this “good news”. Rightfully so, perhaps, if a lesson is learned.

SlingPlayer Mobile by Sling Media

In terms of using my handset for entertainment purposes, my needs begin and end with SlingPlayer Mobile (aside from music of course). I’m not much of a gamer - in fact I think the only game I have on my handset right now is mBounce’s “The Big 2″, a Chinese card game. I can’t even read a word of it but I always did enjoy that game as a child so I play it from time to time. So when it comes time for me to get my entertainment on, I look to SlingPlayer Mobile.

Again, for the full skinny on this awesome app you can check out my review. It lets you stream your home TV, DVR, Tivo, etc directly to your S60 handset as long as you’ve got an internet connection handy. The quality is surprisingly clean and the content is as varied as your TV service provider’s catalog. WiFi and 3G are optimal of course but I have gotten it to work fairly well over EDGE in portrait mode. There is a hardware element as you’ll need to install a slingbox between your cable / satellite box and modem, but the entry model will only run you $130. Well worth it - especially now that baseball season is in full swing! Also if you have an N95 NAM here in the US, SlingPlayer Mobile can be downloaded and used for free from the Download! catalog. Sweet!

SEVEN by SEVEN Networks

There is absolutely no question that above and beyond all other functions, I use email more than anything else on my handsets. More than SMS, more than web and most definitely more than voice calling. As such, it is of the utmost importance that I have a solid email app on my phone. Ease of use, quality of the product, reliability; these are all important factors.

For a long time I settled on Emoze’s solution and even recommended it in my article on AAS a while back. Since that article was written however, SEVEN has made a lot of changes to their product and after just a few days of testing I knew it was now the best available solution for me. Emoze is still the fastest - by far - but the limitation to one account was a big problem for me. At one point in time I was using Emoze for my exchange account, the S60 email client for two IMAP accounts and ProfiMail to pole three POP accounts because ProfiMail doesn’t support IMAP idle but the S60 email app only supports automatic retrieval for two accounts. Ridiculous, I know.

Sure there are still a few issues with the SEVEN email solution, but nothing is perfect. The latest version of SEVEN’s beta is truly terrific though. I have all six of my main email accounts loaded up and it handles them in stride. Exchange, Lotus Notes, POP, IMAP; it pushes them all to ensure your email is in your hands in a timely fashion, regardless of protocol. It syncs my contact with exchange, supports a variety of great functionality and to be frank it’s essentially the only available solution that meets my needs at the moment.

So there you have it. There were plenty of additional apps that came close to making the cut but I wanted to keep the number at five to avoid going on for days. These five have a special place on my handset though and without any one of them my S60 experience would be extremely lacking.

Psiloc’s LBS offering is finally taking shape. While it’s still in early development, features are starting to get flushed out now and the big picture is starting to form. Perhaps most importantly, Locatik has exited closed beta! Users can now go to the website and register or simply go to m.locatik.com to download the latest version and register a new account right from within the app during the setup process. As I’ve said before, I can’t wait to see where Psiloc takes this app.

New features in version 0.97:

• New GPS algorithm implemented - major improvements to battery life
• Messaging feature added -Exchange messages with your friends from within the app (messaging not yet supported on the website)

Also, place support has been added since I last mentioned the app here. You can now go to the Locatik site and add details to your tiks so that all of your friends can see the info you add and the places you mark. If you’re unfamiliar with Locatik, you can check out my earlier mention or just go to the site and check it out.

Best Profiles by SmartphoneWare

Profiles couldn’t be more important to me. As much as I did enjoy my iPhone, it is and was absolutely insane to me that Apple would even consider issuing a handset without profile functionality. S60 on the other hand, provides profiles with relatively flexible settings but no profile management. That is where Best Profiles comes in. You can read my initial review to get a good idea of what the app does, but plenty of functionality has been added since version 1.

Best Profiles essentially manages your profile settings and erases the manual element. The app can change your profile according to a schedule, calendar event, location (cell-based) or even when you plug in your charger. What’s more, Best Profiles can automatically start or close applications with a profile change, enable / disable bluetooth, change the theme and more. The possibilities are nearly endless and if you haven’t experienced the convenient of automatic profile management I highly suggest you remedy the situation with this app.

JoikuSpot Light by Joikusoft

Tethering is sooooo last year. Who wants to deal with the burden and limitations when it comes to getting connectivity on your data-isolated devices? JoikuSpot Light was the first option to offer a better solution for S60 and while it might not be the most diverse, it suits me just fine. JoikuSpot Light transforms your S60 handset into a portable WEP-enabled WiFi hotspot. Using your 3G (or EDGE / GPRS) connection, JoikuSpot Light broadcasts using from standard S60 WiFi and allows any device to connect with ease.

The alternative to this app, WalkingHotspot, is preferred by many but to tell the truth I haven’t been able to get it working on any of my handsets for even a second. Oh well, like I said Joikuspot Light suits me just fine. This app comes in use all the time - I connect to it from my laptops, my fiancee makes use of it with her MacBook in the car on trips, my tablet loves it on the rare occasion I dust it off, and I even used it often with my iPhone before getting rid of it. Just this past Monday in fact, my cable and internet service went down for over three hours. Within a minute or so of the initial outage, I had my home PC connected to 3G via JoikuSpot Light on my N95 8GB and I was up and running.

Kudos to Joikusoft! One of my favorite apps (in fact, it just might be included in the Five Apps series) has just been updated and it is no longer in beta. I’m sure you already know all about this great app so I won’t get into the nuts and bolts of it. Just head on over and download version 2.00. Release notes:

• Landing page works with all operators
• Encryption support with WEP including 128bit key generator
• Battery threshold shutting down the client when battery level is too low
• Default Access point setting
• Support for secure SSH tunnels with Putty
• GPS location with Google Maps integration for extended mapping services at joikuspot.com landing page

JoikuSpot Light Page