Symbian in Motion

If I had a dollar for every time I begged and pleaded for this functionality in S60, well, I could have paid Psiloc to make this app a long time ago…

Psiloc Connect is an app that needs little introduction. Suffice it to say, you need this app. In my opinion, Access Points (AP) are handled very, very poorly by S60. Each app that makes use of a data connection must have its own default AP defined. This is just silly. As done on other OSes, the device should worry about connecting via the fastest available AP and apps should just call to which ever AP is currently active. Period.

Thanks to Psiloc, your S60 3rd handset can now use data as nature intended - intelligently. Psiloc Connect is a utility that you’ll install, configure and then never look at again. Huh? It’s not because you won’t like it, but rather because once configured it will constantly be doing its job with no user intervention whatsoever. In a nutshell, this app will add a new AP to your device called “Psiloc Connect”. Any app using this AP will first attempt to connect to the internet via available WLAN networks. If no WLAN is available, the new AP will automatically drop back to 3G / EDGE / GPRS. Done!

Do you live in a country where data is expensive? No worries, Psiloc Connect is still an app you need. You can configure it to connect via WLAN - and it will look for ALL of your WLAN networks as opposed to just one - and if no WLAN network is available, the app will not connect. No surprise astronomical bills, no worries.

As for battery life, of course using WiFi will affect your time between charges. The app itself is incredibly light-weight though. The Connect daemon only eats up 42KB in fact.

My advice? Head over to the Psiloc Shop and download this app ASAP. Again, this is how S60 should work. That’s the beauty of S60 though, isn’t it? There are so many phenomenal developers like Psiloc who take the bull by the horns, listen to end-users and crank out awesome apps that pick up where S60 left off. Psiloc offers a free trial as with all of its apps but believe me, once you have a taste there’s no way you’ll be able to go a minute without this app.

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I’ve been waiting for a loooooong time for this update and I couldn’t be happier to let you all know that it’s finally here! My favorite music player / recommendation service Social Player has just received a major revision and trust me when I tell you, you can’t get it installed soon enough. Check out Gabriel’s post on the Strands Blog for more details, but here are my highlights:

• Native S60 app and Java app (S40-optimized) released!
• New Player UI - vastly improved interface, better controls
• Scrobbling support! Send track data to Last.fm as you listen

The post on the Strands Blog includes links to download both the native S60 app as well as the Java app. Now there’s really no reason why you can’t enjoy the complete interactive experience that Social Player provides on any device. Kudos to Strands!

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Kudos to Psiloc for coming up with a fun and unique way to celebrate the upcoming release of a brand new S60 app! Psiloc What? is a fun way to compete for a free license code for an upcoming application that will be released in the next few weeks. You can read about it on the Psiloc blog, but I’ll give you the nuts and bolts here:

Head to the Psiloc What? site, download and install the free app. Every day you open the app and update its status, you will see a new clue as to what exciting new S60 software Psiloc will be releasing soon. Any time you’re ready, take a guess as to what the new app will be. Then at the end of the content Psiloc will pick 12 of their favorite entries (the best/funniest/most interesting guesses) and those 12 people will get free license codes. It’s that easy.

If you don’t end up winning a free code, don’t cry just yet. Maybe I can convince Psiloc to hand over a few free codes for SiMo readers once their new app is released. ;)

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We mentioned Aspyplayer, the first S60 application to enable scrobbling to last.fm, although it was a very good application and is the instigator for MobblerBeta, it was created using Python, which isn’t ideal as it’s not the easiest application to install (or code for that matter) and personally it needed to be simpler.

Mobbler is a more accomplished application, it includes an easier to use UI and a very simple operational advantage of just sitting in the background doing it’s own stuff. A definite positive for me. I’ve been using it for a few hours now and can say it simply does what it says on the tin, nice! There are a few simple operational instructions which shouldn’t be too hard figure out anyway. For those looking to know more in depth of how it works and the functions of it all can visit the OtherInfo section to see how it scrobbles etc.

The application is Freeware and is compatible with all S60 3rd Edition handsets and can be downloaded from the Mobbler Page on Google Code. It is self signed so you can just install it if you disable the certificate checking on your handset. Obviously as this is a bet, your feedback is appreciated on any bugs you may encounter. Kindly post them in the Issues section. Enjoy scrobbling your music.

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I could not be more happy about this. A few weeks ago, a friend of mine told me about a project currently underway behind the scenes at Nokia that really sounded exciting. “We all know and love S60’s blogs,” he said. “What if Nokia had a similar site that touched upon all of the major areas relating to Nokia?”

Our conversation ended and since then I’ve heard nothing about the project - until last night. An email found its way into my inbox containing access information for a special preview of Nokia’s upcoming site: Nokia Conversations (link not yet live). I finally had some time to browse through it a few moments ago and thus far I’m very, very happy. Despite the fact that SiMo isn’t one of the blogs they follow (nor is maramine of course, it just launched!), the team behind Nokia Conversations has done a fantastic job putting this site together. Headed by the ever-popular Charlie Schick, Conversations is just what my friend said it would be; the S60 blogs of Nokia.

Continue Reading…

(Note: The “Continue Reading” format is something I will do for a short while as I better-determine where content separation should be between blogs. I will likely try to keep SiMo as focused as possible on Symbian (”Symbian in Motion”) and posts such as this will end up exclusively on maramine. Note that comments will be closed for these posts.)