Symbian in Motion

Odd that I haven’t seen any mention of this this before because it really does annoy me. Am I the only one whose N95 8GB browser fails to render thumbnails properly for the “Back” screen? Is it an early firmware bug that was resolved with the v20 upgrade in Europe? It works sometimes but more often than not, I have at least one or two blank thumbnails with each session. Am I the only one?

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Opera, the creators behind the widely used Opera Mini / Mobile browsers for mobile handsets, which brings full web pages optimized to handsets has put up a video demonstrating their latest Mobile Browser which as been updated to 9.5. Where Opera Mini is widely available for handsets supporting Java, Opera Mobile is mainly aimed at the Smartphones, Windows Mobile and Symbian handsets only.

The video of Opera Mobile 9.5 demonstrates mainly the speed of the browser, comparing it to the Internet Explorer browser found on Windows Smartphones, it claims to be 2.5x faster, and watching the video clip it’s evident it is pretty fast. The reason for this, Opera point out the Presto layout engine which claims to achieve near desktop like page loads, obviously that’s dependant on your internet connection speeds? What’s more interesting is the support for JavaScript and AJAX commonly used by Gmail which Opera Mobile 9.5 handles easier with faster loading times. That I do like.

Opera Mobile gives you:

• A true Web experience optimized for mobile phones
• The ability to offer Web applications right on the idle screen
• The full richness of Web 2.0 services using AJAX
• Blazing speed with Opera’s Presto rendering engine
• Accelerated time to market with Opera Widgets
• A proven product with focus on innovation, quality and user experience

Initial public unveiling is expected on February 11th at GSMA, expect a public Beta version to be available soon after that.

A full Product Data Sheet can be found on here.

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Has the Beta Labs team been busy lately or what? I’m sure you’ve read about the updates that have come out of the Labs lately and we also got some GPS love with Location Tagger. Today brings a whole new app to check out. Actually, “app” is a poor term in this case so we’ll stick to their terminology and go with “extension”.

My Mobile Site Widgets is a collection of desktop widgets that run on the back of Mobile Web Server, also a Beta Labs app. Guest blogger and assumed leader of the development team behind MMSW Marton Szomolanyi covers the essentials over on Tommi’s blog so I won’t go into the nuts and bolts. Essentially this extension provides you with a nice collection of desktop widgets compatible with both Mac and PC. Based on the Yahoo! Widgets engine, MMSW works in conjunction with Jukka Eklund’s baby Mobile Web Server to view various content contained on your mobile. MMSW polls your device regularly to refresh content and uses a secure protocol, obviously. We also see some PC Phone-style functionality implemented as this widget pack includes a few that can initiate operations such as sending SMS and placing calls.

The timing couldn’t be better considering yesterday’s announcement that Nokia will acquire Trolltech. We’ve heard plenty of talk in recent history that Nokia is focused on becoming an “Internet Company” and now we’re seeing the next series of steps that Nokia is taking in order to do so. Mosh is, and sorry to put this bluntly, useless in my eyes and Ovi has yet to surface. The Trolltech acquisition has the potential to light quite a fire for Nokia’s internet development of course, and it will be interesting to see what happens. I would expect to see plenty more offerings in the same vein as My Mobile Site Widgets to come bubbling up from the Beta Labs in the near future. As I’ve said in the past, I love the concept of the Beta Labs. Use Nokia enthusiasts as a think tank; bounce ideas off them mid development and see what sticks. It really is a win / win.

Head on over to the Labs and give My Mobile Site Widgets a go.

My only negative comment is with regards to the name “My Mobile Site Widgets.” It’s already a marcom travesty that Nokia handsets are given Mercedez Benz-like monikers - we can at least do apps and software solutions the pleasure of getting a little creative! Where oh where is the marcom team to support all of this creative development?!? Ugh; I suppose that’s a rant for another day…

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Phoneboy ( Dameon Welch-Abemathy) recently blogged of a new Beta browser coming to handsets soon. Similar to Opera-Mini it claims to be a full on browser giving the user access to full internet browsing with integrated support for Flash playback, that’s Youtube playback in your browser.

The application in question is Skyfire Beta, currently available for Windows Smartphone 5 and 6 users residing in the United States (or with a US mobile number). Currently it is a closed Beta and only available to US residents. Although the website itself promises us:

“The Skyfire private beta will initially support Windows Mobile phones in the U.S. In the coming months, we will introduce a version for Symbian phones. Other phone platforms and geographies are on the roadmap too. This is just the beginning.”

All in all the Flash Demo on the Skyfire Beta site looks pretty cool, but that’s all that it is so far. If you are a US resident, why not try and give it a go? Sign up for the Beta testing and let us know how it is. More details below:

What you need to participate

• A U.S. mobile phone number.
• A mobile phone subscriber data plan with a mobile phone service provider (an unlimited data plan is recommended).
• A mobile phone running Windows Mobile 5 or 6, both touchscreen and non-touchscreen phones are supported.

Phones we support

• Skyfire will initially run on Windows Mobile 5 or 6 mobile phones in the United States. If you do not know what mobile phone platform you have, visit the Microsoft Windows Mobile phone directory to find out if yours is a Windows Mobile 5 or 6 device.
• The initial beta release will support only Windows Mobile phones with full keyboards (QWERTY). If your Windows Mobile phone doesn’t have a full keyboard, please continue to sign up for the beta and we’ll let you know when it’s supported.
• Soon we will support the Symbian platform.
• Other platforms and geographies are on the roadmap, too.

Sign Up Today

• If you have a Windows Mobile phone, sign up today and we will notify you when the Skyfire private beta starts.
• If you do not have a Windows Mobile phone or you live outside the United States, please sign up so we can promptly notify you when Skyfire is available for your type of mobile phone.

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As many speculated (and as I had been told) the browser image display bug is a result of certain issues involving AT&T proxy servers. As such, T-Mobile users wouldn’t have any issue with it, but now AT&T users don’t have to worry about this bug either!

Thanks to the help of Chance Arrington, I’m now looking at crystal clear images in my N95-3 browser and I couldn’t be happier. Chanse commented on my original post but I still had some issues after following his instructions. Thankfully he contacted me directly and walked me through a few more suggestions. Viola! Problem solved.

Future N95-3 owners be aware, this is the first thing you should do once you receive your new phone if you plan to use it on AT&T networks and have a MEdiaNet plan. This should also resolve the issue for users of any other device that are experiencing this problem. Make sure that you clear your cache before following the instructions below.

Go to Settings -> Connections -> Acces points and highlight MEdiaNet. Press Options -> Duplicate access point. In the settings of the duplicate AP (which will be named MEdiaNet(01) by default, which is fine), press Options -> Advanced settings. Now scroll to the bottom and delete both the Proxy server address and the Proxy port number.

Now simply save your new AP, reboot and you’re set! You should use this AP for all apps that maintain a data connection. As Chanse and I discovered, even if you set this new AP as the default bowser AP other apps using your original MEdiaNet AP can cause the browser bug to resurface. The only possible downside is that you will not be able to access the MEdiaNet homepage while connected via your new AP, but who really uses the MEdiaNet homepage?

A big thanks to Chanse Arrington for all of his help! He has also brought it to my attention that starting with the N95 8GB, non-branded devices will automatically create three APs when used on AT&T networks: one for MEdiaNet, one for MMS and a third proxyless MEdiaNet AP like the one you’ve created by following the instructions above. Brilliant! :)

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