Today I am interviewing Dr Jukka Silvennoinen, Senior Technology expert from Forum Nokia, a Certified Nokia Trainer, and a guest lecturer at a university in Thailand. Dr Jukka is known for his extensive contribution to the Symbian community and, of course to Forum Nokia. Dr Jukka is also admired by many Symbian programmers, and he was one of the founding members of Forum Nokia Champions reward program. It is my great honour to interview him, and I’m sure the world’s cell phone community is eager to read what this talented programmer has to say.

Dr Jukka, I thank you once again for accepting my invitation, and I thank the Nokia Press department as well for this opportunity. First of all, I would like to ask you some questions close to your heart, of a personal matter:

What was the first phone you ever had?

It was Ericsson GH 198, my first and last non-Nokia device.

When did you buy the above-mentioned phone, and what price did you pay for it?

I bought it in August 1994. It did cost around 7-800 Euros, I would have wanted to buy Nokia 2110 back then, but it was probably some 300 Euros more expensive.

Continue reading the interview at PhoneReport

Many websites report that Widsets 2.0 have been released, but is still in beta. Widsets is loved by many of a us for its looks and usability.

The Widsets 2.0 beta site recently went live which means you can now download and test the latest version of the Widsets client. New features include better integration between Widsets and the rest of the device including the ability to initiate a phone call or open a browser window. Widsets is a way to get web content on your mobile via widgetisation. Read on for more.

Widsets has been around since the summer of 2006 (but only really took off last year). It has continued to evolve at an impressive pace and the new version holds a great deal more functionality that the original version. The basic idea is presenting digestible web content optimised for consumption of a mobile device through a ‘dashboard / desktop’ and ‘widget / application’ interface. Widgets are arranged on the dashboard and each widget can be opened to view the contents. The basic Widgets are RSS feeds wrapped in an attractive package, but there are also a number of small games and utility widgets. New to this beta is the Push E-mail widget.
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Eldar Murtazin from Mobile-Review has had his mega-review of the S60 3rd edition Feature Pack 2, part of Symbian OS9.3, translated.For those of us who didn’t understand the original review, we can now enjoy the English words that so well describe the upcoming platform. Eldar used a Nokia N78 to derive screenshots and opinions. Surely the model must have been a test prototype, so we can expect changes on the release firmware.

The pictures I had posted on a past article, you can read the text here, but if you prefer to check the full review, please head over to the source.

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Everyone’s ears starting ringing when The Carphone Warehouse announced that they will start selling the Nokia N96 by August.

All we knew from Nokia is that the phone would be released in Q3, and as usual, it would arrive in most parts of the world by Q4…

Source: The Carphone Warehouse

We’d love to say that we’re doing this comparison because Apple have announced a date to release the iPhone in Australia, but as you probably know, Apple is playing its cards very close to its chest. Thankfully, Nokia have been a little more forthcoming, and we’re still expecting a release of the N96 in Q3 of this year.

 (click in the image to see in real weight)

Source: CNet Australia

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These photos have been everyone now, but let me select the ones which I believe bring innovation.

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Here’s an interesting video of the upcoming Symbian OS9.3 with S60 v3.1 Feature Pack 2, provided by S60.cz

Bery from Symbian Web Blog posted few interesting points that can be seen from the video:

• • Sensor Settings:

The video shows that Feature Pack 2 has not only the common accelerometer feature to auto rotate the screen, but also snoozing alarms and silencing calls. Has Nokia learned these innovative ideas by watching from applications developed by 3rd party programmers like Samir and Tong Reng with “ShutUp” and “FlipSilent”?

• Active Standby:

The new active standby mode including the new standby theme settings with the vertical sidebar in motion. Nice!

• New Menu Views:

Feature Pack 2 brings two new menu views, the “Horeshoe” and “V-shaped” modes which are looking very nice with their large application icons.

• Photo Menu:

The new “Photo Menu” which replaces the old “Images and Videos” view is shown as the last feature.

Source: S60.cz via Symbian Web Blog

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LandscapePro is an application for symbian OS 3rd edition devices, which allow you to change your phone screen from portrait to landscape mode.

• Rotate with hotkey: Press hotkey to switch between landscape and portrait modes.

• Rotate by launching: Launch the application to rotate the screen. (as on nokia E60)

• Auto-start: Auto-start and hide function

• Rotation 270 degrees

The new version as released yesterday, as the developer promised end of February, although I don’t if it already available to the general public. Clearly Samir’s RotateMe is better as it has more options, but it is always nice to check what other developers put effort in, and appreciate their work. If you find it useful, do buy it for 6,50 Euros, although Samir doesn’t put a clear minimum amount, which is better.

Developer’s site: LandscapePro

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Rafe over at All About Symbian has reviewed the Nokia N78. The important relation between the N96 and N78 is definitely the Operating System.

I decided to provide the readers with some extracts of the software bits contained in his review. A lot of this is ungrouped, and everything is really Rafe’s words:

The usual standard suite of software is present, including the PIM trio of Contacts, Calendar and Messaging. Web, Search and various office applications are all present. Feature Pack 2 brings a number of minor updates to these applications, but it is usability changes to the user interface that get most of the immediate attention.

The most obvious user interface change is the addition of a central softkey. This, for the most part, explicitly labels functionality that was already there, but should make things clearer to new users. Multi-tasking is made more obvious thanks to a redesigned task-switcher and the addition of an ‘Open applications’ item to the top of all Options menus.

Other changes that should be popular among N78 users include support for progressive downloads (start playing media during download), faster loading Java applications, full-screen picture caller ID for incoming calls, the inclusion of Flash Lite 3 (watch YouTube and other Flash videos in the browser), and inclusion of the WRT runtime (widgets).

The N73’s Gallery application was notorious for being sluggish, especially when viewing carousels of photos (thumbnail drawing rarely kept up with on screen movements). The good news is that the carousel has been re-designed from the ground up for the new Photos application and it also benefits from the faster processor of the N78. The end result is much better performance, with little or no lag time when moving around the carousel or viewing photos. A nice touch is the inclusion of an on-screen indication of where you are on a carousel, making it easy to navigate around large groupings of photos. When viewing an individual photo, you are able to add album and tag information, as well as the usual send, print, edit, slideshow and use image commands.

Share online, which allows the upload of media to online services such as Flickr, Share on Ovi, and Print online, which allows you order prints directly from your phone which are subsequently delivered by post, are all available out of the box and serve as ways of getting photos off the phone. Share online is particularly important here, as it integrates with both the Camera and Photos application, allowing for one click uploads to the web. Read more »

Symbian software has no limits, pretty much everything that you do on the computer, is possible to be done on your phone. With the upcoming release of the Nokia N96, users new to Symbian, or even Symbian experts can look forward to these programs. Not everyone has a taste for music, especially for writing and mixing it. Turn tables and DJ components are often too expensive, and even computer software for that purpose is overpriced. Now you can have it all in the phone, and compose music on the move, without disturbing anyone if you use your earphones.

Syntrax has all modern musician wants when away from the studio. A sequencer, sound synthesis and sample editor all wrapped up in a nice little package.

Features:

* Up to 8 stereo audio channels simultaneously (previously only 6)
* Playback of samples with bi-directional looping support
* Realtime sound synthesis with 15 sound generation effects
* Realtime effects like filters, morphs and echoes
* A built in small sample editor
* A full featured sequencer
* Dynamic playback options (songspeed, groove, muting etc..)
* Realtime instrument parameter changing
* Full library of preset songs and sounds for you to start working with
* User adjustable sound quality for slower devices
* MIDI compatibility.

Download it here

Source: The Nokia N82 Blog

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