Symbian^3 has been demonstrated in detail by Nokia VP, David Rivas, and it is showing lots of potential. Still got to wonder if it will be enough by the time Apple and the others come up with something new. Check out the video below from phonedog-

Google has released a new YouTube app for Windows Mobile and S60 phones and it’s looking to be quite an improvement- “Last March, we launched the YouTube Mobile app for Nokia S60 and Windows Mobile phones. Since then, the application was translated to 12 languages, installed on millions of devices around the world, and has been chosen as a Nokia Ovi Top App of 2009. Today we’re excited to announce the release of the latest version of the YouTube Mobile app, version 2.4.

We strongly believe that faster is better. The YouTube Mobile app is designed to be the fastest way to find and play a video on your smartphone. In the initial release we minimized the number of features and focused on speed for things that matter – app startup, finding a video, and starting playback.

In today’s release we have added search query suggestions, ‘My Account’ support, and a new homescreen user interface that is optimized for larger screens. Now when you log into your YouTube account on our phone, you can view your favorites, subscriptions and playlists from wherever you are. Let’s say you have recently found an amazing basketball shot video and favorited it on your desktop PC. When you’re at the basketball court with your friends all you need to do is launch the YouTube app and go to your “Favorites” to show it to them…”

Discovering the Pros and Cons of Touch. Is this the Future? is an excellent new article at AAS. I personally feel that touch will stay a while, but until something radical happens it is not guaranteed to be around forever.

“The first thing that I appreciated from these new phones was the increased screen size. Even the 2.9″ 5530 screen was a treat to me after the QVGA 2.0”-2.4” Eseries screens. This naturally lends itself to web browsing in landscape mode, which accounts for the bulk of reading these devices will no-doubt be used for.

The next part of my touch experience was the horror of fingerprints. Perhaps I have a mild form of OCD, but seeing any phone screen daubed in finger prints always gives me a knot in my stomach. You may say this is a subjective matter, but there is an objective problem here. I found in my experience, and I don’t think I’m alone, that those oily deposits can often cause a distortion on the screen, and require you to wipe the screen with your hand. My experience of this was much worse on the 5530 than on the N97. The 5530’s screen came uncovered, and was relatively glossy. Hence, fingerprints stood out like the proverbial sore thumb! However, the N97 came with the original screen protector still attached; and knowing that I’d soon be soon returning it, I decided leave the screen protector on. The protector was matte and textured, which effectively mitigated the effect of fingerprints. It still needed wiping from time to time, but it was well within my tolerance; the only problem was that it degraded the quality of the screen. Even so, perhaps matte screens are the answer for keeping fingerprints at bay?”

Steve Litchfield over at AAS has spotted that Ovi Maps is now priced at a very low level for older Symbian devices. 10 uros for a ‘Drive Europe’ licence looks like good value to me, although many will still demand free…

“As noted in Rafe’s Maps interview thread, Nokia isn’t keen to put resources behind creating a version of Ovi Maps 3.3 with free voice navigation for older S60 3rd Edition FP2 and FP1 (and vanilla 3rd Edition) phones. A good question is why Nokia doesn’t then just make existing navigation licenses free, thus having much the same effect. It seems that they’ve gone much of the way to ‘free’ for older devices, with even a full ‘Drive Europe’ license now only costing 10 Euros for a year – this presumably to help cover admin and server costs. Photo proof and more below.”

The Nokia E55 is not new, but this review at nokiaLB tells you almost everything you need to know about the device. A much better smartphone than many people give it credit for.

“The E55’s keyboard is very similar to the one introduced by Research in Motion on some earlier BlackBerry devices. Even though it offers a QWERTY layout, most of the letters actually share the same key with their neighboring character. This layout seems annoying at first, but is pretty OK when you’re used to it, as one of the benefits is that the phone is much smaller than full QWERTY phones, like the E71 or E72. What’s very odd with this layout is that you have to press a key twice if you want to insert the second letter; however, using T9 makes it much easier and doesn’t require you to press the key twice, but we will discuss this in the software part. The major complaint we had about the E55’s keyboard is that its space bar was extremely small, making it sometimes annoying to type as you often miss it (until you get accustomed).

To finish, keeping in mind the E55 is a professional device, two shortcuts allow you to open your most useful applications to do business: your calendar and the messaging center; the only thing being that those keys are pretty small and generally lead you to press another key.”

Nokia has requested a patent for a Piezoelectric Kinetic Energy Harvester which in the real world means a battery that can recharge itself. Great idea if it works. Thanks to Teresa for the link.

A battery for an electronic device is contained within a first frame that is coupled to a second frame by one or more piezoelectric elements. The second frame is coupled to a device chassis by one or more additional piezoelectric elements. In response to translation and/or rotation of the electronic device, portions of forces induced by the battery mass are transferred to the piezoelectric elements. Electrical energy output by these piezoelectric elements is received in a power controller and can be applied to the battery. Additional device components can also be contained within the first frame so as to increase the total mass that induces forces applied to the piezoelectric elements.

Quickoffice 6 Mobile Office Suite for S60 5th Ed is down to only $19.95 (from $39.95) until Tuesday. Not one to miss.

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Upgrade your Quickoffice today! FREE 7 day evaluation copy available.

The words ‘long overdue’ don’t cover how long it has taken to integrate Ovi Mail with Contacts, but at least it has finally happened. From Nokia Beta Labs- “e Ovi Mail team has just released Ovi Mail 2.0. With this release, your Ovi Mail contacts and Ovi Contacts are merged into one contacts list. You can view, edit, delete or create your contacts from Ovi Contacts or Ovi Mail. You can also sync your device phonebook with Ovi Contacts and Ovi Mail. This was the most desired feature by Ovi Mail users and we are excited to bring this to you.”

The Nokia Guide has asked the obvious, if rarely asked, question- Is Maemo better than Symbian? I vote yes.

“An interesting post at the Symbian-Guru, showing 10 things Android does better than Symbian got me thinking. What struck me was that all of these things that Android indeed could do better than Symbian, were all things Maemo had already taken care of. Everything from the Browsing experience, multiple home screen and even notifications are advantages that Android may have over Symbian, but certainly not Maemo. In fact, all of these “new” features set to be introduced in the upcoming version of Symbian can be used right now using the N900 and Maemo.

After using Maemo on the Nokia N900, Symbian looks and feels outdated. Judging by the recent Symbian^3 and ^4 videos, fails to impress with just minor changes. Even Engadget seems to agree.

The N900/Maemo combo’s multi-tasking abilities could make any PC proud. Symbian in contrast feels leisurely when performance is concerned and is limited in multi-tasking. Unlike Symbian, Maemo is actually useable. The classic example is that of having multiple applications and browsers open and still having the ability to keep a Youtube video playing in the background and even having enough horsepower to show a preview of this video on the Dashboard! Unlike Symbian, the N900/Maemo combo never keeps you waiting and there isn’t really a limit to how many apps you can keep open with 1GB of RAM. For many PCs this is plenty enough, for a mobile device this is simply heaven. The best part is that performance never suffers, even with multiple apps or browser windows open…”

The Phones Show 104 has been published and this time includes testing voice recognition on Symbian and Android, plus a brief report from the Phones Show Chat pub meet and… my Top 3 phones in each of 3 categories for March 2010.

Ewan Spence has written a damning review of Edge for Symbian and notably declared- “There’s only one problem with it. There’s no challenge and it’s not fun. Okay, two problems.” Strange that it was raved about by iPhone users, but it goes to show that when it comes to gaming, few agree.

“Neither are the controls a problem. As well as using the touch-screen to pull the cube around the screen (the view always stays centred on your cube), you have the option to use the tilt sensor in your phone to influence the movement. It’s a nice idea, and it works as much as it can, but I found it a touch frustrating and not accurate enough for an arcade game of this ilk, especially one that times your progress against the clock. So it was switched off and back to the touch screen.

But a nice looking interface and innovative controls do not make a game. A game makes a game, and for all the style on display, I never felt that Edge was giving me a challenge – rather it was saying “pass the time with me, I look really cute.” Which might work if I had never seen a game this beautiful before, but unfortunately “Deathchase 3D” beat them to it.”

A new beta of Ovi Maps is now available (3.04) which brings a few tweaks to improve the performance and positioning. This is fast becoming one of Nokias main weapons and of course it is still free.

“We are pleased to introduce you to the new Beta release of Ovi Maps for mobile (v3.04) and have made a few tweaks to improve the performance and positioning.

Download the new Ovi MapsBeta for mobile (v3.04) from Nokia Beta Labs and please let us know what you think in the discussion forums and surveys.”

FierceWireless has uploaded two videos which show what Symbian^4 will be like. By all accounts it looks to be quite good, if lacking in originality.

The Symbian Blog has posted a comprehensive review of the Nokia E72 which in my opinion is very good indeed. The E71 was a gem of a phone and Nokia has sensibly not changed too much while fixing the little niggles that annoyed some.

“After the unparalleled success of the E71 for Nokia, they knew that they had a recipe for success in their hands. Symbian is still the number one OS for non touch devices, its stable, its fast and there is a plethora of applications for users to choose from. So the task for them was cut out – make a device that’s not too different from the E71, but improved enough that people want to jump on it.

When I bought the E71, I despised its camera and the 2.5mm jack for me was a huge pain. Invariably when I need to a camera or a decent media player, I’d have to switch SIM cards or carry a second device. Not cool. This is what Nokia had to fix, and out came the E72, all runs blazing, a solid marketing campaign behind it. I have been using this device for a solid two months now and its time to ask the question, is it worth the update? Should you consider buying it if you are in the market for a new device?”

The Nokia X3 boasts some impressive specs for under £90 contract free. The Carphone Warehouse is selling it for £79.95 + £10 top up and for that you get a 3.2 Megapixel camera, assisted GPS (plus free Ovi Maps) and many other goodies. Only the lack of Wi-Fi and the Series 40 OS give away the fact that it is not a true smartphone. Tempted to review this one…

“The Nokia X3 was made for music sharing. This attention-grabbing mobile has a high-tech design and brushed metal accents. Its dedicated music keys allow you to play, skip and pause tracks as you would on an MP3 player.

A multimedia entertainment phone, the X3 is all you need to stay connected on the move.

Play music through the headset provided, on your own 3.5mm headphones, or a wireless Bluetooth headset.

Share tracks with friends via integrated stereo speakers, and listen to live broadcasts thanks to the built-in FM radio antennae.

Connect with contacts via Facebook, email, messenger, text or call. Set four favourite friends to the contacts bar and see their updates, texts and calls. Slide up the display to fire off quick messages using the easy-type keypad.

Music matters and the Nokia X 3’s dedicated media bar takes you straight to its integrated MP3 player with playlists, filters and folders.

Go online via GPRS and download new tracks straight to your handset or to your computer from the Nokia Music Store. With unlimited free downloads for the length of your subscription and millions of tracks available, you’ll soon be expanding your collection. If your tariff doesn’t include an internet bundle you can add an *unlimited data plan to your basket at checkout. Plans start at just £5 a month. **

Do more with your mobile. The Nokia X3 has Assisted GPS and Nokia Maps to help you find your way, and a 3.2 Megapixel camera with video recorder to capture classic moments. Its Bluetooth connection and PC Sync capabilities keep your data up-to-date and backed up. There’s even a pre-loaded Guitar Rock Tour mobile game to keep you entertained on the move!

The X3 comes with a 2GB microSD card to get your media collection started, and is compatible with microSD cards up to 16GB. Designed to be energy efficient the X3 offers a great entertainment experience on the go.”