Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

Review Conditions

BallZ from Tamoggemon was installed  on a Nokia 5800 XPressMusic, an S60 5th edition device running Qt and Symbian OS 9.4. Qt is a is a cross-platform application framework. Using Qt, one can write applications once and deploy them across many desktop and embedded operating systems without rewriting the source code.

Installation

Installation is simply via the Nokia Application Installer available in the Nokia PC Suite. Alternatively, you can copy the installer into your mobile phone and open it to begin the installation. The installer performs a one time download of Qt components from the web. Therefore you need to keep the mobile connected to the web, preferably WiFi.

First View

BallZ is based on the classic video game, JezzBall which was programmed by Dima Pavlovsky, in 1992 as part of Microsoft Entertainment Pack. Despite Microsoft withdrawing support in 1996, the game has a loyal fan base even today. Read on to find out if the Symbian version of this famous game, running on Qt still engages us, in the era of multiplayer online extravaganzas.

Game Play

BallZ is a game in which which two balls, referred to as atoms, bounce about a rectangular field of play, or room. The player advances to the next level (with correspondingly higher numbers of atoms and lives) by containing the atoms in progressively smaller spaces, until at least 75% of the area is blocked off.

The purpose of the game is to contain the atoms within a room at most 25% the size of the initial room. You can create walls to contain atoms in smaller and smaller rooms. The walls can be created vertically or horizontally as the situation demands and you must tap at the bottom right of the screen to change the growing direction of the wall.

When a room is made that contains no atoms, the room disappears. The amount of black on the screen is displayed as a percentage, and when this percentage reaches 75% or more, the level is won and play proceeds to the next level. The first level has two atoms, and each subsequent level has an additional atom. BallZ has 30 exciting levels.

If the wall is being constructed at the ball hits the wall before its completed, you lose a life. You get new lives as you progress to the next level. If all lives are lost, you have to start all over again.

BallZ does not let you construct another wall until the first one is completed but you can change the direction of the next wall that you are going to construct and be better prepared. That’s a tip worth remembering.

As the levels go higher, the number of balls you are confronted with is higher and the game gets further complicated.  The speed of the balls increases but to your advantage, the walls are constructed faster.

In the first level, the wall grows agonizingly slowly but you will eventually your pace to the speed at which the wall grows.

Graphics and Animation

BallZ has just adequate graphics and animation. Its designed to be very similar to the classic game and it shows.

Music Score and Sound Effects

The game has background music built in, which can be disabled to, if you are playing at your work place There is no configurable background music available. As always, you can play your own music in the background as you play BallZ. That reminds me about all the news that Apple iOS 4 created when it enabled multitasking so that background applications can be played, including music. This feature has been in Symbian for ages that we simply fail to appreciate it.

Interface

As you tap the screen to start a new game or for other options, a graph trail follows your touch on the screen, almost guiding you to touch the right spot on the screen. That’s a unique design and I have never seen it anywhere before.

Weaknesses

I didn’t find any weaknesses in the game itself. The levels could have been timed, to make it more competitive and more engrossing, making the player come back and find ways to beat the clock and his previous best.

Conclusion

BallZ can be downloaded at the Ovi Store. The biggest positive I see from this game is that its based on Qt, Nokia’s new cross platform application and UI Framework. Qt has performed admirably well on the Nokia 5800, which is grossly underpowered, in terms of both the CPU and RAM. All my misgivings about Qt, becoming a resource hog were misplaced. I am highly optimistic about Qt running on Symbian^3 devices in future.

BallZ is a Must Have and I’ll give it 5 of 5.

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

Review Conditions

NetQin Mobile Anti-Virus for Symbian was installed on a Nokia 5800 XPress Music, a Symbian^1 device.

Installation

Installation can be done via the Nokia Application Installer. Alternatively, you can copy the file to the device and just open the .sis file on the phone to begin the installation.

First View

There aren’t too many Anti Virus software for Symbian. Lets find out about NetQin Anti-Virus.

Main Review

NetQin Anti-Virus software suite for Symbian performs 4 function in its role as a  are Virus Scanner, Network firewall, Boot Acceleration and First Aid.

Virus Scanner

NetQin is a standar anti-virus application but focusses on viruses that specifically affect mobile devices. It scans all the drives on the mobile device and returns the status. You can also configure the drives that can be scanned. There is an online Virus database that has all the details of the viruses. The latest virus seems to be RC Commwarrior that will search nearby Bluetooth devices and spread around leading to resources being consumed heavily on the mobile thus affecting normal use of the mobile. The website has the details of the Symbian viruses. In the online database, in addition to the latest security threats, NetQin also gives a category of major security risks, including Privacy Steal, Account Trojan, Fraudware, Data Damage, Malicious Service Order, System Damage, Fee Consume, Backdoor, Badware and Prankware. The terms may be not well worded, given its a chinese translation but they seem to be quite serious.

When first installed, NetQin downloads the latest database online since the virus database on the installed version has expired. On the main screen, the version of the Virus database and the last scan date is displayed. You can update the virus database by just pressing the “Update” button on the main screen.

Network Firewall

As you start using applications that access the web, via GPRS/3G and 802.11 WiFi, NetQin keeps track of the applications and gets a one time approval from you, the user for allowing network access. Approved services are added to the Trusted Apps. Rejected apps are added to the Untrusted Apps list. The Network Firewall also keeps a record of all network traffic sent and received by the mobile. It doesn’t differentiate between WiFi and GPRS/3G but I’d like to see this difference. Since the traffic is measured based on the application’s usage, and not the ratio technology, NetQin probably doesn’t differentiate between the WiFi and GPRS/3G when collecting network traffic.

The Network Firewall detected all WiFi access and GPRS/3G access and warning was given immediately when the application starts.

The applications that are in my Trusted Apps list are Ovi Maps, SPB Mobile Shell (why did it access the web??), Browser, Nokia Email and Nokia’s “Client Platform”, which is a securewidgetlauncher.exe. A quick google search revealed that is a part of the Ovi store application and is installed as a background process.

NetQin picks a default access point for downloading virus database updates. You can setup the Periodic scan reminder and other options like auto-update and auto delete virus.

Monitor

The Monitor is turned on and runs in the background even if you quit NetQin. But the Monitor is not visible in Handy Taskman as a running task. You can set Monitor to start automatically at device boot.

To check if the Network Firewall also monitored bluetooth transfers, I transferred image files back and forth between the mobile and my desktop. NetQin didn’t detect the bluetooth file transfer! In the Monitor settings, the Monitor Security Level can be set to check for “Executable files only” or “Monitor all files”. The default setting is “Executable files only”. I change the setting to “Monitor all files” but even then, NetQin didn’t detect or block bluetooth file transfer.

The Monitor also alerted me that applications are being installed and uninstalled.

Boot Acceleration

NetQin identifies the list of applications that have been configured to start at device boot, either by the user or by the application itself, automatically. You get the choice to disable such applications to increase device start up time.

First Aid

Phone First Aid, when started closes all applications in the device except NetQin security program. It can then restore the phone to normal state. I have faced a few situations when the phone needed first aid, but these were times when the phone was bricked, with a while screen. I don’t know if First Aid will help in such a scenario.

System Manager

Qin Coins

NetQin has introduced the concept of Qin Coins which can be used to pay for a variety of NetQin VIP services. You can gain Qin Coins by participating in NetQin activities like providing feedback, reporting viruses and recommending it to friends and earn rewards. Or you can activate / recharge via the mobile pone. The service is currently not available.

When you uninstall NetQin, it warns you that auto start programs that were disabled will be enabled again. Very useful information.

Handling

NetQin has a neat logical interface with key functions accessible on the main page and other configuration options presented to the user as tabbed pages. The security warnings are unobtrusive. Overall, I had no trouble getting around the application to set it up and access information I needed from the System Manager about my Nokia 5800 periodically.

Weaknesses

I was surprised that NetQin didn’t alert me upon Bluetooth transfers – whether it was ordinary files or Symbian S60 executables. NetQin also didn’t warn me about software being installed on the device. There should be a policy about Bluetooth transfer that the user should be able to setup. But the point is Symbian’s Bluetooth security is outstanding and it doesn’t really need further protection.

Conclusion

NetQin mobile security services holds over 68% of Chinese mobile security market. NetQin delivers proven mobile security solutions based on Cloud-client Computing Platform – including anti-virus, SMS-filter, anti-spyware, and privacy protection – to more than 45 million users in more than 200 countries worldwide. NetQin has partnered with China Mobile, Nokia China, Symbian, Samsung, Baidu, Sony Ericsson and a few other companies in its endeavor to deliver mobile security services. NetQin is also a platinum partner of the Symbian Foundation.

All through the review, one question that came to my mind Do Symbian phones get affected by viruses? Are they truly vulnerable to attacks to warrant installing an Anti Virus software? While the jury is still out on this issue, there is no harm in having a robust anti-virus software to protect your smartphone.

NetQin can be downloaded for free here. For automatic virus updates, priority services from NetQin and other benefits, you can subscribe to NetQin updates using Qin Coins or payment through your mobile bill.  It is a must have. I’ll give it 5 of 5.

Hot in the heels of the first release, SPB Mobile Shell has released an update, version 3.5.5 which has many improvements, the most important being efficient RAM utilization.

Memory optimization (10M less RAM usage)

There is sufficient RAM now to run many applications in parallel, especially Maps, Skype, or the Music Player.

Media player widget

The new Media player widget lets you play and pause music without having to open the Music Player.

4 free themes for Symbian

SPB has created 4 new free themes for SPB Mobile shell which can be download here. All the themes are stand alone .sis files which can be installed separately. The themes are color based, and there are Red, Green, Black and Blue themes. I installed them on the C drive, thinking they will integrated with SPB Mobile Shell, but these are the usual themes for S60 UI. I must say, the themes are really beautifully designed. The icons are changed, the background looks nice. You can use these themes even without installing SPB Mobile Shell. See images below.

But the theme isn’t fully displayed in SPB Mobile Shell’s home screens. SPB Mobile Shell continues to use its own image for the home screens and the themes don’t appear on the home screen! I can see the themes on the top and it doesn’t look very nice. I’d like to use the themes on my home screen too. Ideally, the themes must be setup from the home screen and they should be available on the home screen too. See the images below where they don’t fit well in the home screen.

Operator Name Widget

The operator’s name can be setup as a widget on the home screens but I wonder how useful this is.

Shortcuts to the most used files

You can now setup shortcuts to almost all files in your Symbian phone on the home screens. This is very useful, for frequent files like documents, etc. Essentially it works like the Desktop, on a Windows machine where we keep recent files or files that we need to access most often.

New Memo/New Anniversary items in organizer menu

In the Organizer, you can now create a new Anniversary without having to create a new contact or or open up the native Calendar application.

Customized Call Button

The Green Call Button can now be configured to open either the native Dialer or SPB Call Log. The SPB Call Log is a much improved version of the native Log application. It stores entries for several days and you can do many operations in the SPB Call Log, like saving the number as a new contact, call, email or send SMS to the contact.

Landscape/portrait orientation control

SPB Mobile Shell 3.5.5 also lets you fix the screen orientation to only Portrait or Landscape, thus disabling the accelerometer. You can also set it to “auto”, which means as the device is tilted, the screen rotates automatically to landscape mode or portrait mode.

Conclusion

In our earlier review of SPB Mobile Shell, I complained a little about RAM utilization. This update improves the situation greatly and also adds many useful features. Its worth the upgrade.

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

Review Conditions

SPB Mobile Shell was installed on a Nokia 5800 XPressMusic, an S60 5th edition device with Symbian OS 9.4.

Installation

Installation is simply via the Nokia Application Installer available in the Nokia PC Suite.

First View

SPB Software has created a new UI shell called Mobile Shell 3.5 for Symbian, available for Symbian-based touchscreen devices (works on Symbian S60 5^th Edition and higher). We have reviewed other UI shells for S60, Handy Shell 2.0, M1 – Android UI and MyPhone here at BestofSymbian, lets see how Mobile Shell fares against the incumbents in the market.

Main Review

SPB Mobile Shell has come up with a new UI that’s more than just a token front end interface for the Symbian applications and tools that reside in the background. Its a completely new user interface with multiple screens and customizable widgets that give you up-to-date information at a glance such as time, weather, calendar, upcoming appointments, alarms, new call and messaging events which can all be accessed with a single touch.

Five Home Screens

Mobile Shell comes with five Home Screens that is similar to the Nokia N8’s three customizable home screens. Each of these screens, are fully customizable and one can add various widgets on the screen and its only limited by the screen real estate. The 3 images below show the three screens. By default, 3 Home Screens are created. You can add additional screens easily.

You can switch between the screens by just a flick of a finger to the left or to the right. The sliding Home Screens don’t loop around to get back to the main screen. As you can see on the image of the main home screen below, the clock, contacts, wireless manager, profiles and calendar view are all widgets and each can be customized or moved around the screen to one’s preference.

At the bottom of Home Screen, there is a toolbar that allows you to switch between SPB Mobile Shell components and access the Menu button to view the available options of the selected tab. The image below shows the options you get when you edit the Home Screen by pressing the right button on this toolbar. You can change the Layout, Add a new Widget, rearrange the widgets on the Home Screen using Edit Layout and change the Background and modify other settings that further customize the Home Screen and the Layouts. SPB Mobile Shell comes with a few pleasing background images that stretch across the 3 screens. As you slide the home screens, they seem like sliding across a landscape image and its very well implemented. By pressing the Show Home Screen widget, you can get back to the native S60 home screen.

3D Carousel

The 3D Carousel is another method to flip through the various screens. It can be enabled by tapping the button on the bottom left of the Home Screen. The Carousel gives you a preview of all the pages of SPB Shell. I expected the Carousel to be slow and CPU hogging but the experience was actually very good. Flipping through the carousel was very fast. Kinetic horizontal scrolling helps. If implemented badly, poor feedback of the 3D Carousel could have undone all the hard work done for the SPB Mobile Shell but SPB have pulled off the impossible and have come out unscathed by providing a great user experience on the Carousel.

Home Screen Layouts

The home screens have two layouts: Professional Home Layout (disabled by default) and Lifestyle Home Layout. The Professional Home Layout is sober looking while the Lifestyle Layout is more flasy in its appearance.  You can enable both layouts at the same time and switch between them too.

Widgets

Mobile Shell has a number of widgets that you can choose from. Each of these widgets have context specific actions that can be configured on the widget is added to the Home Screen. Some of the widgets I really liked were the Contact widget, that I’ll talk about in more detail in later sections, Picture Frame, Birthdays & Incoming Items. The Birthday widget picks all Birthdays and Anniversaries stored in the Contacts. The Shortcut, takes you further to other custom SPB shortcuts which can also be added to the Home Screens. I particularly liked the Wireless Manager shortcut that lets you access all wireless services, WiFi, Bluetooth and Radio via a single Widget.

Add Widgets to the Home Screen using the Add widget button in the main menu then select the item you want to add to the Home screen. Add a clock, a picture frame, the Google Search bar, or a calendar that shows upcoming appointments, etc. Widgets can be moved around the Home Screens. To drag widgets to the desired locations, you have to select Edit Layout and then tap and hold on a widget with some pressure before you start to drag. While dragging, do not release your finger until you have reached the target position.

Launcher

The Launcher tab, which can be opened by tapping theLauncher icon in the toolbar in the bottom of the Home Screen, adds a fast and convenient way to navigate through your device. All of the pages support kinetic scrolling. Launcher tab has two main pages: Launcher and SPB Menu. The Launcher shows Pinned shortcuts, recently used programs, and a finger friendly task manager. You can use the left/right gestures to switch between Launcher main pages. At the bottom of the Launcher pages, there is a toolbar that allows you to return to the Home tab and access the Menu button to view the available options of the selected page.

As expected, the Launcher is widgetized and can be edited. Two rows of Favorites can be added to the Launcher, which has a Simple and Advanced Mode. I didn’t find much difference in terms of use between the two modes. Sometimes, I felt there were too many configuration options on the Home Screens, which is the undoing of Symbian as a user-friendly smartphone OS!

The SPB Menu contains all of your device programs, settings, and tools well organized in categories. The SPB Menu is basically a unified interface to Symbian’s tools and settings from within the Shell. In order for a user to access all of the applications and settings from SPB Mobile Shell and completely abstract the native S60 UI, SPB Menu is a necessary function.

Contacts

The Contacts page is a very important component of SPB Mobile Shell. The Contacts tab helps you to manage your contacts and calls without going to the S60 address book.

The Contacts tab has three pages: Favorite Contacts, Call Log, and SPB Contacts. The Favorite Contacts, lets you add many icons with specific call actions, e.g. calling to Mobile, Home, Car, etc. The “Phone” icon against the contact means a mobile phone number is dialed, when contact is pressed. Similarly a “Home” icon is used when you setup the specific call action to call the Home number. When no icon is present, the Contact is opened for you to select the action you want to perform. The Contact’s image is also displayed.

The Call Log simply replaces the Log application in the S6 UI.

SPB Contacts is an improved version of the native Contacts application. You can search an application by just typing out a name – just like T9 Nav. I find this to be extremely useful and it scores greatly over the native Contacts application. SPB Contacts and Call Log have full kinetic scrolling.

Weather Panel

The Weather Panel is quite useful, with a small window on the Home Screen and a larger Panel with the weather forecast and current conditions for the city. It unfortunately doesn’t support multiple cities but you can change the city from a long list. You can setup the Weather updates to be done periodically or only when you get WiFi connection.

Background Screens

SPB Mobile Shell comes with preinstalled background images and also has some additional images on the web that can be downloaded from within the application. The background image is tiled across all the Home Screens and as you flip the Home Screens, it appears that the Home Screens glides through a vast canvas.

Handling

While SPB Mobile Shell could be a little overwhelming at first glance, due to the multitude of Screens, Widgets and Panels, once you get used to it in a day or two, its a delight to use. I have been using it for over a week now and I am completely comfortable using SPB Mobile Shell for all my operations, from making a phone call, opening applications and checking the weather. I particularly liked the custom widgets like Photo Frame, Birthdays, Wireless Manager and one touch contact calling.

I installed SPB Mobile Shell in the C: to get the fastest response. It takes upto 20 Mb of RAM space but its well worth it. SPB Mobile Shell didn’t slow down my Nokia 5800 in anyway.

Weaknesses

There are way too many Settings. Every possible tweak and customization that can be made to SPB Mobile Shell is available to the user. There is a geeky touch to the SPB Mobile Shell, which rubs off from the Symbian experience.

Just like the S60 UI, multiple context specific Settings exist in each Home Screen for each different Panel and Widget. The Weather Panel’s Settings page are different from the Calendar’s Settings page. While this is logical and specific to Widget or Panel that you want to configure, this is exactly the bane of S60 which we lament about. A single Settings page for all Widgets and Panels, with lesser options would go a long way in engaging the lay user. I guess most people won’t go beyond the basic settings that come with the first install.

Conclusion

SPB Mobile Shell completely abstracts the S60 UI and provides an immersive experience. With a mix of amazing features like the 3D Carousel for the wow factor and absolutely utilitarian features like Widgets and Panels, SPB Mobile Shell is a winner.  I look forward to using it on a Capacitive touch screen where the touch experience will be much better than the Resistive touch screen of the Nokia 5800. I give it 5 of 5. SPB Mobile Shell can be purchased for $29.95 for downloaded for a free 15 day trial.

Mini Review

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

Cellular phone radiation is about 20 times greater when a new call is connected than when you are in a conversation. VibrateCall from ThinkChange helps to reduce this voluntary exposure of the brain to microwave  emission from mobile phones.

VibrateCall can be configured to vibrate, the moment a call is initiated on your Nokia Symbian S60 device. It continues to vibrate until the call is answered. The moment the call is picked up, the vibration stops. This lets you keep the phone in the hand until the call is connected through and you don’t need to place your phone near the ear.

VibrateCall is also useful, especially in noisy environments, where we tend to press the mobile phone harder to the ear, trying to figure out when the other part picks up the phone.

The intensity of vibration can be increased or decreased. You can also set this application to auto-start at boot up.

The downside is of course the battery drain because often, we don’t terminate the call after two or three unanswered rings and the vibrations tend to go on for a long time.

Download

VibrateCall can be downloaded here for $4.99. There is also a special offer from ThinkChange for 6 top apps at $15.

Conclusion

VibrateCall is simple idea but highly useful. I find it indispensable. Its a must have and I’ll give it 5 of 5.

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

Mini Review

We have already reviewed SPB Brain Evolution at BestofSymbian last year. It was a cracking application for brain training, with puzzles and quizzes that test your speed and accuracy. SPB Software have now introduced version 2.1 for the Symbian S60 5th edition touch screen devices and with awesome UI and intuitive menus.

Brain Evolution Game Play

Brain Evolution’s theme, puzzles and quizzes have been faithfully retained in its new avatar on the S60 touch phones. While the challenges are the same, the user experience has been revamped completely and its highly enjoyable.

First you have to go through a mandatory Brain Marking exercise, followed by Brain Training, which has 12 modules, with modules opening up based on your progress and scores. Each game has 4 difficulty levels, Easy, Medium, Hard and Maximum. The Brain Marking exercise is a guided start-to-finish test. When you select Brain Training, games that you need to play more are recommended to improve specific skills.

As you play and reach specific scores, the next difficulty level is opened up. Braining training is restricted to two modules every day. You could continue to play on but scores from the 3rd module onwards doesn’t count for that day.

World wide high scores for the Last 7 Days and Overall, for individual challenges as well as Brain Power/ Brain Marking is available. The application retrieves this information from a database that requires a WiFi or a GPRS/3G connection.

UI Overview

Here’s an example of how you don’t have to use the built in menu structure of S60 5th edition but design a completely new menu layout. The application’s UI is something similar to the Qt based Symbian^3’s UI, which was first introduced in Nokia Beta Labs’ Gig Finder application. The menus are at the top of the screen with a one touch operation. The tree-like menu structure is completely done away with. On the top left is the new Menu icon and on the top right is the Exit button.The Menu icon is used for minimal operations like volume setting, backlight, registration of the application, help, etc. Essentially you don’t have to use it after the initial setup of Brain Evolution.

The various other menus, like Brain Training, Marking, Facts, Profiles, etc are managed by an - Android-like – pull down menu from the top center of the screen. OK, Cancel and similar acknowledgement tabs are large and finger friendly.

Download

Purchase or download the trial of SPB Brain Evolution 2.1 here.

Conclusion

SPB Brain Evolution is a great way to improve skills and in its much improved avatar for the S60 5th edition phones, its Must-Have. I’ll give it 5 of 5.

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

Review Conditions

SPB Weather 1.00 was installed on a Nokia 5800, a Symbian 9.4, S60 5th edition device.

Installation

SPB Weather comes as a .sis files and can be installed using the Nokia Application Installer.

First View

SPB Weather takes away the drudgery of having to use the never ending hierarchical-menu-driven S60 interface and replaces it with a UI refresh that brings a renewed hope for S60 touch.

Read on.

Main Review

The whole 3.2″ screen of the Nokia 5800 is dedicated to displaying the weather of a single city. This means a great amount of weather information can be gathered in a single view! The screen real estate is divided into three parts. The top part of the screen, [or the left side, in landscape mode], shows a graphic, the day’s weather in a large font and a smaller weather list for Morning, Day and Evening on the side.

The middle part of the screen, which is the largest, displays the weather for the next 4 days with a graphic and the high and low for that day.

The third part of the screen, has the controls for the configuration settings button, weather update button, 3D Globe button and the exit button.

The main screen also shows when the weather was updated last. You can refresh the weather by just touching the weather update button.

Touching the city on the screen, brings up additional weather info – Humidity, Pressure, Wind speed, etc. Touching the return arrow on the right takes you back to the main screen for the city.

Touching the day’s weather forecast brings up additional details for that day. For each day, the weather for Night, Morning, Day and Evening is displayed, with humidity, wind speed and a graphic.

In the landscape, mode, only the weather for Night and Morning can be displayed, so you can use kinetic scrolling to scroll down to view the weather for Day and Evening.

The return arrow is implemented uniformly in all screens to take you back to the main screen. All new screens are brought up with cool animations that’s pleasing to the eye but doesn’t mar the experience by being slow or too long to distract the user.

Even if 10 cities are configured, navigation is very easy. Just by pushing the screen left or right brings up a new screen with the weather for the next city, just like navigating a photo album.

The 3D Globe button animates a globe that can display information about the Cities, Clouds, Sky, Temperature and Rains for the cities configured. Touching the play button animates the globe.

A zoom in/ zoom out option is available that appears when you touch the screen, almost like the Ovi Maps zoom function. The animation is quite realistic, like the weather channel.

The configuration settings, still opens up the S60 menu structure, to add new cities and set other options, like automatic schedule update, units to use for display – Celsius or Fahrenheit, etc.

Adding a new city is a simple operation. SPB Weather supports over 10,000 cities all over the world. Each city in the list is prefixed with the country’s name in short. This is better than have to select a city in two passes – first the country and then the city.  There is also an option to select the city by GPS.

Handling

With photo album-like navigation, kinetic scrolling, large touch buttons and limited dependency on S60’s hierarchical menu-structure for only the initial setup, greatly improves navigation.

Usually frequent operations like weather update, exit, etc are hidden in the a menu structure, thus making it cumbersome to update the weather quickly. SPB have changed the approach and this makes the user experience delightful.

Here’s a video demonstration of SPB Weather from the developers of the program.

Weaknesses

I didn’t find any weaknesses in SPB Weather.

Conclusion

There are so many weather forecast reporting applications out there for S60 on Symbian OS but SPB Weather is the first one that actually makes the weather report rather interesting. SPB have shown that you can actually bring cool animation, one-touch access to most functions and present a great user experience on the S60 UI.

For the functional simplicity in using the touch interface, great display, innovative features and accurate weather reporting, SPB Weather is a must have and I’ll give it 4 of 5. SPB Weather can be purchased or downloaded for a trial here.

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

Mini Review

Once in a while comes an application, that’s innovative on functionality but brings amazing innovation and elegance in implementation and usability. StickNotes Touch is one such application.

StickyNotes Touch brings the classic Post-It notes that is ubiquitous in every workplace.

At the bottom left is the New Note menu. Just drag it to the open area and a new note is created. Tapping the New Note menu changes the color of the note.

New notes appear like real Post-It notes lying on a table and they can be dragged around the screen and placed over other notes. The animation when you drag a note is great.

To keep it simple, the application does not allow erasing the notes but you an add to an existing note. Just like the real Post-It notes. You can delete the notes and create a new one but cannot erase stuff that’s already written.

Download

StickyNotes Touch from Offscreen Technologies can be downloaded from the Ovi Store.

Conclusion

Offscreen Technologies have once again shown how to implement true touch oriented applications that don’t mess around with menus, scroll bars and myriad options that make the experience onerous. Of course, as the functionality of applications increase, configuration options are inevitable and that will be a challenge I would like for Offscreen Technologies to tackle with innovative ideas. StickyNotes Touch is a must have and I’ll give it 5 of r.

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

Review Conditions

Handy Phoneguard from Epocware was installed on two devices, a Nokia 5800 XPressMusic, an S60 5th edition device with Symbian OS 9.4 and a Nokia E71, an S60 3rd edition FP1 device with Symbian OS 9.3.

Installation

Installation is simply via the Nokia Application Installer available in the Nokia PC Suite.

First Look

Handy Phoneguard is yet another security application for S60 Smartphones. We have reviewed 2 security applications in the past, WaveSecure and SecureMe.  Lets see how Handy Phoneguard stacks up.

Main Review

Handy Phoneguard, in addition to securing general access to the Symbian Smartphone, which is a keypad / touch screen lock, also allows the user to secure applications and stored information (contacts, messages, notes, settings, images, videos, etc.) from unauthorized use.

Securing Phone, Data & Applications

Phone security comes with the usual features of screen lock at power on and automatic lock after a configurable number of minutes. The application also locks out immediately, when it goes to the background to avoid misuse.

Both on the Nokia 5800 and the E71, the locked screen displays the number pad for touch typing the password, along with the owner’s name, mobile phone number, email and address, which can be configured in the Owner Info menu in the application.

When you open a protected application, the splash screen is displayed giving owner information, asking for the password.

SMS Alerts and Remote Lock / Wipe

When the SIM card is changed, Handy Phoneguard sends an SMS to the friend’s mobile number with the IMSI of the rogue SIM card.

Now the friend can send an SMS [lock "password" or wipe "password"] to that number to lock out the device or delete your confidential information on the device when remote SMS lock/wipe command is activated.

You also have the IMSI number of the thief with which he can be tracked down with the help of the mobile operator.

Handling

Handy Phoneguard employs just one secured password for all protection functions enabled. This saves the hassle of having to remember many passwords. But it still asks you for the password for accessing each application and data that’s protected. It could get a little annoying for day to day use. The best way is to enable protection for applications and data only when you travel, because the chances of losing the device is higher or when the Smartphone is loaned to someone.

I liked the option to deactivate Phoneguard. This way, you can use it normally and still secure it when the need arises, with just a touch.

When the memory card is protected and you try to access the device via Bluetooth, Windows hanged. I had to hard reboot my desktop and then disable protection for the memory card to access the memory card. This could have been gracefully handled.

Weaknesses

When the phone rings, the caller information is not displayed on the screen.  The Phone application should be allowed to override Phoneguard and let me know who the caller is. I could pick up the call, only because the Nokia 5800 has hardware keys. This won’t be possible for the Nokia 5530, a touch screen phone without any hardware keys.

Some operations like Music Player controls – play, pause, etc., should be allowed access even when the mobile is locked out. When I need to immediately pause play, I don’t want to be unlocking the device first.

Conclusion

Handy Phoneguard can be downloaded here. WaveSecure does not have the option to secure applications or data while SecureMe lets you secure some data but not all that Handy Phoneguard does. I found Handy Phoneguard to have the most useful features and a clean and simple interface. Its a must have and I’ll give it 5 of 5.

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

Mini Review

The Symbian Foundation has released a new theme for Symbian S60 5th edition devices, like the Nokia 5800.

The theme is quite obviously based on the symbian.org theme. The Symbian Foundation has adopted a consistent and innovative design for all its websites and this has been extended to the theme also.

It has an unobtrusive background of various characters and objects that are  form a part of the symbian.org theme. Built-in applications of OS / S60 UI get a new icon that gels with the overall theme. The theme sticks to just two colors, white and yellow.

Download

The Symbian Foundation Theme for S60 5th edition devices can be downloaded here.

Conclusion

The Symbian Foundation theme is zippy and responsive and does not slow down the user interface. Its a must have and I’ll give it 5 of 5.