S60 Open to new features

Not to be confused with the open source S60 Internet Radio which we have blogged about here in the past, the Nokia Internet Radio is a recently released application and service to round up the new Nokia Music offerings that include the Nokia Music Store and Nokia Podcasting.

First, the application can be downloaded here. While the current list of compatible devices is rather limited (only N82, N91, N95, N95 8GB), the application should work with most S60 3rd edition and Feature Pack 1 smartphones. I guess it just hasn't been thoroughly tested with the rest of the devices so no guarantees!

Which one should you download? If your device is S60 3rd edition (E65, N93, N73 etc.), choose the installation file for N91; if you have a FP1 device (N76, E90, N81 etc.) than any of the rest will do. I installed the sis file for N95 on my E90 and it worked, albeit only on the external display.

Before I go on about the application, I have to mention that the "service" part of the Nokia Internet Radio is what, in my opinion, makes this internet radio experience awesome. The Internet Station Directory makes it a breeze for users to search and discover radio stations. The directory is monitored and constantly updated, so no more need for hunting down streaming links for new stations or removing dead links. You can also add your own station to the directory.

The Nokia Internet Radio supports MP3, AAC and AAC+ codecs broadcast over the internet using the Shoutcast streaming protocol. It can make use of your packet data (use Internet instead of WAP access point) or WLAN connections. I would recommend an unlimited 3G data plan because this can get quite addictive!

Since the application is still in beta (although quite mature for a beta release), there are still some quirks, which I believe (hope) will be changed in future releases. There seems to be no way to adjust the volume unless you have a device with dedicated (hardware) volume keys, and supported screen resolutions are only QVGA and 208x176. This means that on my E90, to adjust volume, I have to open up the app on the external screen first, then switch to the internal display, and use the volume function keys...

But let's get on with the good stuff, accompanied by some screen shots:

The S60 Podcasting application is one of my favorite apps for downloading great audio and video. I listen to and watch Podcasts on my commute from work and home almost every day. I was happy when I heard that new Nseries devices, such as N95 8GB and N81, have the Podcasting application pre-installed! =)

Wouldn't you like an easy way to share the Podcasts that you subscribed to with friends or send them all to your new S60 device from your previous S60 device?
Below I'll describe in a few steps how you can do it.

- Step 1. install the Podcasting application on your new S60 device, if you have not done so already you can download it from the S60 Podcasting page. (Note: N95 8GB, N81, and other future Nseries devices have the Podcasting application pre-installed.)
- Step 2. open the Podcasting application on the S60 device that you have subscribed to Podcasts on and select the Podcasts folder. This is where all of the Podcasts you have subscribed to are listed.
- Step 3. In this step you will select the Podcast Feeds that you want to share. To select all of the subscribed Podcasts press Options -> Mark -> Mark All. This will place a check next to each of your Subscribed Podcasts. Alternatively you can just place a check next to only the Podcasts you want to send using the Options -> Mark menu selection or by pressing the Edit (Pencil Key or # Key for newer devices that don't have the Pencil Key available such as N81) to place a check next to the Podcasts.
- Step 4. The next step is to send these selected Podcast Feeds to the other device. To do this simply press Options -> Send -> Via Bluetooth (or Via MMS). Then press Yes when asked if you want to Send the selected podcasts. Use Bluetooth in the case where the new S60 device is physically nearby, or use MMS when sending to an S60 device that is not nearby (for example, use MMS to send your Podcast Subscriptions to a friend that lives a few houses or blocks away.) With the case of Bluetooth make sure that both the sending and receiving devices have their Bluetooth set to On and Visible in order to make the process smoother.
- Step 5. When the sending is done, the next step is to import the Podcast feeds. On the device you sent the Podcasts to, an OPML file will be in the Inbox of the Messaging application. Open the OPML file and you will be asked, "Import OPML file to Podcasting directories?" Say yes to the question and a preview of the Directories listing in the Podcasting application will be shown. (Note: if the S60 Podcasting application is not yet installed this step won't be possible.)
- Step 6. Back out from the Directories preview and then open the Podcasting application. Open the Directories folder and you'll notice a new folder called Received. In this folder are all of the Podcast Subscriptions that were sent to you.
- Step 7. Now just open the Received folder and Subscribe to what Podcasts interest you. To Subscribe to all of them at once press Options -> Mark -> Mark All then press Options -> Subscribe.

Now that you know how to share your Podcast Subscriptions, go out and send some to your friends!

About OPML
Supporting OPML in the S60 Podcasting application has some great benefits including interoperability and openness with other systems. The reason it has good interoperability is because the OPML format is a standard file format that other Podcasting applications use. For example, I also sometimes use another program to download Podcasts on my work desktop, it's called Juice (formerly iPodder) and is available for Windows or Mac. Juice has the option to Export or Import OPML files. Using OPML I can subscribe to my favorite Podcasts easily on S60 and PC.

I have exported my Podcast Subscriptions from Juice and uploaded the OPML file to OPMLManager, a site that allows you to share and host OPML files.

There is a client update for the Nseries Share Online app for uploading media from Gallery to Flickr (and Vox). To get it, you can go to the Nokia Sharing & blogging site and click on "Download", or straight to the Download page.

This version 2.0 of the Share Online client now allows account creation with regular Flickr/Yahoo login, introduces tagging support including an on-device tag database, plus a few other improvements.

Note that when you install the update, the existing account settings for Flickr or Vox will be overwritten. (The unofficial Twango settings which I added to my N95 were gone as well.)

- Carol.

[ Source: Nokia Nseries-support @ Flickr ]

Jaiku is one of the latest and best S60 applications around today. Some people describe it as Presence others describe it as a Mini-blog. However you choose to describe it there is definitely something wonderfully interesting and fun about Jaiku.
Note: If you're already familiar with Jaiku and just want to know our Jaiku names mine is LonelyBob.jaiku.com and Carol's is Cybette.jaiku.com. Feel free to add us to your contacts.

Jaiku has become so popular that a party was recently held in San Fransisco, California. The creators of Jaiku flew all the way from Finland (Jaiku's home) to California for the event. It was hosted by the Chief TWiT himself, Leo Laporte. For those of you unfamiliar with Leo, he is the creator of the very popular and highly entertaining TWiT Netcast Network (TWiT = This Week in Tech). I listen to several of Leo's weekly Netcasts on a Nokia N93i during my commute to work including: TWiT, Net@Nite, FLOSS Weekly (that hasn't been so weekly lately), and the newest member of the bunch Jumping Monkeys. A compilation of photos from the Jaiku/TWiT event are posted on TWiT's Vox blog.
(I chose the title of this blog entry after the Jaiku party, herring was served at the event.)

One of the things that makes Jaiku so great is how well the mobile Jaiku application integrates with the standard S60 applications.
- Works with your existing Address Book/Contacts. Thus you can make calls and send messages right from the Jaiku mobile client.
- Keeps track of where you are using the cellular network. So when you travel and you have the Jaiku client online it updates your Jaiku account automatically based on information from the cellular network.
- Shows the Profile that your S60 device is in. So when you see your friend is in Meeting profile you know they probably don't want to be disturbed by your call.
- Optionally share your Calendar. Your friends can see what your plans are. You can choose to show the actual details of the calendar, show the meeting times as busy, or don't share your calendar at all.
- Also you can allow the client to scan for nearby bluetooth devices. The client keeps track of what Bluetooth devices are nearby and shows the total number of devices on your Jaiku account. Also you can associate the Bluetooth devices that belong to your friends with your friends and the client will show a tally of how many friends are nearby if you choose to enable this feature.

Not only are Carol and myself using Jaiku but several of the other S60 bloggers also use it. You can find MRKTNGman Jouni's Jaiku account here. Phil's Jaiku account is appropriately named S60 Online. Johanna, that blogs on Smartphonin' has her Jaiku account here. I think Tommi also occasionally uses Jaiku, but I'm not sure what his account name is.

What do you think of Jaiku?

This weekend I had the opportunity to attend the Japan Firefox Developers Conference in Tokyo. One of the interesting presentations related to mobiles was a new Mozilla Labs project named Joey. Joey is a Firefox extension/add-on, a server, and a Java client for mobiles is being worked on. The idea is to pass data from Firefox to your mobile.

Currently you can add Youtube videos with the Firefox extension to your Joey account and the Flash videos will be converted/transcoded to 3GP format so that they can be watched on your mobile. I had some problems accessing the page from either browser on N93i but the 3GP videos can be downloaded to a computer then copied to your mobile. Joey is in development by Mozilla and is OpenSource thus you can poke through the sourcecode if you are interested.

More info about Joey is available on the Mozilla Labs page below:
http://labs.mozilla.com/2007/05/introducing-joey/

Paul Coulton over on the Forum Nokia Blogs, posted an entry about a Java application that he created that can be used to create 3D photos! The 3D photos that are created are the kind that jump off the screen at you if you wear those funky 3D glasses.

It is a pretty interesting idea. Basically using the application you take 2 photos, the application combines the 2 photos into one 3D photo, and if you like the 3D photo it can be uploaded to the 3D photo website simply by selecting Upload from Options. Since there are no settings required to upload it makes the uploading process pretty easy. I tried it out on a Nokia N93i, here's a thumbnail of the 3D photo I created.

While trying out the application I found one negative thing, sometimes when the Java application was creating the 3D photo it crashes with an out of memory error message. I guess the algorithm used to create the 3D photo is very memory intensive.

You can check out other 3D photos that people have uploaded on the m3DCam website. The m3DCam application itself can also be downloaded from the same site with a few different versions available for different camera models.

Source: Paul Coulton's Forum Nokia Blog

You thought I was going to write about the iPhone, didn't you? No, there are plenty of other places to read about that piece of news. This entry reports on another announcement from CES, about the collaboration between Nokia and Vox, a new online blogging and media sharing service from blog pioneers Six Apart. Instead of requiring you to maintain separate accounts for your blog, photos and videos, Vox combines them all into a single site (and a single account).

The Vox uploader uses the same Atom protocol that Flickr, Lifeblog and other services use (see Hugo's comment here for details), so it works not only on the new N93i, but also on any Nseries phone that supports Flickr uploading from the Gallery - the screen shot here is from my N75.

[UPDATE January 18] Tommi reports that if you have a pre-Internet Edition N80, you can now update it officially to IE, and join the Atom uploading fun!

Any Voxers out there? Let me know how you like it!

-Oren

From my position inside the S60 world, surrounded by mobile phone experts and mobile tech, it's easy to assume that every mobile phone user is as excited about mobile multimedia as I am. It was a useful reality check, therefore, to read a couple of reports from mobile operators that describe what mobile phone owners are doing out in the real world. I was happy to find that we're not the only excited ones - many people (who don't work in S60) also enjoy music, video, and other non-voice applications and services on their phones.

From the UK, 3 published a report on mobile music, that claims 75% of the UK mobile music market, and describes great interest among young Britons in mobile music and mobile music videos.

On this side of the Atlantic, Sprint published its 2006 Productivity Survey, "a nationwide index of wireless phone users and their productivity". The results don't quantify the actual usage of mobile multimedia services, but do demonstrate strong interest in these services. Sprint asked users which mobile services (one or more) "help maximize their lives". 60% chose Camera, and 58% chose music. (For our friends in the Browser team, 59% chose Wireless Web)

Pretty encouraging, I think. Let me know if you've come across other interesting data about how people are using their mobile devices.

-Oren

Darla reports about the first music EP recorded on a mobile phone, and interviewed the composer, Omri Levy. Omri used the Alon MP3 Dictaphone propgram to record his 10-song EP "about:blank" on his Nokia N80.

The Alon software records MP3 files up to 96kbps @ 16 kHz. That's more or less FM radio quality (but of course the phone microphone is not exactly what you would find in a studio). I'm trying to find out more technical details about how Omri did the recording, and will report back what I learn.

Update: Omri reports that he did indeed use the N80 microphone and the maximum settings of the Alon software. He writes: "I know that the sound quality is far from being perfect but if i wanted a 'perfect sound' I would have used my own studio. In most cases I would rather listen to someone recording himself on a 4-track than listen to a bright and shiny production. So the Nokia N80 was more than enough for me." (On his wishlist: overdubbing on the phone)

Let me know if you come across other mobile recordings. Maybe this is a new tool for the Lo-Fi world?

-Oren

Since Jukka wrote about Orb back in May, Nokia announced that they will "work with Orb Networks to integrate Orb MyCasting into the Nokia N80 Internet Edition" phone (sorry, Multimedia Computer) that is due out this month. (Note for American readers, that phone is available in the US, and the Orb integration "will arrive initially in the United States", according to the press release).

In case you don't know what Orb is, it is a PC application that lets you stream your own photos, music, and video from your home PC to your mobile, using the Web browser and player on your phone. In addition to all that, the clever folks at Orb just announced that they have a solution that lets you watch YouTube videos on your mobile phone as well. Of course, this is not the perfect solution for YouTube fans, as it requires a pretty powerful home PC and broadband connection. You also need to leave your PC on all the time.

If you're prepared with all that, then Orb is a very cool way to take your media stuff with you wherever you go. Don't worry if you don't have an N80; Orb works on pretty much any phone with a decent Web browser, media player and Internet connection, like, say, any S60 device.

-Oren