Coinciding with Nokia World, we've launched some cool new features for S60.com. I thought I'd share some of the highlights with you...

First off, the new Flash intro on the main page. You gotta check this out, it's fantastic. A bunch of really funny Flash animations highlighting some S60 applications. After each clip, the user gets a short description of the app with links to download a free trial, view compatible phones, view related applications, send to a friend, and buy.

Next up are some short stories where S60 has been used in "real life". Here's an excerpt...

Happy birthday, I'm sorry. We just finished mixing the demo and I couldn't tear myself away. I brought the mp3s, though. You can hear them anytime; they're on my phone."

The guy Juana didn't know spoke up. "Your phone? Can I see?" She pulled it out and opened the music player. "Whoa, this is a serious music machine. What kind of sound is this?"

"Go ahead and listen, it's kind of electrotrash but really we're just messing around with everything. It's upbeat, that's for sure. I have a ridiculous amount of music on that thing. I use it as my mp3 player."

After that we have the Application Wishlist, here's how it works, all you developers might be interested in this - Let's say you, the consumer, wants your S60 device to do something particular. You've surfed around on different application sites but didn't find what you were looking for. Well then add it to S60.com's wishlist! Maybe there is the perfect app already out there, other users suggest an application that fits your idea. Or if you have a completely original idea, developers can search wishlists for new ideas of software to write. I think it's a brilliant idea and will be a huge success.

The amount of S60 devices on the market is getting out of control, so we've added some filtering options to help consumers sort through them all. Filter by edition (1st, 2nd, 3rd), region, and manufacturer...

And being a blogger, you've got to love this one, you'll find a link directly to the S60 Blogs on every single page...

After solving several puzzles, I do not find the Sudoku application on my mobile as interesting as some six months ago. This fall, no doubt my favorite add-on application has been the Omat Lähdöt –timetable service offered by Helsinki City Transport.

Helsinki City Transport, together with the Helsinki Metropolitan Area Council (YTV), offers a comprehensive timetable and journey planning service on their web sites. There’s also a mobile optimized version of the web site, offering a great way to plan routes and check timetables on the move.

However, people typically commute between few places only. For me, these places are home, the office and a gym. The Omat Lähdöt –timetable service, launched in May, is a superior tool for checking the timetables for these connections. With the application installed on my mobile, I can check the timetable for any bus stop in Helsinki. But what’s more, I can store my most frequently used bus stops (home, office, gym) in the system, and even nickname them. When opening the application, it shows me the timetable of next five buses arriving at these stops. It’s possible to use the service with a PC, too, but I have found the mobile version very handy: less running behind buses, less waiting at bus stops, no printed timetables in the pocket.

There are some things I’d like to improve in the service though. When opening the application, it always asks whether it is ok ”to use network and send or receive data.” An extra click is needed to confirm this is ok. Also, I always need to select the access point for the application manually. A bit irritating, and again an extra click is needed. Finally, when exiting the application, a confirming click to exit the application is required, too. I hope there would be a way to avoid these extra clicks, especially when using the phone outdoors in an awful November weather like this morning.

Using content-control software, parents keep home-PC's protected so they can monitor their child's online activities and prevent them from being exposed to adult content (amongst other things). But now all the kids have unrestricted access to internet via their mobile phones, and mobile internet usage (not just for children, but for everyone with a mobile) has been skyrocketing recently...

Nearly half of children with mobile phones use it to surf the Internet, according to a poll by the Finnish branch of the Save the Children. The organization is concerned that minors' use of the Internet on mobile phones is too unsupervised.

The organization's survey also revealed that 35 percent of kids with mobiles say their parents don't know they use it to access the Internet.

...so when will we see the first S60 censorware app?

The pixel concentration on my Nokia E70 is amazing - they manage to cram 352 pixels in a width of 34.5mm. That's about 10.2 pixels per millimeter. So I wondered - how does that measure up to today's High Definition TV's? Even better - how does that measure up to today's True High Definition (1080p) TV's?

I surfed online and hunted down the smallest 1080p HDTV I could find. I chose LCD over Plasma since LCD has a much higher concentration of pixels. There's probably something smaller but the smallest I found was the Philips 37PF9731D 37" LCD. It measures 1160mm across, the actual screen size was 995mm in width. A 1080p HDTV has 1920 pixels across, that's only 1.9 pixels per millimeter - compare that to my Nokia E70's 10.2 pixels per millimeter.

So - if we applied my E70's concentration of pixels to a one meter-wide TV display - you'd be rockin' "5737p". That's 10,200 pixels horizontally and 5,737 vertically. It's over 5x more pixels in each direction compared to true HD. And over 7x more pixels in each direction compared to normal HD. And about 14x more pixels in each direction compared to old SDTV's.

5737p would have about 58 million pixels total, 1080p (True HD) has about 2 million pixels total, 720p (normal HD) has about 1 million pixels total, and old widescreen SDTV's have about 337 thousand pixels total.

So basically - Go out and buy yourself an expensive HDTV, and you'll be light years behind in technology ;-)

We, the audience of the S60 Blogs, are familiar with the S60 User Interface. We know what to do on the Active Idle screen, the Applications Menu and we also know how to personalize the User Interface to fit our personal style. But what about those potential S60 users that like it simple and straight forward? Does the average Joe know how to open the Application Menu once s/he gets the first S60 device? The flexibility the S60 UI change one the location of applications, Active Idle short-cuts, and soft key functions lead also to complexity for the average consumer which might not be only benefitial. There might be consumers that prefer that things are always on the same place even if they get a S60 device from their friends. So, should there be a category of S60 devices which target more the feature phone market with a simpler User Interface? Would that make sense?

Should one of the soft keys always point to the Application Menu instead of the access through a dedicated key? Could the Application Menu be static and only containing as much icons that fit on the screen not forcing the user to scroll up and down to look for the key application? Should all newly installed applications always be in one and the same folder? Could there be less sub folders in which one gets lost? Should the Active Idle short cuts automatically show the most frequently used applications?

Any ideas, input,or opinions?

Oval Racer from Great Ape Software really pushes the graphical boundaries of S60 3rd Edition to a whole new level. The premise is simple, it's a stock car-style race game, but Oval Racer takes the mobile race genre much further.

The first thing you'll notice when begin a race is the fantastic 3D rendering. When selecting a course to race on, you're shown a rotating 3D model of each course. When you select your car (nine cars in total I believe, three for each difficulty), it's presented to you in rotating 3D, you can also change the colors of the car and add different racing stripes.

There's graphic options galore for those who like to tweak their settings - you can change the detail, car texture, sky texture, track texture, car shadows, dashboard, lighting, as well as adding a working rear-view mirror. All of these of course will alter your frames-per-second rate. With details all maxed out, my Nokia E70 was too slow (although I heard it's great on the Nokia N93) but it looked nice with detail on high, however I prefer an ultra high smoothness so I turned details to low but kept the sky texture on. If you're not much for tweaking settings, the built-in "Calibrate graphics" feature will set the optimal settings for your device. And the game is compatible with all the S60 3rd Edition resolutions (and I can play in either landscape or portrait mode on my E70)

You can choose from a race, practice, and championship. Race allows you to go a few laps against opponents, practice us just you on the course, and championship gives you a lot of races of different courses at different levels. Up to 16 AI opponents can join you in a race. It's amazing how well the game simulates stock car driving, when you're sandwiched in between four cars and the wall you really feel like you're behind the wheel.

The real key to Oval Racer are the physics and gameplay. This is not just some mindless thumb twitcher, there's a very comprehensive driving system built-in that you need to learn and practice. Courses have three different types of surfacing (dirt, mud, tarmac) that change the physics. Once you've mastered a course in practice, all your teachings go to waste when 9 other highly-skilled AI opponents challenge you. Not only do you need to learn to race, you need to deal with your opponents.

Once you're done with a race you can watch the replay. Just like on TV the reply shows the cars at different angles, you need to see it to believe it. These are not only fun to watch, but watching the reply will show you what you did wrong and how to improve your technique.

At the writing of this post, the app is in the process of getting Symbian Signed. It's hands down takes the awards for Best Racer, Best Graphics, and Best Gameplay for S60 3rd Edition. It's not another mobile game you'll get bored of after 10 minutes. And the in-game help/manual is the most extensive I've ever seen. The crew at Great Ape really put some heart and soul into this. Visit their website to get more info and purchase it.

Let's see him beat me using the QWERTY keyboard on my Nokia E70... :-)

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - A Singaporean student broke the Guinness World Record for the shortest time needed to type a 160-character SMS message on Sunday after whizzing through the task in less than 42 seconds in a competition.

Sixteen-year-old Ang Chuang Yang typed the SMS (short message service) message in 41.52 seconds, beating the previous record of 42.22 seconds set by American Ben Cook in July, according to Singapore Telecommunications, organizers of the competition.

"I'll try for 39 seconds next year," said Ang, adding that the trick to speedy text messaging was to use a mobile phone with larger keys on the dial pad.

And here's what you have to type...

"The razor-toothed piranhas of the genera Serrasalmus and Pygocentrus are the most ferocious freshwater fish in the world. In reality they seldom attack a human."

Quick question for all of you out there - Is the maximum volume too low on your S60 3rd Edition device? Specifically, you're Nokia E-series device? I remember reading some concerns about this a while back on some blogs.

After a firmware update to my Nokia E61 and E70, the maximum volume became too low. So low that it rendered the device useless for audio playback in noisy conditions like on the city street or bus. I know it's not a hardware issue because the volume was at an acceptable level until the firmware update. And I know it's not isolated to one application like the native Music Player, because I experience this same issue on 3rd-party music players.

So if any of you are experiencing this, please let me know in the comments section below! I'll hunt around the company and find a solution for this. Cheers all!

UPDATE: As a daily hourly reader of AAS, I'm not sure how I missed this - But Steve Litchfield explains how to pump up the volume of the Music Player using the equalizer in the settings. However, it's still not loud enough, and the equalizer is only for the Music Player - what about other players that don't have it (DivX Player is one I've tested). Even with the equalizer, it's still not loud enough. :-)

The "Web Browser for S60" is hands-down, the coolest app ever seen on a mobile device. For the first time ever, browsing the web on your mobile is actually an enjoyable experience. Based on open source technology, the Web Browser for S60 is constantly improving and aiming to make the best mobile web experience even better.

In their new blog, they'll share their plans for their app and are looking forward to your feedback. Now if they could only come up with a catchier name for their browser! Here they explain what the heck a reindeer is doing in their logo...

The blog is going to be authored by any number of people in the group, in the interest of keeping it fresh and populated. Besides, each author has promised to stop by with a piece of virtual cheese for Cursor, the S60 Browser Group's mascot. Cursor would be a reindeer if we could figure out where to hide a reindeer in a corporate office. But we can't, so Cursor is a mouse (as well as one of the blog authors). He has many talents beyond what you'll find in an ordinary mouse, possibly because Cursor is better; he's a virtual mouse, just like the one in our browser.

Speaking of reindeer, you'll see a reindeer in profile in the blog's headline graphic -- it's there to signify Reindeer, the open-source reference build of our browser. Today we often hear people say (about browsers), "we should handle this the way Firefox does...". Before long we hope to hear almost the same thing: "we should handle this the way Reindeer does..."

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According to recent figures from market research firm Canalys Ltd. Symbian is still very much in the lead in EMEA when looking at the shipments of the so called smart mobile devices (smartphones, handhelds and wireless handhelds). Symbian (mostly S60 devices) had a market share close to 80%, meaning that 8 out 10 smart devices in the hands of EMEA inhabitants were running on Symbian. An impressive number no matter how you look at it!

Those of you who have followed the S60 market for some time know that Symbian having such a high market share is not exactly big news. But what is noteworthy is that the whole market is not growing at the same explosive growth as it used to. The whole EMEA market grew 11.7% year on year in Q3 2006. Back in good old 2005 a quarterly growth rate of over 100% was more of a rule than an exception.

So what?
A fast conclusion of the situation might be to declare that the smart mobile devices market has reached its plateau. But I wouldn't go that way.

Instead, this to me sounds like the markets saying "mid-range smart mobile devices, please". There are only so many consumers looking for high-end devices. And looking at the data I have a feeling we are getting close to that number. If we think of all smart mobile device owners in EMEA as the most pro-technology guys as can be, there should be around 2.5% of them in the population of EMEA. Roughly 40 million people. With the rate of 5 million smart mobile devices sold per quarter, most of these people should already have one by now. This clearly shows the need for mid-priced and easier to use smart mobile devices. In other words, smartphones for the masses. And not just devices, but also services and applications that appeal to the not-so-techy rest of the world.

I'm sure mobile companies are thinking about these things in strategy rooms around the world. But it would be nice to hear your thoughts on how to start the second wave of smart mobile devices. With what kind of services and applications?