Forum Nokia Community site has been updated, good work!!

All you developers, go check it out, and send your feedback to Ron and other folks behind the site:

Let us know what you think at Forum.Feedback@nokia.com or just respond to this blog. I want to emphasize how much this is YOUR community and it is YOUR opinions that matter the most to us. We want your feedback in order to make this the most enjoyable developer community on the internet. We did not let marketing have any say so in the Lobby, we designed it for developers, not the suits or pointy haired bosses.

Nokia just announced:

Starting today Nokia customers in eleven countries with compatible S60 devices can download the new suite enabling access to Windows Live Hotmail, Windows Live Messenger, Windows Live Contacts and Windows Live Spaces. Starting next year, customers who purchase compatible Nokia Series 40 handsets will also have access to these popular Windows Live services.

I think this is the link that should become alive today: http://www.nokia.com/windowslive

Simon Judge wrote in Mobile Phone Development:

People often ask me why there aren’t that many successful Java ME consumer applications that aren’t games.
...
It’s interesting that the few non-game applications that do become successful perform most of their processing at the server. Examples include Opera Mini, EmailViewer by ReqWireless (which was acquired by Google) and Google’s own mobile GMail application. These applications are just a window on more open, capable and consistent processing somewhere else.

I have spotted this trend too. Can you think of any exceptions?

Via Open Gardens, I just learned about 3neXt, a brand-new mobile applications site by the UK operator 3. They are trying, over time, to build a large catalogue of links to interesting mobile applications and services. What I find the most interesting, is that they invite the users to suggest, vote, and rate the items. Now, that's not something I would expect from the other, more traditional operators... Once again, 3, I salute you!

I wonder should we at Nokia/S60 do something similar?

Windows Live Messenger for S60 3rd edition is spreading fast in the blogosphere.

I'm wondering, why aren't Nokia and Microsoft offering this officially?

I tried to download the brand-new beta version of Opera Mini 4 using the instructions:

1. Point your phone browser to mini.opera.com/beta
2. Click "Download Opera Mini"
3. Follow the simple setup steps on your phone

For some reason, this procedure did something strange with my N95. Instead of installing Opera, it saved the URL of the installation file as an RSS feed to my S60 browser. Urgh.

After cursing silently for a second, I tried the same thing again - this time using WAP access point instead. Now, it worked like a charm.

I wonder what went wrong, and who should fix what...

Did the same thing happen to you?

Here's yet another feature that would be nice to have built-in:
S60 TV: S60 Hack: Changing fonts in S60
Darla Mack: Changing Fonts on S60 3rd Edition Devices!

Check out the pictures. (nice work!)

Note: follow these hackety-hack instructions with your own risk.

A year ago, I met a Arto Viitanen and his gang from Comeks, and learned a lot about the challenges that developers - even the good ones - face when trying to make money with mobile applications.

Now, I'm now happy to hear that they got funded by a venture capital firm Accel Partners.

Congratulations!!

Remember when we had a big debate about should Nokia set up application testing labs, and how the conclusion was that remote testing looks very promising?

Now, Forum Nokia has just launched a service called Remote Device Access, which offers developers over-the-Internet access to several Symbian/S60 devices, and allows remote application testing on actual target devices.

Daniel Rocha tells me it works really well. Go check it out.

Via Markus Ahonen's post at Creating Carbide C++, here is my dear (and really smart) colleague Håkan Mitts asking feedback directly from developers:

We hear from developers that some APIs might require "too high" capability compared to the functionality of the API. If you think that this is the case for some specific S60 API, pls respond to this thread providing the following information.
a) What API?
b) Why do you think that the capability required to use this API should be relaxed?
c) What in your view would be a reasonable capability for the API?

Great idea, Håkan, to ask for developer feedback openly! You know, I have been hearing some rants about inappropriate API capabilities from developer-bloggers such as Symbiatch. Developers: now it's your time, Håkan is listening!!