Google’s YouTube player for s60

March 21st, 2009 by Amir 2 comments »
Yesterday Google released a YouTube application for Symbian s60 based devices. This new application allows easily searching and watching of YouTube videos on mobile devices.

Well, it is sure looking promising! After installing it on my Nokia n85 and starting it, it took just 1 second to load and display on line content. This is how the main program looks like on my device:

You can search for any videos you’d like and you can also look at related videos, just as in the YouTube web version:

And here comes the big surprise. When you select a movie, the application uses its own implementation of video player, providing a supper fast loading and buffering time. It takes almost no time at all from the moment you select a movie until it starts playing. It also rotates the screen automatically with a nice spiral effect:

This is sure another great product Google is releasing for mobile devices, and a brilliant decision of them to leave J2ME aside and concentrate on the advantages Symbian platform has to offer.

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Posted in N85, YouTube, s60, symbian, video

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Comparing the N85 and N95 video output

March 7th, 2009 by Amir 1 comment »

Now that my exams are finally over, I have the time to continue messing up with the thinks I like.

This time, I decided to compare the video quality of my N85 with the one of the N95. During my trip to the northern of Israel, I put the two devices adjoining to each other and pushed the record button!

Instead of filming static objects, I captured the videos while driving (don’t worry; it wasn’t me holding the wheel…). After downloading the videos to my PC and comparing the results, I found that although the N85 image is a bit smoother (less pixels), the two phones delivers pretty much the same quality.

In a side note, I was pretty surprised to see that although the speed of the car (around 110Kmph), the two devices produces stable images and good quality videos.

See it in your own eyes (hope the upload wont damage the quality too much):

N95

N85

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Posted in N85, N95, Nokia, compare, video

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Geotagging?

February 11th, 2009 by Amir 1 comment »

Now days when more and more mobile phones are equipped with both a good quality camera and a GPS receiver, there is no reason why not to combine the two and create images that the location where they were taken is embedded in them. Then, uploading the image to web albums services allows you to see the pictures on a nice map!

So now that I already explored other cool features of my Nokia, it is time to test the geotagging feature.

First of all, If you have Symbian series 60 3rd edition less than feature pack two (like N95), you can do it too! You just need to install Nokia’s Location Tagger application which will add this feature to your phone. According to their blog, you can also install it on devices without a built in GPS and use an external one connected via Bluetooth (like N73).

Back to the Nokia N85, when you’re using the camera, the device will automatically try to fetch the location from the GPS receiver. If the signal is strong enough, when you take a picture the location will be embed automatically. So there is nothing you should do except taking the picture.

When you browse your pictures on the phone you will get an indication if the image is encapsulating a location as well:


(notice the small satellite icon below the picture)

What’s next? Uploading the picture to a web album service that supports geotagging. There are two main options to do that, either by copying the picture to the PC and from there to the web, or a direct upload from the phone.

The built-in upload services are Flicker, vox and Ovi. If you want to use Picasa, Facebook and others, I recommend to install and use Shozu. Otherwise you are quite limited with the built-it services.

Note that only specific services support Geotagging. Flicker and Picasa are the main ones. For flicker, you need to adjust your account setting to enable using the image’s location attributes. So now that I’ve upload my image to flicker, I can see it directly on the map:


With Picassa, I will be able to see the location only if I have Google Earth installed on my PC, making it less useful but it looks cooler.

In conclusion, this feature has a great potential and is really improving your virtual photos albums. But unfortunately more time is required for additional services to full support it.

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Posted in GPS, N85, Nokia, Shozu, geotagging, location

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Experimenting Google services…

February 10th, 2009 by Amir No comments »

On my previous phone I used Gmail mobile application for managing my email communication and Google reader for mobile (WAP) to browse my RSS subscriptions.

Now that I finally have a proper mobile phone, I want to explore what Google has to offer for my phone.

Google Latitude

Latitude, which comes together with Google maps, synchronize your current position (using GPS or AGPS) with Google servers, allowing you and your friends to know who is near who, get updated with each other’s status and communicate using this application.

You can easily navigate between your friends on the map with the 3 and 6 keys, update the status directly from the application, and even send SMS to the people you find in the map. From playing with it for several days it looks pretty cool and has a great potential.

Check out this video from Google explainging it a bit more.

Another cool feature is that it connects to internet only when the position is changed, and disconnects when the update is finished. This saves both on battery and bandwidth costs.

As I mentioned, Latitude is part of Google maps, so you get all the great features of maps as well. A Few months ago when I was in Amsterdam, I used Google maps with my friend’s Nokia N95 to search for a Crumpler’s store and navigate there. It worked just great! It was just like doing it from my PC, plus it had my position so it directed me very precisely till I found the store.
One more feature is the street view. Google is taking special panoramic pictures on main streets, allowing you to explore it directly from your mobile. Check out this screenshot I took from my Nokia:

Google Sync

Yesterday Google lunched a beta service allowing you to synchronize the phone contacts and calendar with Gmail account. For symbian devices synchronization it is using the SyncML protocol.
After setting up my Nokia with the appropriate settings and crossing my fingers that nothing will be erased, I chose the contacts sync option (my calenadr is in sync with my work outlook calendar). A minute later all my phone’s contact were on my gmail account! Including the pictures! Since it supports bi-directional sync, I modified some details on the gmail account and synced again – and it really seems to be working (although it take some time for the changes be updated on the servers before the phone can be updated).
The one thing left for Google to add to this service, is email synchronization. In one of their blogs they mentioned they will support Mail for Exchange which is really great news and even better option than SyncML, since it will push emails into the mobile devices instead of making the phones periodically check for them.

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Posted in Gmail, Google, Latitude, N85, maps, review, symbian

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A Picture’s Worth a Thousand Words…

February 9th, 2009 by Amir No comments »

So to make this review a bit more attractive :) I decided to post some visual information. Here are several screenshots taken from my N85 using “Screenshot for Symbian OS” and a video demonstrating the “Special Effects” I mentioned in previous posts:

Although this is not a unique feature, I find it worth mentioning. This is the search option which can be easily accessed from the standby mode. It allows you to search for all kind of content on the device, including installed applications and built-in settings like “profiles” (similar to Windows Vista search from the Start menu)

This is a nice feature allowing you to tag images directly from the phone and broswe for the same.

 

This is from the image gallery.. the center timeline is coordinated with the navigation button

The audio can be easily transferred to the FM transmitter output directly from the music player. Unfortunately the call’s audio cannot be directed to this output. The frequency can be configured as well..

 

I’ll keep update :)

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Posted in N85, Nokia, image, review, screenshots, special effects, transitions, video

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Better than iPhone?

February 8th, 2009 by Amir No comments »

So having the N85 till now (just a few days), revealed a very powerful device. At first the UI seemed to be just as any other Symbian s60 look and feel. But then I discovered a hidden setting under the current theme’s option called “Enable Special effects”. Wow!! The transitions between normal screen and landscape view are animated, the menu icons selection makes the icons “jump” and every screen transition (between menus) is animated!

The phone comes with a movement sensor (horizontal/vertical holding of the phone). By default it is off. After making it work I find it too sensitive. But still, together with the “special effects” it offers a great user experience.

From the performance perspective the device is very responsive, and function quite the same even when there are several heavy programs in the background.

The images quality and video is just great. It also embeds the location where you take the photos using the GPS and AGPS sensors. The photo gallery has some bugs, displaying also themes and application images along with the pictures you took with the camera. Hope this will be solved in the next firmware version.

It has also a sensor that allow you to move your finger on the “joystick” button and it transform this movement as a circularly selection of the menus` items. I find it too sensitive L

Some very important improvements from older Nokia phones:
- The battery is now charge from a micro USB port. The downside is that you need to switch all your existing Nokia chargers to USB ones.
- The GPS receiver is working fast allowing you to wait just a bit before it is ready for navigation.
- The pencil button is replaced by the start and pound key. It took me a few minutes to adjust, but it is much more efficient this way.
- The camera responds much faster.
- It has a FM transmitter that allows you to broadcast your music on the phone to any FM receiver. It works quite well!
- The built-in browser shows flash controls!

In short: Yes. The Nokia N85 is much better than iPhone. I had an iPhone 2G for almost a month, although it has a very rich UI experience, better than any mobile OS I’ve seen, it offer limited configuration options. Furthermore, you have to work with iTunes for managing your music. Too me this is a major downside. The N85 offers a very good UI experience along with a wide set of configuration options making your every day buddy just as you want it to be :)

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Posted in N85, review

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Finally got it! the Nokia N85

February 7th, 2009 by Amir No comments »

After long time waiting for the Nokia N85 to be officially released in Israel, I finally managed to get it. Last wednesday, I noticed in one of the forums I’m monitoring (using google reader), that orange is about to launch it the day after. Although the company did not confirm that, I took the chance and woke up early Thursday to get it.. Bottom line, they did launch it! but their stock was not ready yet! :(

Since I have a big exam to study for (sadly), I had no time to waste on going to another store. So I decided to order it by phone, and yesterday (friday) I finally got it!


I will keep updating on the cool features this phone has to offer..

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Posted in N85, Nokia, Orange

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Welcome..!

December 1st, 2008 by Amir No comments »

Still on construction…

Come again later!

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Posted in Uncategorized

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