Clever S60 programming nerd over at the Symbian Freak forums have cooked up an app called ROMPatcher which is able to modify the ROM containing the operating system itslef - allowing fundamental changes and interesting tweaks to be made in the way your phone works.
The app uses a technique where a cpy of the ROM is made in the phone’s memory, then modified (’Patched’). The phone then uses the modified version of the ROM - leaving the original untouched and nice and safe, so you can roll back to the pre-patched ROM the next time you restart your phone.
Already, there are a number of patches available including one that enables several hidden menu options on the S60 interface and another that bypasses the Symbian app security - allowing users to run unsigned apps.
It should go without saying that this kind of hack is strictly for advanced users and please, PLEASE take a backup of your data before you go and play around.
If you give this a try, why not let us know how you get on? Are we entering a bold new era of S60 tweakage, or just bricking a load of perfectly good phones?
As Spinal Tap know only too well, more Dobly Dolby is always a good thing.
Good news then for Symbian fans - Symbian Limited has confirmed that Dolby Laboratories has signed up to the Symbian Platinum Partner Program.
What this means in practical terms is that select Symbian phones will ship with Dolby Mobile technology, which promises “rich and vibrant surround sound from various types of mobile entertainment content”, according to Jerry Panagrossi, Symbian’s Vice President and General Manager of North American Operations.
As usual, the first few such phones are being rolled out in japan only so it might be a while until our own entertainment content gets all rich and vibrant.
I know, I know - just what the world needs, another IM/VOIP mobile app.
Octrotalk does look fairly standard, but it does have a couple of nice featuress.
Firstly, it is compatible with Google Talk (Jabber), MSN, AIM, ICQ and Yahoo chat protocols. It is cross platform - running on Symbian 3rd Edition, Windows Mobile and WM Smartphone as well as the Desktop version of Windows.
It also has a useful file sharing side - you can use it to access shared folders on PCs running the Windows client and there is some kind of P2P file sharing built in to boot.
The downside is… well, it’s yet another IM/VOIP app. Fring is probably a better bet for most yusers, particularly if you need Skype access. Take a look, though - it’s a free download, available here.
Engadget are reporting that Microsoft and Nokia have been conducting talks about Windows Mobile - the implication being that Nokia might bring out a phone using Windows Mobile as the OS intead of Symbian.
John Starkweather, Microsoft’s Mobile Communications Business International Marketing Director (the sign on his door must be about three feet long) is quoted as saying “[Nokia] obviously have significant investments in Symbian but there are a lot of places where we have significant synergies and we would love to see the day where those synergies would extend completely with Windows Mobile,”
Quite what that means is anyone’s guess - panic on the streets and dogs and cats living together, quite possibly. One one hand, a Nokia WinMo device makes no sense - it could harm Symbian, a company that Nokia has invested in heavily - while on the other hand.. it still doesn’t make a great deal of sense.
Should anything come of this - possibly some kind of mutant phone running a hybrid S60/Windows mashup - Pocket Picks will be there to gawp incredulously and keep you informed.
ShakeLock is Yet Another Accelerometer app for S6o 3rd Edition. Unlike some of its more frivolous brethren, this might actually be some use.
With the app running in the background, just give your phone a shake and it will lock the keypad. To unlock it, just give it another shake. Easy!
Because this is developed by an amateur coder there is a slight wrinkle to the install procedure - an expired deveoloper’s certificate means you will have to alter the date on your phone to March 2007 to allow it to accept the app (you can change it back again when the app is installed).
ShakeLock has been tested on the Nokia N95 but should work with the N95 8GB & N82. Here is a video demo of the app in action.
Mouse-shy Mac users have been enjoying an app called Quicksilver, which allows fast access to applications and files via the keyboard and has become something of a cult among productivity geeks.
SkyeQuikKey from SkyeStream is a reasonable stab at a Symbian 60 3rdEdition version of the same idea.
Once installed, your standby screen will accept text input as well as dialed numbers. To find an app, browser bookmark or contact, just enter the first couple of letters of its name and SkyeQuikKey will bring up a list of matching items. Scroll down the list with the joystick and use the soft keys to perform appropriate actions like run, call or create an SMS.
How useful you find this will depend on how you use your phone - if you have a lot of apps or contacts and are quick with your thumbs you might find it a real time saver but if you are a more casual user it will more than likely just get in the way.
SkyeQuikKey costs around a tenner, but the developers have generously provided an entire day’s worth of free trial - available here.
Just when the upcoming SkyFire seemed to have the mobile browser vapourware market all sewn up, Opera have released a preview video of Opera Mobile 9.5 - and very impressive it looks, too.
The new version brings greatly improved rendering speeds (the video takes great delight in showing how quickly Opera renders the Guardian home page compared to Internet Explorer - accompanied by suitably ponderous music).
Also new is a full-screen display with a hidden GUI activated by tapping a transparent area, smooth zooming and panning across large pages and the ability to send bits of web pages via SMS and MMS.
Last week we posted about an app called WMWifi that turns a Windows Mobile 6 device into a portable wifi hotspot.
As if in response to the wailing and gnashing of teeth from jealous Symbian users, freeware developer Joikusoft has released JoikuSpot - a 3rd Edition S60 app that performs much the same trick with Nokia smartphones.
Your phone will need built-in wifi (the app has been tested with the Nokia N95, N82, N90 and E61 among others) and ideally some kind of unlimited data plan with your operator.
If you currently use your phone with your laptop via Bluetooth this is defintely one to check out as you will get much better connection speeds via wifi. Although intended for use with a single laptop, there is nothing to stop you connecting multiple devices at once.
One caveat is that web access is enabled via a proxy server so you may need to reconfigure your browser to autodetect proxy settings if you have problems with HTTPS sites. Joikusoft also recommend updating your phone to the latest firmware for the best performance.
You know when you have found a good mobile app when you start wishing it was part of a phone’s standard user interface.
TextQuick, an S60 app from Mind Flip software is such a simple, useful idea that I’m amazed that Nokia hasn’t incorporated it into the S60 Contacts function as an alternate view.
The app lists all your contacts in text-frequency order - those you text most frequently at the top, the people you never text at the bottom.
Creating a new message (or placing a call) is as simple as highlighting a name and pressing the D-pad - no more typing the first couple of letters of people’s names or making contacts called ‘001 Mum’, etc.
TextQuick can take a second or so to start so the latest release has the option keep the program running in the background for faster activation.
TextQuick costs $9.99 from Handango, with a one-month free trial.
There are no shortage of Instant Messaging clients for Windows Mobile and Symbian, and it takes quite a bit to impress us here at Pocket Picks.
Palringo is a new multi-platform IM app for Windows Mobile, Symbian S60 3rd Edition, Windows and Java that might just make the grade.
Palringo supports all the popular IM services (Google Talk, AIM, MSN, etc) as well as its own network. The most significant difference between Palringo and these other services is the addition of Vioce and Picture messaging. Using your phone (or PC) you can take photos or short audio clips and send them to your Palringo contacts. You can also send these through to some of the other supported networks, where they will appear as a web link to the hosted file on Palringo’s server.
If you are a heavy IM user perhaps the most useful feature is the ability to sign in to multiple instances of each service. I use one Google Talk account for work and another for chatting to friends and updating Twitter, etc, and this is a feature I have been waiting for for a long time.
There are still a few rough edges - new IM conversations can end existing ones, for example - but these are being worked on by the Palringo development team.
Palringo is a free download, available here.
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