Nokia N97 Fanatics

New Beta: Get Missed Calls, Messages, & Calendar Entries In One Homescreen Widget With Nokia Notifications

Mike Macias — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 19:41:09 +0000

This is something I’ve been wanting for awhile on my Nokia N97. A less intrusive notification when a new call, sms, or voicemail comes through and I miss it. As you know right now we get a popup on the homescreen that blocks out part of our screen real estate. Most of the time I ignore missed calls until later so it is irritating to have to push “exit” to get rid of that notification and see the rest of my screen. Nokia Beta Labs just released a widget for us to test out that keeps all this information in one place on our homescreen without intruding or blocking other widgets. They are calling it Nokia Notifications.

Check out their description:

Today we are releasing a new beta for a short trial. Nokia Notifications gathers missed calls, voicemails, messages, and missed calendar alarms and presents them in one list for you to manage at your convenience. Adding the widget to your homescreen removes the need to acknowledge individual notifications that may otherwise get in the way of doing other actions on your device.

Sounds cool, right? So far I’m loving it because it gives as much information as possible. If I have only 1 new SMS then it shows a clip of the text along with the contact image. If I have multiple notifications like missed calls, SMS, and voicemails, those are listed on the 3 available lines. If there are too many to list then you can tap the widget and get a popup showing all your notifications. Here you can also clear them out or filter by type. Very smart! Check out my screenshots:

Download: Click here to visit the Nokia Notifications page and try it out yourself!

Nokia N900 – In the hands of a N97 Fanatic

Mike Macias — Fri, 28 May 2010 05:15:00 +0000

It sure is hard to call myself a N97 Fanatic without being laughed at. To this day, even after all the problems that we’ve experienced with Nokia’s current flagship, I am still using the N97 as my main mobile device. Since the N97’s release nothing from Nokia has hit the market that I’ve wanted to spend another $500 on. Many of my mobile blogger buddies have been hounding me to try out the Nokia N900 so I finally got my hands on one. Right now it’s going for $479.99 at Amazon so if I fall in love with this thing it just might be my next phone until the N8 ships (if you don’t know about it, you gotta check it out).

Taking Questions!

So for the next few weeks I’ll be using the N900 of and on. I’ll take any questions that you have about it and compare it to the Nokia N97. Hopefully this will help some of you who have been on the fence about the N900 like I have. I’ll also be open to video reviews of the N900/N97 comparison and post them on Youtube. Just ask. Leave your comments below or find me on twitter @mikemacias. I’ll be posting most of my N900 thoughts & comments on twitter and closing out my trial with a full review that will be posted at a soon to be announced website. Stay tuned for that!

Teaser: Now This Is A Homescreen

That is just one of my FOUR homescreens on the Nokia N900 – fully customizable. I can arrange each single widget wherever I want.

Lastly, be sure to check out quality coverage of the N900 and the Maemo operating system over at www.maemofanatics.com where you’ll find our popular author Kyron (EverythingBlaxx) showing the mobile world what the N900 is capable of.

Ovi Maps beta 3.04 graduates, ready for Nokia N97 primetime!

Mike Macias — Fri, 21 May 2010 02:03:25 +0000

I’ve been telling you guys to check out Ovi Maps beta for awhile now. Some of you were a little hesitant to try a beta application, but now you have no choice. It’s time to upgrade to the latest official version of Ovi Maps, available right now at Nokia.com/Maps or in your “Software Updater” application on your N97.

What’s New

If you haven’t tried any versions of the beta then you’ll probably notice some of these updates more than those who have been keeping up with every beta version like myself. Nokia says it’s “faster, better, more personal”. Check out the updates:

Faster

Every day, over 80% of you that are using Ovi Maps in online mode find your position on the map. Now we made it faster and more accurate: our engineers optimized the process of acquiring the location and added Wi-Fi positioning in the mix. Now you can locate yourself faster and more precisely, no matter if you are in a mall, on the street surrounded by skyscrapers or driving on an open highway. Wi-Fi positioning is a work in progress and it will get better and better as more people use it.

The second major change done under the hood was related to graphics performance when zooming in and out of maps, panning and tilting.

Better

Every day, more than 50% of you using Ovi Maps in online mode search for places and addresses. And during these months we worked hard to make sure that we increase the number of places that can be found. And we are happy to tell you that today we have more points of interest that you can find across the globe, consolidated from NAVTEQ, Lonely Planet, Michelin, local Yellow pages companies like Telegate in Germany, Cityvox in France, Yell in Spain and Yellow Pages in Turkey.

And what I really love… Own Voice:

With Own Voice, you can now make Drive navigation your own. Record your personal voice commands or ask a friend, your kids or your better half. And if you want, you can share it with the world. Your voice can help millions of people find their way. Isn’t this cool? Your voice on millions and millions of Nokia devices.

You can also discover and use what others have created. Since launching 2 weeks ago, over 4000 voice packs were shared by you with the world via Own Voice.

Navigation has never been this personal or fun for that matter. Just head to ovi.com/ownvoice to get started.

Complete? I’d say so!

Free driving directions, custom voices, better POI search, offline maps, social media location sharing, weather, movie times, events, etc. etc. I would say Ovi Maps is finally a complete package.

Download Ovi Maps

Go to nokia.com/maps to get the new Ovi Maps release. You can also find it in the “Software Updater” application on your N97.

2 Great N97 Themes, “Lake” Makes Your Smartphone Look Like iPad

Mike Macias — Wed, 12 May 2010 19:27:44 +0000

It’s been awhile since a Symbian S60 theme artist came up with something new that I really like. TehkSeven Jon has always been my favorite but he hasn’t made a Symbian theme in a long time. Damn I miss those! I recently came across Lake Theme by Larsson which resembles the iPad them found on Apple’s hot new gimic gadget. At first I was a little hesitant but now I’m glad I tried it out. Check out some screenshots that I tweeted about yesterday…

iPad N97 theme “Lake” menu icons:

and a screenshot of my homescreen with the Lake theme:

Click here to download Lake theme.

The second theme I wanted to mention is called Pure. This is also by Larsson. It’s rather unique in that it uses bring greens, pinkish purples, and blues. The battery and signal meters are customized and I just love how much it changes the look of the rather boring Symbian S60 UI. This isn’t a theme I would keep on my phone for a long time, but it’s fun to look at every now and then. Check it out…

Click here to download Pure.

Ovi Maps (beta) Updated, Quietly Adds “Surfer Dude” And US English Street Names Guidance Voices

Mike Macias — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 17:03:24 +0000

If you’re an Ovi Maps user and enjoy trying out applications before they are ready for the big time then Nokia Beta Labs is a place you’ll want to check out. They just released a small update for Ovi Maps, version 3.04 to be exact. Here is what has been updated:

- Improved positioning speed and accuracy
- Map zooming with faster speed
- Improved search for cities with zoom out to city level

~~I found an easter egg when setting up my voice navigation!~~ Here is something I missed in a version released a few weeks ago, I didn’t see this mentioned anywhere: New voice guidance files for US English users. We now have “surfer dude“, which I’m curious to try out and US English with street names. Previously they only had UK English with street names. Not sure if other voices have been added since I only look at the English files, but if you find something else new let us know!

Visit Nokia Beta Labs to learn more about Ovi Maps Beta and try it for yourself.

Free N97 Application: Egg Timer Touch Lets You Countdown The Minutes

Mike Macias — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 18:46:51 +0000

Looking for a countdown timer application for your Nokia N97 smartphone? It still baffles me that one doesn’t come preinstalled on Symbian/Nokia phones, but that’s what 3rd party apps are for, right?

Suprisingly there aren’t many options for a simple countdown timer, especially if you need one that’s free. Just the other day however I came across Egg Timer Touch by Offscreen. It’s a very simple app, but extremely handy. I wasn’t able to capture a screenshot of it because somehow the application disables a screenshot from happening.

Warning: If you try to minimize Egg Timer Touch with the red “end” button it will close and you’ll lose your countdown time. Just double-tap the menu key to minimize it.

Click here to download Egg Timer Touch at the Ovi Store or search for “egg timer touch” from your N97’s Ovi Store application.

How To Remote Lock Your N97 Smartphone From Anywhere In The World

Mike Macias — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 14:38:35 +0000

Let’s say you leave your Nokia N97 at work and don’t want your buddies seeing those luvvy-duvvy text messages you send to your girlfriend. Or maybe you can’t find your phone and don’t want anybody using it. Even worse, it might be stolen. The N97 has a great security feature called Remote Lock built in. Many people overlook or don’t notice this feature, but I think it’s a must-have for everyone with an expensive smartphone and sensitive data.

What does remote lock do? It allows you to send a unique message to your phone from another phone, allowing it to be locked so nobody can use it.

How To Setup Remote Lock On The Nokia N97

The steps are very easy. You’ll eventually reach the screenshot below.

Settings > Phone > Phone Mgmt. > Security Settings > Phone & SIM Card > Remote Phone Locking.

You need to create a special phrase like “lockn97” or anything you can remember. Once created, you can send a SMS with the phrase you created from any phone to your N97 and it will completely lock up immediately. The only way to unlock it is to use the phone’s lock code that you will create if you haven’t already.

Be sure to make a lock code that you can remember. The default code is 12345 if you have never set one up before. If you forget your lock code I do not know how to unlock the phone. Try at your own risk! Maybe someone here knows better than I do.

Advanced Device Lock Pro

Recommended by commenter netborn

My choice is Advanced Device Locks Pro, besides remote lock you have remote activate alarm, and remote wipe. Also secure storage, secure applications too, and the price is not too high.

Seems like a good 3rd party app if you need MORE security than the built in remote locking feature. Although the $30 price might turn off some of you. I decided to look into it. Here is the description:

What can ADL Pro do for you?

ADL Pro protects important information and personal data on your phone. With ADL Pro you can restrict access to certain applications, protect sensitive information and delete it remotely in case your phone is lost or stolen.

With ADL Pro you can rest assured that if your phone is lost or stolen, you will be notified of any unauthorized attempt to use it and trace it back. You can lock the phone remotely, switch on an alarm or delete your personal information by simply sending a text message with a predefined keyword.

Try the free trial: Advanced Device Lock Pro for N97

Does anybody already use this feature? Has anyone ever needed to use this feature?

Control Your Music with Playlist DJ by Syntonetic

MajorDouble7 — Sun, 21 Mar 2010 17:28:01 +0000

Hello Fanatics!

MajorDouble7 here with a look into the Playlist DJ app currently available for free at the Ovi Store, also known as ‘Moodagent’ on other devices.

I love the idea behind this application. It essentially takes your entire music collection and profiles each track individually so that you can listen to specific playlists depending on your mood.

Here’s a quick explanation on the Moodagent software from their website:

What is profiling?
A: When Playlist DJ (or its Moodagent software) goes to work, massive signal processing analysis creates extremely granular ordered information sets on music tracks that can then be clustered or compared in any number of ways (e.g. by mood, genre, instrument, beat, sound, decade, etc). So every track it encounters has a profile, and because of that you are able to create playlists based on a given mood or other variable. If Playlist DJ does not know your music, it will deep profile the track and get to know it.

What, then, is deep profiling?
Deep profiling is profiling of music that is not recognized by Playlist DJ. If Playlist DJ finds unknown music, it will look deeply at the music file and get to know it. At present we can only deep profile files in the preferred Nokia format, MP3 (not WMA, AAC, M4A or other music files due to the Nokia phone operating system).
What makes deep profiling so smart is that after you have profiled an unknown track, the profile for this track will be available not only to you, but all users of Playlist DJ.

The great news is that Playlist DJ seems to work pretty well. I had several albums worth of music that needed to be deep profiled. When the profiling was complete they all fit right into the category/genre/mood that they belonged.

Some Positives:

Playlist DJ is great for exactly what it claims to do: creating playlists that coincide with your mood or preference. There are four sliders that control what kind of playlist you want to generate. I’ve got a couple of screensnaps to give you an idea:

And here’s another screensnap of what those icons mean:

Just a couple more ’snaps to show you how accurate the sliders are (relying on the fact that you are familiar with the music shown of course):

So Playlist DJ works as advertised. It’s great for those occasions when you want to keep the general ‘feel’ of the music in a particular category.

A few more bonuses:

If you are listening to a track in the native Music Player, you can open Playlist DJ and a new playlist will be generated based on the song currently being played.
You can save the generated playlists; they get saved right alongside your other playlists in the native Music Player.
You can search for songs to create a playlist around that particular song; even better, you can search band names or album names, something that cannot be done from the ‘All Songs’ category in the native player.
Although there is no ‘hide’ button, pressing the red ‘end’ button will hide Playlist DJ and your music will play in the background.

Some Negatives:

Although I love the concept of this app, and have used it several times, I have a wish list for the future:

All playlists generated with this app are only 25 songs deep, no more. This means that you have to refresh the list by selecting the option to create ‘Playlist of similar songs’ when you reach the 25th song. Keep in mind that there is no memory of played songs, so if you do create a new playlist to keep the mood going, you may end up with some repeated tracks.
I wish there was more integration with the native player. Actually, I wish that Symbian had something like this app in its native player. When using Playlist DJ, your track/album info doesn’t show up on the homescreen widget. And although Playlist DJ will automatically create a playlist from any song that’s playing in the native player, I have to manually pause the native player and start the song over in Playlist DJ to enjoy a string of similar songs.
I mentioned that the red ‘end’ button will hide Playlist DJ and play the music in the background; obviously that sort of a thing is a must. What I believe also to be a must is the ability to browse your music while a song is playing. Currently, while listening to a song via the DJ app you cannot return to the playlist screen and choose a different mood/tempo to start next after the current song is over. You have to ‘exit’ the player screen to see the playlist slider buttons, which stops the music. Never stop the music!!

The Verdict:

So you can’t really use Playlist DJ for say, a party or something because you’ll soon play through the 25-track playlist it makes. But it’s a great app for the drive home. I’d like to see some of the improvements I mentioned above, but afterall, this is a free app, and I’m sure it works quite perfectly for most people.

Download Playlist DJ from the Ovi Store here.

Until next time, Fanatics,

MD 7

The Best N97 Screen Protector Only Costs One (1) Penny, And You Get 2

Mike Macias — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 18:47:44 +0000

After trying out many different screen protectors for my Nokia N97, I have finally found one that I love – and don’t have a single complaint after about 6 weeks of use. I used to be a big fan of Zagg, but decided to find something that’s a little less pricey. That’s when I came across this screen protector by SF Planet, only costing me $0.01 for two. How do these guys even make money? (Amazon price might change after article was written.)

Product Description

Use this High Quality screen protector to protect your Nokia N97 Smartphone LCD screen. Protect the image viewer from scratches or any damages. Reduce glare and protect the viewer from dirt and fingerprints. And don’t forget to use the high quality cloth to clean the screen, which is also included in this package.

My Thoughts

It was extremely easy to apply, no liquid solution is needed. The product is thicker and harder than previous screen protectors I’ve tried. Others are soft and rubbery, that is not the case with this one. If you mess up putting this on, no biggy there was two in the package. The protector fits perfectly over my screen and has holes around the earpiece, camera lens, light sensor, and menu button. It doesn’t affect the touch sensitivity or the clarity of the screen. I’ve noticed you get smudges after a bit of use but those can be easily wiped off. Not one scratch or ding has appeared on the protector, it still looks like I just put it on.

If you have any other questions about it let me know!

Click here to visit the product page at Amazon.com and try it yourself.

First-Person Shooter Game ‘Toon Warz’ For N97 Comes to Ovi Store

MajorDouble7 — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 13:55:52 +0000

Hello Fanatics!

MajorDouble7 here with a look at the new First-Person Shooter (FPS) game ‘Toon Warz’ by Polarbit now available in the Ovi Store.

Although ‘Toon Warz’ is an FPS game, the name itself suggests that it isn’t extremely violent like other games of the same nature. Yes, you are shooting the bad guys, but they are rendered with huge heads (giving a ‘toon-like’ appearance). That along with the ability to turn off ‘blood effects’ makes it suitable for younger gamers.

A Video Showcasing Toon Warz

courtesy of tommyforslund:

What’s it Like?

The great thing about this game (and indeed the company behind it, Polarbit) is that we are finally seeing some games that make full use of the tech inside of the N97. The graphics are great for a phone, the User Interface (UI) is great for a phone, and the entertainment is great for just about anything.

It may take a little bit of time getting used to, but the UI really is a good solution for this type of game. You have the move/strafe ‘joystick’ on the left, and an open, invisible ‘pad area’ on the right for looking around. You can also tilt your device to the left or right to turn in that direction while you are walking/running. There’s a fire button for whatever weapon you have selected, and a weapons selection screen on the top right where you can scroll through your armaments.

The thing I like best about this game is the simple fact that it’s a worthy FPS game right on my phone. Too long has the field of mobile games been populated by snake and tetris. Now we are starting to see some real worthy games that are not just fun to pass the time, but can also impress.

The Best Ever?

There are a few buggy things about the game, however. Most of them are small issues that can easily be found in FPS games on larger platforms. For instance, some small steps require you to jump over them, rather than just letting you walk over them; The ability to fire and either walk or look around isn’t extremely convenient, and if you are in mid-run, you must at least stop for an instant before you can start firing. One other thing I noticed was the complete lack of any explanation about being able to turn right and left by tilting your device. I thought for sure the game was a bust when out of nowhere my ‘guy’ started slowly turning to the right. Seriously, it took me a while to figure it out. Once I did, it made all the sense in the world, and I can navigate a lot more easily now.

Verdict?

Overall, Toon Warz is a fantastic little game…because it’s on your phone. I think, honestly, the real reason I love this game is because it shows what mobile games can do, and what they will soon become. Aside from that, it’s fun to play, it looks good, and it’s worth the money if you like FPS games. It was available for free for a short while in the Ovi Store (no doubt to generate some awareness), but has since gone to a paid app.

It is available now from the Ovi Store for approximately $1.99 USD

Until next time, Fanatics,

MD 7