You should now have the latest Ovi Store client. How can you check it? If you open the Store on your Nokia smartphone and check the version under the Account Tab > Help > About, you should have a version number of at least 2.12.xxx.
However, some of you with new Symbian phones (e.g. Nokia N8) were unable to complete the installation of the latest Store client. If this happened to you, the Ovi Store team has released a stand-alone installation package which contains an updated version of the Ovi Store client. It also updates some middleware used by the Store and many other apps.
You can download it from http://lr.ovi.mobi/store/client-symbian-3/ directly to your new Symbian device. When prompted for the installation destination, please choose the C: drive. Confirm all prompts during the installation. Note that additional middleware components may be downloaded to your device if they require updates.
Finally, the total download size can be larger than 10 MB, so you may want to be connected via WLAN while performing this update over the air.
In the not too distant future robot overlords rule the Earth. The only surviving race, aside of from some monstrous creatures, are rabbits living deep beneath the Earth’s crust. This is the premise of Breakdesign’s addictive adventure and puzzle game known as World of Rabbit.
Customize your own rabbit, I chose an uneven eyed one with a bow in her ears, and venture above ground to a world that looks as if it came out of a Tim Burton movie. With three parts to each level, your rabbit will be a very busy animal with all the running, dancing and puzzles it will be doing.
The first part of each level consists of a trail three bunnies wide. It’s your job to guide your rabbit through the trail by tapping the up or down arrows while picking up the many carrots strewn about. Tap just the screen and your rabbit will leap over obstacles, such as mounds and spiders, in the way. If you do happen to hit one your rabbit will not only lose momentum, but it will take some damage as well.
Upon reaching the end of the trail fairly unscathed you rabbit will be pitted against a slew of baddies, spiders being the first, and must dance excessively to beat them. Tap each baddie, the bigger they are the more taps they need, which will cause your rabbit to dance and slay each monster. But be quick, more will come at you as the timer continues to tick away. If you’re lucky you may even have some missiles to help you out of a pinch.
Finally, after making it so far, possibly even avoiding a death by spider, it’s time to solve a puzzle portraying the level you’ve just finished. This is definitely the easiest portion of the game, and a great reprieve from constantly tapping away at your screen.
As odd as I thought this game was, I kept finding myself wanting to go back to it. Even when I continued to die by massive spiders I couldn’t help but keep playing, determined to reach the next stage of the game.
The best part though? You don’t have to play alone! By playing online you can make other rabbit friends and sync up your scores to see how well you are doing in the rabbit revolution.
This short video from the developers at Breakdesign show the game in action:
World of Rabbit is available in the Ovi Store for free, so bunny hop on over to download it. The game is available for Nokia Symbian OS S60 5.0 phones, as well as new Symbian smartphones like the Nokia N8.
While I enjoy visiting foreign countries, I don’t enjoy converting foreign currencies. Is that cup of coffee cheaper than it is at home – or a royal rip-off? Even when I can remember the exchange rate, I still worry. Because rates change constantly, how can I be sure I am not calculating prices with a tragically out-of-date rate?
Xchanger can help. It is a free mobile app, a currency calculator for Nokia advanced Symbian smartphones. According to publisher Titus Soft, Xchanger can calculate the latest exchange rates for more than 150 currencies, including nearly every country from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe.
At its most basic, Xchanger supplies straightforward, up-to-the-minute exchange rates: 1 euro equals how many U.S. dollars as of right now? But Xchanger can also convert any value you select. That lovely dress in a Tokyo boutique costs 58,000 Japanese yen — now how much is that in Australian dollars?
Xchanger also provides exchange rates for three precious metals: gold, silver, and platinum. Are you a big-time investor? Then just set the number of ounces you wish to purchase, select the currency you wish to use, and let Xchanger do the rest.
Xchanger doesn’t have a formal start screen. Launch the app, and you are presented with a list of exchange rates:
You may have noticed that all the currencies have been converted into U.S. dollars. That’s because I have set U.S. dollars as my default currency. But you can set any currency as your default. To do this, select Options from the lower left corner. Up pops the Options menu:
Next, select Settings > Conversion > Default currency. A scrolling list of currencies appears, in alphabetic order. Select your currency and press OK. That is done!
Once you are in a foreign country and shopping, you will probably want to enter specific prices in the local currency, then see how much that is in your own currency. For example, you come across a jacket in a Paris department store that costs 350 euros. Is that très cher or bon marché? To find out, fire up Xchanger, then tap on the euros entry.
Next, you need to change that 1 euro setting to 350. So tap Options > Conversion > Edit. That brings up the ‘enter amount’ form shown here:
As you can see, I have entered 350. Next, I tap OK. When I return to the main list, the exchange rate is automatically updated. At the current exchange rate, that 350 euros comes to $497.70 (USD):
Xchanger also has a series of icons. Double-tap and entry, and the icons will appear along the left edge of the screen. But the icons are nonstandard. That made them confusing, at least the first time I saw them:
But the icons are useful. For example, the single red X icon deletes an entry. The blue and green arrows pointing left and right interchange the currencies in a single entry. And the red and green triangles pointing up and down give you the history of a particular two-currency exchange rate. For example, over the last few days, has the dollar gained on the euro, or lost? Here’s a look at a sample history screen; the green triangles indicate days when the U.S. dollar gained on the euro:
Unfortunately, there is no easy way to figure out how the icons work, mainly because Xchanger lacks a Help screen. So you will have to experiment a bit, then remember what you discovered. But I did find this video, courtesy of NokiaN8Blog.info, which shows some of Xchanger’s icons in action:
Xchanger is available now on Ovi Store. The current release, v1.24, runs on Nokia advanced Symbian touchscreen smartphones. While Xchanger is free, it requires an open Internet connection, so local data charges could apply. Then again, you could use Xchanger to convert those charges into another currency…preferably one with fewer zeroes!
Forget your fantasies of a jet car. With JetEx from JETI you get to fly a jet truck. Simple one-button control combines with good physics and fun levels for a great diversion.
JetEx is available as a free (ad-sponsored) or paid (ad-free) experience for Nokia smartphones with touch interfaces. I tested the paid version on my N8.
The gameplay is conceptually simple. Start the game and your JetEx delivery truck begins rolling along road segments suspended in the sky. Soon your road segment ends and another one appears a short distance ahead. Touch anywhere on the screen to fire your flight rocket, gain altitude, and come to rest on the next road segment, which will also end. Repeat until you deliver the box or run out of fuel.
Use your jet engine to reach the next road segment.
There’s a good physics engine behind this Qt-based game, which allows for some deceptively subtle tactics once you get the hang of it. For example, after the first level or two you realize you need to conserve fuel by flying as little as possible. That makes it tempting to just “run off” the end of the roadway and fly later. If you do, though, you’ll tilt forward because the front of your truck starts falling while your rear wheels are still on the road. To stay level, apply a little “puff” of thrust just before take-off.
A little puff before the cliff keeps your truck level.
Sometimes, though, you might actually want to use that tilt in your favor. The direction of thrust of your engine depends on how your truck is oriented.
Tilt your truck to use jet thrust to fly forward.
Before you get too crazy, though, remember the point is to deliver the package. And like many a delivery driver, it seems like you forgot to secure your load. Bounce the truck too much and you’ll lose your cargo.
Out of fuel is the least of your worries when you're upside down with lost cargo!
JetEx is a fun diversion for your children during those long summer drives or for you as you wait in airport lines. It’s easy to learn, offers enough realism to allow you some strategic alternatives, and each level takes only a minute or two to play. And with a free (ad-sponsored) or paid ($0.99 USD ad-free) experience it’s hard to resist.
Scandit is a bar code scanning app that uses the camera function of the Nokia N8 and other phones to give you quick comparison for on-the-spot shopping. It lets you create custom lists of types of items and save them for later comparisons, in case you are not quite at the buy-now point for a given item. Scandit is made by Zurich-based Mirasense, which maintains a wide-ranging database of scanned items, and links to current prices on those items. Whether or not the items you scan can be found in the Scandit databases may be a function of where you are located and at what stores you shop.
I loaded this free app onto my Nokia N8 and took it for a spin at my local grocery store. When I got to the cereal isle, I started scanning. First, though, I created a list called Cereals so that I had a good place to store my scans for that type of item. On the bottom row of the screen below, the middle icon is My Lists. I clicked on that, and then on the plus sign to add a list, and typed in “Cereals”.
Now I was ready to scan. I clicked on the Scan icon in the lower left of the screen, and it fired up my camera function. As you can see in the screen below, the app asks you to align the bar code into the white rectangle that it displays, so that it can start its bar code reading.
Once the bar code is within the white rectangle, the app recognizes it so quickly that I barely had time to capture a screen snap.
Once it recognizes the bar code, it fills in the icon, tells you the price range at other retailers, and lets you add it to a list of your choice using the Add to List button. In this case, the higher prices at $17 were there because Amazon.com and others sell 5-box units rather than ship single boxes, so it actually represented a lower per-box price. I added the item to my Cereals list, and also checked on what other stores might be carrying it.
As the screen below shows, the comparative prices are from stores listed in the Mirasense database, and your locality might have different vendors than the ones listed below.
For example, I was shopping in San Francisco, California, at a major grocery chain called Safeway, which was not listed in the Mirasense comparison. Safeway is large enough to have its own store-branded cereals in an organic line called Eating Right, and when I scanned one of those cereal boxes, I got the screen below indicating that the product was unknown to the Scandit database. As the Scandit database expands, more and more of these items will be incorporated, but it is a good thing to keep in mind while comparing local prices.
For a product that Scandit does recognize, it can carry the process through all the way to an online purchase. Below, for example, I had scanned an Irish oatmeal box in one store, and could buy it at a totally different online store even while I was still standing in the first store.
The Scandit app also is designed to have links to Facebook and Twitter that allow you to share a particular bargain that you may have found with friends. However, at this writing in early July, the app says that the addition of that function is still a few weeks away.
Overall, I found this app to be handy for comparison shopping of nationally-known brands. When its database is built out farther and when the Share function is fully implemented, I think it could be a truly impressive app.
Scandit is available for free in Nokia’s Ovi Store. It works with the Nokia N8, Nokia E7, the Nokia C7, and the Nokia C7 Astound.
If you enjoy chatting like I do, then IM+ All-in-One Messenger by Shape Services is the app to use. The application allows you to connect to your preferred chat messengers simultaneously or you can specifically choose from the list of chat client services. The free version which I currently use on my Nokia C7 offers seven popular Social Network services: Facebook, Google Talk, ICQ, Jabber, MSN, MySpace, and Yahoo.
Like any other Instant Message application, it requires connecting to the Internet. It is easy to sign into your account and you do not have to repeatedly type in your login information.
With the IM+ you can have multiple conversations at the same time, hide offline contacts, view online buddies and you are alerted with a ringtone when a buddy comes online. You have the option to set your status as “available” or “away”. Alternatively, you can customize your status message, sort your contacts by groups or nicknames and enable or disable the group(s) of your choice.
There are aspects of the application that are worth mentioning such as the avatar option which allows you to disable avatars for a better view of all your contacts, while the zoom enables you to choose from three options (small, medium and large) of how you want your contacts displayed. Another nice touch of this app is the search selection which allows for direct search of your friends instead of having to scroll through your contact list.
Your chat session can also be saved and you can add or delete contacts at your will.
During your conversation, your response from that of your counterpart is differentiated by color, so you never get confused during the process. In the event of a lost connection or a phone lock, you will get a missed message notification once reconnected.
It’s also worthy to note that you are able to view links from this application; although once clicked, you will be directed away from the app.
Despite the cool attractions that this application offers, it lags in a few areas. There is a short delay in real time responses in comparison to when chatting using a PC. On rare occasions, the screen freezes then boots you off. Additionally, it saps out the battery life when left on for long and I could really do without the Ads that are displayed at the bottom of the screen. Another issue that I noticed with this app is that it doesn’t automatically log you off even when you have logged on elsewhere.
To sum up, IM+ is a handy app that truly mimics your typical chat client and offers a lot of decent features just like a regular chat messenger. Although there are few glitches, it is a good mobile app that saves RAM, helps you stay connected on several chat platforms especially on the go and it is not too shabby since it is free. So, if chatting is of great importance to you then IM+ is a useful and user-friendly application to use.
Imagine combining an arcade game like Pong with a motion-detecting system like Wii. Now imagine it shrunk to fit on a GPS-equipped Nokia phone. You’ve imagined Bjong. You’ve also imagined a huge amount of fun.
Bjong is a motion-activated game for selected Nokia S60 phones published by Team Action Zone of Finland. The player controls the motion of the game by moving their body around – that is, by walking and running, preferably in a large and open outdoor space.
Bjong represents a new way of interacting with your phone that some have called ‘mobile exergaming’. ‘Mobile’, because you play on your mobile phone. ‘Exer-’ because you get a good workout while playing. And ‘gaming’ because, well, you are playing a game.
In Bjong’s case, the game involves moving a cartoon snail across the bottom of your phone’s screen in order to hit one or more foot/soccer balls and eat ‘yummies’. You get points for hitting the ball, eating yummies, and even moving. But if you miss three balls, allowing them to get past your snail, the game ends.
In the screenshot below, you can see that I am playing with two balls, one of which my snail is about to hit. The game has just begun, so I still have all three footballs, as shown in the upper left corner. I have so far accumulated 404 points. And my snail has 20 per cent of his energy (more on this later). The little pink berries are ‘yummies’ in various stages of descent. And the purple cluster just to the left of the higher ball are poison berries, something I want my snail to avoid.
You move the snail by walking or running. Walk to your right, and the snail slowly moves right. Run, and your snail moves faster. Stand still, and so does your snail.
To make this happen, Bjong uses your phone’s GPS. When you launch the game, you are first asked to wait a moment while the game and your phone GPS synchronize. Then you are asked to walk to your right – a kind of sample movement that Bjong uses to further synchronize itself. Then the game can translate your personal movement on the ground into the snail’s movement on the screen.
The real fun comes from Bjong’s many options. These greatly affect the game’s level of difficulty – and your level of physical exertion. Here are the highlights:
- Number of footballs: You can set this from 1 to 3, giving yourself 1, 2 or 3 balls to watch. The balls interact, too. They bounce off each other, changing course just when you least expect it.
- Area: This determines how far you need to run to move your snail. There are five options: XS (extra small), S (small), M (medium), L (large), XL (extra large). The XS setting lets you play in a line as short as 5 metres (or 16.4 feet), while XL extends to an exhausting 500 metres (1,640 feet). How energetic are you feeling today?
- Difficulty Level: There are three settings — Easy, Normal, Hard. These seem to control the speed of the balls.
Next, here’s a look at the Settings screen. You can see I have set the game at Normal difficulty, in a small area, and with two footballs:
Because Bjong tracks your points, you can play against yourself for the highest possible score. Points are awarded each time you hit a football or eat a yummie. You also get points for simply moving — 1 point for every metre you move.
As I mentioned, your snail can gain energy levels, which are expressed as percentages. These are gained or lost by eating either yummies or poison berries. If your snail gets to 100 per cent, you gain what’s known as ‘smash bonus’. When this happens, you get 5x the normal points. For example, instead of getting 1 point for moving one metre, you would get 5.
Keep a game going long enough, and you gain an extra football. Apparently, up to three of these bonus balls are possible. I say ‘apparently’ because I was never able to keep a game going long enough to find out!
As I mentioned, a game ends when you miss the football three times. As I discovered, if you have more than one ball in play at once, missing three of them is quite easy:
Once a game has ended, you can view your scorecard. It show your points, distance moved, number of hits, time elapsed, even the estimated number of calories you burned:
Now what if you are a true couch potato, someone who is practically allergic to sunlight and fresh air? No problem. Bjong can also be played indoors in what is known as ‘joystick mode’. To activate this, fire up the game, and instead of walking right, enter the following commands: for touchscreen phones, tap the top of the screen, then the bottom, then the top again, and the bottom again. For non-touchscreen phones, enter this combination on your keypad: 5-8-5-8. Either way, you should see this screen, and then you can play Bjong while sitting down:
Overall, I found Bjong a lot of fun. When the game is cranked up to its most difficult settings, it is also very, very challenging. You will also get some exercise. Without really noticing it, I managed to work up a good sweat while playing Bjong.
To see Bjong in action, check out the videos on Bjong’s YouTube channel. Here is one of the videos – it shows the game being played alongside a lake, while waiting for a bus, on snowshoes, even while riding on Segways. Also, the music in the video is the same music you will hear while playing Bjong:
Bjong is available on Ovi Store, and it costs $1.99 (USD). So get off your snail, and give Bjong a try!
