Nokia Maps content updated

No matter if you can’t live without it, or use it rarely the good news is that Nokia Maps content has been updated. To be sure that digital maps stored on your memory card are up to date I connected my E71 to my PC (via USB, choosing connection type for mass storage) and I activated Nokia Maps Loader. The application checked the card and suggested me updating content for selected areas. Choose countries interesting for you, wait until download of a few megabytes will be completed and.. it is done! 

Skyfire 0.85 for S60 available!

Hot news! Long awaited new version of Skyfire browser is finally available for selected S60 phones, including Nokia E71. The browser can be downloaded directly on your mobile at get.skyfire.com. New version marked as 0.85, which is offered for Windows Mobile devices for some time brings a lot of new features and redesigned user interface. More details soon!

N-Gage games on E71!

Did you know it is possible to run N-Gage games on your E71? One of blog readers mailed me about a YouTube video showing N-Gage installed on Nokia E71, which is of course not supporting N-Gage platform. I’ve contacted with author of this presentation (in Spanish) and it appeared to be no fake at all! Check by yourself!

Of course the actions required to play the N-Gage games on E71 involves hacking its operating system, but if you are gaming enthusiast it might be worth trying. Whole process of hacking your OS and installing particular N-Gage client app can be found at dotsis.com forum.

Author of the presentation – RayanMX runs a very interesting page about mobile solutions, including S60 platform. If you are interested feel free to visit PoderPDA.com (ATTN! Habla Usted Espanol? The page is in Spanish!)

MyPhone? Make your Nokia iPhone like

Last week I have installed on my E71 a very interesting application for S60-based devices. Even if your phone (like E71) doesn’t have a touchscreen or accelerometer it can have iPhone-like menu! It is possible with application called MyPhone.

The application’s installation is very easy and all you need to do is to start it. Suddenly, your E71 menu changes into an iPhone inspired menu. Thanks to MyPhone, instead of icons known from standard S60 themes, your E71 menu presents 12 large Apple-like icons. Four of them, located in a bottom row, are fixed. They lead user to most common features: SMS, Contacts, Call and Lock.

Other icons are accessible by pressing side blue function keys. This is the most iPhone-like feature, because MyPhone makes menu smoothly animated. It looks really cool! Check the original movie in here. The application icons lead of course to native Nokia components, like Calendar or Messaging, and user installed applications, like Nokia Maps or Quick Office. Some shortcuts lead to flash applications build in to MyPhone. Try Call icon and you will get a dialing keyboard, looking almost as the one from iPhone. What’s more? Try Weather icon. Input city name, what which scale you want to use (F or C), choose ‘Done’ and voila! You are offered a useful RSS reader too. One more good idea is pulling on a desktop some features, which are usually hidden deep in Symbian settings submenus. I’d say putting Podcast, Calculator, or Bluetooth to the main screen could be helpful for some users.

OK, we know the pros now it is time to say what are the cons? For the moment MyPhone makes some parts on your Nokia looking like Apple product, but of course it is not fully consistent. That’s because there are some limitations in changing Symbian UI. If you lock E71 with MyPhone Lock feature, lower status bar, responsible for displaying ‘Unlock’ label, still will be displayed customized in actual installed theme. Moreover some icons lead to applications not present on your device, so you cannon activate it. There some universal icons which you can assign to your specific applications, but it requires an additional task manager installed on the phone.

MyPhone makes clock, signal strength and battery level visible in upper status bar, so if don’t like or don’t need typical Symbian main screen you may enjoy using MyPhone instead. More information about MyPhone, videos, tutorials, and news can be found at All About MyPhone page. Enjoy!

S60 Prototype – most wanted theme

When I was writing a post about preparing phone for software update I had no idea that so many of you will ask what theme I used. Well, the theme you were asking about is S60 prototype originally available on flahorn’ deviantart page. It was presented by E71blog with a few more other themes as well. I hope you will enjoy it!

Before you update yours E71! (or other S60 phones)

OK I’ve got mine phone finally updated, but I thought it is a good idea to write – how to make software update as least harmful for the user as possible?

What do I need to do before changing software?

Please keep in mind to have a battery fully charged. I really mean it! Yesterday Nokia Software Update tool was trying to download the update at least several times before it was successful. Why? Most probably servers were busy and transfer has been interrupted several times. All this time your phone is connected to your PC using USB cable in PC Suite mode. Remember that the phone’s battery is not recharging at this time.

Make your personal data safe! Do you synchronize your phone with your Outlook, or other PIM applications via PC Suite? Yes? That’s good, but it’s NOT enough! Using PC Suite create a full backup copy before starting upgrading process. What about files and applications installed in your phone memory? The BEST, FASTEST and EASIEST way of saving your personal data is making a copy of your phone memory on a memory card. Please make by choosing: Tools > Memory > Options > Back up Phone Memory and wait until it will be competed.

The final step is making your memory card safe as well. If you use any ciphering or coding tools please remove passwords and switch it off, because in other way after update the card might be inaccessible. To be sure about the card I simply removed it from the phone before running NSU tool.

Please take care about a computer using for software update as well. Use only build-in USB ports, instead of those in docking stations or hubs. If you are using laptop make use it’s battery is fully enough to support whole process. Be aware of stability of your system too! It is wise to close all applications which could make system crash during updating your phone.

How to behave during the process?

Be patient and don’t panic! As NSU suggests do not interrupt the process by disconnecting phone from your computer or closing application. As I said it might happen that the NSU downloading process will be interrupted. Simply please try again.

It is no longer my phone!

Right, after successful update process your phone will be as new as taken out of the box. No contacts, photos, or applications. The fastest way to restore it is to use memory card with a copy done before. Use path: Tools > Memory > Options > Restore from card. Few minutes and it is done! Most of your information and applications installed in phone memory should be back. It may happen that some of them disappear or won’t be running properly. Just reinstall those apps, some of them might ask for serial number again.

What if something went wrong? It just happens, so please do not panic, don’t blame yourself and contact your local Nokia Care Center for assistance.

E71 alive after software update

Ok, it’s late, but finally I managed to download software update and my E71 is fine with new software. Now it’s time for observation. Hear you soon!

Nokia E71 software update is here!

The NSU page finally shows a software update available for my E71 country code (Poland). I hope soon I will be able to share here my very first experience of a new software version. Check your codes in the meantime!

WLAN enters more and more phones – Sony Ericsson W705

After a premiere of Nokia E63 we could have noticed that the Company had decided to remove a GPS module, but as it is still considered as a business device WLAN is a must-be. Have you observed that more and more, even cheaper, phones are equipped with WiFi modules?

Sony Ericsson announced a few days ago a new Walkman series device – W705 with WLAN module of course. You can find W705 short review in here. I’m curious how often you use wireless module in your phones? For me it was a main reason for buying N80, which was my previous phone. Now I enjoy it even more with E71. I’m sure in a music device it will be useful as well.

Change your skin with Opera Mini 4.2 beta

While most of us are still waiting for software update for Nokia E71, you can update Opera Mini browser to new beta version marked as 4.2. New features mentioned in change log are: supporting skins, new proxy server for customers in Americas and Asia-Pacific region, mobile YouTube (m.youtube.com) support on Nokia and Sony Ericsson devices, synchronization on Notes with Opera desktop version.

As a European user I don’t see it actually working any faster, but I hope it will be more stable. I really enjoy the skins because it allows to make Opera more like your current theme. Regarding YouTube the mobile version still doesn’t work on my E71. It starts Real Player but that’s all. Am I doing anything wrong?

You can get new beta by visiting www.operamini.com/beta/ with yuor desktop or pointing your mobile directly to: mini.opera.com/beta.