Does everyone try to kill iPhone?

It seems that every single month a new iPhone killer appears on the market. We all know G1 prepared together by: HTC, Google and T-Mobile. The same title was given to Nokia N97, which is not yet on the market. Two business players – Strom from Blackberry and reincarnated Palm were also announced as direct competitors to Apple’s selling hit. Now it seems the press will give this name to one more touch-UI device. This time it’s going to be new Samsung ACME i8910. Unofficial pictures of this iPhone killer are posted at gaj-it.com blog. According to unofficial of course specifications it has very multimedia oriented features like HDMI output support and ‘so-called’ HD recording. It will be offered in 8GB and 16GB variants.

I’m wondering when the gossip about next iPhone killer will finish and someone will simply say that all modern high-end phones are looking all the same now

New MyPhone trial available!

Sometime ago I wrote a post describing a smart application called MyPhone, which changes E71 (and other S60 devices) user interface into Apple’s iPhone-like one. The application was not perfect then, but a lot of bug fixing and changes have been implemented since that date. What’s more interesting the new MyPhone version offers limited trial version. If you are interested in feel free to check it.

Bitter ‘Conversation’ on E71

One of most promising projects from Nokia Labs – Conversation has been updated lately and now is available for more S60 devices, including Nokia E71.

The idea of application is very easy and seems to be useful. Very often you send someone a text message (SMS) and in a minute he or she responds the same way. You answer back and conversation is ready! The application gathers messages sent to and from a particular person using consistent UI, adds a picture stored in contact book and allows writing messages directly from its interface. Thanks to Conversation a SMS-based conversation looks like IM application window, well known from your PC or iPhone.

If you like to try, you can now install it on your E71 after checking detail installation instruction. Nokia E71 seems to be a perfect phone for this kind app but I have a few bitter words about Conversation. Why does it show messages stored in my archive folders? Why does it show a kind of blank messages for delivery reports? For me it absolutely spoils the usability of the application. I’d say this feature is needed and useful, but still there is a lot of work to be done. What are your opinions?

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!

Nokia E71 instead of iPhone 3G?

See Into S60, one of official S60′ blogs has published a commentary about Joel on Software blog. Joel posted an impression about having Nokia E71, instead of iPhone 3G. He uses phrases like “This is the best phone I’ve ever had. I love it.” I hope you enjoy reading it here, and visiting See Into S60 as well.

Nokia e71 and Apple iPhone

Nokia e71 and Apple iPhone, originally uploaded by Dexte-r.

I’m sure you can find many places in the Internet saying that e71 is a really pretty device. If you want to check some pictures showing both Nokia e71 and Apple iPhone please enjoy!

Full set of pictures is available on flickr: here.