WirelessIRC for S60 3rd Edition - showcased and reviewed

Published by Steve Litchfield at 16:52 BST, September 11th 2007

It’s back, it’s compatible and it’s polished. Ewan reviews WirelessIRC, the ultimate chat application now available for all S60 3rd Edition smartphones. IRC may be geeky, but there are still a lot of users out there and this app looks like it could extend their conversations for another few years.

"You might have heard a little shout of joy back in August from a number of AAS writers and readers. That noise was the return of our prodigal application onto S60 3rd Edition. When Mobileways.de decided to update the classic Wireless IRC – previously only available on the 7650 and 3650 – to run on the latest S60 devices, a massive cheer went up around the Symbian fans still using #mobitopia as their chat channel.

I’ve covered why I think IRC is still an important factor in a Web 2.0 world back in the original Wireless IRC review (read it here) and most of that still stands. The core message is that a lot of people out there, mostly those of us who have been around a long time, are still using IRC as our chat rooms, and in many cases as a direct IM system. While people go on about Skype, MSN or AIM, there are other options, and to have them available on the phone is a great boon.

Read on

Categories: Software, Editorial Thoughts
Platforms: Series 60, S60 3rd Edition

News Discussion

Tzer2

I wonder if this works with a bluetooth keyboard? That would certainly make the chats a lot easier to keep up with...

ratza

Bluetooth keyboard should work for any filed in which you enter text.

zjl_n93

hope they will implement DCC in a later version. It was great, snapping a pic with my 7650, then instantly sending it to my firends =)

slitchfield

Forwarded from use phonophiliac:

A couple of extras in this app that I’d like to address are posting to del.icio.us and the twitter integration...

By following tweets from sites like AAS, NY Times, ESPN, etc., you can do some nice reading during your down times... For an example of using twitter and del.icio.us posting, as an online link aggregator, check out my del.icio.us account at http://del.icio.us/phonophiliac

With regard to Twitter, it seamlessly posts action commands, keeping your twitter feed up to date all the time... You can check out my oft updated twitter feed here, which is constantly updated, because I am constantly using WirelessIRC http://twitter.com/phono

Further, Janole (the WIRC developer) is working on a very nice update for the just-released app... The update (from what I understand) will have further twitter integration, where your twitter account will appear as its own separate window (with very nice animations and a stylized user interface). I don’t know when the new version will be released publicly, but I hear it’s extremely soon and extremely nice

Finally, you can use the WirelessIRC as an IM Cient! YES IRC and IM Client in the same damned app! There is a little known IRC to IM interface/server called Bitlbee http://www.bitlbee.org

With im.bitlbee.org setup as a server, you can add all your AIM, ICQ, Jabber, MSN and Yahoo buddies for direct chat... They show up in the nicks window when they’re online, and a /msg command, will start a chat with any of your friends online... It is the ultimate web2.0 internet communication app on the S60 3rd edition market... Period!

Sorry this is so long, but there are so many things you can do with WirelessIRC, and it so well written and powerful, I feel that there just can’t be enough good press for this superwickedkiller app!

Best Regards,
Phono

Mahjong for Nokia 7650

Published by Rafe Blandford at 14:47 BST, July 13th 2002

Mahjong for Nokia 7650 is a classic and popular Chinese tile game Mah Jong in Asia running on your Nokia phone. Mahjong fully uses of your Nokia 7650 to show the best of all graphics, sound and give you the highest entertainment.

Features:

- Support languages of English, Chinese and Japanese even on English Nokia 7650
- 4 players playing as real Mah Jong game
- Playing rules conform to Cantonese style
- Realistic human speaking sound effects
- Animated computer players
- Changeable computer players based on difficulty

More @ http://www.m-internet.com

Let’s have a look at Symbian (not EPOC!) by the first device released for each OS version :-

Symbian OS version 5 - Ericsson R380

Believe it or not, the first mobile phone (or should we call it smartphone?) that has Symbian OS inside it is the Ericsson R380 (that was before the mobile phone divisions of Sony and Ericsson joint forces and later known as Sony Ericsson). The Ericsson R380 was nothing compared to today’s crops of Symbian powered devices but this early conception of a smart mobile phone was the face of mobile communications to come.

Freshly baked from the oven, the OS underneath Ericsson R380 was actually EPOC Release 5 Unicode or ER5.1 which in one way or another, was the same OS which powered Psion ER5 devices (eg netBook, 5mx etc). The difference between Psion devices and the R380 was in the UI (User Interface). While Psions are using what is famously known as EIKON, the R380 used a new UI developed by Ericsson called ECK (Ericsson Component Kit). Almost 95% of the OS are identical to the one underneath Psion machines.

However, Ericsson R380 used a closed system where it is impossible for users to add 3rd party application. However, it sold so well that Ericsson decided to release a few different variations of R380 in the shape of R380e and R380world.

R380 uses Jot handwriting recognition as the main data input in flip open mode and in landscape screen orientation. Users can check emails, take notes, browse internet (albeit in a simplified version via WAP) and more. This concepts were great and proves the versatility of Symbian especially the multi-tasking and stability aspects.

The success of R380 prompted Ericsson to develop the UI further which later on morphed into what is today known as UIQ.

Symbian OS version 6 - Nokia 9210

Symbian OS version 6 was made available publicly with the release of Nokia Communicator 9210 which offered more than just a phone. Combining telephony with complex mobile computing, complete with full keyboard, was not easy.

Nokia 9210 is actually an enhanced version of Nokia communicator 9000 series which was made popular in a movie called The Saint. The early 9000 series used an Operating System called GEOS.

Realising the limitation of GEOS, and the potential of Symbian, Nokia decided to concentrate developing better platform for it’s communicator lines. Thus, Series 80 was born, which was taken from Symbian’s early reference design called Crystal.

When this new concept was introduced to the market, there were mixed feelings among consumers because at that time, touch screen interface was everywhere especially in PDAs that use Palm and Windows CE. Many users are not satisfied because 9210 did not have touch screen.

However, it was a hit especially for business users because it provided all in one solution. It’s like a mobile office where users can type documents, send and receive fax, keep important data, emailing as well as making and receiving calls. The ability to provide realtime multitasking made it the first of it’s kind.

Apart from it’s brick size and lack of touch screen it also suffers from lack of memory. And there was this famous quotation about the 9210 that goes "Everything good about 9210 (Series 80) were taken from Psion 5mx while everything bad about it were taken from GEOS".

To address issues that exist in 9210, Nokia reased 9210i, the enhanced version with some minor upgrade.

Symbian OS version 6.1 - Nokia 7650

Nokia is very good when it comes into marketing. The 7650 was dubbed as the world’s first 2.5G mobile phone (whatever that means…), first GSM mobile phone with built in digital camera, etc.

Utilising the new Nokia’s Series 60 UI (Series 60’s firstborn), the 7650 became an instant hit. For the very first time, users are able to experience more than just phone features in a small package appealing to everybody. When it was first released, it is hard to find Series 60 applications but now, thousands of applications have been developed for Series 60 platform. Infact, Series 60 is the is used in more smartphones than any other UIs.

The 7650 is the first breed of this new generation of smartphone. The first Symbian smartphone, Ericsson R380 was badly designed (protruding antenna, loose hinge, closed system etc). After that, Nokia 9210 was released but again, some elements made it not sold very well especially to the mass market, people referred to it as a “brick” that can make calls.

The 7650 was sized right (almost…), it’s pocket friendly, easy to use and packed with features out of the box. Nokia stripped down the UI to make it possible to do everything using one hand. For most users, it’s just a regular phone but for some other users, the possiblity of installing applications and do some advanced stuff like checking emails on the move etc, really makes it stands out from the crowd. These users, the early adopters, are the deciding factors and the driving forces that made Series 60 a dominant market player in smartphone business.

When I had my 7650 last time, I tried almost every applications that is released but because of missing external storage, the 7650 is very-very limited. With only around 3.6MB of internal storage for data and applications, there’s really not much can be thrown inside. For example, in order to install the first version of Opera browser for Series 60, I had to delete everything and made the memory empty. It was that bad… The lack of memory card as storage was really a downer and this made me choose another Symbian smartphone that was just released at that time, Sony Ericsson P800.

Symbian OS - The Device Evolution

Symbian OS - The Device Evolution

By Asri al-Baker

This short article tries to reminisce the evolution of Symbian OS according to the first device released for each OS version. For a brief Introduction To Symbian, I recommend you to read an excellent article by Steve Litchfield at http://3lib.ukonline.co.uk/symbianintro.htm

Recently, Symbian announced the release of Symbian OS version 9 which among others is mainly targeted to the mass market, i.e. The OS is designed to build smartphone and advanced phones which will appeal to average Joes, not only for geeks. Among it’s enhancements are the OS itself where it is designed to make manufacturers produce smartphones in shortest time, minimising the costs and thus, reducing the price of these smartphones. Sounds interesting aint it? There is no consequence or advantages of Symbian OS version 9 yet for the end users. Until devices powered by Symbian OS v9 are availale, let’s just let the people in the lab do their job :-)

What I’m going to write here is something that just pops into my head. It’s about the evolution of Symbian itself as an Operating System of choice for advanced smartphones. Looking back at 5 years ago circa 2000 Anno Domini, there are only talks and prototype presentations of Symbian powered devices. People are sceptical about the potential of the so called modernised Psion’s Operating System. Devices like, Odin and Lyra, which are based on Symbian, as well as Ericsson’s Quartzpad Communicator, brought a very interesting and advanced concepts which at that time, were hard to swallow. I mean, who wants everything inside mobile phone?...

Psion’s Concept device called ODIN

SANYO’s Concept Device called Lyra Ericsson’s Concept Device

It turns out that the idea became a multi-billion dollar industry. Everybody is trying to get a piece of the smartphone pie including the Redmond giant, Microsoft and Palm Source (who once issued a statement that the smartphone market is not as bright as PDA market). More players emerged including Linux, as well as some homegrown proprietary smartphone OS (see GSL Wizard c33).

When Symbian started as a company (a result of Psion’s chairman idea, Dr. David Potter who envisioned that one day, mobile phone will be more than just for receiving and making calls), everybody was waiting for the real device to be released in the market. Prototypes and concept devices were presented but no real device. In early 2000, Ericsson released the R380, the very first commercial Symbian powered smartphone in the world. And the rest, as they said… is history…