www.fring.com

Finally, the developers over at fring have been able to design a working application which lets me make skype calls from my symbian phone using a data connection!

You have to fill out your phone number and a few details when u try to download it. The link for the application is sent to you via sms.

Once you install the app and start it, you are greeted with the tradition loading screen.

Once the app has loaded successfully, you to choose if you want to choose Skype or Google Talk or both.

Select your service and press Next to go to the traditional login page

After logging in, Click on Next and it will take you to your contacts list.

You can then test if everything works by calling the ‘fring test call’ contact.

So far, my experience with this app has been pretty good. It even shows you your entire contact list as a part of your skype contacts, EDIT: so that you can call them using GSM service (not SkypeOut like I had previously mentioned). I’ve used the service over wi-fi with my Nokia N91 and the call quality was good and there were no jitters in the sound. But the call volume was quite low and increasing the volume to the max will only increase the volume by a fractional amount. Other than that, this app is definitely a godsend for me.

Yahoo has released a beta version of the improved Yahoo Go! app for symbian phones. The application integrates, Yahoo Search, Local, Mail, Entertainment, Flickr, Weather, News, Sports and Finance into a single application which is compatible on most java enabled cell phones.

Screenshots:

The main reason why this app caught my eye was due to its integration of Yahoo Local, Entertainment and Mail into a single app (= a single shortcut on my phone’s standby screen) as I use them a lot. And since it was designed by Yahoo!, I wasn’t expecting to be disappointed. But I was.

This is why I don’t consider Yahoo Go! to be a good app….yet:

• To start it off, in typical beta fashion, there are only a limited number of downloads available. You have to leave your phone number and Yahoo will send you a text message with the download link (this takes about 4 days).
• The app in itself is really slow. There is a definite (and quite irritating, I might add) lag when switching between items in a page or when switching pages.
• It is plagued by constant “Connection Error, Please try again” messages, even when I’m using wi-fi.
• Yahoo Messenger and Yahoo Calendar are no longer a part of this app.
• And the mother of all bugs : When you let the app connect using wi-fi, and after you find yourself adequately irritated with the slowness, if you disconnect and exit, the app does not terminate the wi-fi connection. The only way to stop the wi-fi connection is to reboot the phone.

I am quite surprised to see that Yahoo has no blog or feedback system in place so that beta testers can contact them about their experiences with the app.

Overall, I am quite disappointed with the app and with Yahoo in general as well. I hope that the final release will be a lot better than the beta version.

Steve Litchfield from AllaboutSymbian has posted some essential tricks and tweaks for your new symbian smartphone. Pimping your smartphone sure is fun. Here are my additions to the list:

• If your network doesn’t support 3G, then go to Tools->Settings->Network and change network mode to GSM.
• If your phone has wi-fi, go to Tools->Settings->Connection->WirelessLAN and set its availability to “never”. This gives some significant boost to your battery life.
• My additions to the task list: MWeather, Tasky and S60 Internet Radio (requires wi-fi or unlimited data plan if u plan to use it for long periods)
• Office-related utilities: Quickoffice viewers for Word (buy to unlock editing functions), Powerpoint and Excel files, Adobe PDF reader. Using the BT keyboard with these can make life quite easy when you have to make to quick edits on the go.
• Nanika Metro and Google Maps (needs internet connection) for quick directions.
• My choice of 3rd party software: Profimail, Smartmovie, Papyrus.
• Games: I only need Tetris.

Digital Lifestyles has reviewed 3’s X-Series. It covers the skype, slingbox and orb services that 3 offers as a part of its x-series package. I am actually waiting for a similar service to be implemented in the US. What interests me most is the skype client. A good robust VOIP client is long overdue for symbian phones, even more so now, since almost all new symbian phones have integrated wi-fi. 3’s skype (iskoot actually) is a step in the right direction. Although the service only allows users to call skype contacts at the moment (no skypeout till early 2007), it still is a promising application. Add 3’s flat-rate pricing and it makes for an enticing deal.

Forum Nokia Blogger Antony Pranata writes about “How to start Symbian C++ development?”. A good read for anyone interested in symbian C++ development, but doesn’t know where to start. As someone who has given thought to developing symbian applications, it was nice introduction to “the tools of the trade”. Bookmarked!