We're back, and so is a whole cavalcade of mobile news
It's the weekly Pocket Picks round-up
If you're a follower of our sister site, Pocket Picks, then you'll probably be aware we had a bit of an extended downtime earlier this month, which resulted in a two-week hiatus for the Pocket Picks round-up. But that's behind us now and we're pleased to be back with a new and improved site packed to bursting with all sorts of cool mobile related stuff. So without further ado, it's time to take a look at what's been happening over the last seven days.
A Pocket Picks round-up just wouldn't feel right without a glut of iPhone news to kick things off and there was certainly no shortage of the past week. First, we found out about Apple cuddling up to various companies in order to boost the iPhone's business functionality. This was later mutedly confirmed with the discovery of an Apple job listing requesting someone to help get Microsoft Exchange up and running on the iPhone.
Apple also announced that rabid fans of its must-have device in the UK can now purchase five of the things as opposed to the previous purchase limit of two. And there was the emergence of not one, but two iPhone GPS modules, which should help placate those waiting for a 3G iPhone announcement.
Not content with leaving things there, this was followed by the unveiling of an iPhone PlayStation emulator. And in the meantime, we took the time to look at UK TV Guide and Fox News (the things we do in the line of work, eh?) web apps for the device, before delivering the only verdict that counts about the iPhone experience as a whole (hint: Pocket Picks', obviously).
Moving on, and Nokia had a reasonably big week, too. There was the emergence of various beta apps, including Nokia Internet Radio, Nokia PC Phone and a clever independent application called YTPlayer, which unsurprisingly is a full on YouTube search and play application for the S60.
The really big news, however, was the announcement of the belated launch of the new N-Gage platform on the N81, which should have gaming thumbsters quaking with anticipation (if perhaps understandably a little worried at Nokia's low-key approach to the whole thing). Elsewhere Nokia also filed a patent for a new type of fingerprint interface – look out iPhone!
To counter this positivity, though, there was the unfortunate news that the London Nokia flagship store will not be opening before Christmas because construction was rained off during the summer. Good old British weather…
So what else has been happening? To be precise, lots; The Cloud partnered with Vyke to offer users of the mobile VoIP service free wi-fi access, 3 launched its own all-you-can-eat music service, called Non Stop Music, YouTube viral gurus started mocking Google's Android, and SMS messages turned 15 years old.
Application-wise the week was a blowout with all sorts of stuff cropping up. There was the S60 wi-fi finder, named HandyWi, a birthday calendar known as Friendzee, a GSM signal blocker – Phone Timer (handy for when you want a rest but can't bring yourself to switch off your pride and joy) – and Truphone announced that its mobile VoIP app is now interoperable with Google Talk, which is ace.
In quirkier news, a very talented animator put the new Samsung G800's 5MP camera through its paces in a very cool stop-motion animation short and some god-like being figured out how to turn the N95 into a motion-sensing remote control for a radio controlled car (why were things like this not available when we were young enough to ask Santa for them?).
Not exactly a quiet week, then, and here's to many more news-packed round-ups. Click 'Track It!' to catch the next one same time, same place next week.