Make the GPS Lock Faster
One thing about the GPS on the smartphone such as the N95 is that it take minutes to lock the satellites and starts the GPS functions. It annoy when you really want to actually use it (lost and in hurry). Here are some tips from All about Symbian could help you relievable the pain:
- First and foremost, make sure that your device has the latest firmware. In many cases, new firmware means support for Assisted GPS, a way of vastly speeding up GPS acquisition time - see my piece on this on AAS.
- Make 100% sure that ‘Settings | General | Positioning | Positioning server’ has the right access point - it should be set to your main 3G data provider, e.g. ‘Vodafone live’ or ‘Orange Internet’. If this is wrong, then GPS locks will be several minutes at least on many S60 phones.
- Make sure you’re in an area of data coverage - being stuck in the wilds or in a valley will mean no data, which in turn means no Assisted GPS.
- Don’t try and get a GPS lock while moving, unless there’s absolutely no alternative. It’s hard enough as it is for your phone to lock onto half a dozen satellites whizzing overhead at thousands of miles per hour - adding in extra complications by moving the device itself just slows down lock times considerably.
- Be realistic if you are moving or if there are tall buildings around, or if you’re in a vehicle with an incomplete view of the sky - locks may take several minutes. The reason why dedicated sat-navs can acquire GPS locks more quickly in these challenging circumstances is that they have higher power, more sensitive receivers on board - the GPS inside most smartphones tends to be of lower power, to save battery life.
- Don’t cover up the GPS antenna. On the N95, this is at the bottom of the keypad, so extend the slide. Find out where the GPS antenna is on your device and don’t cover it with your hand during use - human flesh is reasonably good at blocking radio waves.
Wish this helps.
The Hidden N95 Game Keys
It’s reported that the coming new N96 has dedicate game key for the coming N-Gage games. It turned out N95 has had it already. Check out this video:
By the way, try http://www.n96pro.com so you know we are here for a long run.
Nokia N95-3 Firmware Upgrade Review
Sergio Aguayo from The Nokia Blog has a wonderful review on the latest N95-3 firmware upgrade, which is 20.2.011. According to Aguayo:
Demand Paging
This update at last implements on-demand paging on this device. The effect is quite noticeable: with the old firmware I had 70MB RAM free, while I now have 83MB. Note that this includes the antivirus. Besides the obvious free RAM, I also feel the phone more responsive and with a better startup time. Another performance improvement I have noticed is in the camera startup and processing time. Now it is really usable.
Flash
Also in this update if Flash Lite 3, the long awaited Flash update for this model. Functionality is now up to the experience described for the N95 8GB. I could watch some videos from within the web browser.
Browser
However there are some bad points in this update. The web browser is somewhat unstable, crashing sometime when I enter to Settings. Also I have a bug with WLANs which makes the phone not recognize a WLAN I have defined and asks the access details again. This creates another access point in the Access Point configuration in the form of “MyWLAN (1)”. This wasn’t there in any previous version (11.x, 10.x).
Menu
I liked the way the menus were in previous versions. They didn’t change from 10.x to 11.x. However in this version they have gone, in my opinion, a somewhat big redesign. While they are better organized, it adds extra clicks to get where you want. Anyway, you could tweak your menu to make it appear similar to previous versions.
Developers
If you’re a developer you’ll have problems with on-device debug. I recommend installing AppTRK version 2.8.9 (which comes with Carbide.C++ 1.3.1), as previous versions will not work.
Nice work!
Google Map 2.1 for S60 is Out
Reported by All About symbian, the Google Map 2.1 for S60 is out, and yes, it means the N95 too. To get it, go to http://m.google.com on your N95 and follow the “Google Maps (Download)” link.
So far the noticed changes are:
- Zooming in and out is slicker/clearer
- Several speed improvements
- Favourites sharing with Nokia Maps, Route 66, and others
- Tweaked menu structure
- Route junctions are shown with a diamond icon
- Extra languages are supported
Regardless, the most applauded feature is still the location showing without GPS. It’ll be nice that feature can be utilized and accessed by other applications or application developers.
Finally Free Windows Live Messenger on N95
If use Windows Live Messenger on PC like I do, you must felt the pain that you can’t do that on your N95 unless you pay for certain software. Well, pain no more. Here at Nokia you can have it for free now. Apparently it just made available to the US and other countries. Can’t understand why it’s not there at the first place. Sometime Nokia acts very odd. Something like they have this wonderful motion sensor on N95 but they don’t use it until now (only from lab software) and allow iPhone stole all the thunders.
Only If You Love Reading This Much
What I mean is that you would even read book on you N95. Do you? I’d be really admiring you if you do. But why not? Here are the two software you can try.
Yes, that means your N95 will do. eReader is a long standing eBook store which provides some of the current best sellers in eBook form, protected via its own form of DRM. They provides a version of their reader for multiple platforms. However a few years ago they seemed to lose interest in support Symbian OS handsets, but under the new ownership of Fictionwise this seems to be changing.
Mobipocket backed by Amazon
This one has long history and feature wise has no big different from the eReader. Those features are such as full screen mode, the ability too look up words, bookmarks, autoscroll, font and text settings. If you do use N95, these are all you need.
BTW, if you enjoy classics or those public domain ebooks, head to Memoware or Baen. Both software mentioned work well with those freebes.
N95-3 and N95-4 Get Firmware Update
If you are lucky Nokia N95-3 and N95-4 owner, it’s your lucky day. Both of them get firmware update.
N95-3: V 20.2.011
- suports WRT (web run time widget)
- Flash Lite 3
- pagging
- Still no automatic screen rotation
No change log yet.
N95-4: V 20.2.005
No change log yet but believe there won’t be too much new features, if it has some at all.
You can go to Nokia Software Update (NSU) for the update.
Raise a Pet from within your N95
Not sure why you want to this but as a dog owner I’m sure it’s lot easier to have a virtual pet than the real deal. So the WidSets Pets might be just your thing.
Nokia WidSets is a widget platform that allows you create all sorts of micro application to later download to your phone, say N95, to run it. The app could be many things such as RSS feed or, pets.
The WidSets Pets is a facebook application where you can create or care your pet. Then, you can use your N95 to do all the pets things. If you’re the caring, sharing type you can also adopt your friends’ pets if you want to give them a good home and make sure they’re properly fed and nourished. You’ll need to pay close attention to their love, intellect, social skills, looks, hunger/thirst and fame and they can be demanding little beggers.
If you like this, you must have way too much free time.
