It’s been a while since we mentioned anything about Symbian apps so here’s a nice FREE one to keep you busy, Incredible Circus by Developers  INDT is a cute loosely physics based game where you star as a circus stunt performer, your objective is straight-forward: get to the top platform. But as always it’s not that simple, you have to bounce off walls, through barrels, past blindfolded knive throwers and Fire breathers to get there.

Blast through cannons on 32 levels as a bodysuited daredevil. Use elastic bands and trampolines to jump above obstacles or through fire rings, remembering to avoid falling and cracking your helmet. Be on the lookout for fire breathers as you bounce walls on multiple combos in the pursuit of cheers and trophies. The fun goes on as more and more circuses open their doors for this incredible stuntman.

Most importantly, the app itself IS NOT ported form any other OS as far as I can tell, which would explain why it’s wonderfully smooth from start to finish, the design is gorgeous and the graphics are quite nice.

Once you start the game you get a simple enough menu witha  backdrop of our hero/circus performer.

Once you choose to play you can select which ‘circus you want to preform in’ (currently they’re are only two available but it says “Coming soon” on the third so expect some updates.

Of course as is usual you get to the level select, where you can only reach the next level by beating the previous level (which of course constantly get harder and more frustrating).

Drag the stretchy cord down to hurl your fearless stuntman from platform to platform, or into walls if you feel like it…

Your score is calculated based on where you land on the platform (Middle =Perfect 150 points, to the side = 80 points, at the edges = 30 points), try to get as many perfects as possible in a row to get a multiplication bonus!

Once you reach the final platform you receive a trophy depending on how well you did (Gold/Silver/Bronze).

Over all Incredible Circus is a entertaining app (possibly addictive), at first I expected an Angry birds rip-off so I pushed back trying it out; but once I played around on it I’d say it’s a mix between “Cut the Rope” and “Doodle Jump” with an interesting twist of it’s own. Definitely a game worth trying out, especially since it’s free!

Link: http://store.ovi.com/content/214283 (currently available for all S^3 devices- regardless of version)

*Of course I was stupid enough to download this game the night of my Oral Pathology Final….. Goodbye Adenoid Cystic Carcinoma; Hello Circus Performer (If I don’t stop playing I’ll probably end up a circus performer myself)

HAPPY NEW YEAR Nokia Fans and Employees!

I’m not exactly sure how many of you are racing enthusiasts, even if you aren’t I suggest you try this app (Yes I’m recommending the app before even starting the review, here’s why). Personally I consider myself an above-average car fan, nothing over the top but just enough to get excited when I see a rare car (I don’t follow ANY championships AT ALL), but I was interested in the WRC because one of the legs/tracks is actually in Jerash, Jordan- seen above (that’s where I am YAY!- I was planning on checking it out with some friends but we totally forgot about it).

Well a quick re-cap anyways, the 2011 season is of course over, won by Sebastian Loeb  for the eighth time straight, I would not want to mess with this guy, I’ve tried rally driving on Gran Turismo 5 and IT IS HARD!!! so that’s a serious achievement. The 2012 season starts sometime late January, and if you’re interested in cars at all I suggest you keep this app with you till then.

The Review:

Nokias’ WRC Live app is available for all Nokia platforms from S40 to Windows Phone- (Exclusive for Nokia Lumias) & Meego too! FOR FREE.  The app itself is EXTREMELY thorough, it has everything from normal news, to championship rankings, to hall of fame, and of course it has content Exclusive to the app not even available on the official WRC.com from images to videos to live text commentary.

Now as mentioned above I’ve never followed a single racing event (Except what I hear on TopGear – Salute to Jezzah, Hamster and James for my favorite show), so I wasn’t expecting much once I installed the app (My initial intention was just a quick review to enter the contest- more on that later); but I was honestly surprised once I saw how awesome the app was.

From a developers point of view the integration of the app into the OS is really impressive (tested on S^3/N8-00), I assume it’s written in QT (not sure how to check) which would explain why it’s really smooth. For an app with as much content as this I expected slow stuttering performance with the occasional un-responsiveness, but none of that was there at all. Transition from one topic/content section to another is nice and fluid with no apparent lag.

One thing I really liked about the app was the integration of the phone’s status onto it, something as simple as informing me that my battery is low is a nice touch that proves that the app was made by someone who understands how the OS runs (of course being an official Nokia app they should).

Once you open the app after the initial loading screen (first screen-shot) you get to the screen above/ home-screen, as you can see you can select between news (the bar on-top automatically refreshes giving you the latest news. To the left under “just finished” you’ll find a re-cap of the latest race (in this case the final race of the season in Wales), and on the right you can access ALOT of information about whatever you want, be it Race results, Drivers history/hall of fame, or exclusive media.

News:

Once you select the “News” tab you’ll find a list of articles even in the off season (23rd of Dec. = today), which means you can stay on top of things even when the seasons over, best part is it’s not an RSS feed, it’s a full news app; meaning no need to open the browser for more pictures/details jsut tap on it and you’re there. You can even share the news article through Facebook or Email!

Live Text- commentary, Race Overview & Championship Standings-

Simple but effective, live updates for you on the go brings you twitter feeds with the “#WRC” hashtag as well as official updates for when you’re not in front of the TV.

The WRC Live App even has a Route Overview which shows you the track/course outline on our favorite Ovi/Nokia Maps (another sign of how well integrated this app is, reminds me of sportstracker a bit; except instead of running/hiking your zooming through mud, sand and snow)

You can even turn on Itinerary/split time records to get detailed info about how long it takes each racer to finish each leg/lap, plus the split difference between the racers!

Of course you can always check the rally results at any time to see what the standing of your favorite driver is under Championship Standings,  where you can find detailed results for every single leg of the  rally so far including what position each driver got and what their total score is.

Drivers/Teams-

Here you can find all the information about every driver participating in the rally along with a nice list of ‘Hall of Famers” each with more information about their career history than a Wikipedia page.

Anyone else notice “The Stig” ???

Media Content:

As mentioned before the app contains Exclusive Images and Videos (that’s how Nokia rolls, none of that mainstream stuff) from crashes to interviews to race round-ups, unfortunately for some reason I wasn’t able to view any of the videos as I kept on getting a server error. (Can someone check if it’s a wide-spread problem or only me?)

Thankfully though the images were working fine, and that by itself is a treat; some of the images available are truly breathtaking, capable of conveying the intensity and sheer awesomeness involved in the World Rally Championship. Which is of course the main point of this whole app; so well done on that front Nokia

Of course you can also choose to share these photos via email/Facebook as well, so you have no excuse not to spread the racing fever.

Wrap-up:

Throughout the whole experience of this app I only felt that two things were missing; (well not missing, probably just because this app spoiled me so much that I found myself craving for more). Anyways if possible two things I’d like to see are:

• The ability to save/download media content onto your own mobile device, or at least be able to set them as wallpaper. (If I can share them with others I might as well help myself first)
• A little silly but I felt that the app could use some background music, maybe at least through the first loading screen; something rally related, maybe some engines roaring or crowds cheering- Just my own personal crazy opinion.

The Nokia WRC app is truly something worth downloading, it has more content than most “premium/paid” apps and it runs as smooth as you could hope for; head on over to the Nokia store to download it.

http://store.ovi.com/content/128268

Or if you’re still not convinced watch our quick video review (not really that quick):

And heres the official preview video by Nokia:

How to Win a Lumia 800-

(I know it’s the part most of you are here for), The people over at Nokia connects are running a competition, simply all you have to do is review the Nokia WRC app and share it to enter the competition to win a Lumia 800.

- As I was saying above I was planning on doing a tiny review in the comments section about the app, just to enter the competition, but once I tried the app it felt unfair to sum it up in 50 words. Good Luck.

In case you’re interested here are some shots of 2011 season (showing Nokias partnership with the WRC, as well as some awesome looking cars)

Of course you can find a bunch more over at Nokia Connects Flickr Page or at the Official WRC Website (contains alot of the images available through the app):

http://www.flickr.com/photos/nokiaconnects/sets/72157628536008907/

http://www.wrc.com/fanzone/gallery/

This is NOT my “two weeks on” review, a little rant if you may. Anything from here-on in is solely speculation.( And massive wishful thinking.)

I was digging around in the system files, and came across the icons used throughout the system. Some of which I altered, such as Firefox(Fennec), which I swapped out the standard “Fox on the World Globe” with an already present “Squircle” of the same thing. Nothing major, but it goes better seeing as my other icons are all squircles. (I’m a bit OCD like that.)

Anyway, changing icons is not my point. My point is as I was going through these icons I noticed a few things. First is an AT&T logo. (As far as I know, they only offer service in the US, if I’m wrong please tell me). Why include a carrier for a market that won’t receive the phone? Second exciting thing is the inclusion of Skype video call icons, as well as a “telephony video call” and “telephony video call selected” icon, which I believe is for 3G video calling, as the other calling icons have similar naming. Also, services such as AOL, ICQ, MSN, Baidu, Doppler, Qik, Last FM, Tippit, MySpace, Yandex, Vimeo, IMDB, Wikipedia, Shazam and the Layar Augmented Reality Browser are present. I’m not aware that these services are currently integrated with the device, so why include them in “hidden system files”?

I noticed a post in Nokia Discussions where an employee states that Skype does not have video calling, “yet”. Could the icon indicate it’s coming? I do know Peregrine will support the feature in their next update, but frankly, I prefer non-third party clients. (By third party I mean I want a Skype app by Skype and not a client like Peregrine.)

Didn’t Nokia say Shazam was going to come pre-loaded? Did they just leave it, and many other things, out of the FW intentionally, to make the update seem better?

In the same folders, there are files for keyboards as well. Will we see more keyboards added, or could we even see a community keyboard? As you can see from the file path, there is a “Themes” folder. Could we also see community developed themes? Customisation on the N9 could be nice, well at least in my opinion.

I could just be looking too deep into these sorta things. Maybe it’s wishful thinking. I don’t know. Sorry about a weird post, just felt like I had to share.

Michael

Just an FYI/ Helpful tip for our Symbian friends.

To anyone that has not received the new Ovi Store update or needs to re-download the Ovi Store for any reason, here is the link to the Ovi Store download:

http://store.ovi.com/content/5406

I suggest bookmarking the link on your PC for future use.

After clicking on the link, log into your Ovi Store account and click “Send to Mobile”. After receiveing the text message and clicking it to open the link , the latest Ovi Store will be installed to your phone.

I just reinstalled the store after messing it up with random QT installs.

Even though the picture on the web store shows the S^1 store, the Ovi Installer will download the latest version to your phone. The version number is 2.08.042 and should have a matching number for the Ovi Store installer.

I hope this is useful to someone.

UPDATE: One of our readers has pointed out another way, one that my benefit more users, to obtain the Ovi Store sis file via direct download from the Ovi Store:

albin says:

Great. You can also download the sis file to your PC using /download method. Good for people who dont have data plans or Wi-fi.
http://store.ovi.com/content/5406/download

Thanks albin!

And rest assured, the things that didn’t make it in the video weren’t as exciting, like me wasting time looking for food at the event or breaking my nails doing this bit…

Well on the 18th August there was this event called the #NokiaBox well known Nokia bloggers around the world where invited to take part in an event organised by the awesome people at WOMWorld/Nokia thay deffinitly know how to organise creative and fun events, some blogs started rumblings on what the event could be about, some said the N8 officially going for sale, some said the N9 launching (REALLY!!!) but in the end it wasn’t it was all about the C6.

via tracyandmatt.co.uk

What do you get when you combine a great game on the greatest gaming console ever created (IMO ) with the most underrated phone on the planet. Yep you guessed it some AMAZING gaming on the N900 I wonder how many phones can do this huh?

Now at these Apple keynotes at the end of the keynote Steve usually shows off a video where  basically Apple’s management get together and try to sell their products as hard as they can using words as “Magical”, “Revolutionary” and so forth.

Now with this particular iPhone 4 video Scott Forstall was talking about how “FaceTime” (Video calling) was gonna change everything again and how Apple are all about connecting people. Now you heard that right, CONNECTING PEOPLE!!! Nokia’s slogan for like donkeys years, and now Apple come in and bring out bullshit statements on how they are gonna change how people will communicate forever using Video calling feature, a technology so old that no one cares any more.

Well as Nokia has a pretty big social network web presence they posted their response on their official blog which you can read here by saying:

“we are flattered”

pretty funny and light hearted I would say.

I will admit that we haven’t seen a comparable device from Nokia in years or what the media want to call the “iPhone” killer but when was the last time Apple released REVOLUTIONARY features to the iPhone since its original introduction in 2007 ?

Now I don’t mean a 5 megapixel camera or LED flash or wallpapers, REAL REVOLUTIONARY things, well i cant remember.

Apple  are at this phase now where they are coasting and releasing small features and because they are Apple the media will still pee in their pants for excitement, when a traditional handset maker makes incremental upgrades they get slated, anyway just wanted to release some anger based on the treatment Nokia the media.

Let me know what you think in the comments

Now back to the World Cup for me

Connect4.

You can play in single player mode against the computer or go against a person in two player mode. Drop your discs and connect 4. Simple, but really fun.

To download, you have to find it in the Ovi Store.(I can’t link it to you as you’ll just get, “Sorry this item is no longer available” as accessing the store is account-based.

Unfortunately, (at time of writing) it’s horrendously difficult to search for apps using the actual app’s name on Ovi Store. I don’t know why.

Go to the Games directory and filter out “Show Free only”.

[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pX7zqfUwuB0]

(More demo vids in next post – gtg)

There’s an addicting game over at themapsters.com that tests out your knowledge of world geography; and if you’re good enough, your high score could get you the Nokia 6120 Navigator, Navigation Licence to unlock the full potential of your Nokia Maps software and even some mapster toys! Maptor’s my personal favourite already, haha.

The game is actually on the bottom right of the screen. I clicked select Mapster at first and just got confused as to how that was addictive, but the actual proper game itself is quite fun. A name of a city appears and you must, against the clock, get your map pin centered as close as you can to where you think it is. Then submit your score along with your email and you could if your score is high enough get a prize. The more times you play, the more city locations you’ll (hopefully) remember.

Below you’ll see my shocking 3641km miss of Moscow. Hey, at least I was still in Russia. :p

I have 2 hours left to do a day’s worth of packing as I’m moving out to Uni again, but gonna play some more and try and get Maptor! Aww, look at that tail!