Just a short note to say that, as expected, the E71's cheaper sister, the E63, has also gotten itself a firmware update, this time to v200 firmware update (via Nokia Software Updater), adding in Ovi Contacts. Screens and comment over at The Symbian Blog.

Over on the Lazarus like Mobile Industry Review, the other Ewan in mobile has posted an ambitious yet simple plan to save the Ovi Store from itself. Simply put, Nokia would create three enclaves of coders (in London, San Francisco and Paris) and give them a monthly stipend of £3,500 and as much coca cola and pizza as they can eat. As long as they code one application every eight weeks, the proposed 100 developers per warehouse get to stay. Total cost? Roughly £2.34 per handset. That's quite high, but this is a fascinating idea that should be taken seriously.

In All About Symbian Podcast 138, Rafe talks to Lee Williams, Executive Director of the Symbian Foundation. The interview covers a wide range of topics, including the Symbian Foundation's planned application arena, the universal web runtime, the forthcoming Symbian Exchange and Exposition, Qt and the Symbian Foundation, the challenges of openness and open governance, and more.

An updated firmware, version 300.21.012, is now available for both the Nokia E71 and E66 (previous version was 210.xx.xxx). This is a major firmware update for the Nokia E71 and E66. The new firmware can be downloaded and installed via Nokia Software Updater.

Yep, it's another update to Google native S60 YouTube client, to v2.2.6, though note that this seems to be more about increasing compatibility - there are no performance improvements, you still can't log in to YouTube and it still doesn't work full-screen on the Nokia 5800. Ah well, at least it shows the development team is active! You can grab v2.2.6 via m.google.com on your phone.

Ovi Contacts, originally Nokia Chat, integrates the standard S60 contact list with a proprietary instant messaging and presence/status system. It has just had an update that brings it close to formal release status and includes much wider compatibilty, including support for the Nokia N97 and 5800 XpressMusic. The next step, presumably, is to start building this into more phones (the Nokia 5630 XpressMusic, Nokia 5730 XpressMusic and Nokia 6720 classic) already have it. Data-phobes should note that Ovi Contacts requires an online connection and will consume a small amount of bandwidth. Maps lookups are integrated into Ovi Maps.

It's official. After months of beta testing, Nokia has released Ovi Maps (née Nokia Maps) 3.0 to the world for most (but not all) S60 3rd Edition FP1, FP2 and S60 5th Edition phones. The download is a 20MB Windows installer, so you do have to own a PC, but there's a little note on the Ovi Maps download page saying that Mac support is 'coming soon'. I certainly hope so. See also Rafe's preview of this release, here on AAS.

Faced with a dead Nokia N86 that refused to charge, I didn't panic - armed with the luxury of some of other devices to hand, I was able to get the N86 and its battery revived and working properly. And, in the process, learned that all Nokia's batteries are electrically interchangeable. Maybe these concept will save the day when your precious S60 phone appears to have died? At the very least, add this to your 'Things to try' check list!

Nokia has also released v400.34.011 firmware for the diminutive E51, bringing "improvements and increased stability in Mail for Exchange and SMS reception". It also "improves stability and usability for VoIP and WLAN" and "robustness improvements when pressing the Home key". 'Stability improvements' and 'Robustness improvements' are of course Nokia speak for fixing bugs(!), but we're not complaining. Do note that the E51 is old enough not to have User Data Preservation, so do a full backup to memory card before using Nokia Software Update and then restore again afterwards. And make a note of any critical email or application settings - you know the drill.

The Phones Show 84 is now public (embedded below too), with a reprise commentary on the Nokia E75, a hands-on review of the Nokia N86 8MP and a interview with the Symbian Foundation's Executive Director Lee Williams, asking him some of your questions, on the subjects of robot duck overlords, LTE, touchscreens, open source OS and, of course, which phone does he personally use(!)

Not as sexy as the N97's update, no doubt, but the Nokia N96 has always underperformed and I'm hoping that v30.033 firmware, also released today, will help the beleaguered flagship-of-2008 come up to par. v30 is a 6MB over-the-air update and installed smoothly on my N96. The previous firmware version was v20, by the way. Some brief comments below.

The popular proxy-based, media-friendly (and free) browser, Skyfire, has just had a significant update, to v1.0.0.12114, adding a reduced memory footprint and a long list of bug fixes (detailed below). You can upgrade by going to http://get.skyfire.com on your S60 3rd Edition phone. There's still no S60 5th Edition version, sadly.

"Breathe, breathe in the air"... So sang Pink Floyd in 1973. And now it's competition time here on AAS. Inspired to give away some N79 hardware, I've put together a video competition, embedded below. All you've got to do is work out how many phones I'm showing and what they are. Easy, eh? The first correct answer in the comments wins. Only one go each, mind you, so guess well...

Nokia is previewing its upcoming Messaging/IM hybrid application by releasing a Java-hosted test version for just the E75, over on Beta Labs. This is the only S60 phone (so far) with permanent full access to Nokia Messaging as a service, but presumably functionality from this will spread in the coming months, as well as it getting wider compatibility. More details below, if you've got an E75, if use either Yahoo Messanger or Ovi Chat, if you don't mind its Java nature, and if you fancy giving this a whirl.