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So today May 8th 2010, I started my Carpe Diem Daily and found today’s task which is “Record a small status video” and a small button saying ‘record’. I found nice to have camera integration, so I could record simple and easy. After recording a small 15 secs video, you are prompted to add a small note and then publish. Then you can share it via twitter.

You can watch my task here http://www.carpediemdaily.com/Tasks/08-May-2010/dcastrog

basically I was checking my facebook and took a small video of me with my booklet.

Suggestions for the developers? Well they could add a small homescreen widget to see the new tasks every day. That could make it better.If you want to make every day a bit more interesting you can find this app on the Ovi Store, and you can visit the Carpe Diem site to see new tasks and other user submissions.

So seize the day, it’s all yours!

dcastrog

With the Ovi Maps (v3.04) exploring new places and getting to your destination is easier and faster than ever. This new Beta release is all about performance improvement.

Get easily to destinations with Drive & Walk, FREE voice guided car and pedestrian navigation for over 70 countries. Preload maps for entire countries on your Nokia GPS phone with Map Loader and enjoy using all these features and services also offline.

Online you can check Weather forecasts & Events around your location or any other in the world. Find thousands of listings for sights, restaurants, hotels, shops, nightlife and more with free travel content by Lonely Planet and Michelin, available for over 1000 destinations. You can even book a hotel room via HRS Hotels, currently available in Germany and Finland, coming to more countries soon.

Share your location with friends on Facebook and let them know what you are up to, right from Ovi Maps. Your status update, photo and location appear on your Facebook page. Your location can be viewed on the map within the Ovi Maps Facebook Application.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xv7B2asC7ok]

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1. Revamp of Ovi Store

2. Revamp of whole Ovi Services (files, share, email, etc)

3. New device with Maemo

4. First Nokia’s Symbian Foundation powered device

5. Your guess???

But we wrong, even when we were almost sure it was about the Ovi Store we were not even near! The big surprise was 10x bigger! Nokia announced that the premium-paid-services on Nokia maps was going to be, from January 21st of 2010, totally Free Forever!

At first it reminded me of Google’s Android announcemente a few months ago that said that their maps where going to be totally free including voice navigation, and though that Nokia was trying to catch up again with the competition. But then I realized that Nokia is a giant global company spanning around all the countries of this earth, against google which is just hatching from the egg. So this implies that the whole nokia user base, calculated thousand of MILLIONS are going to benefit from this announcement

But not only that, since Nokia is so big, they have a great influence on the whole mobile market which they also created. So this means that now voice navigation for free will be expected from every other manufacterer, changing the game related to the satellite navigation. From now and on you can expect Apple, Motorola, RIM, Google, HTC, Samsung, LG, Sony-Ericsson to provide free navigation to their devices. But, Nokia will still have the upper hand, because they are the only company in which maps can be saved in the device and be used without internet, making it usefull for people who don’t want to spend more money to download the maps on the go. And don’t forget who owns Navteq, the ones who get the mapping done!

This means that now satellite navigation will go ‘mainstream’ and you will now see people using it as every other basic function on every phone. This will make the GPS receiver a must have on any phone, just like cameras where set as a standard or every mid-low to high devices. Combine this with the new era of social networks and you will have the Social Location concept, which was first introduced by nokia on december 2008 with the announcement of the N97.

People will now share their physical location with their significant others and not because they couldnt before, there are lots of apps that could do that before, but because it will so ubiquitious that they will have the option on their head more present than before and also because it will become more easy every bit. Also events like concerts and other will be shared more easily.

I can see the future of social location, and it looks sweet! By now you can install the improved-new-free version of Ovi Maps from here, I have tested it and it is a big improvemente form the older Nokia Maps version. I was navigation earlier on my car and saw on the map that there was a mechanic shop on my left, so I turned around and saw something like this:

Which means that even smalls shops have been added to the points of interest! I tried food restaurants and mostly got big chains of food like mcdonalds, subway and peter piper pizza, so I hope they get more and smaller restaurants on the list. This is good for a small mexican town which isnt new york or more important places like mexico city. Is great to have Nokia give a good service and make it free to the masses.

For now, a big thumb for Nokia and hope they can keep improving and innovating. This is their chance to push their other Ovi services to their giant user base.

David Castro

ps. By the way I found this funny when a day before the big announcement nokia mexico was giving away free licences for voice navigation on their twitter account. I though I was smart since I caught 5 licences from them. The day after licences were useless, because Maps was free! LOL

We have been reading lately that Nokia was going to revamp the whole Ovi Store to fix some issues that they have been having since their launch on May 2009, so I guess that is all about, but who knows? Might be something else, and that is just exciting!

Our guesses

1. Revamp of Ovi Store

2. Revamp of whole Ovi Services (files, share, email, etc)

3. New device with Maemo

4. First Nokia’s Symbian Foundation powered device

5. Your guess???

So you can watch the announcement live tomorrow at events.nokia.com at 9:35am GMT, thats about 3:35am on this side of the pond. There is a big counter, and the guest list with lots of familiar names (guess who is on it as dcastrog? So if you feel like waking up early or sleeping late then you might want to see the big announcement.

Cant wait!!

David Castro

ps. by the way I came across with this video, and I liked so much, it’s about the greatness of the Ovi Store, very nice!

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oyO2GJsgnU4&hl=es_ES&fs=1&]

They put the nominees in 8 different categories: Music, Social Networking, Twitter (so important these days that it needs it own category), City Guides and Mapping, Entertainment, News and Info, Games, and finally, Utilities. And let the users vote for their favorite app, at the end they would count the votes and choose the winners. I should tell you who won.

In the Music Category, the winner of the Must Have App is:  Shazam! I really like this app, so useful for those moments when you hear a song but you cant know the song and the singer/band, and asking a friend later won’t help much. A few minutes ago I just heard a song in a tv commercial and wondering “nice song, I like it, I would like to know the name to buy it on the Music Store later”, but no, I dont have Shazam on my phone, YET!

In the Social Networking the only winner is: Nimbuzz! Today the social networks are a very important part of our daily life, so much that we usually use more than one, and that is when Nimbuzz comes along to help. With a large list of supported social networks and instant messengers, Nimbuzz connects you with the people you care, all in one place. No need to have mutiple clients on your phone, just one: Nimbuzz

The winner of the Twitter category is no surprise: Gravity, with universal acclaim it has been named THE twitter app for your phone. With neat and practical interface it makes easier than ever to tweet on the go. There is a 10 day trial on the Ovi Store, so check it out. I really liked it even when I am not a big tweeter fan.

The winner of the City Guides and Mapping is: World Mate 2009. If you are always traveling around then this is for you. It has free content wich includes, world clock, currency converter, weather forecast and so on. But the real value of this app is the paid upgrade which include realtime flight alerts for 350 airlines. You can not miss a flight with this, unless you really want to.

On the Entertainment Category the winner is: SPB TV. Well I have to admit that I have never tested this app, I just tried downloading it from the Ovi Store but looks like it is not working. Bad luck I guess. Anyways, I saw the demo on the developer site and I think it worths it. You get television off the internet, not sure which channels you can get but I bet that they should entertain you. Also it’s suscription free, you just buy the app and you’re done.

In the News and Info category the winner is Accuweather.com. I’m not really sure on this, I have tested this app since the first day I own my N97. Everything works fine, I like the UI, and the widget works perfectly. The only downside of this is that it is not that accurate. I have seen the app tell me that my city is at 30°C and then I see my local weather forecast tell me we are on 20°C. So maybe they should get the info right and I maybe will put it in my homescreen.

In the Game Category the winner is MicroPool s60. I have to say that I’m not a big player of my phone, I prefer a giant tv with killer sound and real graphics. Also I prefer to save my battery for the whole day. But when I’m bored or waiting in a room or something I usually pull my phone to play some games that keep me distracted. One of the games I really like is pool. And Micro Pool is one of he best games I have ever played on a cellphone, they even call it a ‘simulator’ and that means that you get real physics, real sounds and the best graphics you can get.

Finally the winner of the Utilities category we have: Vlingo. The idea behind this app is really good, you talk to your phone and it will do what you want. You can send messages or make notes among other things. And the best thing is that it rarely mishears your words. You talk to it and it will send your voice over internet and then execute your commands. But, sadly, even when you can choose the spanish language, the Vlingo app struggles to understand me when I talk in my native tongue.

So that’s it folks, to get more details visit the App Awards website and get the Must Have Apps of the 2009. Hope we get even better apps for this 2010. Happy New Year .

David Castro

So inside there is an invitation card and says:

Dear David,

You are cordially invited to the Ovi Daily App “Must Have App of the Year” virtual awards 2009. The announcement will be made at blog.ovi.com/dailyapp in january 2010

Please find enclosed some sample applications for your consideration. The ballots open on december 14th 2009 and you will have just seven days to cast your votes in the corresponding categories.

Please watch the video embedded here for further information: blogs.nokia.com/dailyapp/appawards

May the best app win!

(QR code include)

Also, included inside the envelope there is this ultra cool USB stick which includes 6 apps that I will check out very soon. The apps are the following:

1. Fring

2. Nimbuzz

3. Nokia Barcode Reader

4. Touch Note

5. Tweets

6. World Mate

So now, in the following week I’m going to check these apps and then I will cast my vote. Exciting, I know. Keep an eye for more details on the next days! Meanwhile you may check some apps at the Ovi store and visit the Daily App Awards site to cast your own vote!

David CAstro

ps. wondering what does the QR code says?

“Why are you messing around with QR codes? You should be voting!”

Of course!

If you own a nokia device or you’re just a nokia fanboy odds are you have been to the nokia ovi store, even if its just to have a look or browse through the apps, odds are you have been there, its the best place to find games,videos,themes and thousands of applications for your s60v3 and s60v5 smart phones, the only problem with have so many apps, is that as a new user it can be somewhat hard to find the best applications, and those of you who visits the store on a regular bases know that it takes more then just a few clicks of the next button to find what you’re looking for.

luckily Cj’s Nokia Blog  is here to help you find the best apps in the ovi store, here are five of we think are must have applications for your s60v3 smart phones

#5 – Wordsearch

its by far one of the most addictive word games out there, its perfect for people who are always on the go and not have to time to sit and play a long action game, its easy to just pick up and play and its a hold lot of fun

#4- Shazam

so you’re walking down the street and you hear a song playing, and you want to know the name of the song, what do you do? you could go and ask the person who is playing the music the name of the song or you could just take out your phone and start up Shazam, Shazam is identify any tune and tells you the name of the song,the artists and album as well as the options to buy the track right then and there

#3- Nimbuzz

if you’re on Google talk,Windows live,Yahoo,AIM,My space,ICQ,Skype,Facebook,Jabber,Giovani or Gadu-Gadu then you need to get Nimbuzz! from online chat and instant messages to international calls and file sending this app does it all, it pulls all your contacts together in one place, so you can exchange messages with all your friends on all networks

#2- qik

so you’re on the road and on the go and there is a dog dancing on the sidewalk, what do you do? (a) – run away (b) – kill it or (c) – recode it! i’m going to go with (c) and if you going to recode it, you might as well share it online right? With Qik this is easy and simple (the recode and share online part, not the killing and running away part) just start it up and and hit recode, you video is then instantly live on the internet where the world can see it!

#1- Gravity

if you’re on twitter and you have a mobile phone then you need garvity? not gravity as in gravity it self but gravity as in the s60 twitter client It, Gravity is a fully-featured twitter client that supports multiple accounts, Twitter Search, Laconica, Ping.fm, posting of pictures via MobyPicture & TwitPic and it wraps everything into a gorgeous looking interface

We hope this list helped you in one way or the other

it’s finally here, yes! the Ovi Store is up and running, and we here at c.n.b will give you a full review of it, as soon as we can. but for now here are a few screen shots of the oiv store that we got from symbian.smashpop.net

check out the all new OVI store now!