TamsS60 - the S60 Blog

Symbian’s latest press release was all over analyst’s web sites literally nits after being posted - in case you didn’t read it yet, here’s an abbreviated version:

TOKYO, Japan – 17 January, 2008 – Symbian Limited, developer and licensor of Symbian OS™, the market-leading operating system for smartphones, today announced that over 30 million phones based on Symbian OS have shipped in Japan up until the end of November 2007.

Symbian’s market share of the NTT DoCoMo FOMA™ market grew in one year from 50% to 65% at the end of H1 2007(Source: Techno Systems Research). To date, a total of 69 mobile phone models based on Symbian OS have launched in Japan by six Symbian customers: Fujitsu, Mitsubishi, Nokia, Motorola, Sharp and Sony Ericsson.

….

Manufactured by
Fujitsu: NTT DoCoMo FOMA F801i; FOMA F905i; FOMA Raku-Raku PHONE IV; FOMA F704i; FOMA F904i; FOMA Raku-Raku PHONE Basic; FOMA F903iBSC; FOMA F903iX HIGH-SPEED; FOMA F703i; FOMA F903i; FOMA Raku-Raku PHONE III; FOMA F902iS; FOMA F702iD; FOMA Raku-Raku PHONE II; FOMA Raku-Raku PHONE; FOMA F902i; FOMA F700iS; FOMA F901iS; FOMA F700i; FOMA F901iC; FOMA F900iC; FOMA F900iT; FOMA F900i; FOMA F2102V; FOMA F2051
Mitsubishi Electric: NTT DoCoMo FOMA D905i; FOMA D704i; FOMA D904i; FOMA D903iTV; FOMA D800iDS; FOMA D703i; FOMA D903i; FOMA D702iF; FOMA D702iBCL; FOMA D902iS; MUSIC PORTER X™; FOMA D702i; Music Porter ™ II; Raku-Raku PHONE Simple; FOMA D902i; FOMA D701i; FOMA D901iS; FOMA D901i
Motorola: NTT DoCoMo FOMA M1000
Sharp: NTT DoCoMo FOMA SH905i; FOMA SH704i; FOMA SH904i; FOMA SH903iTV; FOMA SH703i; FOMA SH903i; FOMA SH702iS; FOMA SH902iSL; FOMA SH902iS; FOMA SH702iD; FOMA SH902i
Sony Ericsson: NTT DoCoMo FOMA SO905i; FOMA SO704i; FOMA SO903iTV; FOMA SO703i; FOMA SO903i; FOMA SO902iWP+; FOMA SO702i; FOMA SO902i
Nokia: NTT DoCoMo FOMA NM850iG; SOFTBANK MOBILE SoftBank X01NK/Nokia E61; SoftBank 705NK/Nokia N73; Vodafone 804NK/Nokia N71; Vodafone 702NKII (Nokia 6680); Vodafone 702NK (Nokia 6630)

via http://www.symbian.com/news/pr/2008/pr20089714.html

30 million is indeed a nice load of devices - but it’s completely irrelevant for S60 developers…

Please keep in mind that Symbian essentially is little more than a kernel - sort of like Linux is. Phone manufacturers put their own UI on top of Symbian in order to create a phone(e.g. S60 or UIQ). In Japan, most Symbian handsets run a custom UI called FOMA - which is incompatible with both S60 and UIQ applications.

So, congratulations to Symbian - but we couldn’t care less…

Back in the age of the Siemens SX1, file managers for S60 devices were dime a dozen. When S60v3 came along, many manufacturers stopped to maintain their applications due to Symbian refusing to certify file managers for the ‘allfiles’ capability giving access to system folders. Lonely Cat Games’s X-plore is one of the few file managers still around - can it beat Nokia’s included one?

After starting up X-plore for the first time, the product displays its tree view interface. Unlike Nokia’s included file manager, X-plore always shows the full directory tree….a big plus:

Most ‘advanced’ operations are launched from the main menu accessible with the left soft key:

X-plore truly excels at handling zip archives. Zip archives are treated as ‘folders’ - and can be created easily on the go:

The program can also search for files(it always searches the contents of the currently selected folder):

An unique concept called ‘Favorite folders’ allows you to define folders that you frequently use. You can then visit them via the menu - without having to traverse the entire file system:

Incoming files can be analyzed by using the ‘messaging’ option:

Hidden/System files can be masked or shown:

Last but not least, the program features Lonely Cat’s classic scalable user interface - changing the size of the font affects the whole application:

This review looked at version 1.20 of X-plore on a Nokia N71. The program needs 416KB of memory and can be installed to an external memory card.

In the end, X-plore is an excellent file manager and can be considered a must-have for power users. The zip support alone is worth the small price of 10€; the additional features and excellent UI make managing files pleasant. Get this app now - you will not regret it!