Today YouTube announced a new mobile client beta. After playing with it for a few minutes I have to say that there are features that i like and some which i dislike. To be honest for now the list of the "dislikes" is a bit longer than that "likes".
The first thing that stands out is "my account" section. This is something i miss from emTube which I will be comparing this client to. I do have a few subscribed channels on YouTube so viewing them instead of searching for each user is a nice feature. Another strike is the lack of full screen support. If this is an application that is supposed to allow you to entertain then it should be playable in full screen mode and not just a postage stamp size window. It seems like the whole interface is flash based. The side volume buttons on N95 do not work with this release (maybe in the future). Another strike I noticed is the lack of "auto rotation". Come on people... it's there so why not use it. Scrolling down the list of "dislikes" is a weird behaviour...when the backlight timed out and the phone's screensaver came on, video playback stopped. I had to press any button to "wake up" the program. This may be a "feature" but in my book it's crap. The program should sense that you're playing something and disallow the phone to go into screen saver mode. There's not even an option in the menu to keep the backlight on. Next was the impossibility to save the files locally which for obvious reasons is a copyright protection feature but it still would be nice to have it. Overall I'm not impressed with this application. At this point my list of cons is way too long to like this application. It sort of reminds me of Yahoo GO java client...it's too limited, takes over the phone too much, doesn't feel like native Symbian application (which i believe it is) and for the time being I think I'll stick with emTube from Sebastian (download from http://www.emtube.yoyo.pl/ )
Tiger Direct has the US version of Nokia N95 available for $499. This looks to be the lowest price so far for a rand new device. Flock to Tiger to get your N95-3 happiness. (Tax in IL, FL and some other states but no tax in NY)
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A recent law change in Poland is causing some unusual effect. The Office of Competition and Customer Protection (UOKiK) implemented a new law that is supposed to protect customers.
This law forbids false advertising and thus protecting the customers. This includes such deals as "Airline tickets for 1PLN (about $0.50)" or "special promotions on lets say satellite tv service "FREE" for six months (but the tiny print says that you must sign up for some other crap etc etc). The dumb side effect of such law is shown in the picture. Look at the word that's blacked out. It says "the finest". Well..this law now prohibits to use such words as the best, finest, free, the biggest, the smartest etc if they are not true or can not be justified. This example shows how stupid the implementation is... this is a box of green tea that I purchased at Tesco in my home town. The word "the finest" in Polish is blacked out as it can not be proven that this particular green tea is in reality "the finest". Some dodo apparently did not understand English well enough because the lower part (in English) is intact. So now comes N95 or any other "smart" phone...the last thing that we need is for some idiot to start screaming that the phone is not "smart" and voila...any company that will say so will be breaking the law in Poland. Obviously I can not say publicly that my N95 is THE BEST because someone will say that I'm breaking the law because in their (not right) mind their RAZR will be THE BEST. God...what is this world coming down to...For all I know, and I don't care if I'm breaking the law, My N95 IS THE BEST.
Nokia N Series of devices are no doubt the greatest devices for the non APAC users. I make this statement due to the fact that I've never been in Japan and thus have never had a chance to experience "phones" with Aquos display or Kitty Kat Harajuku funky WiBro fingerprint scanner 8 MP cameras. For the less fortunate folks we have N95, N82 and other N's in the line. One of the cool applications which I do not think get enough recognition or comments is the video editor. After capturing the video you can launch the no brain Muvee Auto Producer. One of the earlier companies that I had a pleasure to deal with and use their device was now defunct Sendo. I was drooling over their Sendo X from the beginning. Then Sendo went belly up. Sendo X was also the first device that I remember that had editing capability built in. Unfortunately it was lacking video editing and allowed only for "overlay graphics" on still images. The thing that I liked about Sendo was their way of thinking; Sendo was designing their "S60" devices with one thing in mind... "Give them the content and they will use the device". Because of that Sendo X came preloaded with a LARGE number of image editing overlays. The title of this post leads one to think that it's all about Muvee Auto Producer that comes preloaded non N series devices. Muvee AP relies on a little "add-ons" called Muvee Styles which apply different styles to videos. Unfortunately the the preloaded ones are very basic and going to muvee.com doesn't lead to any additional content. Luckily we are in the world of googling which leads us to more sites with Muvee styles.
Point your N's browser to the below address or scan it with your phone to get 8 additional styles free of charge
http://wap.muvee.com
Gotta love Nokia. And thank GOD Verizon came to their senses too by deciding to ditch CDMA
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