Although Widsets, the service which Nokia launched in 2006 is still alive despite it saying it will become part of the OVI Store, the service is surely going to close down. Many are therefore going to focus on the new popular widgets format such as the Facebook widget for S60 touch phones like the N97 and the 5800 XpressMusic.
One such new widget is from Bloomberg, a company that brings you up to date news from around the world and other financial services. This widget has been shown repeatedly on the N97 during demonstrations, and it is finally available in alpha for Symbian-powered handsets with web runtime. Although only S60 3rd edition is mentioned as supported on the download site, Rita was able to install the widget on her Nokia 5800XpressMusic. She confirms that it works and is the same one as the widget available for the Nokia N97. Following are a few screenshots taken from Bloomberg running on S60 3rd then S60 5th edition.
The application loads up quite fast and has a little counter showing how many news items it is downloading. It offers 3 different main views: News, Markets (with Equity, Commodities, Bonds and Currencies subcategories), and My Stocks which allow you to add your own stocks to follow. On S60 3rd, these views are accessed through the Options menu, whereas on S60 5th, they are available on the bottom of the widget for quick access. There is also a search tab that lets you search through stocks quickly. It also offers a Settings page to configure what category of news you want to see.
The Bloomberg widget is finger friendly on S60 5th, and rotates to landscape mode moving the quick access icons to the right. It is available to download for free from http://m.bloomberg.com/ (let’s hope it gets to the Ovi Store soon) and if that has awakened your interest for some more, you can also browse around their mobile friendly website at http://mobile.bloomberg.com.
[Thanks to Symbian France for the heads up]
