Spotify’s mobile app has been available on Symbian/S60 phones (including most Nokia smartphones and some Sony Ericssons and Samsungs – see a full list of supported phones here) for a few weeks now, and I’ve had a chance to try it on my N78, and also compare the Nokia app to the iPhone version.

Spotify Mobile allows users to stream a huge catalogue of music over WiFi or 3G and, crucially, to store 3,333 tracks in offline playlists. The Spotify Mobile app is free to download, but you’ll need a Spotify Premium account to use it, which costs £9.99 a month.

Downloading and installing is a breeze. Just access m.spotify.com on your mobile browser, and you’ll automatically get the appropriate version. Once installed, just enter your Spotify username and password and the playlists from your desktop version of Spotify appear.

Various Symbian phones look to have different onscreen layouts – neccessary, of course, as the various phones have different sized screens.

On the N78, the app’s main screen offers four options: Playlists, to view your playlists; Search, to search the entire Spotify catalogue; Home, to view the latest releases on Spotify; and More, with options for connection mode and syncing.

You can search the catalogue by track, album or artist, and enjoy instant playback, just as you would via the desktop version. If you find a track or album you like, you can easily add it to an existing playlist, or create a new one.

The Now Playing screen offers a big cover image, with the usual pause, skip, and rewind/fast forward options. Holding forward or back makes a large time elapsed display appear over the cover image, so you can easily find your favourite bit of a particular track.

Sound quality is fantastic, streaming at 320 kbps, which is twice the quality of many MP3 files, and higher than iTunes’ highest quality Plus downloads, which are 256 kbps. I listened with a set of Bose earbuds plugged into the phone’s jack, and also connected the phone to my HiFi, and was very impressed. There was a big improvement over MP3s played through Nokia’s music player, and a noticeable absence of any background noise. And, of course, with a Premium subscription there are absolutely no adverts.

For many, the killer feature of Spotify Mobile will be the offline mode. And I’m here to tell you it works a treat. Just select which playlists you’d like to make available offline, and syncing will begin. I set my app to sync when connected to WiFi, which is obviously the fastest option. It took between 5 and 10 minutes to download each album, so the initial sync takes a while. But it’s worth it. Once synced, those tracks are there for you to enjoy whenever you like with or without an online connection.

By my reckoning each track takes up around 6MB of storage space, so storing 3,333 tracks will require the best part of 20GB of memory cardage. This highlights a slight problem, as the biggest MicroSD card currently available for the N78 is 16GB, although Sandisk are set to release a 32GB card in the near future.

I also had a quick play with the iPhone Spotify app to compare. Features-wise, it was very similar, although I found it difficult to add new playlists on the iPhone, and overall preferred the Nokia app’s onscreen layout. Also, in a big win for the Nokia app, Spotify can be minimised and play in the background while you use the phone for other tasks. On the iPhone, because of Apple’s restrictions, Spotify can’t be minimised, and must be shut down to take a call or read a text.

Overall, Spotify Mobile is a must have for any Nokia Smartphone or Symbian phone user, genuinely putting a world of music in your pocket.

More Spotify posts

Music, Technology

Hal Graham, the first man to officially fly a rocketbelt, has died. The following is an edited extract from The Rocketbelt Caper:

Harold ‘Hal’ Graham was a 27-year-old science graduate from Buffalo who had been working for the Bell Aircraft Company as a test engineer for just over a year when he was selected to be the first man to pilot the rocketbelt – the iconic flying jetpack created by engineer Wendell Moore.

It would be Graham’s first taste of flying. He was not a registered pilot, and the only machine he had previous experience of driving was a car. He was, however, a rocketbelt fan, having grown up with Buck Rogers comics and Commando Cody serials. When Bell began to ask around for a volunteer to fly the rocketbelt he had no hesitation in applying for the job.

Graham’s first tethered flight took place in March 1961. These flights took place in a large aircraft hangar. The rocketbelt was suspended from the ceiling, and small amounts of thrust were used to generate moderate lift. 36 tethered flights later, it was time for the safety ropes to come off.

The very first untethered rocketbelt flight took place at seven in the morning on 20 April 1961. A 20-man Bell crew gathered at an empty clearing near the Bell plant on Buffalo’s Niagara Falls Boulevard and opposite the Niagara Falls Municipal Airport, which had been specially closed for 30 minutes. The crew ran through a detailed checklist in preparation for the flight.

Then Graham, wearing a black rubber suit, white helmet, work boots, and goggles, released the throttle in a short burst to check the propulsion. All seemed fine. Again he released the throttle, this time successfully lifting the belt around 18 inches from the ground in a thick cloud of steam, and piloted it in a straight line at a speed of around ten miles per hour.

The noise was incredible – an explosive roar of gas as loud as a pneumatic drill. And visibility was poor – almost zero according to Graham – due to condensation created by the rocket exhaust.

On the first free rocketbelt flight Hal Graham flew for 13 seconds and covered a distance of 112 feet – eight feet less than the Wright Brothers had covered in their inaugural flight. It was nevertheless a thoroughly triumphant debut.

Following the success of the test flight, Bell executives were keen to unveil the remarkable device to the public. After 28 test flights, Wendell Moore was satisfied enough to agree to a public demonstration.

The first public rocketbelt flight took place at Fort Eustis, Virginia, on 8 June 1961 at a demonstration of new technologies. Light bulbs flashed and film reels rolled as Graham piloted the rocketbelt into the air, legs swinging below him. Against a backdrop of Air Force planes, Graham maneuvered the rocketbelt over a truck, and higher into the sky. He flew to around 15 feet, and then descended, bouncing slightly as he landed on his feet. Graham then offered a salute.

After removing his fire suit, Graham was mobbed by the press. Microphones were thrust into his face, and pencils jotted down every word he said. Bell officials handed out press releases which began, ‘Harold M Graham is believed to be the first man to fly with back-carried rocket equipment.’

The story made the front pages across the US. The New York Times headline read, ‘Portable army rocket propels man 150 feet in 11-second test flight.’ Life magazine said, ‘Graham was strapped to a hydrogen peroxide-fuelled rocket. The Army hopes it will someday make all foot soldiers look like Buck Rogers.’

One week later, Graham demonstrated the rocketbelt on the front lawn of the Pentagon in Washington DC in front of a huge crowd of military personnel.

Then, in October 1961, Graham, Moore and the Bell crew travelled to Fort Bragg in North Carolina to participate in another military demonstration, this time as part of a display of combat readiness. The demonstration was performed in front of a notable guest of honor – President John F Kennedy.

Graham, wearing a US Army uniform, took off from an amphibious landing vehicle, flew across a pond in a spray of water, and landed 14 seconds later on a sand embankment in front of JFK. Graham remembered to salute but forgot to depressurize the belt in the excitement of the moment, although he managed to remain on the ground. ‘Mr Kennedy was described by an Army Officer sitting near him as “wide eyed and open mouthed, just like a kid”,’ reported the Buffalo Evening News.

The public interest and publicity surrounding Graham and the rocketbelt generated much correspondence. Letters requesting public appearances began to flood the Bell offices. One man wrote to Bell requesting the use of the rocketbelt in order to claim a $1 million treasure trove that, he claimed, he could only reach with the use of the belt. Suspicious Bell executives turned the request down.

Although Hal Graham could now proficiently fly the rocketbelt, he was still not a registered airplane pilot. In November 1961 he decided to do something about that. He began to take flying lessons, and qualified for his pilot’s license in July 1962. That year also saw the debut of the B-Series rocketbelt. The new belt was engineered to reduce weight, and, as rocketbelt pilot, Graham was kitted out in a brand new bright yellow flight suit.

But Hal Graham’s short career as a rocketbelt pilot was coming to an end. During an ill-fated demonstration at Cape Canaveral, Graham fell 22 feet, landed on his head, and was knocked unconscious. He survived the crash, but decided to get out of the rocketbelt business. Graham made 83 untethered rocketbelt flights during his time at Bell, but he left the company in 1962 to pursue his new love of flying traditional aircraft. He set up his own one-man, one-plane charter flight company in Crossville, Tennessee.

Hal Graham died in Nashville on 22 October 2009, aged 75.

Watch Hal Graham fly the rocketbelt (YouTube)
Read The Rocketbelt Caper

Books, Technology

Newcastle Brown Ale will not longer be brewed on Tyneside, Scottish & Newcastle has announced, making you wonder what appreciation anyone at the brewing conglomerate has of its world famous brand. Brewing will be shifted to Tadcaster, but the drink will still be labelled ‘Newcastle’ and sold by the boatload around the world. What a sham.

In fact, the last true bottle of Newcastle Brown Ale was brewed in April 2005, after which S&N’s Tyne brewery was closed and demolished, and production was moved across the River Tyne to Gateshead, at the Federation Brewery. The ‘Fed’ will now close, with the loss of 63 jobs.

Given that Scottish & Newcastle has previously closed its Edinburgh brewery, you could be forgiven for suggesting that it should now just call itself ‘&’.

Created by Colonel Jim Porter in 1925, Newcastle Brown Ale is one of the world’s most famous and bestselling beers. But if it isn’t brewed in Newcastle – or at least on Tyneside – then shouldn’t the famous name be abandoned?

Certainly, there’d be hell on if Geordies started producing champagne. That’s because of the appellation control that prevents food and drink from being manufactured outside specific regions. So Melton Mowbray pork pies, Parma ham, Jersey Royal potatoes, Feta cheese, Dutch Gouda and Welsh lamb are all protected.

But there is no such protection for Newcastle Brown Ale. I, for one, will never buy it again until its place of manufacture matches the name on the bottle. Now I’m off to Greggs of Gosforth to buy a Cornish pasty.

I co-edited and contributed reviews to The Non-Beardy Beer Book.

Miscellaneous

Taken: DVD Review

Liam Neeson is a former Government “preventer”, which basically means he can do karate and shoot some guns. But he has given that up to be closer to his estranged daughter, who is meant to be 17 but inexplicably acts like she’s 12, skipping around in pigtails, yelling “Daddy!” and cuddling ponies. Then she does what all 17-year-old girls dream of – she heads off with an equally gormless friend to Europe to follow hip young rock cobblers U2 on tour.

Unluckily, within minutes of arriving in an apparently lawless backwater known as Paris, France, the two girls are kidnapped by a people trafficking gang, chained to a mucky bed and shot full of heroin. Luckily, Liam knows a man who can work computers, and soon he has the name of the gang boss, and a private flight to Paris.

There he crashes cars, blows up buildings, shoots a policeman’s innocent wife, and murders 40 or 50 henchmen. He rescues another kidnapped girl, leaves her in a grubby hotel connected to a drip and conveniently forgets about her. His daughter’s thick mate suffers a worse fate – Liam finds her dead in a pile of sick. Cue 15 seconds of sad eyes, then back to the action.

Eventually, he tracks down his daughter, in chains and a bikini, up to the eyeballs in ‘skag’, and sold to a big fat sheik. Liam shoots more henchman, then shoots the sheik, and whisks his daughter back home.

Thankfully, despite being brutally kidnapped, hooked on heroin, presumably repeatedly raped, and experiencing the horrible death of her best friend, she appears to have made a complete recovery in time for an airport reunion with her mother (“Mommy!”) and loaded stepfather. Everyone is happy. (Except, presumably, for the dead mate’s parents.)

Probably the best brainless action flick available on DVD from Asda for £3 since Crank.

3/5

Film