PowerMP3 adds eye candy, FolderPlay learns to pause, YouTube mobile website supports uploads, UTube downloader back online

PowerMP3

Symbian music player PowerMP3 plays mp3, ogg, aac, and mp4 files, and m3u playlists too. It has a sleeptimer, album art display (including the possibility to download album art), and several ways to keep your ringtones out of your music library. PowerMP3 sorts your music by mp3 tags and folder structure.

For all practical purposes PowerMP3 is still in beta testing, but that doesn't stop its maker from selling registration codes for US$25 apiece. The registration process doesn't always work as it should, and since the latest update doesn't add anything useful you may just as well use (or keep using) the last free beta version instead.

The latest version of PowerMP3 comes with extra skins and themes, a new icon (which doesn't look good on dark backgrounds), and PowerMP3 now speaks brazilian portuguese.

But just because PowerMP3 is able to talk brazilian portuguese doesn't mean it is good at playing playlists with brazilian or portuguese songs, or french music, or any other track that has tildas, accents etc. in its file name. PowerMP3 has a very annoying bug that's been left unfixed for ages: songs with characters like ã, é, ç, etc. in their names don't show up in your imported m3u playlists.

If you install PowerMP3 on top of another version and it doesn't work, uninstall the old version first. If the old version won't go away, switch your phone off and back on.

• PowerMP3 from MobiFactor (commercial version) UPDATE: this link expired
• PowerMP3 v1.17b (no registration needed) at Mobile Castle UPDATE: this link expired
• PowerMP3 1.16 (last free version) at MobiFactor UPDATE: this link expired
• PowerMP3 1.16 (last free version) at Mobile Castle UPDATE: this link expired
• older versions of PowerMP3


FolderPlay

Symbian S60 music player FolderPlay looks like a file manager. If you navigate to a folder with music, it plays all songs in that folder, but subfolders are still a problem. If you play a folder with songs and subfolders, it only plays the tracks in the first subfolder and ignores the rest.

FolderPlay plays MP3, AAC, WAV, FLAC, APE, AC3, OGG, and other files, but not WMA.

The latest FolderPlay update fixes bugs in pause and resume, and an APE playback problem was repaired.

There are other ways to play music organised by folders. Music Launcher is similar to FolderPlay, but MusicLauncher does it better if you stick with MP3. PowerMP3 and TTPod sort your music by tags and by folder structure, and there's a folder structure workaround for the built-in Symbian music player.

• FolderPlay


YouTube

The mobile YouTube website m.youtube.com doesn't look different at first glance, but if you log into your YouTube account you'll find that the new mobile YouTube site now supports video uploading, commenting, and other features that used to be available on the full YouTube site only.

• m.youtube.com

Instead of using your browser, you can also watch YouTube videos with Symbian program YouTube for mobile.


UTube

Want to download and save YouTube videos on your phone?

The official YouTube program and mobile website don't support it, but website and mobile Java application UTube does, and you can choose between three video formats (mp4, flv, and 3gp) and different quality settings.

UTube doesn't do much. It just loads its site your mobile phone web browser, which lets you download YouTube videos to your phone. Videos are downloaded to the standard downloads folder of your phone. UTube doesn't have a YouTube search function, so you have to type or copy/paste the full YouTube video URL into the UTube downloader. This means lots of typing or workarounds like saving the page as a temporary bookmark to copy the URL. Instead of installing UTube you could just as well save the UTube downloader site as a bookmark, since all the program does is launch your browser anyway.

UTube moved to a new web address, and the mobile Java application was updated to work with the new URL.

• aztube.co.cc, the UTube downloader website UPDATE: this link expired
• UTube v2.10 beta at Mobile Castle UPDATE: this link expired