N82: auto-rotation and microUSB charging added

Apocalypse over at Symbian-Freak has gotten an exclusive first look at Nokia’s upcoming N82. To quickly update you on the story, the N82 is basically the N95 8GB in candybar shape with added Xenon flash sans the built-in 8GB and the huge screen. This should be the third device that comes pre-installed with N-Gage that is also able to get over-the-air music download from the Nokia Music Store. But the Biggest news comes from the fact that Symbian Freak is reporting that: “Also there is one very handy innovation, auto screen rotation is available and it is a bit different than the one in the iPhone. While the iPhone use screen rotation for few specific only, applications like the Safari, image viewer and the iPod (in the cover flow), Nokia UI allows the rotation almost everywhere, from the main screen to the gaming. The rotation is definitely smoother and looks better with the iPhone, actually to be precise with an iPhone you can actually see the rotation while the Nokia just switch from one to another mode without any kind of transition when rotating.” Before I forget it seems that the device supporting charging via the microUSB!!

All variants of the N95 have the hardware to make auto-rotate happen. Upcoming version 2.0 of rotateMe will give the N95, N95-3 and N95 8GB the ability to auto-rate just by re-orienting the device. But now that this is coming as standard on the N82, chances are this will be added to the N95 via a simple firmware update. It’s seems history is repeating: Do you remember when the N93 pioneered auto-rotation? After that third party apps added this features to phones like N73 and N80. By simply selecting this option you could re-orient the screen. Afterwards, the N95 became the first device without a physically rotating screen that could re-orientate the display. Something that was only possible with third part apps has become standard a feature in the firmware. Now the same thing will happen when the N82 is released. The future looks very Wii-esque with added touch…….