What 3rd party software software should Nokia buy and integrate into S60?
By Stefan Constantinescu on Thursday, December 28th, 2006 at 1:21 PM PST In Ideas and rants
Most of todays web elite use Firefox, hell I’ve been using it since version .6 back when it was called Phoenix. Their philosophy has always been to make a bare bones web browser and have users create extensions that allow functionality and features to be added. If you compare Firefox 2.0.0.1 to Phoenix .6 right now you’re going to come to the conclusion that they haven’t been following that one ideal they proclaimed at the beginning. Should we shun them for it?
Absolutely not!
The out of box experience, aka the first impression, is the most vital when considering ANYTHING; your car, your girlfriend, the restaurant you want to eat at tonight, the CD you buy. More and more features have been added to Firefox since it’s inception and honestly no one is complaining. Maybe the people who still have 200 MHz computers, but they’re a minority.
The same should be said about S60. Out of the box it’s adequate, but the experience leaves a lot to be desired. I’m going to start pointing third party applications that do things so well it makes you wonder why doesn’t Nokia (NYSE: NOK) just hand them a big check already and build the best phone that they possibly can.
What inspired this? I just finished reading Ed’s review of an application called ALON Contact Guide PRO. Horrible name, even cornier website, but the application looks like gold. I highly recommend you check out his review, and I suggest the S60 application team check it out too.
One of my personal favorites, and sadly my free trial is over, $20 is too much, is Handy Clock (read All About Symbian’s review). It does everything I would ever want to do with a clock. Countdown, stopwatch, repeating alarms, custom alarms, it’s frankly beautiful and makes me wonder why such functionality isn’t built into my phone.
So now I ask you guys, what third party application makes you want to slap your forehead and go "WTF; Why isn’t this built in!?"
I’ve even created a new category called "Why aren’t you built in?" to make these applications easier to track; I hope that together we can find a lot. I’m not talking about games, I’m not talking about highly specialized programs, I’m merely talking about things that should be included to make the out of box experience of S60 a beautiful thing.
Nokia is known for making crazy high end phones that do everything, the software however has been lacking behind the advances in hardware. I want you to change that Nokia.
1. Agile Messenger. An excellent app that used to be free. Here in South Africa, where internet and all forms of telecommunication are really expensive, mobile data is ridiculously cheap. I pay two Rand per megabyte (Seven Rand = one US$). So it makes sense to use IM where ever possible. Agile started charging and I dropped it like a ton of bricks cos that completely defeated the object for me. Now I pay the big bucks again. I dream of the day Agile will be included in the Nokia sales package.
2. Mobireader. Seem to have read somewyhere that the E- series of nokia have it onboard but I’m not sure. Excellent if it is. My most used app. I use it mostly for picking up all my RSS feeds because of the Copy feature. If I find something really interesting I copy keywords to my browser for further reading.
3. Autolock or any keylocking software. Seems damn stupid to not include a keylocker.
I think Nokia/Symbian should take a close look at the native SMS/MMS application on the Treo. That app is so clean, so intuitive and so resourceful. It’s sad that “our” app is comparatively so “weak”
And then there must be some way to have birthdays in the contact list automatically feature in the calendar. Its so much required…