You'll remember that I looked, a few weeks ago, at Download! on the Nokia Eseries? Maybe you've got an Nseries device instead, but a similar scenario is available, just with different applications.
If you're anything like me, you've popped into Download! on your Nseries S60 smartphone a few times over the last year but didn't see many items, and what was of interest, you found you already knew or had installed. Download!, in case you haven't already tried it, is like a mini software store on your smartphone, with content all tightly tested and controlled by Nokia to be appropriate for your particular device. So, in theory, the contents of Download! could be different on each S60 model.
Now, what with the Download! catalogue having to update over-the-air and what with download/bandwidth costs, many people had been a bit wary of Download!, with power users preferring to download applications via web sites on their desktop computers. However, with the new much lower data tariffs in much of the world and with Wi-Fi now a practical option on a number of Nseries S60 smartphones, download costs are ceasing to become an issue.
All load-able applications have an initial intro screen within Download!, explaining what the apps does and how much it costs, if anything (quite a lot are free). Let's take a look at what Nokia supply for the N95, for example:
Amazon
There's a stub application here, Amazon Anywhere, that simply launches Web with a bookmark to the mobile version of the Amazon web site. Nice to have, but hey, it's only a bookmark.
N95 extras
Not much to see here, just a PDF of instructions on installing third party applications and a download point for the standard Settings Wizard, in case your device didn't ship with it in its (perhaps branded) form.
N95 games
Snakes and the System Rush demo are now both very well known, and supplied here in case your Nseries device didn't ship with them in its firmware. Note that System Rush requires hardware accelerated graphics and so will only work properly on the N95, N93 and N93i.
EA Mobile, recently revamped, is a selection of about a dozen up to date Electronic Arts Java games, all tested on your Nseries device. Don't be fooled by the titles, "Need for Speed", "Fight Night", etc. These are competent and valid games but don't expect the graphics from the PC or console versions!
F-Secure Mobile Security
What's this? An anti-virus and firewall solution for a platform that needs neither? F-Secure say that they guard against possible vulnerabilities that haven't been discovered, but I'm not convinced. Until such time as such a weakness is found in Symbian OS and left unpatched, loading something like this is simply signing away much needed RAM and processor resources.
Podcasting
A free tool, borne of Nokia's research labs, to aid the collection of audio and video podcasts. When you hit 'Update', the RSS feeds for each podcast is scanned and a summary presented. Just set the ones you want downloading and come back later. For obvious reasons, don't even think about trying this unless your Nseries smartphone has Wi-Fi or you know you're on an 'unlimited' data tariff.
Gizmo-VoIP
The free client for the Gizmo VoIP service, if you want to get involved in over-Internet calling. It's also available to all other S60 devices, of course, at Nokia Beta Labs.
Search
Most readers will already have this installed, of course, it being Nokia's free Internet, local (as in near you) and local (as in on your device) search utility. It's free and works well enough but is a little fragmented and sometimes confusing. And the proto-mapping within it is due to be integrated sometime soon into the also free Nokia Maps (strangely not yet in the Download! system).
Sports Tracker
Another superb free tool from Nokia's labs. This uses GPS data (Bluetooth or, preferably, built-in) to track your location and general sports activity, building the data into a training diary. There's a mountain of stats collected and displayed as you run, walk or cycle, and you can even export the data to the likes of Google Earth or Microsoft Excel.
Mail for Exchange
I wouldn't recommend this to casual users but it may be a life saver if your company standardises on a Microsoft Exchange (download) email server. As they say in the adverts, your mileage may vary - but watch the battery impact of an always-on push email solution.
XpressPrint
A client for Nokia's commercial XpressPrint service, the idea being to upload your favourite photos from your Nseries device and have them professionally printed and posted back to you. We haven't tested this yet!
Services UK
This will obviously vary (or be missing altogether) if you're in another country. In the UK, this is a folder with assorted Flash applets and web links of interest. Foreca Europe is a 1 day trial of a commercial (£13 a year) weather service, with cute Flash-based cartoon graphics. UK Weather seems be essentially the same service with a purely UK focus.
Mobizines is the well known free 'online magazine' client, with (in theory) content from the BBC, FHM and others, but the installation routine kept terminating on the editorial N95 and the promised setup SMS never arrived. Look for a separate feature on Mobizines in the near future when we've worked out what went wrong...
Cricket is a Java-based launcher for sending premium text messages asking for the latest cricket scores. To be honest, it's a lot cheaper to simply bookmark the appropriate mobile-friendly sports pages in your chosen web browser.
Premier Scores is the same as Cricket, but for football. Again, the moment it asked for permission to start sending out premium rate text messages it lost my interest.
Speech2Go is a 10-minute-limited, 2-day trial version of a native S60 application and tells you who is calling and reads out text messages. A bit of a gimmick, to be honest. In my test, it read out my wife's name as "Fee O N A", i.e the individual letters, which wasn't very clever. Nokia has their own text-to-speech system on the Eseries and several numbered S60 smartphones, I'd guess that this will be brought into the Nseries world shortly, so perhaps wait for this if you really, desperately want your messages and callers read out.
Speereo Travel Service seems to be Flash-based and includes 11 language translators (the default Spanish and others that can be loaded over-the-air), a flight schedule and world weather. The trial version is only for one day though and you can't do flight lookups until you've registered with their server. Potentially interesting, but much of the same functionality can now be gotten for free in other apps and web services.
ScanR is an established commercial photo-to-PDF service that's currently free, letting you snap whiteboards and documents and have the resulting uploaded JPGs converted to PDF form and emailed back to you. Pretty cool, but as usual, watch those data costs.
Transport for London is a simple link to the mobile version of the Transport for London web site. Handy, but not unique.
Nseries Plus is a portal for promotional media content from the likes of TimeOut, Love Film and NME. Again, watch the data costs if you're not on a flat rate plan, or else use Wi-Fi. The content doesn't seem to be that regularly updated though...
Lovebites is a new set of licensed mini-episodes of this USA adult comedy, formatted for playback on phones.
Finally, Catalogs is a stub to the older way of getting apps and applets on your smartphone. Maybe Nokia will remove this from Download! now that it's not really needed?
Steve Litchfield, AllAboutSymbian, 6 August 2007