If you're anything like me, you've popped into Download! on your 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 large fraction of S60 smartphones, download costs are ceasing to become an issue.
Arguably the most interesting Download! catalogue at the moment is for the Nokia Eseries of devices, with some applications that I hadn't seen before. 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 E61i, for example:
NB. The wide-screened E90 has a subtly different selection, with some apps not included because they don't work well (yet) on its screen, and others added, e.g. the game Global Race.
Download! applications
Golf Pro Contest
This is a licensed game from Synergenix, created for the original E61 and now available in tweaked form for the E61i. There's oodles of eye candy but it's more of a game than a simulation, with tortuous holes and impossibly-fiddly stroke timing. Cost: free, specifically for the E61 range
Reuters
One of the first widely distributed and actually useful Flash-based applications for S60, this isn't in theory an Eseries exclusive but I couldn't find a URL for it on Reuters web site (can you help?), so the Eseries is the best place to find it at the moment. The Reuters app is essentially a news headline gatherer with a stock symbol look-up thrown in for good measure. You can dig down into news, sports, tech, business or entertainment headlines, with a multi-page story available to page through for each, and there are arty graphical backdrops to add atmosphere. Nothing earth-shatteringly new here and I was annoyed by the constant requests to choose my Internet access point, but again it's free.
WorldMate
We're on more familiar territory here, with WorldMate being essentially freeware for S60 these days, with free world clock, weather forecasts, world map, currency conversions and the new 'weathercaster' spoken-word forecast. There's a 7 day trial of the 'Pro' features, an excellent idea, to give you a flavour of how the flight status and schedules work. For a regular air traveller, going 'Pro' is an easy decision. For the rest of us, enjoy the free functions, all working well with either manual or automatic online updates.
Pocket Express
Similar in vein to the Reuters app above, but this time based on Java (with the attendant hit on your Eseries device's RAM) and a lot wider in scope, Pocket Express aims to be a complete replacement for all those informational needs for which you set up bookmarks on the mobile web. There's a free version for wider S60 devices from the developers, with just news and sport headlines (and occasional photos) plus weather forecasts, but the Eseries licensing means that you also get a Money section (three market indices and a currency converter), Entertainment news (Music, Film, Wierd), a Horoscope and, most usefully, a Travel section. This comprises a basic Flight Schedules lookup (no live status info, though), Travel Phone Numbers (hundreds of generic numbers for hotel chains, car rental agencies, airlines, etc, all helpfully kept up to date by virtue of the Pocket Express application updating its database online) and the most interesting of all, Find a Hotel.
As the function suggests, you specify a city and country and then Pocket Express scurries off and produces a range of matches, each with address, starting price per-night and a star rating. The matches are more likely to come from the more expensive hotels, of course, who have paid to have their data included in the original database, but it's still a useful resource. By selecting a hotel, all the rest of the data on it is downloaded, including amenities and five colour photos, giving you a great idea of the flavour of the establishment.
It's the inclusion of the Travel section that makes Pocket Express worthwhile, to be honest. If you're reading this and don't have Pocket Express in your Download! section then note that all the above functions plus quite a few more can be bought in various packages from the HandMark web site. Yes, nearly all the information in Pocket Express is available for free online if you know where to look, but it's a great way to get a lot of news and information within the one application.
Internet
(I'm not sure why these three applications are hived off into their own category, seeing as several of the general apps are also 'online', but...)
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.
Mobile 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 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 Eseries Download! system).
WidSets
Ditto with WidSets, which were heavily promoted a few months ago. They're little online windows into specific web services, which sounds like a great idea but, again, you have to accept that they (currently) run under Java, with the associated speed and resources hit. Still, they're fun and useful and you can even create WidSets of your own, for your own site or services, for others to use. If WidSets isn't within your Download! section, here's the main site.
Themes
Not much to see here, just extra 'Dots' coloured themes (Blue, Mocha, Grey). Maybe more themes will appear in due course...
Two entries here, neither of which I'd recommend to casual users but either of which may be a life saver if your company standardises on a Blackberry (here's the usual download site) or Microsoft Exchange (download) email server. As they say in the adverts, your mileage may vary - although at least the Eseries range seem to have meaty enough batteries to cope with always-on push email solutions.
Sound Modules
You can't fail to have noticed that several S60 models now come with an extra 'Listen' command in their Messaging menus, with the option to have your texts and emails read out to you, over the loudspeaker, headphones or car kit. Should the messages be in anything other than English, or should you tire of the default voice, you'll need extra sound modules - Download! now stocks over 30....
Updates and Links
Simple shortcuts to the mobile versions of the 'Nokia for Business' and general Nokia web sites.
Trial applications
Here's where we deviate from the world of free-or-mostly-free, with trial versions of a number of third party applications that Nokia has liked, checked thoroughly for your particular device and included in this Download! database.
There's an obvious Epocware focus, with trials of Handy Blacklist, Handy Clock (though some functionality is duplicated from the free WorldMate), Handy Converter (again, mostly duplicated from the free WorldMate), Handy Expense, Handy Keylock (not really needed, since the same functionality is now in S60 itself), the terrific Handy Safe (as recommended by all AAS staffers), Handy Taskman and Handy Weather (yet again, partly duplicated in the free WorldMate).
From other developers, there's:
Digitizer
This aims to help you snap handwritten sketches and send them via MMS or email, taking care of file and image sizes by applying a reduction to simple two-tone black and white. It's a nice idea and nicely implemented, although I'm not sure how many people will ever actually want to do this!
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.
ROK TV
This was reviewed a while ago for S60 2nd Edition, but merits another look, not least because this is a specially configured channel package for Eseries users. With the rise and rise of 3G speeds and with Wi-Fi hotspots being more available, the idea of streaming TV as Internet data is perhaps a little more practical than it was two years ago, but I still see it as being eventually eclipsed by digital broadcast solutions like DVB-H, which won't suffer from the same bandwidth bottlenecks.
Used over Wi-Fi, the five channels preloaded here play OK, with only occasional pauses for 'Buffering'. Picture quality is MMS grade or slightly better, with frame rates around four or five frames per second. Disappointingly, there was a noticeable audio lag, with the sound often being over a second behind the picture. OK for Bloomberg and acceptable for much ITN news content but terrible for 'M Music' - not that I'd watch this latter anyway, since the music videos seem very limited. The other channels in the Eseries selection are EuroNews and CNBC, by the way, although you can add extra commercial and specialist channels by going onto the ROK TV web site. ROK TV works for free for the first two weeks, by the way, easily enough to see if it's for you.
Mobipocket Reader
This surely needs no introduction, although I'm not sure why it's in the Trial versions section, since it's now free. Highly recommended, of course, again AAS staffers swear by it.
Wireless Presenter
One of the best known of PsiLoc's commercial packages, this trial application lets you control PowerPoint or Media Player presentations on your PC using your Bluetooth Eseries handheld.
Wayfinder Navigator
Another package that needs little introduction, Wayfinder presents over-the-air maps and route instructions, with positioning supplied from a Bluetooth GPS. As with Nokia's own Smart2Go (Maps), it runs using a subscription system, i.e. you sign up for a year rather than buying the voice navigation system outright.
Whichever device you have, it's advisable to use the 'Refresh list' menu option regularly, to pick up additions by Nokia. The differences between the Download! selections in, for example, the N and Eseries S60 devices is dramatic. Partly this is down to targetting the applications at the typical buyer of that type of device, so an Nseries user, for example, gets a much more multimedia-centric choice. And partly it's down to licensing issues, with some of the applications listed above being officially bought in for exclusive use on a specific model or range of models.
But there's still plenty of room for more overspill between the different Download! areas. In the near future, I'd like to see more licensed content, more trial versions (there are some tremendous programming houses out there) and more common content across the Download! spectrum.
Steve Litchfield, AllAboutSymbian, 16 July 2007