I’ve spent some time in the US this week and it’s been interesting to see the different applications that I’ve been using the most. So.... I present....
"The top five applications Ewan's been using while travelling!"
Nokia Maps
Probably the biggest favourite has been Nokia Maps. Thanks to the ability to side-load all the map data in a region, I’m carrying around all the street map data for California in my N95. I know Edinburgh, I don’t know San Francisco - although just like Edinburgh, the hills here are always in between where I am and where I want to go. What a shame there aren’t any contour lines or altitude notes to help me plan the route that way.
While the built in GPS should be available to help me locate myself AND provide voice guidance, I just fall back on locating myself and then eyeballing the route as I have already added in my hotels, friends and cafes in the area and, with such a density of roads, all I need is the rough direction and away I go. A definite time-saver, and easier to search and use than carrying an A to Z of San Francisco, the SF Valley, Ontario and Los Angeles.
Download from Maps.Nokia.com
Wireless IRC and Twitter
No, I’m not going to hit up an always-on internet service while I’m roaming, but the huge number of Wi-fi enabled cafés and pastry stands means it is not that difficult to get connected over the air, avoiding running up an immense bill. I won’t hide the fact that I’m so happy that Wireless IRC has returned, and the latest update includes a dedicated Twitter interface. Yes I could use the web browser for the mobile interface, but using the available programming interfaces (API's) that Twitter make available for free on the web to make a dedicated view makes it incredibly easy to post, read and follow the discussions.
Mobi Reader
Harry Potter, in print, is about 1kg. Harry Potter, in a compressed text file, is about 650K on a card and weighs about 0.001 of a gram. Being leveraged into an 8 hour flight in economy across the Atlantic is not the place to try and read the latest blockbuster novel by balancing it in your hands and not getting cramp, but pushing it onto a small screen, in a package not more than 120g, actually makes carrying a truck load of reading material a matter of a few tens of megabytes on the microSD card.
I like to travel light, but I read a lot. Mobireader lets me do this, and it’s one of the reasons it gets installed as soon as possible on any smartphone I pick up.
Download the free reader software from Mobipocket
Gmail
It’s another application where there is a web-based alternative, but Google’s own Java midlet to access my Gmail account makes checking my emails quick and easy, The majority of my mails are either the spam that leaks through (tap ‘8’ on the keypad and away it goes), messages telling me my social networks and services have mail waiting for me (‘7’ to delete, although I wish they would just give me the content), and that leaves me with a few that I might want to check or – more likely – reply to when I get home. I can filter the urgent ones very quickly, and leave the rest.
Lifeblog
I use Lifeblog on my PC about once a week, to take pictures down from the phone and store them, but when I’m travelling I use it a lot more. I turn into a bit of a shutterbug, although mostly for my own amusement, only a few go into Flickr and the likes. But Lifeblog allows me tag and take notes on what I come across, and acts as a great aide memoire when looking back over a hectic few days, to remind me who I met when (and to confirm that the dining halls in Google really do look like my kids nursery).
Honourable Mentions
As well as those five applications, I also want to point out that the Windows Live package from Nokia , and the MSN Messenger client, are kinda useful to keep in touch with the few people that aren’t IRC-Geeks when I’m bouncing round the country. If I ran a LiveSpace blog (as opposed to my own, which never stays up to date anyway) it would probably be elevated into the main text.
I also want to point out the Nokia built-in ‘Transfer’ application. I brought the N95 out here, and given it was recently flashed I thought it would be SIM unlocked as well (from my UK contract). Ah but it wasn't. For some reason I had chucked the E61i in my bag as well – so once I picked up a Pay as you Go SIM (with remarkably little hassle from the T-Mobile store in San Francisco) the E61i is running the US calls – no data plan though. As I didn’t bring out the connection cable, I just ran the Transfer application to push my contacts from the N95 to the E61i. It… just… works… Perfect.
Ewan Spence, 23 Sep 2007