What's the damn point of owning a high end mobile phone if you only use it for calling, messaging and the occasional photograph. Although you certainly can live without the damn thing (that's how our ancestors got by till the 21st century) some apps really make life more enjoyable and easy. Mind you all these apps are free as well.
No. 5: Fring
If you really want to keep in contact with your online friends this is a must have. This app allows you to connect to all social networks + most popular chat sites. Yup that's right chat on Facebook, yahoo, google, skype, msn using only one application. It gets even better you can take calls through Skype, GTalk & Yahoo. What's more the data transfers via GPRS is very small. You don't have to worry about the phone bill much (from my experience usually 7min call on skype for 700KB, chat transfers only a few KBs), and if your phone has Wi-Fi (sadly mine doesn't) the cost won't matter at all in a Wi-Fi enabled area.
Mobile platforms req: Works fine in any java based phone, Symbian S60 v3/v5, Symbian S40, Windows Mobile, Iphone
Get It @ : http://www.fring.com/default.asp
Similar Apps : Nimbuzz
No. 4: SMS Preview
Do you feel an itch until you read that message that you just received (no matter what you are doing, like taking notes down in a class)? Do you stop whatever you were doing and turn your attention to your mobile to read that message (only to find it's another one of those news alerts). Well this app may just suit you. The app can be adjusted to display a preview of that message was a specific amount of time, upon receiving a message. Therefore only a glance at your handset would suffice to decide whether the text message needs further consideration.
Mobile Platform req: Symbian devices only (yup that's the sad part)
Similar Apps : Hmm couldn't find any other similar apps for this one
No. 3: Conversations
This app really allows you to organize your inbox. All messages received and sent are placed under the contact you communicated with. This makes it much more easy to find a text message within your inbox. Also deleting unwanted text messages is also much easier. Just select the person who sent you all the unwanted text messages and delete them all together. No more going through the inbox marking, and unmarking messages. (Some mobiles such as SE Xperia provide this with the handset itself).
Mobile Platform req: Again for Symbian s60 devices only
Similar Apps : SMS Threader (Windows Mobile Only)
No 2: Google Maps Mobile
With this it's so easy to find a place, and also to find your position. (Even in Sri Lanka works great in Colombo district, however routing doesn't work). With the new 3.0 version you can even use My Maps on Google Maps, just mark a place in Google Maps and you can view it on your mobile. And what's amazing is that you don't need gps to find your position on the map (although availability of gps on your handset makes positioning accurate, yeah yeah gps works fine in SL and, NO the government hasn't banned it) Google Maps Mobile uses the signal towers to find your location (I mean how cool is that?).
Mobile platforms req: Works fine in any java based phone, Symbian S60 v3/v5, Symbian S40, Windows Mobile, Iphone
Get It @ : http://www.google.com/mobile/products/maps.html#p=default
Similar Apps : Nothing even comes close to this. But Nokia Maps 2.0, Ovi Maps can be classified as similar apps. But they don't have complete SL maps.
No 1: ShazamID
You are on the street and hear a catchy tune, want to know the name of the song? ShazamID makes this a reality for FREE (Or you can use Dialog Song catcher that is if you have money to waste) . It records a small part of the track and compares the recording with it's global database. Within seconds you not only know the name of the song, but the artist, album and release date as well. Comparison is done using GPRS and never takes more than 5KBs.
Mobile Platform req: works on all symbian devices and most SE devices
Get It @: this is the tricky part. This app is for UK Citizens only. However a Google search displays many alternate download sources in forums J. A listing in www.4shared.com worked just fine for me
Similar Apps : TrackID (for Sony Ericsson, all the features)
Honorable Mentions: Opera Mini, Nokia Photo Browser, Gmail Mobile, Nokia Search (lets you search through all content in your phone, even through text messages http://dailymobile.se/2007/10/30/nokia-search-40-available-for-download/)
If anyone knows better apps I'd like to know too.
Note : apps were numbered from 1 to 5 depending on the frequency that I use them. (1 being most used while 5 being least used)
great post.
I use eBuddy as the chat app...(alternative)
but never knew about the call thingy from Fring. Would luv to chck it out.
My SE k850i has contact sorting so that's great.
It has trackID too but i rarely/never use it.
I use Google maps quite frequently and to tell the truth it takes a toll on ur gprs bill if u use it too much.
mind you most of these applications drain the battery considerably, but I'm thinking of buying a second battery for my phone as done by one of our good friends ;)
ebuddy is good but doesn't have VoIP support. and fring also lets you share files and stuff as well.