I Love REAL Multi-Tasking

The joys of using a mobile platform with true multi-process and multi-task capabilities.

UPDATE: I merged all the above screenshots into one long image.

Top Free Apps/Tools for the N8

All of the mentioned apps/tools/programs are available on Nokia’s Ovi store for free. I intentionally skipped out on games just because.

Weather
AccuWeather: Perfect weather widget tool. Flashy widget but a little heavy.

ForecaWeather: Perfect weather non-widget tool. Loads fast and very light but enough details with lots of long-term weather outlook to pack a serious punch.

Navigation
Google Maps: Loads fast and easy UI. Lacks turn-by-turn directions and no multi-touch. Perfect if you just want to load up a map from top down view to get a general sense of your geological position.

Ovi Maps: The menus are just a bit less intuitive compared to Google Maps but it more than makes up for that through the Navteq turn-by-turn navigation, free downloadable voice packages (example: Surfer Dude), user-defined custom navigation voice options, text-to-speech (which means it reads out street names), and finally, it utilizes the multi-touch capabilities on the N8.

System Tools
Battery Monitor: Excellent tool best utilized as a widget. Tells you how long your battery lasts based on how you use the phone.

DataMonitor: Monitors the connection packets and tells you how much data is sent/received and sorted by GPRS/3G/WiFi/Bluetooth connections. It loads a non-intrusive tiny floating tip-box at the top-left corner. The paid version I’m guessing gives you a lot more functionality.

Free Memory Bars: Simple and does the job as a desktop memory tracking widget.

ScreenSnap: Takes a screenshot of your screen. A standard screenshot tool is sadly lacking as a built-in functionality from Nokia so here is your best option.

Situations: Gives users the ability to program their devices based on various “situations”. For example, I personalized my “Silent” profile to kick in between 8:30AM and 5PM on the weekdays and based on my GPS location and the towers that my cellphone utilizes. Also added “powersave” mode to switch on when those conditions were met. Easy to use.

Swype: Although it’s missing the more critical portrait mode, Swype is a revolutionary tool used for typing on touch screen devices.

MultiMedia
Conversations: I think it’s included with all N8s but it wasn’t for the older S60 devices. Great way to keep track of SMS (ie. texting) conversations with your contacts.

Foursquare: The official Four Square app for Symbian^3. Keep a virtual log of all the places you’ve visited and share it to anybody you want.

Loop: Fun little toy with tons of features to record your voice and be a DJ.

NimBuzz: Simply the best IM (instant messaging) tool. Fring was great back in 2006 on the S60 but ever since, it’s been NimBuzz all the way.

Opera Mobile 10: Better than the built-in webkit browser in most cases. Also packs in a QWERTY virtual keyboard on portrait mode!!!

Skype: The official Skype app for Symbian^3. Highly improved version than the one found on the E71.

Sticky Notes: A flash-like virtual board with virtual post-it notes. You scribble notes but it’s very neat.

Swype on the N8

If you’re not familiar with how you type using the “Swype” functionality, you can choose to type the regular way by punching in on the keys of the virtual keyboard or you can slide your finger around the various keys. The software’s algorithm will pick up the likely word match and type the word out for you. If there is some doubt, it’ll bump out a 4 option list of words. Choosing to ignore that will pick the top left option (which happens to be highlighted) and as within days, you’ll turn into a typing king using this new method.

Screenshots of the default and the Swype keyboards:

Default keyboard landscape 1

Default keyboard landscape 2

After installating Swype, I had to reboot the N8 to get it to work. First thing you notice is that the viewing area got much smaller. The reallocation of the left right arrow keys from around the spacebar to the top right and the inclusion of a separate row just for a few shuffled around keys. However, making the space key bigger was a welcome change I must say. Everything else, meh.

Swype keyboard landscape 1

Swype keyboard landscape 2

Swype on the S^3 OS only works in the landscape mode but as most Google Android users can attest, it’s most effectively used in the portrait mode. For some reason, Nokia decided to stick with the classic number pad when you hold the phone vertically but that doesn’t mean Swype has to get lazy and ignore portrait mode.

Despite that setback, this still is a 5 star product.

EDIT: The portrait mode Swype is coming in the next N8 update from Nokia in January 2011 which is but weeks away. That and currently, you get a whole new screen when you slide your finger from the SWYPE key (bottom left) to the SYM key.

Swype keyboard landscape 3 - extra functionality