Roland Tanglao's Weblog

Had the pleasure of meeting James at Nokia Open Lab 08 and it's interesting (Agile Messenger!?! IM on my phone, no thanks, I'd personally rather use Twitter and Jaiku) to see his (mobile) desert island desktop for his S60 devices.

I personally no longer customize the home screen of my S60 devices just like I no longer customize my Mac that much (or I customize it in cosmetic ways like change the desktop, I don't do that on S60 for fear of using precious memory something which we will look back on in 5 years and laugh that we worried about memory!).

I find S60 too unstable (I blame ShoZu and S60 memory management; don't get me wrong I can't live without ShoZu but after a while I simply have to reset (usually a warm reset using *#7780# sometimes a hard reset using *#7370#) all my S60 devices which means I lose my customizations. I am sure I am an outlier here; I think it has something to do with posting dozens of photos a day from ShoZu :-) ! Yes I am addicted!)

QUOTE [From AAS Feature: Desert Island Desktop, with James Whatley]

Whatley's main role at SpinVox is to look after their Social Media Strategy, and that means he is plugged into many of the fast moving Web 2.0 sites, so it's no surprise to see Jaiku as the first application - he's one of the most prolific Jaiku'ers on the service (http://whatleydude.jaiku.com/).

There are a number of built in applications here, and one click away from Jaiku are the Nokia Web Browser and Contacts applications. The contacts application is probably the biggest 'social application' on any handset (oh don't mock, it lets you email people, call them, keep notes on them, group them together - that's just like Facebook), so keeping it close to hand is high up in his thinking.

Pretty much everyone I asked had a web browser in some form on their launcher, and Whatley is no exception. "It's the first application I open up whenever I pick up my handset", he explains. I suspect that he's checking out his other social networks and keeping an eye on the SpinVox blog as well.

Communicating online is a mainstay of the quick launch apps, and the inclusion of Agile Messenger (www.agilemobile.com) solidifies that view. Offering access to most of the popular IM platforms, including MSN and AOL, this has been on whatever handset Whatley has been using for a few years. "I purchased a lifetime licence and genuinely could not live without it."

The phone is also his main PDA/Organiser, but not through the built in PIM apps. Whatley has chosen to use Epocware's Handy Calendar over the regular S60 offerings

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In particular: IM+. Is it better than Agile Messenger?

From What's on my N90?.:

QUOTE

I've been using a Nokia N90 S60 smartphone for almost a month now. I have the full unlocked 3G version from Europe, not the crippled cracked out one you can buy at Ritz Camera in exchange for a new contract with T-Mobile.

...

Some of the built-in applications on the N90 are quite good. For example, the email client is fantastic. It supports IMAP, IMAP-IDLE, and email gets pushed to me as fast as my BlackBerry ever got it. I have no complaints there, really. The input device doesn't even bother me that much because a lot of my email when I'm mobile is consumption anyway, and I rarely have to type out a huge edict or anything unless I'm at a desk. Even the built-in browser is quite good. I have also installed Opera and Opera Mini but honestly I use the built-in browser most of the time.

But like any smartphone user, I have managed to accumulate some favorite applications over the last month that I feel are very useful, so I'll be outlining them in this post.

This post is a doozy. Get comfortable.

UNQUOTE