We know that the Nokia N8 is pretty much the best camera phone out there, but there’s more to it than that. While the App Store and, to a lesser extent, Android Market have been raking in the app plaudits, Nokia’s Ovi Store has been quietly getting on with the business of providing excellent apps. Here are some of our favourites, and they won’t cost you a penny.
Nokia Situations
It might be a little scary, but our phones are now aware of where we are at any given time. Nokia has taken this information to the next level with Nokia Situations. This app lets you train your Nokia N8 to act a certain way under specific conditions related to time, date and location. For example, you can tell it to automatically switch to silent between 9am and 5pm on weekdays or, if your working hours are a little more flexible, whenever you’re at your place of work (thanks to good old GPS). You can tell it to boot up certain apps at certain times – like a football results app at 5pm on a Saturday, or a weather app for the time you usually wake up in the morning. It’s all about making your phone pre-empt your usual commands, and once you slip into Nokia Situations’s rhythm you’ll never look back.
JoikuSpot
Mobile internet ‘dongles’ are fast becoming obsolete thanks to the introduction of mobile hotspot functionality in modern smartphones. The ability to use your smartphone as a means to access the internet on your laptop while out and about is an excellent feature, and JoikuSpot is the best way to do this on the Nokia N8. There’s a Premium paid version that grants you increased security and a few other benefits, but for general use look no further than the Free version. Both provide you with a completely cable-free mobile internet connection through your N8, and both are extremely easy to set up.
Opera Mobile
The Nokia N8′s Symbian^3 OS provides pretty much all of the functionality you could need from a smartphone, but there’s no escaping the fact that the web browser leaves a little to be desired (a fact that Nokia itself accepts and is addressing with the ‘Anna’ update). This is why Opera Mobile is such a welcome and downright essential app on the device. It’s quick, attractive and easy to use, and it’s the preferred choice by many smartphone users regardless of the perceived quality of the default browser. Opera Mobile is as near to an essential download as you can get.
Loop
Significantly less essential but just as appealing, Loop is a casual music creation app that manages to achieve something special – it lets even the most musically inept and inattentive person produce a half-decent piece of music. It does so by being extremely accessible and never less than fun. Using an excellent circular clock-style interface you’ll soon be laying down a background beat before adding preprogrammed effects and even – in a brilliantly personal touch – adding your own vocals and found sounds through the Nokia N8′s mic. GarageBand it ain’t, but I know which I’d rather fire up for a quick five minute jam.
Molome
As we’ve mentioned innumerable times, the Nokia N8 is a truly outstanding camera phone, and one of a select few you would happily leave your point and shoot at home for. It’s only right that we highlight an app that marries its pic-taking expertise with the distinctly smartphone-centric concept of social network updates on the move. You take snaps, apply an effect filter (like grainy or toy camera) from a decent sized collection and share them onto the beautifully designed Molome network. Others can then judge your pics and award them marks. Molome has been called the Instagram of Nokia, and it more than lives up to that title.
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