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Great Apps for Your Nokia
3650
By Tong Zhang, Senior Editor
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Have you ever gotten a new cell phone and kept
getting calls for the previous owner of your cell phone number?
Have you ever had telemarketers keep calling you on your
cell phone and wasting your minutes? Have you ever wanted
to block an incoming caller before your phone even starts
to ring? If your answer is yes, then SymbianWare has a good
app for you. It’s called BlackList.
BlackList will cancel unwanted calls immediately if the phone number
matches anyone on your block list. The application cancels the call
before your phone starts ringing. What callers will hear is a busy
signal created by BlackList. There is an Auto start feature in BlackList,
which auto starts the application after you turn on your device. You
don’t need to re-active the application itself manually. BlackList
will give you an option to accept certain type of communications but
not others by creating the “Accept only list” rule.
There are three top views in BlackList: Status, Rules and Rejected. In
the Status view, you have options to turn on or off the application.
When you turn off the app, it will not block any calls. You will also
see the number of received calls and the number of rejected calls.
Rules view is where you create your “black list”. You will
see two directories: Black list and Accept only list. Put a list of
phone numbers or groups in Black list to block the calls from these
correspondents when this function is turned on. In Accept only list
option, you can define the list of correspondents you want to accept
calls from only. When you turn on this option, anyone who isn’t
on this list will get a busy signal. In case someone wants to use this
feature for special occasions such as a vacation, there is a “situation” option
where you can create a list to block only when you are on vacation.
If you want to decline all incoming calls and only be reached via SMS
or MMS, then select "Accept only list" rule and leave it
empty. Then BlackList will decline all incoming calls.
You can add numbers from your Contact list
and Group list as well as incoming call number recorded by
your phone.
Price: $9.95
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Do you know that your phone can play MP3s? I’ve
looked at a few MP3 players for the Nokia 3650. Mp3Player from
Viking Informatics stands out as the easiest to use and it supports
many languages.
Mp3Player is an MPEG layer 3 audio player for Nokia 3650. It supports
MPEG1, MPEG2 and MPEG2.5 files at 8kbps to 420kbps. The software comes
in English, German, Hungarian, Italian and Spanish. Once you’ve
installed the Mp3Player program, it will search for all available MP3
files on your phone’s internal memory and the MMC card. All you
have to do is to select Play.
There are two top views in Mp3Player: Main and Files. The Main view gives
you the basic information about the song you are currently playing,
which includes the bit rate, frequency and mono/stereo status. There
is also a volume control bar, and you can turn up or down the volume
by pressing the Up and Down buttons on your D-pad. You will also find
the display of play time elapsed and the length of the track on the
Main View. In the center of the Main view in a large font, you will
see the title of the song and the band/artist’s name. Under the
Options in this view, you can modify the settings on display, how to
play tracks, repeat and preamplifier. In Files view, you will see the
MP3 files which you can select any track to start playing. In the Options
in this view, you have a Search function, which allows you to search
all MP3 files. The Playlist feature isn’t as graceful as other
MP3 players I’ve seen. You should organize your files before
playing them in Mp3Player.
DO NOT transfer files using Nokia PC Suite because it converts your MP3
into WAV files. Use BT file transfer or a card reader to copy your
MP3 files to the MMC card. If you get an error message that say: “App.
Closed mp3player”, then restart your phone.
Price: $18
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If you are used to using Windows/Mac desktop and
all brand PDAs, the first thing you want to do when you get a
Symbian OS phone like the Nokia 3650 is to understand the file
management system, memory info, etcetera. The trouble is there
isn’t a great app that can show you this. The Manager that
comes with your 3650 does little more than listing the applications
and size of these files. But what if I want to check out free
memory information, disks information, and summary information
about installed and currently running applications and summary
statistics for compressed apps? You need an application called
AppMan developed by SymbianWare.
It shows you how much free memory you have including internal and MMC,
number of installed apps and total memory they occupy, how many apps
are running, and if you’ve compressed files, you will see the
compression rates. It also provides you with a quick view of currently
running applications and processes, as well as all installed programs.
There are 5 top views in AppMan. Summary View shows system summary view.
The information includes free memory information, disk information,
summary information about installed and currently running applications
and summary statistics for compressed apps. Under Options, you can
compress memory, close all apps and restart the device.
Running Applications View shows you how much memory
the running app uses and gives you options to switch to the selected
application, close or kill an application, and get its extended
info and threads information.
Processes View shows a list of running processes
sorted by ProcessId in descended order with the last started
processes comes first in the list. You can kill selected processes
and get extended info about it.
Open Files View and Installed Applications View
give you a list of files that have been opened and applications
that have been installed respectively. Open File view will show
you the file size and root/path of these opened files. You can
choose to close all files or add to favorites in the Options
menu. The Installed Application view has similar features. You
can get a list of all applications found in the system and display
them by name, amount of disk space each app uses now and if the
files are compressed, you can see the amount of saved space and
compression rate. You can also choose to close all apps, remove
apps or add them to your favorites.
Some of the compression features work better with SymbianWare’s
own compression software Stacker.
Price: $9.95
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I wouldn’t be surprised if this application
is the most popular one for the Nokia 3650 handset. SmartLaucher
can help you make your 3650 look and behave exact way you want
it to. It completely substitutes for the system menu and task
manager, allows you to set background images, apps and folder
icons, as well as buttons colors and much more.
It can completely change your phone display by using new skins that either
you created yourself or downloaded. Not only can you change the background
image, but also you will have the tools to change icons, labels, folder
and button colors. The best of all, SmartLauncher provides complete
integration between Skins and your phone functions. SymbianWare also
offers a freeware app that allows you to edit your own Skins. If you
are not the “do-it-yourself” type, then check out the Skins
on SymbianWare site. You just might find a Skin you like to download.
Once you’ve installed the SmartLaunch program, you will see your
Menu screen in the default Skin. If you wish to turn off or change a
skin, you can find those functions under the Options Menu. To make the
new skin installation painless, you can first install the Skin Editor,
free from SymbianWare. This app will allow you to create your own skins
or copy downloaded skins out of the Inbox folder. The Skin Editor is
a very important app if you plan to create your own skins. Otherwise,
you only need to install it in order to use downloaded skins. SymbianWare
provides some basic color themed skins, but has a very good collection
of user-created skins for download. (The screen shot is a skin with Xbox
theme created by PaU.)
If you are new to Symbian OS, install both SmartLauncher and Skin Editor
for editing and installing new skins. If you know your way around,
you don’t have to install the Skin Editor to install new skins.
Copy the skin files to \system\data\LNSkins\.
Price: $9.95
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For those who use their PDAs and smartphones to
read ebooks, Mobipocket Reader Pro is a good app to have. You
can enjoy over 4000 titles including fiction, non-fiction, doctrinaires
and medical edocs and ebooks.
The Mobipocket Reader not only reads ebooks, it also supports eNews and
eDocs. You can check your daily eNews channel and new eBook arrivals
and more via Mobipocket’s WebCompanion app, which will be installed
when you install your eBook reader onto your 3650 handset. Even though
Mobipocket Reader for the Symbian OS isn’t as robust as the one
running on Pocket PC or Palm OS devices, it has the basic features
that make reading an eBook hassle-free on your Nokia 3650.
You can’t use the Bluetooth wireless file transfer to install the
application. You must run the .exe file on your desktop and install the
ebook reader via PC Suite. The installation process also includes installing
the WebCompanion application on your desktop machine for checking for
news, new ebooks and for publishing your own ebooks.
Once the application is installed on your 3650,
you will see a list of eBooks, eNews or eDocs items listed in
the Library view. You can switch between these formats by using
the Options button. You can read the pages in full screen mode
by turning it on in Settings. Otherwise, you will see page numbers
and Options buttons under the page view. You have three font
sizes to choose from to display the pages. While reading a book,
you can use annotation, auto scrolling text and bookmark functions
as well as sending your eBook to your other devices or storage
card via IR, BT or email. The font type looks very sharp and
clear on the 3650 screen with 14-line display in small font size.
The reader also supports images and tables. Mobipocket claims
that their ebook reader supports the western European language
and Chinese, Japanese and Russian.
Use PC Suite for the installation. Make sure that your phone is connected
to your desktop via PC Suite in order to complete the install.
Price: $19.95
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The Opera web browser has been supporting Symbian
OS phones for a while. The version that works on Series 60 includes
Opera's breakthrough technology Small-Screen Rendering (SSR),
a technology that reformats Web pages to fit on the smaller mobile
screens. To fit small screen with text isn’t all that impressive,
but Opera browser can support almost all image formats, various
Markup languages, CSS, SSL and JavaScript.
Opera is a web browser. After you connect your phone to your data service,
you can view web pages in Opera. The SSR technology will render the
page to fit your Nokia 3650 screen. You can use the jog-dial to open
links, browser frames and navigate through the pages. Opera browser
allows you to search the web, save web pages and add/manage bookmarks.
It supports all common image formats including jpeg, gif, png, wbmp
and bmp formats, and it will tell you how many images on a web page.
This browser also supports XHTML/XHTML Mobile profile, WAP and more
markup languages. You can use this browser to access CSS, Wireless
CSS, ECMAScript and JavaScript. If you ever have a need to access SSL
pages, Opera will support the security protocol as well.
For a browser that seems to do everything, Opera is very easy to install
as long as you have enough memory. You need at least 900KB of flash
memory for the installation, and you can choose to install the software
either on your phone’s internal memory or the MMC card. It requires
2.5MB of RAM.
Once the browser is installed, you will see an
icon in your Menu screen. You will use the Options to do most
of the work. In the Options menu, you will find Open, Navigation,
Display, Search, Switch and Settings. Here is a list of menu
options under each category:
Open: web page, typed URLs, Bookmarks, Home page,
History list, saved pages
Navigation: Previous, Reload page, Add bookmark, Save page, Page info
Display: Full screen on/off, Small screen on/off, Images (number of images
on the page)
Search: Internet search, Find in page
Switch view: bookmarks, saved pages, transfers
Settings: Show images, show animations, enable JavaScript, Pop-up Windows.
There are also a various shortcuts assigned to
each number key and the * key and # key. You can switch display
screens, open web page or bookmarks, navigate images and more
by simple pressing the shortcut key.
Make sure that you have enough space for the installation. Clean up memory
prior to the installation or better yet, install it on an MMC card.
Remember AppMan? Use that to manage your memory! Utilize the bookmark
features and save web page feature to minimize your typing and data
transferring cost.
Price: $29
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