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Useful Applications for Smartphone?
merlinbasenji asks: "I've recently purchased an Audiovox SMT5600 Smartphone for Cingular, and I'm looking for suggestions for good applications like: calendars, browsers, games, email client, etc. Anyone have a favorite, or had a bad experience with specific applications?"
The phone program is EVIL!! Whenever you press the buttons on the phone, it makes this beeping noise. Then, when you hit the right button, it makes the noise again and it COSTS YOU MONEY...
Show this to your friends and family that don't know what a real hacker is
Pacman!
Religion for nerds. Stuff that really matters
TCPMP is a great media player that can handle DivX. Then there's some Windows app that downsamples video files to fit the screen rather well. Pick up a 1Gig miniSD card online for $60 and the phone is extremely more useful. Then use Yahoo!Music to pull a gig of music onto the device at will - that part is rather convenient. I've got a single Family Guy episode on there right now, just because I don't really use it as well as it could be.
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And this is totally OT, but...
I managed to snag a new one of these for $20 and a three hour conversation with Cingular, because they were trying to sell me a Star Wars sound-injector (lots of demand, I guess, for sounding like you're friends with Chewbacca) with the prefurb I was ordering (they would add it to my basket after I verified my order without any notification they were doing so, and that pissed me off). Anyway, I worked my way up the ladder to the resolutions department.
Me: There is no chance I will use this device. Let me order the prefurb without sending me the $40 Chewbacca toy.
Cingular/ATT: I can't sell you the prefurb without sending that item. But you can return it!
Me: I'd like to do that, preemptively.
CATT: Oh, you'll have to send it back to us once we ship it out.
Me:
CATT: Sir?
Me: Seriously, you're going to cost yourself greater than $20 to sell me a $20 refurb phone, and waste man hours handling a return?
CATT: It's how the bundle works, sir.
Me: I'd feel morally reprehensible doing business with you if you're that stupid. I'll buy a Sprint phone.
CATT: No, no no! Tell you what, I'll send you a NEW one for the same price, so you don't have to return the Star Wars thingie.
Me:
CATT: Sir?
Me: Nevermind, I can do business with idiots. Thanks. Send it on.
-knewter
Problem is that the only providers with decent coverage in some areas of the United States *cough* Verizon *cough* insist on locking all phones on their network such that they run only applications purchased from the provider's overpriced store, and you can't test applications on phones connected to their network unless you are an established company.
Undoubtedly not. If you read that site, and then read his posting, you may note that the union of "screensavers and wallpaper" and the set of things he is interested in equals the empty set.
I've found Pocket Quicken by Landware to be invaluable. It adds about 10 seconds to transactions but that 10 seconds makes you think, do I really need to be buying this crap? Saved me a lot more money than it cost, thats for sure. The only app on my Treo that I use absolutely every day.
It's on vibrate!
You can use your smartphone to annoy telemarketers. Just write a program that analyzes the power per unit time of the conversation to detect pauses. When the telemarketer pauses, the program plays an interjection like "yeah" or "uh huh" or "I don't understand". When your phone rings and you answer it and hear a telemarketer, press the "spam" button and put the phone away, secure in the knowledge that your program will waste a minute or so of the spammer's time.
If you have to travel to Germany you may consider having a english-german dictionary on your mobile phone. You may try http://www.sf.net/projects/mobidict (disclaimer: I am the author of the software)
If you want some more ideas: http://www.getjar.com/
I have to maintain an insane number of passwords and systems - Flexwallet 2006 triple encrypts the database file that stores my passwords. It also includes a PC app that it syncs with.
Highly recommended.
It's like you're sitting there, the question seems to be in plain English, but you can't think of an answer. You can hear the clock ticking away the precious seconds, and all you can think is 'remote control ... oh, no infra-red' and 'phone ... oh, no battery life'.
There's 10 minutes left to go, and your sheet of paper is empty and you've organised your pens and pencils neatly on the desk. A bit of paper has a drawing of a smartphone, but it doesn't look very intelligent to you.
Then, it hits you!
Yes!
A blunt weapon.
Hurredly you write out an answer based upon using a brick shaped Windows Mobile device as a kudgel.
And you pass.
Although the phone you specify doesn't have WiFi, for any that do a Skype client is a must.
However in the US I've noticed that carriers tend to shy away from WiFi on mobiles. A few here in the UK have it, but the drawback there is that Skype apparently 'has problems' running on the TI OMAP chips used in a lot of them. I don't know whether this is a carrier-induced limitation, although I'd hazard a guess that with most OMAP chips running at C. 200MHz, it might be a physical limitation, given that these are phone-centric chips, rather than do-everything CPUs like the the X-Scales found in other Pocket PC devices.
I JUST got a PPC-6700 and am looking for ssh software...
I can't vouch for it, and I haven't used it yet. (How's that for a review?) So mostly I'm wondering if anybody else has tried it before I drop $50 on it.
http://choung.net/mToken/
There are a few free ones out there (how's the putty port?) but this one seems to be pretty full featured. I really would like to be able to use keys and have some sort of bookmark capability.
I just noticed that Samsung released a cellphone with both Bluetooth and WiFi. I'd love to see a phone that lets me use it as a VoIP handset (or even allows me to transition a cell-based call to a VoIP one "somehow").
For me, that's going to be the big factor in the next phone upgrade -- multiple protocols beyond the cell network.
Of course, for most people this is going to start off as being a useless application, but I can see huge things ahead for the first phones that have this ability (and the software to make the handoff).
pssh
tcpmp - plays movies
ptunes - mp3s and such
audible.com's player for ebooks
plucker for free ebooks
eatwatch so I don't swell up
chatter - best email client
tomtom navigator - don't leave home without the gps fob...
verichat for chatting
fileprog - a better file browser
an unzip utility so I can download from the web
my subway/train schedule
card export - turns the phone into a usb mass-storage device
LJP - a nintendo emulator (also gameboy and sega and tgfx etc)
niggle - a free scrabble emulator
I guess that's it.
I love my Nokia N70. I want to marry it and have its babies.
I can dial up for weather reports. Being dressed uncomfortably is a thing of the past! This is great, but it's got an FM radio built in, so I can usually get a weather report every half hour on ABC News Radio instead. (Note that Newsradio bothers everyone in my family, so just putting the radio on is not always an option.)
I can use it during school or anywhere for internet, so I never have to be without information. Of course, not every website is well laid-out for a mobile device, but this is the next big thing.
It can receive email appointments from my email account, so that I don't have to get to a computer to receive an invitation to a meeting, date or whatever, and also it can automatically reject any appointment that clashes with a lecture or tutorial. This is SOOOOOOO convenient! Who wants to spend time on all that administrative stuff? Who can keep track of it anyway?? Not me!
With a press of a button I can decide whether to divert calls to voicemail or an answering service. So during lectures I can receive messages as sms (so I can receive them without lifting a phone to my ear and I know if something urgent comes in), but out and about, I get them as voice (and can keep my eyes and hands free while I take them in).
I can record my own ringtone. I know this seems a bit gimmicky, but I like that my ringtone is totally subtle and totally unique.
I can hook it up to a wireless keyboard. Who wants to lug about a laptop computer to write on? Do you know you can get laser-projected wireless keyboards now? They're about the size of a chocolate bar or another very small phone, instead of a huge device bulging in one's handbag.
Plus it has a videophone AND a very good camera in the back. And it syncs to my computer (actually, I haven't done that yet, but I know it CAN be done). As a parent, I NEED a camera, voice recorder, etc handy!
And the to-do list!
If you get one good programme, get a good to-do list, with all sorts of ways to arrange and display the to-dos.
And the other add-on I haven't mentioned is the bluetooth headset. You don't have a big range, so you need your phone in your pocket (good reason to swap to khakis from jeans) but you can do things without getting the wire caught up.
This is the first time I've had my whole life in a device. I didn't think it was going to be possible. I thought I was going to have to become a gargoyle with devices all over me. Phone, PDA, etc. But it only comes with a small MMC - you have to offload at the end of each day or get a really big one. It doesn't have a wearable screen, but with voice commands, you can keep your hands and eyes free almost all of the time!
(I predict voice interaction to be the next really big thing with computers. Think about Star Trek. If they want to look at info, they go to a screen, but they spend a lot of the episode, just barking commands to the computer which responds with a sounded acknowlegement. Hands AND eyes free!)
I love my phone!
*#*#*#*#*#******* I love peanut butter sandwiches!
I use imov Messenger on my Audiovox Smartphone. Its Googletalk, MSN, AIM, ICQ, and Yahoo Messenger all in one. Also works with any Jabber based system (Googletalk is Jabber based).
I'd say the ssh client on it kicks major butt. Had to configure sshd to accept the protocal but after that it was like using unix from 20 years ago... nice and slow... every keystroke a thing of beauty as the commands were only two or three characters each. I can even read my mail in PINE {sniff snif}.... now I'm all weepy... thanks...
Agile Messenger (all your IM needs rolled into one)
Opera for Smartphones
RJShortcut
NewsBreak (RSS Reader)
SmartIRC
RepliGo
Smartione (not a typo)
I've had PocketPC-Phones for a while, and I agree - TCPMP(aka BetaPlayer) is definitely the best video player.
For encoding, there's a great prog called "pocket-DVD Studio". It will grab a DVD or File, and DIVX it. It works fast-@1hr per dvd. Most movies are ~200MB. It'll crop letterboxes, allow you to pick the output resolution/bitrate/audio, and tell you the final file-size before it even starts. afaik, nothing else does the trick. Stay away from pocketdivxencoder-It's corrupted a few of my files.
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There's this really useful one that lets you talk to people, just by entering their special code. It uses voice too once you're on-line to the person, so you don't have to worry about typing.
If my call is important, why am I talking to a recording?
In a bit of blatant self promotion...
The Hecl Programming Language: http://www.hecl.org/
It's an open source scripting language that's compact enough to run on cell phones. If you're the adventurous/hacker type, it's still in the early stages of development, but is far along enough to write real apps, such as this shopping list system:
http://www.dedasys.com/shopping_list/
It's a great time to get involved in the project because it's in its early stages, and there is a lot of fun to be had!
http://www.welton.it/davidw/
Here is a list of things that any phone more advanced than a Nokia 5160 could concievably do (especially with Symbian or other smart phone OSes), but which don't ship from the manufucturer, and are thus relegated to half-written, poorly integrated shareware apps that don't work on different smart phones running the same OS:
* Answering machine. Who needs voice mail on the provider side? Your phone probably has memory onboard + expansion slot memory. It has enough brains to record voice memos, do voice dialing, and play MP3s as ringtones. How hard is this to implement? Plus there's no monthly fee!
* Time-of-day call ignore. Are you in a meeting for a certain time? Have lectures or classes? Doctors appointment? Your phone should automatically go into a silent mode (and kick over to the answering machine). Why let yourself be the point of failure?
* Selective disturb. Studying, working on a project, or otherwise engaged, but don't want to drop off the face of the earth? Make it so that only certain call groups can contact you, just in case.
* Privacy mode. Automatically reject calls from caller-id blocked numbers or long-distance (based on an area code list) numbers, or from people in certain groups.
* Smart synchronization with Palm or WinCE PDAs. Most smart phones have bluetooth, but so far I have yet to find a way to sychronize the smartphone with the PDA in any useful way. Don't we have vcards and other standards for this?
* Smart synchronization with a PC. Even just a stupid Windows client + some documentation would be fine. I can write something that'll let my Linux desktop sync if it's documented! This could be as simple as dumping the data from the internal memory to the expansion memory in a parsable format, and then restoring it the same way -- the PC could have a program to read the memory card and deal with the data.
* Some kind of automation system. I have run across lots of little situations where I need to do something to a lot of contacts (move them into a group, delete duplicates, etc), and have found there's no batch interface. You have to deal with everything one click at a time.
All of this stuff is pretty simple to do, and would elevate a smartphone from a fancy phone with a colour display and better ringtones. No Symbian OS phone I know supports time-based silencing, call ignore lists, answering machine, selective disturb, or sychronizes well. You can fake some of that with custom ring tones, but that's a hack.
The most disapointing feature of mobile phones are the SDKs; you can't write this stuff if you want to, in many cases (and the Java support is terrible). Why make something programable if the only thing it'll do is load the code that shipped with it?
--
Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
Frogger
Sent from my ASR33 using ASCII
Essentials on my 5600 (actually branded an Orange SPV C500 - they're all HTC Typhoons underneath it all)
* Torch - simple program that turns screen on full brightness with white background so you can use it as a torch. Assign a speeddial to it. Free.
* Autokeylock - does what it says, also gives you handy clock display screensaver. Free.
* Citytime pocket alarms - easier to use than the dreadful inbuilt alarm, allows different alarms for different days of the week
* One great feature that's built in is automatic profile switching. When you've got a meeting booked in your calendar, it'll switch to the meeting profile automatically. It took me 6 months to find this!
* TomTom mobile GPS navigation and a bluetooth GPS device. I get full UK coverage with postcode nav in around 200MB including all UK speedcameras, all read to me by John Cleese's voice. Invaluable.
* Windows Media 10 ROM update - use MP3s as ringtones etc.
* Opera Mobile - until MiniMo comes out, the best browser. Pocket IE is practically unusable. I've had loads of smartphones and this one is far and away the best I've used. Only a bigger screen and wifi could improve it - it's very much phone form factor rather than PDA.
Opera mini - awesome program and free!!
I've never had any problems even remotely similar to that with my Verizon Treo 650.
As another poster suggested, TCPMP is GREAT. I use it on my Treo, and I've heard the PocketPC version (for the original poster) is also excellent.
Also in the category of "stuff you can do with a huge memory card", look into either Mapopolis or TomTom plus a Bluetooth GPS receiver. Like TCPMP, there are both PocketPC and PalmOS versions. TomTom seems to be getting more popular these days than Mapopolis.
Unfortunately, one of the nicest features of the early wireless PDAs and smartphones (web clipping applications) died when Palm shut down the Palm.net proxy servers. It's sad, because in terms of user interface, WCAs were one of the fastest ways of getting particular types of information. Using a web browser just isn't the same. Palm should have rewritten the WCA system to do normal HTML requests but still keep the WCA user interface. Note that there was an application recently released for PalmOS that seemed very similar to the original WCA system, I forget the name (look through the mytreo.net news archives if you use a Treo or other PalmOS smartphone), i'm not sure if there is a PocketPC equivalent.
To the parent of this post: Every single one of the apps listed above was installed to my Treo 650 without paying Verizon a single cent. Of course, with the exception of TCPMP and demo versions of the other apps, you will have to pay the original application developer some money. (Quite a bit in the case of Mapopolis or TomTom, thank Navtec's exorbitant licensing fees for that!)
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
The hardware and software big wigs are working to make this a reality. This is targeted to GSM/GSPR network carriers world-wide. Concept: You run phone call controling software on the smartphone that can talk to a "Smart Base Station Controler". The phone figures out the most stable link back to the base station via WiFi or GSM/GSPR cell network. The phone call is established and also rings back to you. Fun part, when you are getting out of your car, have a GSM cell network conversation, and step into your corporate WiFi bubble, the phone stays "Aha! I have WiFi" it then tells the base station to transition the phone call off the GSM/GSPR cell network and onto the corporate WiFi. GSM minutes unused and corporate WiFi leveraged.
In reality, costs $$$. For the practical person. Use the cell phone network when out of WiFi range, when in WiFi range use a SIP client to a VoIP provider of your choice.
Enjoy..
What I am I once was. What I now become I long to be. Life is a journey not a destination.
I'm in the market for a new phone. I know I need to get at a bare minimum a GSM phone to get on Cingular/Old AT&T.
What I'd like to find out is if there are any phones/devices out there that will hop on wireless networks (esp Free as in beer) to get out to the web? I want to be able to surf/check email/IM etc. and of course I want to avoid paying outrageous sums of money to said phone companies. Does this make sense?
I forgot what I wanted to say, but honestly, it was important.
Every single one of the apps listed above was installed to my Treo 650 without paying Verizon a single cent.
Then what's all this I've been reading about "Get It Now" and "Get Around Get It Now"?
I've had 3 replies so far. All of them are from people who didn't read my post or understand what I was saying.
1) Voicemail's not free for everyone. There is no real security in having voicemail (or any private data) on your service provider's equipment, either, as the recent Google vs. DOJ should show. Why shouldn't my phone do it, regardless of what the providers offer?
2) These are obvious features; once you go beyond a simple phone that just does DTMF based on a keypad, you would think this would become a standard functionality. 9$ shareware applications are not standard functionality. 9$ shareware applications do not move with me when I replace my Symbian phone with one running Motorola's OS or a PalmOS-based phone! 9$ shareware applications do not integrate with each other. These should be in the phone software itself. A secondary download means the phone is not a smart phone so much as a colour phone with a camera and fancy ringtones.
3) Synchronization is a big problem! Symbian phones don't synchronize in any documented way; no means exists on MacOS to correctly sync (iSync will ignore the phone's groups, randomly delete contacts, etc), and no means exists to sync it with Linux. PalmOS does not sync to MacOS (iSync destroyed or duplicated a lot of my memodb and contacts, and destroyed my calendar, when I tried syncing my T once). WinCE by design does not sync with MacOS or Linux. None of these devices will sync with each other in any standard way. Yay, I get to enter duplicate data!
4) Selective ringtones are a hack as a means of selective ignoring calls; setting someone's custom ring tone to a blank recording is not as effective as just saying, "Never accept calls from this person" in a check box somewhere.
If you're going to reply to me, give me real solutions, don't just prove you didn't read my post.
--
Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
I don't have a PDA phone just an A900. It has a web browser, calendar, a few games, Sprint Powervison, and a few games. Coverage has been pretty good for me and I really like the small size.
Google Local rocks. The only thing I wish is that it would interface with the phones GPS.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
I have that exact phone and have been very happy with it. Here are the 3rd-party apps I use: - Smart Database Viewer, because it doesn't come with Pocket Excel - Smartphonenotes - notes that synch with Outlook notes - Pocket DVD-Studio for ripping DVDs to smartphone-usable format. There's also Mobile Media Maker that's cheaper but has fewer options and can only do smartphone output, not Pocket PC. - gStart - Start menu replacement - Total Commander - file explorer with actual features (contrast with built-in one) - AlarmSet - just what it sounds like - Tasks+ - SplashID - for passwords - PHM Registry Editor - TCPMP as mentioned by others - WordNet CE - English dictionary - S-Tris Tetris clone - Games from www.absolutist.com - BTToggle to turn Bluetooth on and off. I haven't had much luck getting BT to work, but the utility works. - Mobipocket for eBooks - Jeyo Personalizer - setting home screens, etc, not all that useful but OK All but the first three are free. Others I can think of that I've tried or looked at and didn't buy: - City alarms - looks good but don't really *need* it and it's $10 I think - Torch - sounds good and works, except it doesn't override the screen timeout. So it ends up being pretty useless - CPTools - haven't had time to evaluate this one - PTab - another Excel substitute - Wordpad (I think that's what it's called) free notes/text editor but doesn't synch with PC - Rubber Stamped Data - backup utility. Works, but don't feel like paying for it That's all I can think of/find right now. Have fun!
Sorry about that...
I have that exact phone and have been very happy with it. Here are the 3rd-party apps I use:
- Smart Database Viewer, because it doesn't come with Pocket Excel
- Smartphonenotes - notes that synch with Outlook notes
- Pocket DVD-Studio for ripping DVDs to smartphone-usable format. There's also Mobile Media Maker that's cheaper but has fewer options and can only do smartphone output, not Pocket PC.
- gStart - Start menu replacement
- Total Commander - file explorer with actual features (contrast with built-in one)
- AlarmSet - just what it sounds like
- Tasks+
- SplashID - for passwords
- PHM Registry Editor
- TCPMP as mentioned by others
- WordNet CE - English dictionary
- S-Tris Tetris clone
- Games from www.absolutist.com
- BTToggle to turn Bluetooth on and off. I haven't had much luck getting BT to work, but the utility works.
- Mobipocket for eBooks
- Jeyo Personalizer - setting home screens, etc, not all that useful but OK
All but the first three are free. Others I can think of that I've tried or looked at and didn't buy:
- City alarms - looks good but don't really *need* it and it's $10 I think
- Torch - sounds good and works, except it doesn't override the screen timeout. So it ends up being pretty useless
- CPTools - haven't had time to evaluate this one
- PTab - another Excel substitute
- Wordpad (I think that's what it's called) free notes/text editor but doesn't synch with PC
- Rubber Stamped Data - backup utility. Works, but don't feel like paying for it
That's all I can think of/find right now. Have fun!
zero wing!
Most if not all of the things you mention are doable with the S60 port of Python. Sure, it requires some hacking, but at least it's Python. Check out Python S60.
On my Windows Mobile 2003SE I use:
.NET VNC: VNC viewer
:) to this great website: FreeCABs (Your Link to Free PPC Software which can be installed without a PC connection)
- CAB Installer: you can select where install programs
- GSPlayer: Simply audio player for Pocket PC
- Mozilla Minimo: web browser
- Opera for windows mobile: web browser
- TCPMP: media player
- Total Commander: file manager
- Vbar: task manager
- WiFiFoFum2: the best WiFi scanner and war driving software for Pocket PC
- PocketPuTTY: ssh access
-
I will suggest also a daily visit
about me A - B
I no longer own it, but when I had a pdQ Smartphone with an SSH client loaded, I was once able to log into the switches and router in the data center when there were issues installing hosts on the switches. I was roaming around a street fair 15 miles away from the data center at the time. Not what I would call ideal, but it got the job done. It beat having to leave the fair, drive to the data center and fix the problem there, not the least of which it would have taken me more time to do the latter.
If you can't beat them, embrace and extend them.
So it's not a native PocketPC application but midpssh is GNU-free and has lots of ssh options including public key authentication. The only down side is the less-than-native-looking interface that you get from running J2ME, but the terminal is top notch. Definitely the best ssh application that I've found for the platform.
Matthew @ Bytemark Hosting