I have been using smart phones for quite sometime now and i must say that they are fantastic pieces of technology. With a smartphone you can do all the things that a previous generation computer could do..well almost.

The best part of using a smart phone is that these run of platforms like Symbian, Microsoft,Andriod etc., and have many independent software vendors writing nifty apps for them.

But to truly harness its power you would need a unlimited data connection, in India, if you subscribe to the blackberry service (cost- 1100 INR/month mark), you would get that thrown in.

My top 5 must have apps for my e61i are

1. Fring

http://www.fring.com/

Fring is a really cool app which lets you logon to all the messenger services like gtalk,Yahoo,Skype, etc., you can also use it to place skype calls. This thing does have a twitter integration, but its treated like a chat window, i didnt like the twitter integration much.

But oveerall a great app to chat when on the move, which is primarily what i use it for.

2. Gmail 2.0

http://www.google.com/mobile/default/mail/

in version 1.0 you couldn’t search mails properly, all that is fixed now and with this release, you can do pretty much everything that you would on a desktop. I still have to remember email addresses unlike in the desktop client, but i am not complaining.

3. emtube

http://www.schierwagen.de/blog/support/

I really really hate waiting and the best time pass is to watch some Youtube videos, now you can do that one your mobile as well. Emtube is THE best Youtube client out there — oh yea its better than Youtube’s own implementation. The video plays without a stutter, you can search for videos….pretty much does what you expect it to do without a flaw.

4.Twibble.

http://www.twibble.de/

Works as advertised! if you extensively use twitter then this is a must have…it seems to have a location aware tweet posting thingie, i haven’t been able to test that coz my phone doesn’t have GPS.

5. Google MAPS

It does seem kinda strange, but looking at satellite shots of our office and home rooftops seem to provide us with hours of entertainment.

Best part is even if you do not have a GPS, Gmaps will tell you your location with a blinking blue dot.

And yes, all these apps are all FREE!

requirement – wlan internet connection or 3g service with unlimited data plan.

method #1 – goto the website http://m.youtube.com using your phone web browser. here click on the “Continue” button on the warning page. you can now search for videos on a particular topic, view featured videos, browse “Most Viewed”, “Top Rated” or by “Categories”.

method #2 – download “EmTube”, freeware symbian based youtube player from http://www.symbian-freeware.com/download-emtube.html

happy viewing !!!

2 weeks ago my Laptop died. One of my first problems was how I would watch my favourite American and Japanese shows now that I didn’t have access to a computer. Luckily, I have a N95 8GB which came to my rescue in my time of need.

How will I watch House!?

House was easy.
1) Open emTube and search for “house season 4″
2) Select the videos and watch.

This worked very well, everything was in sync and I didn’t even have to wait for the videos to load before watching. Quality was fantastic aswell.

How will I watch Bleach!?
Bleach was relatively easy aswell.

1) Fire up the s60 browser
2) Go to google and search for “Bleach (insert episode number here)”
3) Find a site that streams the episode and enjoy.

This wasn’t too bad, Subtitles were easily legible. Quality isn’t on par with emtube though. The browser loaded up over 150MB in the temporary memory I think though.

How will I watch Lost!?

Once again, this was easy.

there are 3 ways I could have watched lost:

The first way is the same as with Bleach, search for a site that’s streaming Lost in the browser and away you go.

The second way is to wait until Sunday evening and watch it on sky one.

This is how I did it though:

1) Download and install divx player for s60.
2) Find the pre-converted lost episode and download it
3) Enjoy

This way takes the longest , it took me about 10 minutes to download the 100mb file from rapidshare using Opera Mobile via wifi.

To conclude…

If you have a N95 8GB and your computer has kicked the bucket or is in for repair, or maybe if you just fancy some video watching in the comfort of your bed then don’t despair for the saviour is here!

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Youtube.com has released an official beta of a mobile app for select symbian phones , that lets you upload and download content to or from your phone directly from your handset.

According to the site ..the app lets you :

Access millions of YouTube videos at any time right from your mobile phone. This download able application puts YouTube in your pocket.

Which videos are hot?
Access the latest, the best and the most viewed videos.

Search…
…and watch any YouTube video.

Stay tuned
Watch your subscriptions, play lists and favorite videos any time.

Upload
Upload videos directly from your mobile phone.

To download this app on your Nokia’s N73, N95, E65, 6110, 6120 ,SonyEricsson k800 and w880 , head over to :

m.youtube.com/app

from you mobile phone browser.

Or if you want to know more about the App.. head over to : http://www.youtube.com/yt_mobile_app

Now to see how this stacks up against emTube…another favourite of mine. Let me know what you think of it .