A Waste of Space and Resources

Why does Nokia include so many useless applications on its phones? Many have wondered what this or application does and are often met with confusion. If you take a close look at any of the recent, even the not so recent models, you will find many applications that have never have been or ever will be used.

Take for example LifeBlog, I can name all the people I know that use it on one hand. The idea is that you can grab all your text, pictures and keep them on your computer to create a time line of your life. Additional you can post to your blog by using your phone and then syncing to the computer later using said text, pictures and other multimedia items. I can't recall a time when I would have wanted to post my text to my blog. Pictures are another story but why would I want to create all this from my phone only sync it with my computer in order to post it. Perhaps you're thinking so what? Well consider that LifeBlog isn't just sitting there idly waiting to be used. There are services of LifeBlog that load up every time the device is started, moreover it is keeping track of your text and other personal items. All of this takes a toll on device performance, not to mention the fact that it opens the door for further application conflicts. All of this for an application that is not used much less wanted and yet unable to remove.

LifeBlog is just the tip of the ice berg actually, let's look at all the other items that exist that go unused, even by Nokia themselves I'd wager. Shall we list a few? Modem, Device Manager, 3-D Tones, Activation Keys and Barcode. Then you might have noticed there is a separate application for setting your voicemail box. Why on earth wasn't this added to the settings application? USB is in the settings but then why create another icon? What about Bluetooth? It too is in the settings and yet missing half of the configuration ability, for that use the Bluetooth icon. All of these icons, many redundant or useless and its any wonder people are confused by S60 as a whole. Make things worst these icons and applications cannot be removed. Nokia is marketing the latest N Series as multimedia computers, yet they all lack one of the basic abilities, perhaps taken for granted, on a PC; the ability to uninstall or delete useless icons. The saving grace here is that with Feature Pack 1 (FP1) sub-folders can be created; making it possible to clean up these icons into an unused “junk” folder. Most of these applications reside on the ROM, as such do not take up any device memory and yet I wonder how many of these applications launch even one wasted service in the background. Looking at any operating system from Windows to Mac to Linux and we know that services and applications are loaded that are not needed. in the case of each of these operating systems services can be disabled or even removed. Come on Nokia if you truly want your devices to be taken seriously as multimedia computers things are going to have to change. For starters stop forcing applications such as LifeBlog down our throats by not installing it by default. Instead spend your energy in developing applications users really want, like a HTML capable email client, more robust web browser and more customizable profiles, or improve BATTERY LIFE.

Comments

[oZ]

This was the most useless article I've seen on here. Yes, there are a few applications that don't make sense to have otherwise. LifeBlog is a neat app. Bluetooth is a separate app so you can have a shortcut to it somewhere to quickly turn Bluetooth on or off - to save battery life. Outside of your little world, Device Manager comes in handy to create profiles for different locations. Modem might be deprecated soon, but it's there so you can create an IrDA modem and turn it on and off - to save battery life. Go grab an app to view your used services, and realize that these applications that you're whining about do not take many resources to keep active. Don't want all that extra stuff? Go get a Samsung with Opera Mini and stop whining about it.

[Kdude]

You have a point here, almost.
The same thing can be said about almost every other device, appliance, machine... you name it.
I definitely agree that Nokia (and almost all other) phones have too much built in features. But it's a thin line between too much and too little. If I had to choose, I'd go for too much.
Are you certain that lifeblog runs all the time? Could it be that lifeblog uses functionalities that would run without lifeblog on the phone?

Why is there a floating vest under the seat in an AIRplane? Why is there a light in a refridgerator and NOT in a freezer? Why an earth do I need four cupholders in the front of my car? And the list goes on... ;)

[RAS]

I second the call for less useless junk, better battery life. In fact, battery life is the current Holy Grail of mobile devices (followed closely by data speed). Anything that hits our battery life should be explored, scrutinized, and streamlined whenever possible. And streamlining the OS - eliminating complications like splitting the bluetooth settings between two locations and making it easier to use - would only be a plus for Symbian s60.

[Eugene]

Acutally device manager is a very helpfull and usefull application. Aside from telling you the current connection speed, it shows the wifi signal strength, which i always use to walk around and get a better signal.

[Ms. Jen]

There are 2 reasons why I buy Nokia Nseries phones over any of the competition: The cameras and Lifeblog.

Hi my name is Jen, and I am a moblogger. Lifeblog is my link between my device & my blog. Don't talk "Share Online" to me, it is a piece of dog doo next to the UX functionality of Lifeblog mobile app.

Rather than getting into a scuffle over what customer considers what apps necessary and what other customer considers to be crap, maybe the model for Nokia needs to be what Movable Type or WordPress have done with blogs: Provide a main software engine that can take lots of plugins to provide extra functionality as needed.

Thus if we wanted to use this model, it would be great if Nokia provided a base operating system and then allowed each user to download the software that makes sense to their work flow.

For power users who come to the device with a specific worldflow intent this would be a dream, I would immediately jettison all the games, calendaring, alarms & office software. But for the majority of Nokia customers, this would take away the discovery of having a delightful array of previously unknown (to the customer) apps to explore on the device.

Maybe what would be best is if each Nokia came with the ability to override the pre-installed software by backing it up to one's computer and then being able to delete *any* and all of it off the device if one so chooses. Passcode protect the apps and if I really want to delete them, I can by entering my password.

[Matthew Stevens]

Thanks everyone for your comments. I wasn't trying to stir up trouble but I can see I hit a nerve with a few.

@Ms.Jen You are the vast minorty when it comes to LifeBlog in my travels. Other than yourself the only other person I hear that like it is our very own Darla Mack. I'm glad to hear it works for you, but I still wish I could trash the app or at least stop the related services from loading.

[Popy]

i still don't understand the IM icon... it's been there for YEARS but i still don't understand what it does..what services to use...etc

another thing, being nSeries a multimedia computer..why on earth does it play only 2 or 3 video files straight from the box? and not be able to stream video online...not be able to stream mp3 stations straight from the box...with the station we want and not being limited to nokia internet radio?

[mr. gunn]

I think LifeBlog is nice to have, because someone who gets the phone as their first N series device can be introduced to things they wouldn't have otherwise known about, but I also think it should be removeable.

[Reda]

sorry but kind of agree with oZ ;-(
It's true that perhaps there should be a way to delete some icons in the menus (uninstalling the app completely might not be feasible), but believe me if you are really concerned about performance there are much worse offenders out there...

[Ms. Jen]

Hi Matthew,

I actually know quite a few folks who swear by Lifeblog, but they tend to be artists or photo bloggers and not in the tech blogger crowd.

I think the real crux of the issue here is that many of us would like Nokia to really make the apps and the OS open in the sense that we can customize our devices with the software / mobile apps that we want or don't want.

I think many of us choose Nokia / S60 over other mobile devices or OSes because we can customize them but it seems that over the 'net this week that there are more than a few calls for Symbian to become more truly open.

[Matthew]

@Ms.Jen obviously we travel in different circles and of course people tend to be more vocal about the things they don't like rather than the things they do like.

The whole post all stemmed from my experience with LifeBlog and the N73. A few N73 owners out there are bound to relate. Out of the clear blue I found myself running out of device memory, not just memory errors but the memory available to install and store anything and everything. It too me some time but eventually I discovered the culprit. A HUGE file created by LifeBlog. Having never used LifeBlog I was more than a little annoyed. To compound the issue I couldn't delete the file, not even opening LifeBlog and deleting all the items there fixed it. The only way I found to empty the file without hacking the system was to sync LifeBlog to the PC. I eventually discovered I could use one of Y-Browsers tools to kill one or more of the LifeBlog processes. By killing the process the file became unlocked so it could be deleted. I deleted the file. Started LifeBlog back up, let it create the file again, killed the process again and made the file read-only. Making the file read-only meant nothing could write to it, saving huge amounts of memory. This whole process took more than a week to work out. Before making the file read-only I did try formatting the phone and memory card to no avail. I haven't had this issue on any other device yet, but it certainly gave me a bad taste for an application I never used before or since.

[Mixrdrivr]

I am all for getting rid of useless junk, however, I find the author of this article to be way off. To think that you can just list a bunch of apps and arbitrarily call them junk is presumptuous at best. What is useful to one may be useless to another...overall I think useful wins. Here's one you mentioned..the bar code app. Most people have no use at all for the thing. It doesn't scan normally used bar codes. "What do I do with it??" people ask. I'll tell you, I love it, and here is why and what I do with it. I browse a lot on my my N95-3, as well as on my comp at home. I use Firefox for a web browser. Firefox has a neat little plugin which will generate a bar code for any web page I am on. So, I visit a page at home and want to save it to my mobile browser for later use, I quickly snap a shot of that bar code using the reader. Voila. No url typing, no searching for the page on my mobile...just open the bar code reader and click the link. VERY USEFUL, and hardly qualifies as junk.

[Kevin]

Hi Matthew,
I just read this post and wanted to reply to try and clarify for you and your readers how these apps can be used.

Modem application is used for Infrared Dial-up. If the S60 device does not have Infrared port then the Modem application won't be present.

Device Manager is mostly used by businesses. If a company buys many S60 devices for their employees, it allows them to push out Access Point settings, Bookmarks, E-mail settings, etc. remotely so that the corporate IT departments can update or configure devices for the employees.
A couple of commentors confused the Connection Manager with the Device Manager. The Connection Manager application is useful for viewing what Access Points are currently being used, Transfer Speed of the connection, and Total amount of data send/received.

3-D Tones can be used to enhance Ring Tones by adding audio effects such as an echo or passing train effect.

Activation Keys app is used to handle DRM keys. It can be used to View keys on the device, revoke Keys, Delete Keys, etc. If the Music/Images/Etc that you have on the device doesn't use DRM then Activation Keys app won't show any keys.

Barcode reader is useful for obtaining information quickly, however the popularity of Barcodes ranges from country-to-country. For example, in Japan there are many Barcodes on advertisements that can quickly be scanned to get the URL and E-mail from the Ad but in other countries the use of Barcodes isn't very popular. As mixrdrivr pointed out one great use for it is easily opening URLs without having to type the URL using the Firefox Barcode plug-in.

Lifeblog can be used to upload to Flickr, Vox, and is especially good at uploading to Typepad blogs since Typepad supports many fileformats (audio, video, images, text, etc.) As you can see from the comments just because you don't use it doesn't mean that nobody else does. As for the issue you experienced with your N73, I haven't seen the problem you mentioned but it sounds like a bug to me.

The USB and Bluetooth icons are present so that you can quickly change the Settings of these connection methods, USB setting (PictBridge printing, USB Mass Storage, PC suite, etc.) or turning On/Off Bluetooth.

If you don't find some of the applications useful then don't use them. As you mentioned, the icons can be re-arranged in whatever order you like or you can create a folder for any apps that you don't use and move them to that folder.

I think that explains most of the applications you mentioned..

However I detected you were complaining alittle about the general UI navigation of the Application Shell and General Settings. The more applications present on the device the more confusing it can become, I agree with you there. Hopefully future S60 releases will be changed to make it easier to navigate around the many applications S60 devices come pre-installed with.

[Giovani]

I like how you can visualize your phone "stuff" in Lifeblog PC, it is neat.

You wanted attention didn't you darla? ;P

[Jay C]

I don't know whats Darla is talking about - maybe she was confused by the name "Lifeblog", like I was at first.
For me it's the software I use the most - It allowes me to back up my Pictures, Videos and SMSs on my computer.
I mean, if I want to back up a few pictures I've taken during a weekend gateway(with an easy to use and intuitive interface, I must say) on my computer, then Lifeblog does an excellent job - it's also a lot easier than marking each picture and going to Vista's bluetooth program just to transfer them, or connecting the cell via a USB cable and then transferring the photo's to folders or even yanking the microsd card and doing the same thing- and I'm the one who has to decide where to put the pictures once they're in my computer, and now I have to start tagging them so they're organized, it's a real pain!!!
Lifeblog solves it with a really elegant solution. the only downside to the program is that Videos are always big and it takes a long time to transfer them to the computer.
So in short - Lifeblog is a terrific program! try it yourself and see what YOU think!