Top 10 Must Have Apps for your Nokia N9

Nokia N9, the esteemed "abandoned child" of Nokia, is a great device, and for an experienced user like me there's nothing I miss more than availability of popular games and applications. There are, however, precious jems that are worth every user's attention.

Please have a look at the list of my favourite must have applications for Nokia N9.

1. Fid Me

Fid me is an application that lets you keep copies of all your loyalty and membership cards in one place on your device. Basically, it works in a very similar way to Apple's Passbook. It allows you to keep your wallet slender and instead of showing a particular card at the purchase, you can now just let the cashier scan the code directly from your mobile. The application has been made available to most mobile platforms including - quite surprisingly the Nokia N9. 

The app generates a copy of any loyalty card you can think of, for a complete list please refer to http://www.fidme.com/. The list is quite impressive and covers many countries. Once you enter the card details like number, your name and surname, it will re-create an identical card in your Nokia N9. 

Tip: If you need to use a particular foreign loyalty card (e.g. French, Spanish), switching interface language in your phone will let you access all cards unavailable in your country.

2. QStarDict

QStarDict is a dictionary application that will allow you to use dictionaries in Stardict format, which is cross-platform and easily customizable. The inportant advantage of this App is that you can make it work with any dictionary you can possibly find on the internet (incluuding Longman, Oxford, Macmillan, Webster's and many others). The application is not free, but definitely worth every penny. If you're looking for a free alternative, there is also a counterpart called DictionaryStar, also available from the Nokia Store. Both applications offer similar functionality, yet the former is a bit more user friendly to me.

For more details on installing the QStarDict App please refer to my blog entry.

3. FBReader (download)

FBReader is my favourita e-book reader for Nokia N9. It supports a lot of book formats including those widely available for full size ebook readers like ePub, fb2(.zip), mobi, chm, html, plain text. FBReader is fast, highly customizable. It offers hyphenation patterns for 16 languages.

There is integration with with several popular network libraries is included. Alternatively, you can download books manually and put them into Books filder on the memory card.

4. Vimeo

The name says it all. This is just an official vimeo client from Vimeo. The interface is simplistic but works a treat. Vimeo was rumoured to be included as out-of-the-box functionality on the N9, but it hasn't been available until now.

One advantage that Vimeo has over YouTube is that the videos you can find there are meticulously selected and thus just about 90% of crappy vids are removed. The playback is easy and smooth.

For reasons unknown to me, however, the app isn't available from the official Nokia Store in my country, but I managed to install it from www.n9-apps.com

5. Evernote (download)

One of biggest disadvantages of Nokia N9 is that bi-directional syncing links is virtually impossible without Evernote. Evernote itself is a great solution and as soon as you make a small modification to official Evernote plugin (which I wrote about here) you will be able to enjoy full functionality of this amazing app.

There was an unofficial Evernote client for Nokia N9 called EverN9, but the author stopped supporting it and the app, as it stands, does not allow to log in (see EverN9 reviews section in Nokia Store).

Evernote gives you the ability to easily capture any moment, idea, inspiration, or experience using whichever device or platform you have at hand, and makes it easy to access and search these memories whenever you need them.

This plug-in allows you to quickly send images, URLs, and location info to Evernote using the N9’s sharing feature. Find the option to share to Evernote from the Gallery, Web, Feeds and Maps applications.

6. SkyFiles (Pro) (download)

SkyFiles is an unofficial Microsoft SkyDrive client that looks great and works a treat. The application is offered in Nokia Store in both free and Pro versions, which differ a bit functionality-wise.

What's different in PRO version (according to developer's website)

1. password saving,
2. 3 views - detail, tiles and large icons (thumbnail),
3. upload of all file types,
4. unlimited upload file size,
5. file operations - copy, move, delete,
6. right side scrolling bar

With SkyFiles you can easily upload and download your images, photos, videos and documents to your Microsoft SkyDrive. Just choose the source and destination folder on both tabs (Phone memory and SkyDrive) and click the Download or Upload button. Double tap to open the file.

7. The Flashlight (download)

 

The name says it all again. Keep it on your N9 as you never know when it might come in handy.

8. Battery usage (download)

Battery usage is an app that will allow you to monitor your N9 for any battery drainage and control which apps are the most power hungry. The app also estimates your remaining running time.

This is useful to have it on your N9 just to keep record of which apps cost you most battery life.


9. Firefox (download)

Nokia N9 version of popular web browser is definitely a fully featured app, but it lacks the speed of system web browser that pre-installed on N9 out of the box.

Nevertheless, Firefox deserves a recommendation since it offers you the possibility to play Flash videos on your Nokia N9 (the system browser misses it). To install Flash for Firefox please follow instructions on Flashplayer's Nokia Store website.

10. Convert (download)

This is nothing more than a simple unit and currency converter, but the thing that makes it great is that it does not require data connection to show you conversions. It saved my life on numerous occasions while travelling around Switzerland.

Once you update the currency exchange rate database in you country (or via WLAN), It won't cost you a penny to check prices wherever you are abroad in roaming.