If there is one complaint that I hear about the N900 more than anything else, it’s that there is a lack of apps for the device and the Maemo operating system as a whole. Thanks to Apple and their “There’s an app for that” ad “campaign” (more like assault), the focus has been taken off of what a device can do right when you take it out of the box and has been pointed at how many applications are available for said device and the platform is runs on. It’s great to have hundreds of thousands of applications at your fingertips but when most of those apps don’t add anything to your productivity, is that really worth bragging about?
Every manufacturer’s application store breaks down in exactly the same way, you have 10-20 apps that are superb and useful to anyone, think UrbanSpoon, PixelPipe, Ovi/Google Maps, Shazam, YouTube, Opera Mini, OpenTable, Food Network, The Weather Channel, etc. You have another 40-50 apps that are also as good as the apps in the first group but don’t necessarily apply to everyone, these are your social networking apps like each platform’s Facebook app, Twitter apps like Gravity, UberTwitter, TweetDeck, Seesmic; IM apps like Nimbuzz, Fring, AIM, Windows Live Messenger; And other apps like Skype, SportsTracker, etc. These are all great apps…if you need them. The only thing that separates them from our first group is that these apps will have absolutely no appeal to someone who doesn’t use these specific services but they can possibly sway someone to start using the service if they realize the benefits. For example, I only started using Skype a couple of months ago after seeing how well it is integrated into the N900’s software (and finding out that it’s free 
). There is another set of apps that are solely for specific individuals, these are the apps that are created by companies solely for their product or services, the iPhone has a lot of these but they’re popping up on Android and Symbian as well. These are apps like DirecTV, Geico, All State, Engadget and any of the banking apps available on the iPhone. These are not going to interest anyone except the people who consume these products or services and they aren’t going to sway anyone that doesn’t. All other apps are either games, personalizations (ringtones, wallpapers, videos, themes), eBooks (seriously?) or crap. So at the end of day, how many GOOD apps are really in your device’s App Store?
While it is true that Maemo does not have the breadth of applications available for Nokia’s Symbian devices but that doesn’t mean that they’re missing out on everything that their smartphone counterparts have access to. The following are the most powerful, most useful or just my favorite apps that are currently available for the N900 and I also provide a quick preview of a few apps that will be available once PR1.2 becomes official.
NOTE: I’d like to think that after 7 months, everyone knows how to add repositories to the Application Manager on their N900 but in the unlikely event that you don’t know how to set up the 3 ‘Extras’ catalogs, please refer to this guide put together by Mark of The Nokia Blog
fMMS
What better app to start with than with the one that shores up the N900’s only true deficiency when matched up with smartphones. Developed by Nick Leppänen Larsson (aka frals), fMMS has been around almost as long as the N900 and while there were a lot of bumps in the road in getting it up and running in earlier versions (such as having to download another app, fAPN, to create an access point for fMMS to use in order to send/receive messages), but as of late, it has rounded into an application that you can configure once and forget it’s there altogether until you need it. Provided that you have your carrier’s MMS settings, you can have fMMS up and running in less than 5 minutes.
The application installs a daemon on your N900 that starts anytime you receive an MMS message. Normally, these messages would be ignored by your N900 as Maemo 5 does not support it. fMMS will then attempt to retrieve the message from your operator. If successful, you will receive a notification similar to what appears when you receive a new email that will launch fMMS and allow you to open the message, save any attachments, forward it or what have you.
It’s not perfect but it’s the best we have (actually, it’s ALL we have) and with no other alternatives, fMMS is an app that every N900 owner should have installed, even if they never use it to send a single MMS message. You never know what you might miss receiving.
Firefox
You’re probably thinking that I’m off my rocker by even mentioning another browser in this post but hear me out. While MicroB (the N900’s default browser) is easily the best mobile browser that ships on any device, that doesn’t mean that there aren’t ways to improve on an already good thing. In the versions leading up to and including v1.0, Firefox was sluggish, unstable and pretty much unusable but the arrival of v1.1beta1 has made great strides in improving the experience. There are a few things that Firefox does better than MicroB such as the cleaner interface, syncing with the desktop version of Firefox (including bookmarks, saved passwords, history, preferences and tabs), and tabbed browsing but one feature I want to single out is how the browser handles text entry on websites.
Anytime you tap a text entry field on a website, the browser will automatically zoom in and a toolbar will appear at the bottom of the screen. The ‘Previous’ and ‘Next’ buttons allow you scroll back and forth through text entry fields on a page, which is incredibly useful for instances when you’re filling out forms on a mobile device that likely doesn’t come equipped with a Tab key. This level of attention to detail is what made Firefox so popular on home computers and if they keep it up, it will become the mobile browser of choice across many platforms.
NOTE: While I was in the process of writing this article, Opera released a version of Opera Mobile for the N900 as what could be described as “hobby-ware” (a group of Opera developers created this port of the popular mobile browser in their spare time). I unfortunately didn’t have the time to put together a review to include it in these posts, however, Simon has put together a wonderful hands-on over at KnowNokia.ca. So head on over and check it out if you’re looking for yet another browsing alternative for your N900.
Vagalume
As someone who spent years using Symbian devices before adopting the N900 as my primary handheld, there are 2 apps that I miss very dearly as they were always 2 of the first apps I installed on any Symbian device I got my hands on. Gravity is the first, and I still haven’t filled the void created by the lack of a really good Twitter app (more on this later) and the other is Mobbler. If you’re unfamiliar with Mobbler, at its core, it is a Last.fm scrobbler for your mobile device (hence the name). The true beauty of the app is that it also allows you to stream music based on your listening habits from Last.fm to your phone. At press time, there are no plans to port Mobbler to the N900 (this may change with the Qt SDK out there in the wild now) but in the meantime, we have Vagalume which doesn’t support Last.fm natively because technically, you’re not allowed to stream Last.fm over a cellular device (*Shhh* don’t tell them) but there is a hack to get it to work. Over on our sister site, knownokia.ca (that’s right Simon, you joined the Fanatics team so we’ve adopted your site), there is an easy to follow tutorial on how to set up Vagalume so that it’s ready to rock over Last.fm. If you’re as big of a fan of Last.fm as I am, you’re going to want to install ‘mafw-lastfm’ which is a Last.fm scrobbler that will keep track of what you’re listening to when you’re using the N900’s default Media Player as well.
This article ended up becoming a lot longer than I had originally planned it to be so in the interests of our readers, I’m splitting it into 2 parts. Stay tuned for Part II on Monday and while you’re waiting, hit up the comments section below.
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Kyron has written 18 articles for your enjoyment.
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About: Your favorite blogger's favorite blogger coming at you live from Toronto, Canada. One of the original BMEs and a cell phone fanatic.
