What’s Installed on my Nokia N9

Frequent readers of the site will know that I own an N9 and it is easily my favourite smartphone out of every device I’ve had. In fact, I used it as my main smartphone for slightly more than 2 months; while I switched back to my Android smartphone for a while because the N9 somehow got slow and bogged down, I decided to take another stab at having my SIM card in the N9 again earlier this week. This time, I re-flashed the firmware on my device and started afresh – this is what I’ve installed on it so far.

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[title]Applications[/title]
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[title type="h2"]Messaging and Social Networking[/title]

[title type="h5"]Wazapp (Requires sideloading)[/title]

It’s still a miracle that we’ve got a WhatsApp client for MeeGo Harmattan, and such a polished one too. This single app is what makes the N9 viable as an everyday smartphone for me.

[title type="h5"]Nokia Pulse (Requires sideloading)[/title]

The MeeGo Harmattan app for Nokia’s own group-messaging service may have been depreciated but it still works just fine and can be sideloaded to your device if you can locate its .deb file lying around on the Internet.

[title type="h5"]Rocket (S$2.99)[/title]

A relatively new Twitter client for MeeGo Harmattan, it’s got a clean and elegant UI, almost instant notifications (at least on WiFi) and deep system integration with the Event Feed homescreen and share sheets. Full review to follow soon.

[title type="h5"]Foursquare (Free)[/title]

Yes – there’s an official Foursquare client for MeeGo Harmattan, and it does the job even though it hasn’t been updated in forever. Supports NFC, apparently, wherever you can use it.

[title type="h5"]Instago (Free)[/title]

Instago brings Instagram to MeeGo Harmattan in a read-only state, which is what the image-sharing service’s API allows right now. At least, N9 users are still at no disadvantage in this regard compared to Windows Phone users!

[title type="h2"]Web Services[/title]

[title type="h5"]Notekeeper (S$4.99)[/title]

The only Evernote app on MeeGo Harmattan. It works very well; I’ve reviewed it here. Indispensable if you use Evernote.

[title type="h5"]Pockeego (Free)[/title]

A Pocket app that has matured very nicely since I last featured it on UnleashTheVideo in the Apps/Games of the Week section. Provides access to your saved articles in a clean user interface even though you’ll still have to load up the full website to actually read it.

[title type="h5"]gNewsReader (Free/S$1.99)[/title]

By far the best Google Reader client on MeeGo Harmattan, and it’s free if you don’t mind sideloading the .deb file instead of downloading it from the Nokia Store.

[title type="h5"]Dropian (Free/S$1.99)[/title]

There are a few Dropbox apps for MeeGo Harmattan but my favourite has always been Dropian. It works flawlessly and the only thing it’s missing in comparison to Dropbox’s official mobile apps is Camera Upload; that’s not such a big deal as it sounds because MeeGo Harmattan packs native Dropbox integration allowing you to upload images and other files straight to your Dropbox.

[title type="h5"]MeeDocs (Free)[/title]

MeeDocs is a Google Drive app that shares a very similar look to the built-in Documents app on MeeGo Harmattan. It works as you’d expect, except that you can’t view documents that others have shared with you.

[title type="h5"]CutePress (Free)[/title]

As far as WordPress apps go, CutePress is much better than the official WordPress client for MeeGo Harmattan, and it’s free. What’s not to like?

[title type="h2"]Media[/title]

[title type="h5"]FM Radio (S$2.99)[/title]

MeeGo Harmattan does not have a built-in FM radio app despite having support for receiving FM signals via a wired headset. FM Radio rectifies that and looks like something that Nokia might have designed, despite being a third-party app.

[title type="h5"]gPodder (S$4.99)[/title]

By far the best podcatcher on MeeGo Harmattan simply because it supports streaming and syncs with a lovely, free cloud service where you can manage your subscriptions and download .opml files that you can load up on other podcatchers that don’t integrate with gPodder.

[title type="h5"]Cutetube (S$4.99)[/title]

Cutetube is an absolute staple on the N9 and is well worth the price; there simply isn’t any other option for YouTube on MeeGo Harmattan apart from the clunky mobile website.

[title type="h2"]Location[/title]

[title type="h5"]Nokia Public Transport (Requires sideloading)[/title]

An earlier version of what is now known as HERE Transit, I have the Nokia Public Transport app installed in the hopes that support for Singapore bus routes and timetables will one day be enabled on the server side, bringing Nokia’s solution back on par with Google Maps.

[title type="h5"]Nokia City Lens (Requires sideloading)[/title]

Who said you needed a Lumia to use City Lens? There’s a version of the app for MeeGo Harmattan as well, which you can probably find floating around on the Internet ready to be manually installed on your device.

[title type="h5"]Sports Tracker (Free)[/title]

If you’ve used Sports Tracker on Android, iOS or Windows Phone, you’ll be pleased to find that there is also a version for MeeGo Harmattan that pretty much packs the same feature-set and a similar-looking user interface as its counterparts on other platforms.

[title type="h2"]Tools[/title]

[title type="h5"]ReferIt (Free)[/title]

A simple English dictionary app.

[title type="h5"]MeeCast (Free)[/title]

The version of Accuweather on the N9 has an ad in it. I wouldn’t accept that in any built-in app so I uninstalled it and replaced it with the the completely free MeeCast, which is fast and beautifully designed.

[title type="h5"]ShotMee (Free)[/title]

A screenshot app. That’s it, really.

[title type="h5"]MeeScan (Free)[/title]

A QR code scanning app. One of those apps that’s nice to have, just in case.

[title type="h5"]Battery Usage (Free)[/title]

Every platform has an app that allows you to track your device’s battery life and power consumption and MeeGo Harmattan is no different.

[title type="h5"]Filebox (Free)[/title]

A free file manager that does everything I want it to, even though its user interface does take some getting used to.

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[title]System Tweaks and Utilities[/title]
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[title type="h5"]Billboard Standby Screen (S$4.99)[/title]

By default, the N9 takes advantage of its AMOLED display to show the time, ringer mode and icons for outstanding notifications at all times when the device is in standby. Billboard allows you to add more data to the standby screen, such as the date, upcoming appointments, battery level, currently playing track and more. You can customize the size, colour and font of Billboard’s text and I think this is a must-have for any N9 power user.

[title type="h5"]Home Screen Settings (S$1.99)[/title]

The MeeGo Harmattan home screen is not very customizable out of the box. Home Screen Settings is a lovely app that integrates seamlessly with the built-in Settings app that allows you to set a custom carrier label, change the home screen background, enable auto-rotation on the homescreen (so that you can view it in landscape mode if you wish), change the opacity of the folders and so on. Highly recommended.

[title type="h5"]Inception (Requires sideloading)[/title]

Inception allows you to gain full access to the underpinnings of MeeGo Harmattan by bypassing the built-in Aegis security scheme. Basically, you need it in order to carry out some of the more advanced customizations that are possible on the N9, such as changing the browser user agent and using OPPTimizer (which I discuss below). The installation process for Inception is non-trivial for less advanced users, and I strongly recommend that you only install Inception if you aren’t afraid of breaking something, if you know what you’re doing and if you can follow instructions that might not always be written in perfect English; I bear no responsibility for what you do with your device.

[title type="h5"]OPPtimizer (Requires sideloading)[/title]

OPPtimizer is an overclocking utility for MeeGo Harmattan; I’m currently running my N9 at 1150MHz in order to eke a bit more performance out of the aged CPU and everything seems to work a little faster and smoother while still remaining stable. OPPtimizer requires Inception to work, and once again the installation process for OPPtimizer is non-trivial for less advanced users. I strongly recommend that you only install OPPtimizer if you aren’t afraid of breaking something, if you know what you’re doing and if you can follow instructions that might not always be written in perfect English; I bear no responsibility for what you do with your device.

[title type="h5"]MeMailSettings (Free)[/title]

This little utility is needed in order to make Mail for Exchange work if you’re using it with a Hotmail/Outlook.com account.

[title type="h5"]Drop Cache (Free)[/title]

Drop Cache is a small, non-destructive utility that can free up RAM on your MeeGo Harmattan device if it starts behaving in a sluggish manner.

[title type="h5"]Shortcuts (Free)[/title]

Shortcuts allows you to replace the icons in the MeeGo Harmattan shortcuts bar (accessed with a half-swipe from the bottom) with that of your preferred apps.

[title type="h5"]Reboot (Free)[/title]

As the name suggests, Reboot makes rebooting your Nokia N9 (which is sometimes necessary, I’ll admit) as easy as tapping an on-screen button.

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If you have an N9 or are planning to pick one up, I hope this article has pointed you in the right direction regarding what you can do with your MeeGo Harmattan smartphone. Do you have any other app or utility recommendations? What do you use on your N9/N950? Sound off in the comments below!