Nokia Smartphone Hacks

Preface

Smartphones are not only our smallest computers, but also our most connected computers. They connect to the voice telephone network as well as to the short-and long-range digital data network, including the Internet itself. In terms of computing power, a typical smartphone in 2005 is roughly equivalent to a top-of-the-line PC of the middle 1990s in terms of both CPU speed and memory size. By combining the most disruptive technologies of our times, including wireless networks, mobile phones, digital media, PCs, and the Internet, smartphones are profoundly changing our lives and our social interactions. It can be argued that there is a “mobility divide” similar to the “digital divide” in our societies: the people who know how to take advantage of smartphones will eventually have a competitive edge. If you are interested in learning how to make the best use of your smartphone, this book is for you.

In this book, a smartphone is defined as a mobile phone that has computer functionality, such as a web browser, an email client, a personal information manager, a media player, and video games. Under this definition, almost all Nokia mobile phones sold since 2003 are smartphones. If your Nokia phone has a color screen, it is most likely a smartphone covered in this book. Please note that our definition of smartphone is much broader than Nokia’s own definition, which calls only its Symbian-based midrange to high-end phones smartphones.

Why Nokia Smartphone Hacks?

The term hacking has a bad reputation in the press. They use it to refer to someone who breaks into systems or wreaks havoc with computers as their weapon. Among people who write code, though, the term hack refers to a “quick-and-dirty” solution to a problem, or a clever way to get something done. And the term hacker is taken very much as a compliment, referring to someone as being creative, having the technical chops to get things done. The Hacks series is an attempt to reclaim the word, document the good ways people are hacking, and pass the hacker ethic of creative participation on to the uninitiated. Seeing how others approach systems and problems is often the quickest way to learn about a new technology.

Hacks are especially useful for Nokia smartphone users. A Nokia smart-phone is not only a voice communications device, but also a fully featured computer capable of running third-party software. There are many creative ways (i.e., hacks) in which you can customize a smartphone, add features to it, and make it work best for you. Yet, few people know about these tricks and tips, as they often require you to dive deep into the user interface or download additional software. This book aims to bring those powerful hacks to all Nokia smartphone users. Read on and start the adventure!

How to Use This Book

You can read this book from cover to cover if you like, but each hack stands on its own, so feel free to browse and jump to the different sections that interest you most. If there’s a prerequisite you need to know about, a cross-reference will guide you to the right hack.

If you are not very familiar with the Nokia product lines or are unsure of what phone you have, I recommend that you read “Choose the Right Phone for the Network” [Hack #1] and “Pick the Right Class of Nokia Phone” [Hack #2] first. They explain terms such as Series 40, Series 60, and GPRS, which are used frequently in the rest of the book.

How This Book Is Organized

The book is divided into several chapters, organized by subject:

Chapter 1, Get to Know Your Phone

Use the hacks in this chapter to understand the basic characteristics of your smartphone and its related mobile network services. If you do not have a Nokia smartphone already, some of the hacks can serve as a nice buyer’s guide to help you choose from hundreds of combinations of devices and service plans. You will also learn advanced hacks such as how to unlock your existing smartphone when you switch operators and how to change network settings via operation codes.

Chapter 2, Get Connected

Smartphones are revolutionary devices because they can connect to the digital network anytime, from anywhere. In this chapter, you will learn how to connect your smartphone to the Internet and to nearby computers.

Chapter 3, Extend and Enhance Your Phone

Like a regular computer, smartphones can run third-party software programs. And as it has been proven in the computer world, software is often more important than hardware. You can download, purchase, or write your own programs to extend and enhance the functionalities of your smartphone. Many hacks in this book require you to install additional software on your device. Read this chapter carefully to learn how to use, manage, and even develop smartphone software.

Chapter 4, Protect Your Phone

A weakness of connected computers is the rise of viruses and malicious programs that spread over the network. Mobile phone viruses are already in the wild. In this chapter, you will learn how to prevent malicious programs from infecting your phone, and how to recover from them if they do. You will also learn how to deal with lost and stolen devices.

Chapter 5, Make and Receive Voice Calls

Making voice calls is and will continue to be the most important functionality of smartphones. A lot of smartphone software, including applications bundled in the smartphone operating system and third-party software, aim to make the smartphone a better telephone. This chapter covers interesting hacks such as speed dialing, recording phone conversations to digital files, and using calling cards.

Chapter 6, Exchange Data with Computers

The smartphone is your smallest computer, but it is not your only computer. In fact, the smartphone is most useful when it is paired together with a desktop computer that has a full-size keyboard, a large monitor, and more computational resources. The PC can act as the smartphone’s content repository, and handle most of the computationally intensive data processing. To use the smartphone with the PC, the first thing you need to do is to move data from one device to another. In this chapter, you will learn all about data exchange and synchronization between smartphones and PCs.

Chapter 7, Enhance the PC Experience

While it is obvious that a PC can enhance a smartphone by providing offline computing power, a smartphone can also make the PC more useful. In this chapter, you will learn how to use a smartphone as a data modem to provide Internet access to computers anytime, anywhere. You will also learn how to control your computers remotely via your smartphone.

Chapter 8, Improve the User Interface

The smartphone is a highly personal device. You should carefully customize its user interface, including sound and graphics, to make it work best for you. In this chapter, you will learn innovative hacks to use the profile, ring tones, and graphics and fonts on the phone display.

Chapter 9, The Mobile Web

A key feature of smartphones is their ability to browse web sites on the Internet. They can access not only special mobile sites (i.e., WAP sites), but also general HTML sites as well as RSS-based blog sites. In this chapter, you will learn how to develop your own mobile web site, use mobile portals and search engines, and post to mobile photo blogs from your smartphone.

Chapter 10, Email and Messaging

With smartphones, you can send and receive email and mobile messages on the go. In this chapter, you will learn various ways to set up email and instant messaging on your smartphone. You will also learn how to use mobile email and SMS-based services efficiently.

Chapter 11, Mobile Multimedia

Most smartphones have cameras. Camera phones are among the best-selling mobile phones in the world. In this hack, you will learn how to take good photos and video clips with your phone camera and share them with friends across the world. The chapter will also cover how to play MP3 music and DVD movies on a Nokia smartphone.

Want to Learn More?

The technology landscape for smartphones is highly competitive and is evolving quickly. Nokia releases around 30 new models of mobile phones every year. Wireless operators are constantly competing with each other by providing new service offerings. The hacks in this book are generic enough to cover a wide range of future smartphones and mobile services. But occasionally, you might still need to read beyond the book to find information about a new smartphone or to troubleshoot a hack. I recommend the following popular web sites for further reading or research:

• Forum Nokia (http://www.forum.nokia.com/) is Nokia’s official web site for mobile application developers. You can find a lot of technical articles, the latest device matrix, and software tools here. Forum Nokia also runs discussion forums where you can ask questions related to your Nokia phone.

• All About Symbian (http://www.allaboutsymbian.com/) is a web site for the Symbian smartphone community, including the Nokia Series 60 smartphone community. This site has the latest device news, and reviews of upcoming devices.

• Howard Forums (http://www.howardforums.com/) is a well-established online BBS for discussing mobile-phone-related issues. Its Nokia discussion boards are very popular.

• My-Symbian.com (http://my-symbian.com/) is a news and community discussion site for Symbian (Nokia Series 60) smartphones. It also features Symbian software and mobile content download.

• NokiaFree Forums (http://nokiafree.org/forums/) features forums on Nokia hardware repairs and flash memory reverse engineering.

• Mobitopia (http://www.mobitopia.com/) is a community blog for mobile technology. It is operated by a group of mobile phone enthusiasts and power users. Mobitopia is frequently updated (several times a day) and mainly features news analysis by its members.

• Mobile Burn (http://www.mobileburn.com/) is a news and discussion site for mobile phones. It has some of the best and most comprehensive reviews for upcoming Nokia smartphones. Plus, it has lots of pictures!

• SymbianOne (http://www.symbianone.com/) has articles, reviews, discussion forums, and content downloads for Symbian smartphones (Nokia Series 60).

• Handango (http://www.handango.com/) is an online store for mobile software. It has a large selection of Java and Symbian applications, as well as mobile content. You can select compatible software and content based on your phone model.

• Engadget (http://www.engadget.com/) is a managed blog site reporting the latest news in electronic gadgets. It is very frequently updated (sometimes 50 news items per day), and it has extensive coverage of Nokia smartphones.

Links to the preceding resources and other smartphone-related sites and blogs can be found at the book’s web site at http://www.MichaelYuan.com/NokiaHacks/.

Conventions

The following is a list of the typographical conventions used in this book:

Italics

Used to indicate URLs, filenames, filename extensions, and directory/ folder names. For example, a path in the filesystem appears as /Developer/Applications.

Constant width

Used to show code examples, the contents of files, console output, as well as the names of variables, commands, and other code excerpts.

Constant width bold

Used to highlight portions of code, typically new additions to old code.

Constant width italics

Used in code examples and tables to show sample text to be replaced with your own values.

You should pay special attention to notes set apart from the text with the following icons:

Tip

This is a tip, suggestion, or general note. It contains useful supplementary information about the topic at hand.

Warning

This is a warning or note of caution, often indicating that your money or your privacy might be at risk.

The thermometer icons, found next to each hack, indicate the relative complexity of the hack:

beginner

moderate

expert

Using Code Examples

This book is here to help you get your job done. In general, you can use the code in this book in your programs and documentation. You do not need to contact us for permission unless you’re reproducing a significant portion of the code. For example, writing a program that uses several chunks of code from this book does not require permission. Selling or distributing a CD-ROM of examples from O’Reilly books does require permission. Answering a question by citing this book and quoting example code does not require permission. Incorporating a significant amount of example code from this book into your product’s documentation does require permission.

We appreciate, but do not require, attribution. An attribution usually includes the title, author, publisher, and ISBN. For example: "Nokia Smartphone Hacks by Michael Yuan. Copyright 2005 O’Reilly Media, Inc., 0-596-00961-5.”

If you feel your use of code examples falls outside fair use or the permission given here, feel free to contact us at [e-mail].

How to Contact Us

We have tested and verified the information in this book to the best of our ability, but you might find that features have changed (or even that we have made mistakes!). As a reader of this book, you can help us to improve future editions by sending us your feedback. Please let us know about any errors, inaccuracies, bugs, misleading or confusing statements, and typos that you find anywhere in this book.

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