![\"N8](\"https:\/\/wapreview.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/N8EditHomescreen1.jpg\" "\\"N8")
<\/a> ![\"N8](\"https:\/\/wapreview.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/N8WidgetCatalog1.jpg\" "\\"N8")
<\/a> ![\"N8](\"https:\/\/wapreview.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/N6EditHomescreen2.jpg\" "\\"N8")
<\/a><\/p>\nThe N8 home screens can be completely customized with widgets. To customize any screen:<\/p>\n
- \n
- Do a long press anywhere on the screen to enter edit mode (indicated by a cross hatch pattern over the screen.<\/li>\n
- Tap any of the the Plus sign placeholders (first image, above) to add a widget. The phone’s Widget catalog appears (second image, above)\u00a0 showing the available widgets on the phone with a button to launch the Ovi store and download more widgets.<\/li>\n
- Drag an existing widget to move it up or down on the same screen..<\/li>\n
- Tap a widget to adjust its settings or remove it (third image, above).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
![\"N8](\"https:\/\/wapreview.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/N8Homescreen1-160x284.jpg\" "\\"N8")
<\/a> ![\"N8](\"https:\/\/wapreview.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/N8Homescreen2-160x284.jpg\" "\\"N8")
<\/a> ![\"N8](\"https:\/\/wapreview.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/N8Homescreen3-160x284.jpg\" "\\"N8")
<\/a><\/p>\nSome my favorite widgets (images above) are:<\/p>\n
- \n
- Mail – displays the latest email from one account, tap to open the full screen Mail app.\u00a0 Add multiple Mail widgets for multiple accounts.<\/li>\n
- Calendar – see your upcoming events at a glance,\u00a0 tap to open the calendar app<\/li>\n
- Favorite contacts – displays your most called contacts.\u00a0 Tap a contact to call.\u00a0 Four contacts display at once, scroll sideways to see more.<\/li>\n
- Notifications – Displays unread messages, missed calls, voice mails and imminent calendar events.\u00a0 Tap a notification to open the associated app.<\/li>\n
- WiFi wizard\u00a0 – a mini wardriving<\/a> app that shows available WiFi networks and lets you connect or disconnect from one with a couple of taps.<\/li>\n
- Shortcuts – this widget is how you add apps and browser bookmarks to a home screen.\u00a0 When first installed it shows four default apps.\u00a0 Tap it to edit each of the four positions to show any installed app or browser bookmark.<\/li>\n
- Music Player – Displays the artist, title and album art from the currently playing song and lets you control the music player with pause\/play and skip buttons.<\/li>\n
- National Geographic – displays a photo and title from a random video from the magazin’es free Symbian app.\u00a0 Tap to open the app and watch the video.<\/li>\n
- Social – shows recent Twitter tweets and Facebook statuses and lets you update you status or send a tweet.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
![\"Adding](\"https:\/\/wapreview.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/AddingFeed1-160x284.jpg\" "\\"Adding")
<\/a> ![\"Adding](\"https:\/\/wapreview.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/AddingFeed2-160x284.jpg\" "\\"Adding")
<\/a> ![\"Adding](\"https:\/\/wapreview.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/AddingFeed3-160x284.jpg\" "\\"Adding")
<\/a><\/p>\n- \n
- RSS Feeds – lets can add any feed as a widget.\u00a0 Here’s how:\n
- \n
- Open the browser and visit a site whose feed you want to add.<\/li>\n
- Tap the double headed arrow icon in the bottom, right of the browser screen (first image, above) to bring up the browser menu.<\/li>\n
- Tap the menu icon on the left with the three bars on it (second image, above).<\/li>\n
- Tap “Subsc. feeds”<\/em>, (third image above) and all of the site’s feeds will be listed (first image, below). Tap a feed and you will see a list of all your subscribed feeds (second image, below).<\/li>\n
- The new feed will have a generic title\u00a0 like “RSS 2.0 Feed”. Tap it and you will be taken to a page where you can edit the feed title, URL and update frequency.<\/li>\n
- Hit “Back”, confirm you want to save changes and the feed will now be available in the Widget Catalog and can be added to a homescreen. I seem t get an error with feed URLs that redirect to a Feedburner feed like WapReview’s.\u00a0 I can add them but get a “Format not supported”\u00a0 error when I try to open them.\u00a0 A work around is to manually add the feed’s Feedburner URL like, http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/WapReview, for example.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
![\"Adding](\"https:\/\/wapreview.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/AddingFeed4-160x284.jpg\" "\\"Adding")
<\/a> ![\"Adding](\"https:\/\/wapreview.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/AddingFeed5-160x284.jpg\" "\\"Adding")
<\/a> ![\"Adding](\"https:\/\/wapreview.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/AddingFeed6-160x284.jpg\" "\\"Adding")
<\/a><\/p>\nAll the above widgets come with the phone, so there’s nothing to download,\u00a0 you just install them. You can download more widgets from the Ovi store. Two I’m trying that look promising are:<\/p>\n
- \n
- Accuweather – displays the current conditions and temperature at your location, tap it to open Accuweather’s full featured weather app with detailed hourly and nine day forecasts and radar maps.<\/li>\n
- Bloomberg – displays a live stock ticker showing an alternating selection of stocks, apparently picked at random.\u00a0 Unfortunately there doesn’t seem to be any way to specify which stocks the widget displays. Tapping the the widget displays the Bloomberg app.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
With widgets you can add a lot of add a glance information and functionality to the home screen.\u00a0 The N8’s ample memory means you don’t really have to worry about the amount of RAM they use.\u00a0 Battery life might be a concern, although I’ve been running 14 widgets for several days now, including four (Accuweather, Mail, WiFi Wizard and Social) that periodically check the network for updates and my battery still lasts through the day.\u00a0 If you get into a situation where your battery is getting low, you\u00a0 can hit the “Options<\/em>” button in the bottom left corner of any home screen and choose “Widgets to offline mode<\/em>” to shut off all widget network access.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
US tech blogs have been having a field day panning the new Nokia N8, something I don’t quite understand.\u00a0 I’ve had my N8 for a couple of weeks now and I’m loving it.\u00a0 It’s replaced an Android phone as the handset I carry everywhere. I’m pleased as punch with it’s responsiveness,\u00a0 reception, call quantity and vibrant screen with reflective coating that makes it usable in sunlight.\u00a0 The camera is in a world of it’s own as it’s by far the … Continue reading