Nokia Beta Labs has released an interesting application, Device Status, which lets you access a variety of information and which can be helpful in solving support issues. There is an application for S60 devices which collects information about your phone and a companion PC application which allows you to more easily view the information about your phone as well as collecting information about your PC.
Read on in the full article.
Installed 😊
not to bad
So which is better, this or NSysInfo?
Actually in my view the 2 best apps of this type is this Device Status & PhoNetInfo...
Too bad they don't offer a SIS file for just the phone app, as some of us use other alternatives rather than the latest M$ wares. Indeed, there is no excuse for it not even running on a win2k pro box, let alone not being available for other OSs. Same problem as trying to use their map loader, which sadly requires XP. Not an option.
Some will say that one should only target the most recent versions of windoze because they are all that are supported. Interestingly, there does not seem to be any such problem with many efficient, stable, very functional open-source or otherwise free apps on or ported to win32, and the same versions work fine on pretty much any variety thereof. Good examples would be MPlayer, PuTTY, SUPER, and so on.
But even beyond that, one of the great positive points of S60 (and its heritage dating back to Psion) is the lack of dependence upon a desktop at all. Symbian and its predecessors were designed to allow use of a device as a full computer independently. Indeed, I can download and install a great deal of software for an S60 device on the device itself, including payment for commercial apps. With the ever-increasing power and resources on newer devices, there is ever less reason why one should be expected to have a current windoze box. A half-decade-plus old PC running win2k is still more than powerful enough for most desktop applications, so why should it not be up to the daunting task of running mere support software for a cellphone?!?
If I wanted to be dependent on an M$ desktop as the lifeline for my handheld device, I would have been more likely to be a fan of Palm or CE back in the day. Instead, I followed a natural route (for me, anyway) of Psion to Sharp Zaurus (Linux) to Nokia S60. Please, Nokia, look toward the future (platform independent support software, less dependence on a PC at all, etc.)!
I hope some day to be able to try Nokia Device Status...