Installing applications
Being able to install new applications to your handset is one of the basic rights of a smartphone owner. In order to exercise that right, you need to perform the following simple steps:
- Find a package to install. S60 installation packages come in the form of a .sis file. Make sure that the stuff you download is compatible with the S60 version your phone is running. Typically, there may be a separate version of an app for the 2nd Edition and the 3rd Edition.
- Download the SIS file to your Mac.
- Push the file to your handset. The easiest way to achieve this is to send the file to your phone using Bluetooth. You can also use USB, but this requires that you afterwards locate the SIS installer on your phone using the file manager application and install the file from there. If you simply send the file using Bluetooth, it will appear in your Messaging inbox and you can install the application directly from there.
When the application installer on your phone starts, it will guide you through the rest of the installation steps in an easy-to-understand fashion. When the installation is complete, the shiny new application typically appears in the Applications folder of the top-level menu.
Note that you should really only install applications from respectable sources, as with any computer software. What is a respectable source, however, is sometimes hard to define. Typically applications featured in the mobile blogosphere tend to be safe, as they do get a lot of eyeball exposure. Never choose to install applications pushed to your phone by strangers or their phones using Bluetooth. This may happen if your phone is set to be universally discoverable in the BT preferences. The Symbian OS provides a lot of safeguards against malicious software, but you would not install completely alien applications on your Mac, so why would you do so on your smartphone?
Comments
This, of course, assumes you
This, of course, assumes you can get a SIS file for the app. Some sites insist on giving you an .exe, which doesn't work so well on a Mac.
Even more frustrating is that Nokia themselves occasionally do this - for example, the firmware update for my E61 requires a windows based PC to run...
There is a fair difference
There is a fair difference between the firmware updater and an installable SIS package. The former uses the USB connection to push a new firmware to your handset, whereas the latter is a real installation package.
If an .exe file is simply a self-extracting ZIP archive, Mac unzip tools should be able to decompress it without Windows.
As regards self-extracting
As regards self-extracting ZIP archives -- at least The Unarchiver will happily decompress a self-extracting Windows executable ZIP.
Also, the command-line unzip utility in OS X will also do this without a hiccup.