The Nokia N8 comes with a preloaded application called Social that offers a degree of social integration between the phonebook and sites such as Facebook and Twitter. Sadly, its only a half hearted attempt compared to what’s available on Android and even the N900 with the wonderful Hermes application. You manually need enter each contact, hit the social networks button, wait for app to search for that name on the social networks you have added and only then can you do something with it.
Anyway, this post isn’t about expressing dismay at the social integration on Symbian^3, but about how to fix it, at least a little. Enter an application called Socially, available on the Ovi Store that lets you pull all the birthdays from your friends profiles on Facebook and also pull their profile pictures into corresponding contacts in the phonebook.
- All you need to do is install the application, the developer’s website has the latest version, so get it from here. Then setup and authorize your Facebook account.
- Next go to the ‘More’ tab at the righthand corner and select Sync Photos. The app will only sync those contacts who have exactly the same name on Facebook, a spelling difference here and there and you will be out of luck.
- Similarly, it allows you to Sync the calendar entries, it will pull in everything this time.
That’s not all. Socially will also pull the latest update from your friend’s social network and put it on your screen when they call you. What’s more, if you get a call from a number not in your phonebook, it will also attempt to give you a location and the network from which the call is being placed.
I have been using the application on my N8 for a few days now, while I did have a bit of trouble with a random freeze or two in the beginning, but it seems to be working just fine nowadays. Add to that the fact that its a free download, Socially quickly becomes a must have.
Nokia, meanwhile please work on the social integration – I’m talking about automatically pulling in profile pictures, birthdays, events, the latest status messages and so on. Automatic and seamless being the keywords. I am sad to say, the current iteration just doesn’t cut it anymore.