Nokia Album for the 7610
I was looking for something else on Nokia.com yesterday when I ran across a very hard to find page in Nokia's 7610 section with a link to the Nokia Album Symbian app for the 7610. I grabbed (as I grab all new apps I find) and installed it, but then forgot about using it until today.
WOW! What a cool app! It's a replacement for the Gallery app that comes preinstalled. Instead of having to hunt down your images and videos in various folders, everything is presented to you organized by Date, Location or Collection (the latter two are defined by you). And the list of files defaults to your MMC, so you don't have to go hunting for your shots any more and the videos are displayed right along with the pics. Perfect!
I learned a long time ago - before iPhoto and the like - that organizing digital images by any way except for time was impossible. You just can't keep track of names, folders, etc. once you get into the hundreds and thousands of images. This little app is perfect. It even has it's own AlbumCamera app which is exactly like the integrated Camera/Video app, but replaces the "Go to Gallery" menu option with a "Go to Album." It's just a shame I can't replace my right-soft button default with that app, because that's exactly what I want.
Just in case you're a Nokia 6600 owner and you're getting excited thinking that maybe this app runs on your phone (thus giving you an integrated camera/video app like the 7610), well don't. I just tried it and it doesn't work. Sorry! (I know! It'd be so cool if it did, no?)
It's so wild this app is just floating out there. I mentioned in my Lifeblog review how the phone app would be very useful just as a standalone media organizer even without the blog-buzzword, and lo-and-behold this is it. Very cool! I like the Lifeblog app, but this is really much more useful on a day-to-day basis after you take a bunch of shots and some videos then want to go back and find them later. The functionality blows the Gallery away... I wonder why this isn't the default? I guess because the Gallery can also be used to play music, but honestly, on a phone that doesn't support decent sized memory cards like the SD or even have stereo output, that's just not something I use the phone for much. Besides, the Gallery and the File Browser are just too similar.
Hopefully Nokia makes the Album the default application for images in future phones, it's just that cool.
-Russ