Chapter 7: Application Outlook 289 3 such as Symbian in many modern smart phones, this trend is slowly changing. More than a decade ago, a signifi cant mobile device, with an open platform for third-party application development, was Palm Pilot. Many applications were included out-of-the-box, mostly for Personal Infor- mation Management (PIM), such as a notebook, an address book, and a calendar, to get a good start with the device. However, the variety of third-party applications is astonishing. Online sites, such as PalmGear. 4 com, provide thousands of trialware, shareware, and freeware appli- cations to download and purchase for Palm and Palm-based devices. At the time of writing, the most downloaded application in the top monthly chart was BigClock, a freeware extended clock application with timers and alarms, followed by a shopping list application. Also available for download are applications that make the device work as a TV remote controller, or that contain subway maps for hundreds of cities around the world. Similarly to PalmGear.com, there are portals for other current mobile devices. A popular service for downloading software for 5 Symbian-based smart phones is my-symbian.com, providing applica- tion for Series 60 and Series 90 smart phones as well as for UIQ phones. At the time of writing, the most popular Series 60 download was Doom 7650, a Symbian port of the classic fi rst-person shooter game, followed by infrared remote control (essentially similar to the software for Palm, discussed above). The third application in the most popular list is My Girls, which helps keep track of a woman’s menstrual cycle, including when menstruation is due, and how fertile she is at any point in time. Mobile phones are indeed multi-purpose devices! 7.2 Location-Based Applications A typical example of a mobile application is, not surprisingly, naviga- tion. Since a mobile device goes with the user, wayfi nding is an obvious and useful feature. Determining the user’s location, or the location of the device, to be more precise, is referred to as positioning. A positioning service providing the user with information on their current location. Besides wayfi nding, a myriad of different location-based 3 http://www.symbian.com/ 4 http://www.palmgear.com/ 5 http://www.my-symbian.com