GLOBAL – The evolution of applications on our devices has been quite rapid. The first step was of course giving the device extra functionality – the ability to watch certain types of video codecs, or view your messages in a different way. Then it got a bit more involved, bringing little bits of the Internet into your device one bit at a time, bringing things like Maps onto your device, along with info sucked from the Internet and combining it with functionality on the device (GPS) to create a whole new experience. Now though, I think we’ve reached a whole new level.

Last year the Forum Nokia folks started releasing APIs for developers to gain access to more of a device’s functions, such as Contacts, Calendar, and even the Camera. Before now I hadn’t seen many examples, but I’ve been playing with the Facebook app on my N97 over the last few days and one feature stood out for me – the ability to access the camera from within Facebook.

This kind of turns the whole photo sharing idea on its head. Before we’d think about taking a picture and later think about sharing it (choosing carefully when and where we share it). Now though we can simply (and I really mean simply) from within the app, fire up the camera, take a picture and share it with our Friends on Facebook. It takes about 30 seconds.

Combine that functionality with GPS, and perhaps Contacts and the app takes on a whole new dimension. Extending device functionality in this way has endless possibilities. The core feature set of wireless connection, camera, GPS, contacts, calendar, messaging combined with a platform for easy and rapid app development makes for a very exciting future. Wouldn’t you agree?