The Nokia Store is filled with apps and games that make your Nokia smartphone even more fun or productive. One such app is Access Apps, and it makes it easier for you to access important functions from anywhere on your phone, with a simple finger swipe on the screen.
Available on Nokia Belle smartphones, such as the Nokia 701 we’ve tested it on, Access Apps creates another screen that you’re able to swipe into view whenever you want, much like the notifications bar from the top you’re already used to – except this one is delivered from the left side of the screen.
When installed and loaded, all the apps will be included in this new screen. However you can select a few choice apps that you’d like to use the most by picking them from the Set my icons screen.
All of the main phone functions are available, such as the Camera, Clock, Telephone, and Messaging, for example. Additionally, all of the other apps or games you’ve downloaded from Nokia Store can also be selected and included your choice selection, such as Angry Birds, Twitter or MOLOME.
When you’ve activated the new screen (by swiping your thumb or finger from the left of the screen), you’ll see a bunch of icons in view in a grid format, starting with the apps you selected from the Set my icons screen earlier. Beyond those, the rest of the apps installed on your phone are listed in alphabetical order and scrolling down will reveal them to you. Pressing on the app or game will launch it, as you’d expect.
While listing all the apps might be useful to some people, if you’ve got lots of apps, finding the right one can be time consuming. Hitting the My icons button situated at the front of that list is a better way of finding what’s really important to you – the apps you included in the Set my icons screen – this lets you toggle between just your preferred icons and the all-inclusive, larger app list.
If you’d like to launch the app without swiping – although, swiping seems a natural way to do it – you can include a button in the toolbar at the bottom. You do this by enabling the Launch button in the main menu of the app.
If you see yourself using this every time you use the phone, it’s probably worth making use of the Enable autostart option in the menu. This means that every time you switch on the phone, the app will already be loaded, saving you even more time.
Access Apps is one of those apps that makes it feel like a you’ve had a big software update, without actually having one. It fundamentally changes the way you browse for your apps or phone functions.
Available from Nokia Store for £1.50 for Nokia Belle smartphones, download it today and let us know what you think of it, in the comments section below.