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In a year dominated by mobile apps there’s never been so much to install on your handset.

From clever business and organisational add-ons to multimedia extravaganzas, we’ve barely spent a week without something new to occupy our thumbs.

But which apps deserve the title “Best of 2008”? Read on. If you haven’t installed these already, you’ve missed a treat in the last 12 months!

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Nokia spent a sizable chunk of 2008 building up its services division. No-one in their right mind could now call the company a simple mobile manufacturer. The Big N is more than that, with tools to bring entertainment, fun and games, as well as enhanced organisation, direct to our handsets.

From new apps making use of our handsets’ hidden skills, to cloud-based extras that make living life on the move a whole lot easier.

There’s tons to choose from. But which get our vote as 2008’s finest? Read on to find out!

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Ah, the 1980s. A simpler time when bits maxed out at eight and games could survive on little more than a plinky theme tune and a passably rendered cartoon hero. Reset Generation takes the fondly remembered characters of your gaming youth, gives them a 21st-century twist and dumps them into a multi-player puzzle game.

When characters have names like ‘Level 50 Elf’, ‘Hedgehog’ and ‘The Plumber’, you know you’re in for some gentle gaming sarcasm. The surprise is how smartly Reset Generation sends up its targets. The Plumber, for instance, is no longer from New Jersey but Eastern Europe, complete with spot-on voice phrases and some genuinely funny gags.

So can a hilariously cheesy puzzle gaming for old-school geeks cut the mustard on the modern mobile gaming stage? Darn tootin’, and read on to find out why…
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Yesterday we met a bunch of guys who’s job it is to break phones. Kevin Smith and Robert Johnson, who work at Nokia’s relability labs in Nokia’s UK HQ reckon if they don’t break phones, they’re not doing their job properly. Sounds easy doesn’t it. After all, I don’t seem to have much trouble killing mine (though I have to admit, it’s been a while since I’ve had one collapse completely). But no, these guys do it the sophisticated way. They have machines that can press a keypad 1 million times, a device made of denim that spins around to simulate the way we (or at least I) rub my phone’s screen on my jeans to clean it. They have even cracked the hardest one of all – an abrasion test to simulate the inside of a woman’s handbag. And no, I didn’t put my hand inside.

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Ever wish your Nokia was more like a Motorola? Before you surf away in disgust, there was one thing that Moto handsets always did well, and that was predictive text. Instead of using the usual T9 software, Motorola developed its own iTap system that gave you a choice of words after you had typed a single letter.

QuickWrite brings something very similar to your Nokia S60, ditching T9 in favour of a pop-up list of words from customisable dictionaries in six European languages – handy if you’re often texting abroad.
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