1. Add most used apps/contacts to the home screen. The N8 has three, fully customizable, active home screens. You can switch between them by swiping left or right, or by pressing the button with 3 dots, in the bottom-center of the screen.


There are two ways to change the content of your home screen: you can simply tap and hold the screen for a couple of seconds, OR you can press ‘Options’ and then ‘Edit Home screen‘, as shown below.


In both cases, you’ll be at the screen that is similar to the one below:


Now, you can add new shortcuts by pressing the ‘plus’ sign and selecting the desired widget/shortcut from the given list (officially called “Widget catalogue”).

2. Remove unwanted home screen shortcuts. When you turn on your N8 for the first time, you’ll see a few things on the home screens you may not like. The easiest way to remove them is to do a similar procedure as shown in the tip number 1. Once you get to the screen for editing home screens, just tap the undesired shortcut once, and you’ll see a “Remove”
message that pops-up. Click on it, and the shortcut is gone!


3. Rearrange home screen shortcuts. If you’re a neat person, you’re going to want to tweak each home screen ’till it’s perfect! Rearranging the stuff that is on the home screen is super-easy – as you’ve seen above, click ‘Options’, then ‘Edit Home screen’, and then just drag-and-drop the shortcut you want to move to the desired position.

4. Change the home screen wallpaper. One of
the great features of the new Symbian (other than 3 home screens) is the ability to have a different wallpaper on every home screen. Repeat the steps from the first tip (“Options -> Edit home screen”), and then click “Options -> Change wallpaper“. You will be given a choice: “Default” and “Image”. Select “Default” if you want to keep the picture that is set as wallpaper by the current theme of your phone, or “Image”, if you want to select your own. Select the image you like from your phone’s gallery, and you’ll see a new wallpaper picture. Note: this is even easier on the C7: click “Options -> Change wallpaper” (don’t ask me why it’s different).

The transition between screens won’t be slower because of this, so feel free to add different pictures to different home screens. It’s easier to tell them apart this way…

5. Add and change favorite applications on the home screen. Having most-frequently-used apps on the home screen is very useful, so enter the home screen editing mode, and add the “Shortcuts” widget from the Widget catalogue.



You will see the shortcuts bar, with 4 apps, on the screen. Tap on it, and click “Settings”, in order to choose which 4 apps will be here.



Once there, select the app you want for each field.


6. Add favorite contacts to the home screen. You can add your loved ones and colleagues to your home screen in a pictured, contacts bar. To do so, you need to repeat the steps from tip no.1, and click the ‘plus’ sign. You will see a widget catalogue, and you need to select a widget called “Favorites”.



When you do so, you should notice a new widget on the home screen. Click “Add” (in the widget), and select up to 20 contacts! You do that by marking the desired contacts and pressing “OK”. The widget displays 4 contacts at a time, so scroll left-right to see other people, or to add more people. Important note: if you add a second Contacts bar to some other home screen, and modify it, the Contacts bar on the first screen gets modified too, so you cannot add 60 favorite contacts.



7. Remove unwanted contacts from the home screen. If you add a contact by accident, or you’re just not fond of that person anymore, you can remove his/hers shortcut by pressing the “Remove” button, in the Contacts bar, followed by marking the person you want to expel from your Favorites. If you cannot see the “Remove” button, scroll left-right through the Contacts bar until you locate it.



8. Assign a local picture to a contact. Contacts bar looks much better if you add pictures to your favorite contacts. By doing so, you’ll also see a picture of a contact during a call, so this is another good reason to assign pics to several contacts. Assigning a picture that is located on your phone is a breeze – get to the contact card by pressing the icon of the desired contact in the Favorites widget, or locate the contact in your contact list. When you do so, simply click on the green statue icon, and you’ll see the “Add image” pop-up.



All you need to do now, is to select the pic you want from your local gallery.

9. Assign a Facebook/Twitter picture to a contact. In order to do this, you need to have a Facebook or Twitter account, and you need to log in to at least one of those services on your N8 (in the app called Social Networks, naturally). As in the previous step, open the contact card, and now click on the “Social Networks” button. You will be taken to the mentioned app, and asked to link the online contact with the “real” contact in your phone. If these names don’t match, you can easily search for the online name, and assign it to the contact in the phone. When you locate the contact you need, click “More”, and then “Use this picture in Contact card“.



Great little tool if you ask me.
The only thing that I don’t like is that these images are downloaded in very low quality.

10. Add a mailbox to the home screen. This is one of the features I just adore – you can see multiple mailboxes at a glance! As usually, go to the home screen editing mode, click ‘+’ sign, and select “Mail” from the widget list.


Now, you can add the email account that you’ve already made (simply by clicking on it), or create a new one. If you choose the create a new mailbox, click “Create new mailbox”, and follow the creation process. More about creating a new mailbox later.