Removing Craplets from the ATT Tilt phone

I can be a loyal mobile phone user, but I’m a realist as well. Shortly after my lament about the Nokia E71x‘s lack of screen real estate, I scoured Craigslist and purchased a used ATT Tilt phone for an absolute steal. Since Friday, I’ve been playing with this baby and while I’m getting reacquainted with using a stylus again, it’s very refreshing to be able to touch my screen to get around to stuff.

The awful part about dealing with ATT’s phone is the huge amount of uninstallable demo applications that are put on this phone. Twice, I performed a hard reset on this phone and I couldn’t figure out a way to remove the applications. Then, I turned to my good friend, Google, and Google did NOT disappoint me. It turns out that after a hard reset, the stock version of Windows Mobile 6.1 is installed on the phone. Then, shortly afterwards, a customization tool from ATT is run which then installs the abominations that are called demos from ATT’s partners. Thanks to the internet, I now have a craplet free phone and this post is my way of condensing the material I found online about removing the bloatware or demo applications (like Xpressmail, Blackberry connect, the silly games, ATT navigator, etc).

1) Grab 2 styluses. You’ll find out later, trust me. Now is not the time to argue with me. 🙂
2) Perform a hard reset of your HTC phone. First, make sure you’ve performed a backup of your phone’s contents. If you don’t have a microSD card, you can save the backup file to your phone and then, copy that file to your computer for safe keeping.
3) Access the hard reset option by touching the Windows key and going to “Settings”. Then, touch the “System” tab and tap “Clear Storage”. You will be asked to enter a series of numbers printed onscreen and to answer “YES” or “NO” if you want to go through with the reset.
4) Your device will go through the hard reset and you will told to ‘tap the screen’ once the device has gone through the hard reset.
5) This part is VERY important if you don’t want ATT’s crapware installed on the phone. Once you start calibrating the device, grab that second stylus or tip and place it into the ‘soft reset’ receptacle. Do not push the ‘soft reset’ button yet.
6) Once you are done calibrating the screen, the phone will load into the green Windows Mobile 6 default screen. The instant you see the green bar atop the phone, push the soft reset key. The time between finishing the screen calibration and seeing the first glimpse of the default green Today screen is less than 2 seconds.
7) When your phone restarts, you should not have any demo games installed. You should not have the OZ communication, Blackberry Connect software, Xpress mail or any Java midlets installed. If you do, you waited too late. Don’t believe me? Check my picture gallery below. 🙂
ATT Tilt Games
ATT Tilt Java midlets
ATT Tilt Installed Programs
ATT Tilt Installed Programs
ATT Tilt Installed Programs

My recommended gear AND applications for the Nokia E71x phone

So, it’s been close to 3 weeks since I have had the Nokia E71x in my possession. What have I learned?

  1. For starters, get a good case for this slippery phone because it has slipped from my grasp more than once. A skin AND a case would be the recommended because your phone may slip out its case (like mine did).
  2. A good 2.5mm set of ear phones is hard to find so when I read online about the Planktronics Stereo Mobile headset, I was hooked. They arrived yesterday and I’m in hog heaven. 🙂
  3. Invest in a large microSD card. The Nokia E71x officially supports cards up to 8GB, but someone online has a 32GB card in their Nokia E71x phone. Use at your own risk. As for me, I have an 8GB Transcend microSD card and I’ve put a lot of music on it with ~ 5GBs left to spare for applications, files and whatever else. It’s a no-brainer. However, if you refuse to spend any more money on little gizmos, the phone has a generous 140MB of space.
  4. Download the Nokia PC Suite software. I’ve been a Windows Mobile user for a long while and I thought that I had seen all that there was to see. Well, this piece of software from Nokia syncs nicely with versions of Outlook 2003 to the Outlook 2010 technical preview!! I’m using the Outlook 2010 technical preview and that’s how I know. It is essentially a manager for your phone and I can’t sing it’s praises enough. Using the Nokia PC Suite is highly recommended for managing your phone. It’s free and what more could you want? You can choose to connect to the Nokia PC suite via USB or Bluetooth. Hint: use the USB cord for intense work like video transfers, etc. I use Bluetooth when I can’t be bothered with the cord and have time to spare.
  5. Don’t want to spend money on the XM radio application bundled with the phone? Nokia has a free Internet radio application! I’m serious: check it out at Nokia’s website.
  6. Don’t want to spend money on those solitaire apps? Well, I’ve got the ticket for you. Nokia has a free Solitaire application called Top Hits Solitaire. I’ve used it and I can’t see myself spending any more money on games if Solitaire is your thing.
  7. Can’t be bothered to spend yet more money on AT & T’s Navigator software, get Google Maps for Mobile here and if you’ve borked your connection settings, visit this help page on configuration by Google.
  8. Don’t want to plunk down money for a fancy schmancy E-book reader? There are two free Ebook readers available for the Nokia E71x device that I know about and have written about. There are hundreds of free Ebooks available as well for use with the Ebook reader. I will recommend getting a dictionary application if you are like me i.e. wanting to read old texts and realizing that they use a lot of ‘big’ words. Speaking of dictionary applications, I would recommend you pony up for the Merriam Webster Third New International (Unabridged) Edition which is the costliest of all versions on Penreader website, but it’s worth it because of the sheer number of words present.
  9. Don’t feel like using the trial software that ATT loaded this phone with, use X-plore to get rid of the applications and see this post on Nokia Experts for more details. You will save yourself the trouble of accidentally subscribing for something and free up a lot of memory. You’ll be glad you did.
  10. Don’t forget to spread the love by supporting the development of quality software by purchasing mobile software from the developers. My main sources for mobile software are: Handango, Handmark, Penreader and other developers talked about on blogs or websites.
  11. For more information, get product support and software from Nokia’s website here and visit here for Nokia E71x support. Nokia can be reached on mobiles by going to http://nokia.mobi on your device.

I hope this monster post was of use to you. Please leave questions or comments on this post and I’ll attend to them as quickly as I can. Cheers!

More apps for the Nokia E71x phone

This is a continuation of my post about must-have applications for the Nokia E71x phone that’s currently exclusive to AT & T. This phone’s parent (the E71) has been modified by AT & T extensively to utilize their products and those of their affiliates. I talked about how to get rid of the pesky ATT applications that you couldn’t care less for and now, I’m going to talk about things that you should think about getting for your E71x phone once you have it!

1) Olive Tree Bible Reader software:- This site has a free bible reader application as well as scores of .pdb books that you can use the Bible Reader software to read. After installing this piece of software, I can’t believe I purchased a Bible Reader when Olive Tree’s bible reader software was already free with more books that you can ask for!

2) Mobipocket Free eBook reader software:- This is a free eBook reader for a wide variety of mobile devices that you can install and use to read free/purchased eBook from the Mobipocket.com website. Right now, I’ve installed over 100 free eBooks from their website and between the free OliveTree and Mobipocket applications, I’ll have enough brain fodder to last awhile.

PS: Check my posts on Tweaking the Nokia E71x phone, more apps for the Nokia phone and my latest Nokia E71x post on yet more applications. Cheers!