If you are one of the many that swears over the touch interface in Symbian S60v5, salvation is now here; MyPhone can turn N97 into an iPhone! Well, maybe not quite, but what it actually can do is add an application launcher to the N97 that has exactly the same look and the same functions as the home screen of an iPhone. There’s no question that the first five minutes of running this application is hilarious – I mean come on, it’s the iPhone on my N97 for god’s sake! – but let’s have a look at how it performs after that. Is it really a useful application?

First things first – does it actually feel like an iPhone when I touch it?

No, it doesn’t! It still feels very much like the good old N97. It really does look like an iPhone though, as you can see.

The user interface is fast and works relatively well, although scrolling can be a bit awkard at times.  After playing around for a while though, I actually start to miss the N97:s native home screen. I’ve got it setup just like I want it you know, and I can access everything I normally use in a second… Running the iPhone UI just isn’t the same when it’s not an iPhone, after all.

The application doesn’t seem to demand a lot of memory when running, but if you switch to another application and leave myPhone in the background there’s a distinct feeling that the phone is not running as smoothly as it ought to be. Most of the time it’s no big problem, but a few times during my tests the entire phone seemed to stop responding until the MyPhone application was closed. I especially noticed this during USB file transfers which seems a bit odd… The technology behind the application is Flash, and probably these issues have more to do with Flash than with myPhone. Does that make it any less annoying, though? You know it doesn’t…

What else can it do?

MyPhone actually adds a few nice features not present on the N97. A competent RSS reader is the highlight, it also has its own weather application and an iPhone like implementation of SMS that can be used instead of the native application (the actual messages is seen by both applications of course). Most of the time though, MyPhone is just a launcher for the normal applications on the phone. Contacts, Maps, Music Player and so on. I find it a bit confusing to be be thrown back and forward between the iPhone UI and the Symbian UI, and after a while, once again I start longing for my normal N97 home screen…

It’s worth noting that MyPhone also has a ton of settings for how it will operate, so if you really want the iPhone UI on your N97, you really can’t have any complaints about the features.

So… Don’t you just love it?

No, I don’t! I love my N97 the way it is, that’s why I bought it in the first place! Apart from some issues with Flash though, this is a very competent application and considering the features the price of $12.99 is very reasonable. So if you’re up for it, I can actually recommend it.

Summary

Pros

• It is the iPhone!
• Nice features
• Price is right
• It’s makes you realize how good the N97 really is, without iPhone!

Cons

• Hm, it is the iPhone…
• Some lagging and bad performance
• Switching between MyPhone and native N97 is sometimes confusing

So – If you’ve always wanted the iPhone UI on your N97, this is probably as close as you’re gonna get! Buy from this link the application /or have a trial.