A new custom-made application is providing Vodafone customers with a bunch of widgets, giving them access to the web at a glance. The Vodafone Widget Manager BETA is downloadable free of charge from the Vodafone Live! portal and will provide users with direct access to all their widgets through the applications folder found on the phone. However, the application has been built on Opera run-time for the S60 platform and will initially only be available on the Nokia N96, N95 8GB model, N78 and 6210 handsets, which is those that can use the Opera runtime.

It would have been better to make the app self-running, but then again, they probably couldn’t have released it for free.

Launched today, some of the widgets available include Live Scores, Fresh Games, RSS Reader, Weatherbug, Egg Timer, Train Times, Lottery, Sccope, Currency Converter and FHM Hot Babes. Both BBC News, BBC Sport along with Vue Cinema widgets are expected in the near future.

Both Vodafone Widget Manager BETA and individual widgets are available for free, though data charges may apply in some situation. This is considered a real victory for Vodafone, as its now one of the only carriers to offer free truly useful apps to their users directly.