Wednesday, March 19, 2008
Let Your Fingers Do the Navigating With Spb Mobile Shell 2.0
Posted by Don Tolson in "SOFTWARE" @ 10:46 AM
Programs! Get Your Programs!
The Applications section of the interface is where Spb has obviously spent a great deal of time and effort in accessorizing the interface. Although they have reduced the number of selections (and increased the button size), they have added a set of 'most commonly used' selections to the top of the screen.
Figure 6: The Applications menu – notice the 'commonly used' icons at the top of the screen.
To be honest, I haven't been able to discern exactly how it decides what to display in the top line entries are determined, but it seems to be a combination of most commonly needed with most recently used. Regardless, it seems to keep most everything I usually need very handy!
If you tap on the Tools entry, you get a list of very useful utilities provided by Spb. By the way, did you notice that cool animated transition? Take a look at some of the others as you move from screen to screen.
Figure 7: Tools menu.
For me, this replaced a number of other plug-ins from other vendors I was installing and configuring after a hard reset. The really neat part of these tools is that they are all designed with the same 'finger friendly' concept. For instance, if you select the Task Manager, you get a list of the running applications.
Figure 8: List of applications running from the Task Manager.
Then, when you select one from the list, you get various options of what to do with this task (or the others running!).
Figure 9: ...And what would you like to do with this application?
Configuration
Well, if you're into customization and tweaking of the interface 'just for you', Spb is has everything you need. Tapping on the 'Settings' icon from the Applications screen, then the Spb Mobile Shell icon, takes you to a multi-tabbed interface at which you can change just about everything within Mobile Shell and the Now screen to any thing you desire.
Figure 10: Adjusting the tabs displayed on the Today screen
Figure 11: Changing the animations between menus
The only downside here is that this section is written in the 'old' style, so you'll probably have to get out the stylus to make many of the selections, since they're a little small for a finger. However, with all the options available, there's definitely a trade off between accessibility and the number of screens required!
Gesture Support
With all the hype now about the iPhone's use of gestures to navigate the screens, lots of applications for Windows Mobile have been jumping on the bandwagon to provide simple gesture support. (Good examples are PointUI, HTC's TouchFlo and the upcoming WM7!) Most of the Spb Mobile Shell 2.0 navigation however, sticks to the Next / Previous arrows at the bottom of the screen.
Spb has made one gesture-supported feature though. If you are at a normal screen (not within Spb Mobile Shell) with the task bar at the top, and touch the left side of the task bar and drag down, a series of 3 'mini-screens' will appear.
Figure 12: Gesture-supported Spb Mobile Shell mini-screens
As you can see from the screenshot above, these are half-size versions of the 3 screens within the Now interface. By holding your finger on the screen and placing it over top of the desired screen and releasing, you will be taken directly to that part of the Spb interface. If you change your mind and stay where you are, just move your finger outside the mini-screen area and release.
Conclusions
Is this the be-all and end-all of Today Screen Plug-ins? An iPhone killer? Not quite. It's a big step forward from the previous generation, and Spb has done its usual superb job with the interface. I think, that with a little more thought on the configuration interface, and more gesture support in moving from screen-to-screen, we could have something that puts the Apple owners to shame. (or at least, highly envious :-))
Don is an Associate Director with Fujitsu Consulting and leader of its Enterprise Mobility Community. He now spends a good deal of his time installing and playing with new ROMS for his HTC Kaiser/AT&T Tilt, courtesy of XDA-Developers. His ever-understanding and suffering wife just rolls her eyes and wonders why he can't just 'use the phone'?
