Disqus
With all the hype surrounding user interfaces following the iPhone launch, it doesn’t surprises many companies are launching their custom UI solutions. We’ve already seen quite a few similar Windows Mobile apps and today we’re presenting you an application that aims to enhance the active standby screen of a Symbian S60 smartphones.
Developed by Epocware, Handy Shell allows a user to customize home screen according to his/her wishes. Three views are available and so are five plugin options. In addition, the application takes over all functions of the S60 menu key, “while adding extra options or disabling the unnecessary ones.”
The idea is to provide a user with all necessary information, and also include shortcuts to most frequently used applications and contacts, at a glance.
Handy Shell offers three options of “Today” screen for S60 smartphones. The “Today” view shows overall information about phone settings, ongoing calendar events, missed calls and SMS messages, new e-mails, weather forecast and even provides shortcuts to necessary applications using five types of Plugins. All Plugins can be moved around the screen, easily customized, or activated and deactivated. The “Applications” view provides fast access to twelve most needed applications. The “Contacts” view shows twelve favorite contacts with speed dial and SMS actions.
In addition, Handy Shell includes a “Weather” Plugin with five-day weather forecast for the Today screen and a one-year subscription to the Handy Weather service. Handy Weather is the easiest and most reliable way of accessing local, as well as distant, weather information in Celsius and Fahrenheit all in a mobile environment. The detailed five-day weather forecasts are supported by satellite weather maps and include four layouts: morning, day, evening and night.
Honestly, I can’t imagine many people paying $44.95 (39.95 EUR) to customize their S60 home screens this way, though I may be wrong.
About The Author
Dusan Belic
Dusan has been using smartphones since their introduction and is now following the latest trends in the industry. The "convergence" is what he's most excited about, and writing about it is the next logical thing to do. He thinks that using a smartphone is what everyone who cares about their time should do. In addition to his interests in mobile phones, Dusan also loves to experiment with the latest web and mobile 2.0 services. The idea of accessing and managing your information from any device no matter where you are simply amazes him. Whether it's an online to-do list, note taking service or a video sharing social network, he's there to try it out. He admits though, he's still searching for the ultimate web-based organizational tool, which "sings" perfectly with the mobile PIM application. Dusan used to run SymbianWatch.com which later became part of IntoMobile. He lives in Serbia, South-East Europe, from where he edits the site on a daily basis.
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