The strength of the Windows Mobile platform has always been the plethora of applications available for the devices; these applications have allowed users to greatly expand the capabilities and functions of their device.  The Windows Mobile user has been blessed with software such as: entire office suites to view edit and manage their documents on the go, finance applications to also do business on go, PIM software to improve organisation, even to lengthy and impressive games that take advantage of the specs under the hoods of these devices.  Another area of the Windows Mobile platform that has benefited from this has been the often unimpressive out-of-the-box today screen.  From larger clocks and more effective calendars to the lunar cycle and a media player, the options and plug-ins available for the today screen have grown immensely. 

SPB Mobile shell is no exception to this continual development of that central point of contact we call the today screen, however this software isn’t just stocked with today screen features, it adds a new spacious and highly visual ‘now’ screen whilst living up to its name and creating a shell by which users can navigate, use and manage their pocket pc in a slightly different (or reminiscently familiar) environment for some.

Quick Features

• Tabbed today screen management

• Dynamic or static plug-in management

• Four included SPB Plug-ins

• The ‘Now’ screen

• A new shell to help navigate, access, and use your Windows Mobile device

• One handed use / highly directional pad orientated (barely use the stylus)

• Themes

The Tabbed Launcher and Plug-ins:

Tabbed launching and program navigation have taken off and become a hit over the last year in pocket pc applications and the reason for its success is straightforward:  a simple, tidy, compact and faster way of displaying information and navigating your Windows Mobile device whilst often allowing one-handed access through excellent integration with hardware buttons and direction pads.  SPB Mobile Shell has incorporated this same way of thinking, with the first feature of this application being an arching and expandable tabbed launcher for your today screen.  Essentially any plug-ins that you might otherwise select for your today screen can become tabs, even 3rd party plug-ins and software can be tabbed, however a limit of six tabs applies in the current version of the software.  A multitude of high quality icons can also be selected to represent your additional tabs.  As you would expect and can see from the pictures below your today screen can still be full of plug-ins itself so combing that with this software gives your today screen a much needed boost in capabilities and displaying information.

The pictures below reveal the various orientations of the tabbed launcher, firstly, the location the tabbed launcher shall take on your today screen, where it shall intractably remain (its not that dramatic, the windows time and date plug-in can be placed above it, but as a future feature the ability to move it around a bit more would be a welcome addition), to the 'Home Tab' being clicked, as you can see when 'Auto-hide Tabs' (or transparency) is selected the tab merely eclipses the nearest today plug-ins as you navigate the tab.  Once you have finished with the selected tab it simply returns to the default state in figure 1 keeping your today screen pristine and clandestinely tidy.  As you might expect static tabs just give the plug-in a set amount of space (based off the largest space needed by any of the plug-ins in the launcher).

                                                
                                                                                     Figure 1:  Default                                    Figure 2:  Dynamic / Transparent Home Tab                          Figure 3:  Static Default

SPB Included Plug-ins (tabs):
The 'Home Tab':  The essence of this tab is to provide the user with a clear and visual choice of their 12 most recently used or desired applications as well as providing a real-time battery cleverly used as the tabs icon (as seen above).  With this plug-in the user can make it a specific or desired program launcher by simply holding the stylus or D-Pad over the icon and selecting to have it pinned to the list, this will prevent it from changing around in much the same way as the start-menu does.  The larger icons and the greater number of programs make it a better alternative then pulling up the start-menu; and with 'auto-hide' mode enabled it displays and disappears just like a start menu, but as will be discussed later this is also a robust and useful plug-in when used outside of the launcher.

'Time Tab':  A more visual today screen alarm system (as opposed to a little bell on the time and date plug-in....windows), and the capacity to display interstate and world times has been a long overdue feature of the Windows Mobile platform.  Fortunately practical, professional and memory efficient plug-ins like this one are here to bridge the gap, and this is certainly one of the more stylish alternatives.  As you can see from Figure 4 the user is clearly informed of when the next alarm will commence, as well as being presented with 3 world-times and their dates.  By using the D-Pad or stylus the alarm can be clicked to immediately take you to your alarm settings and likewise clicking any of the various times to the left of the alarm will bring up a supernumerary menu of available cities and times that can be set. 

Figure 4: Time Tab

'Dial Tab':  This tab provides an agile and visually appealing way of accessing your contacts.  The plug-in operates quite simply by displaying your selected contacts picture and name followed by one click to begin dialling the contacts assigned number.  Holding the stylus or D-Pad over the contact will bring up a small menu of further options for that contact; these include:  dialling any of their numbers, sending an sms, sending an email, assigning a default number or even editing the contact.  Overall this is a handy, easy to use and lightweight plug-in which makes communicating with contacts a "click of the heels" quicker,  however (unfortunately), it is severely limited to only 5 contacts.  I found this to be a disappointing discovery which probably should have occurred to me when I had to add contacts to it rather then it automatically loading them, nevertheless the upside to this is the amount of contacts, or even all of the contacts being able to be added in future releases of the package. 

Figure 5: Dial Tab

'Weather Tab':  Lastly, and arguably to some, the best plug-in of all, is a lite version of SPB's best selling weather information software.  This plug-in doesn't include the multitude of on-screen information, skinning and icon capabilities of their full weather software package however, it still does the important stuff and that's to tell you the full days weather for the next four days, for a colossus of cities around the world.  The options in this tab include updating the information at any time, seeing the forecasts in Celsius or Fahrenheit and being able to select and remove a city at will.  This plug-in combined with the World Times in the previous plug-ins contributes to giving this package an international flavour that would appeal to users who frequently travel or do business across borders and time zones.  The only disadvantages of the plug-in would be not having multiple cities on the screen at once, nevertheless, its not a terrible straining point given that the city your viewing can be changed in several short clicks.  The plug-ins only viable fault would be for rural Australian users; as expected all the capital cities and most of the major cities are covered but those living in small towns and non-coastal cities are unlikely to find their location available for the forecast.

Figure 6: Weather Tab

If the idea of the tabbed launcher doesn't appeal to you yet you like the above plug-ins that come packaged with the software then don't despair.  SPB have done well to maintain the products flexibility as all the default plug-ins we've looked at can be used without and outside of the tabbed launcher.  This might seem like an obvious and basic option but its going to add flexibility to how you organise the launcher and your full-time today screen plug-ins particularly for useful plug-ins like the time or home tabs.  Below is an example and another glimpse at the delightful time tab... well I guess time plug-in when it's away from the launcher.

                                                                                        
                                                                                                                      Figure 7:  Time Tab / Plug-in outside of Launcher    Figure 8:  The Tabbed Launcher Options Menu

The SPB Mobile Shell:

The very name of the software directly sums up the next feature, that being, a diverse shell for your entire Windows Mobile device that extends well past the use of the today screen and tackles how you find programs, settings, create and manage tasks; and this shell aims, fires and succeeds in making those actions quicker, easier, and more efficient.  The SPB Menu or shell system is readily launched from your soft-key pad buttons and when this is pressed the user is presented with a clear, bright and spacious selection of categories and options to choose from, as displayed in figure 8 below.  Immediately upon opening up this menu my mind was busy trying to recall why it felt so familiar, and then, as I moved the D-Pad over the messaging icon I was presented with a little animation and the memories of my first Symbian based smart-phone came flooding back.  Sure enough as the screenshots will show its a very unconventional menu system for a Windows Mobile device and certainly more Symbian related but maybe that is what has been needed to make managing and accessing your data that bit easier, again, all possible without the stylus.
 

                                                                                          
                                                                                                                        Figure 9:  Opening Shell / SPB Menu screen                        Figure 10:  'Programs' Selection

With the exception of an inbuilt task manager and soft-reset mode there is nothing new in this shell system; its purpose is merely to offer a different and hopefully easier way of accessing your information and completing your general tasks from program launching to adding contacts, appointments or sending emails and text messages.  The above pictures give  you an idea of how it aims to make accessing your programs easier, if anything a welcome relief is having access to programs and control panel settings all in the one structure.  The pictures below illustrate the sub-menus and as can be seen absolutely nothing new on these menu's but that's the idea, its just your general tasks broken down into an easy to access style with direct links to what you want to do; so rather then wade through menu options of the actual programs, if you want to take that contact picture its already an option that's just a click away, likewise for sending an email, you click email and you'll be in the right account ready to type and send an email no changing accounts - ready to go right then and there.

                                                  Note:  The Shell Menu is the same colour throughout, the last two pictures here differ due to them being off the Mobile shell website then screens off my own device

                                                            
                                                                                     Figure 11:  'Messaging' selection                                Figure 12:  'Organiser' selection                            Figure 13:  Calendar options within shell      

In the contacts sub-menu the user is presented with an onscreen alpha-numeric keypad to search for contacts - see figure 12 -, this feature is certainly more intuitive and seemingly quicker then the default Windows Mobile system of group tab letters.  Users with a lot of contacts are going to be the obvious winners with this feature however pocket pc users themselves are likely to be big winners via SPBs choice to keep the stylus in its holster and allow users to select the various buttons via the D-Pad, an option many Windows Mobile users would like to see on the actual dial screen.

                                                                                       
                                                                                                                       Figure 14:  Camera options, quick and direct              Figure 15:  Contacts alphanumeric search bar

D-Pad Navigation:

A theme I've brought up a lot throughout the review so far is the capacity of this program for one-handed use or more precisely wide spread use of only the hardware buttons and not the need to pull out the stylus at every corner.  I was planning on making a special point of this towards the end of the review but this is simply the best time to do it as its the best feature of the shell system.  This is going to be the killer feature for smart-phone users, from the today plug-in which is all fully usable with the D-Pads to the Shell system, it would be a godsend for owners of those devices.  Pocket PC users or more precisely now, Windows Mobile 'Professional' users shouldn't feel left-out, because when you're on the move your going to be glad you can navigate and use all of those today plug-ins as well as accessing all your programs and tasks without the need for taking out that stylus.
 

The WOW starts 'NOW':

The plug-ins, the shell, the organisation and one-handed use this package brings to your device is all well and good but for me the wow factor was the aptly termed 'Now' screen.  This screen can be activated anytime you want via the devices soft-keys (SPB lets you assign a number of options to your hot keys), within the SPB menu or it can be set to appear when your device comes back on after the backlight has gone out or when your device wakes up - it can even be password protected by using the lock-screen as seen in the animation below.  The Now screen is an eye catching high impact information centrepiece that provides you with most of your important information the second you turn your device on. 

As you look over the pictures of the Now screen its likely to occur to you to ask, what is so special about this screen?  All of the information on this screen - Real time Battery meter, unread email, SMS, missed calls, signal strength, date and time, weather, temperature, next appointment - could potentially be displayed on your today screen even for free (with the exception of the weather) and that would be a correct assessment.  So what makes the WOW start NOW?  Just the simple beauty of finally being able to turn on the device or flick the now screen and get all this information clearly, largely and brightly (particularly important when outside or on the move) with just one click of a button.  I cannot convey enough how simple yet pleasant it is that finally you can have a screen separate from the today screen which displays so much information without the need to scroll, click or unlock (if you password protect your device) your device.

                                                                   
                                                                                Figure 16:  SPBs own animated gif of the Now screen                      Figure 17:  My Now Screen                                  Figure 18:  My Now screen goes blue

This screen is not merely a screensaver which disappears when you click it, on the contrary, the notifications, time, weather and calendar can all be selected to take you straight to their full versions, again all rapidly and with no need for the stylus.  In its current state what you see in the pictures is pretty much the extent of the screens capabilities, however this could easily become a powerhouse screen of information with simple feature improvements like a calendar carousel; to see all your days appointments, and perhaps a today's task list option instead of the weather display.  Users with slide-out hardware keyboards, or horizontal screen orientations aren't left out either, with the Now screen (and the entire application for that matter) being as spry and flawless as it is in portrait mode.

                                                                    
                                                                                                                Figure 19:  Horizontal Now Screen                            Figure 20:  Showing off the diversity in colours of the fantastic Now screen

All the colours of the rainbow:

As can be seen from the picture below the theme options for the software are nothing more then colourisations for your Mobile shell software and at first glance it might be easy to dismiss this as having little impact, however, SPB put in that bit extra to make sure your Windows system matches your Mobile shell software, so its not just a colourisation for your Mobile shell objects it changes your entire Windows Mobile system to the desired colour, giving it a continual flow between all aspects of the Mobile shell and Windows Mobile.  Surprising again was the impact that mere colourisations have particularly due to the high impact of the Now screen. 

Figure 21:  The Themes menu with 8 more colours on the next menu

Conclusion / Summary: A tabbed today launcher to stack full of plug-ins, at the moment limited to six, but the potential for more there, and even at six it adds a fantastic dimension to your today screen by being able to maintain and organise your today screen by giving you quick access to the plug-ins you want without having to have an endless flowing scrollbar down your today screen.  The included plug-ins themselves are quality SPB releases ranging from simple yet highly effective plug-ins like the Home tab and Time tab, which is perplexing to consider using anything else now, to the lite version of their best selling weather software.  The Now screen is a high impact sensible addition to the Windows Mobile platform that is not only useful, particularly if you hate squinting to see your today screen when outside, but enjoyable to see every time the device is powered on.  Lastly a shell for those who want their information quickly, their tasks to be direct, and who don't want to use that stylus. 

The Verdict:  Unquestionably, smart-phone users, pocket pc users on the go, or anyone who hates getting out their stylus all the time - this is the software for you.  New users to both pocket pc and smart-phone platforms would have good cause to use this software, the shell system will seem straight forward and easy to navigate whilst most likely being familiar to them.  The tabbed launcher and plug-ins are easy to setup again with straight forward options likely to win points with the new users and the content of the plug-ins is likely to seem necessary to them when faced with inbuilt lacklustre Windows Mobile alternatives.

Veteran pocket pc users might have to question a purchase like this if being on the go, or using the stylus a lot isn't an issue for them.  They are likely to be comfortable with the Windows Mobile navigation system and more likely to have plug-ins and software they are already frequently and aptly use.  The software might seem pricey for veteran users at USD $29.95 however, when compared to SPBs weather software costing USD $14.95 and the cost of other launching software, the price becomes quite reasonable when the value for money of its contents is considered.  On top of that even veteran users would enjoy seeing their today screens looking more organised, established and better managed combine that with the Now screen and the time tab and you have this veteran users vote.

SPB Mobile Shell Pros:

·         Tabbed today launcher - for easier today plug-in management

·         Four included plug-ins:  Time tab, Home Tab, Weather tab, Dial Tab

·         The Now screen - high impact, visually appealing and easy on the eyes

·         Extensive use of D-Pad so vastly reduced stylus usage - must have for smart-phone users

·         Alpha-numeric contact searcher with D-Pad capabilities, perfect for on the go

·         Mobile Shell -  excellent for new users or those wanting one-handed WM usage. 

·         Potential - SPB in the past have been excellent with updates and feature add-ons

·         Excellent memory usage, small amount of space required

Cons:

·         Seems pricey at first glance

·         Not as handy for users who enjoy the stylus or have several similar plug-ins or applications

·         Limitations on tabs in the launcher and the amount of contacts in the dial tab

Special Thanks to SPBsoftwarehouse.com  all pictures and intellectual property depicted are the respective property of those owners and brands.

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