Paragon Software (who long term readers may know better as Epocware) have released version 2.0 of Handy Shell, a replacement stand-by screen for your S60 smartphones which provides huge levels of customisation and interaction over and above the regular active stand-by screen on your phone.
Read on in the full article.
This looks really poorly designed, far too much clutter to be usable. And it's a really ugly font they've used.
It'll be irrelavant anyway, once Spb launch their Symbian version of Mobile Shell.
I have a copy of Handy Shell v1 with Handy weather for my E71 but uninstalled because it seemed to slow the system down and wasn't integrated with Nokia messaging. So I was interested to see if v2 was any better. I downloaded the trial, but unfortunately just can't get it to run on my E71 (latest firmware). an initial screen is displayed asking if I want to try for 14 days. when I accept this the screen just goes blank, then after a minute or two reverts to the standard home screen...
And what a RAM-hog!
Epocware are quite hit and miss in my experience, some of their stuff like Taskman, Blacklist and Calendar is superb, a huge improvement on Nokia's own apps, and integrates well with Symbian, while other things like Shell seem to just sit on top of the OS and be a bit pointless.
The cube could be amusing for a few minutes though 😊
Hih wrote:And what a RAM-hog!
Maybe it's just me, but the digital clock is pig-ugly; if that's the best they could come up with, it's pretty poor....
epocware apps are definetely not the beautiest, but they offers great functionality. buy iphone if you need nice design.
and it disabled shortcut keys and JbakTaskman. vHome is much much better.
Had this on my i8910 a month or so ago, for about 2 hours.... Meh, just a mess, imo.
On the other hand, on older winmo devices, like my QTEK 9100 its great. Completely transforms the device. But the newer QTEK (aka HTC) devices all have Sense UI, negating the need for a 3rd party shell (in most cases).
The start of a new trend in skinning S60? I mean, when WinMo users became dissatisfied with their UI (pretty much from day one) developers stepped into the breach and did (and do) very well.
With Symbian^whatever still a while off, maybe we'll see a lot of this in the interim?
hey this programm is ok if you want to get the same feeling like on a LG device with S-Class UI...but who want that?? 😉
i dont need that stuff...but it is nice that it is possible.
13 mb ram is ok for such kind of programm.
It is sad to see how Symbian news are dying!
This OS will be dead soon.
Unregistered wrote:epocware apps are definetely not the beautiest, but they offers great functionality. buy iphone if you need nice design.
So what you're saying is, it's not possible to write a useful S60 app which also looks nice; interesting opinion.... :con?
Six sides... on a cube... six, not four.
It's always the same thing: the best apps, such a powerfull Os and rich UI interface but most of the Nokia phones cant run such apps cause they need large amount of HW
try The N900 at last... 😞
:icon13:
Im not sure why everyone is complaining about speed. I have the beta installed and it cruises along pretty well on my E71x.
Cons were that it didnt integrate nokia messaging and it doesnt show the wifi scanning or music player like it comes on the regular home screen.
The photos screen does take upto 5 secs to start, but is one of the best ways to view snaps on a E-series (which has this really horrible gallery). The Contacts screen while not essential is like a good visual speed dial and the home screen is simply awesome with loads of functionality and looks.
I love how it integrates Handy clock, handy calender, handy profiles and Handy weather. It also has a lite version of Handy Taskman as well.
While the rotating cube does show bad aliasing at times, The application does make the phone look damn impressive and wows everyone Ive shown it to.
Definitely buying this app. Probably wont get Handy weather though as its way too expensive.
I have version 1.0 installed on my 5800, and it's incredibly more useful than default home screen.
Don't quite see the point in upgrading though, now if Handy Shell would be able to display widgets to get something like a N97 experience, that would be worth an upgrade. And the lack of integration with Nokia Messaging is a HUGE miss!