Today SPB released the new version of their application SPB Time, a time toolset for your Windows Phone. SPB time isn’t just a clock and alarm for your Windows Phone. It has some nice other functionalities like a World Clock, Stopwatch, Countdown timer and more.

The features that seem most interesting are the classic, paranoid and bio alarms and the integration with SPB Mobile Shell via Widgets. But also the Moon Phases calendar is a welcome feature added to the new version of SPB Time 3.0

The new features of SPB Time 3.0 are mentioned in SPB’s press-release.

* Snappier, better looking user interface;
* Classic, Paranoid and Bio alarms;
* More than 20 alarm tunes;
* Online skins catalog;
* SPB Mobile Shell widgets;
* Scrollable Calendar with weeks numbers;
* Moon phases.

After trying the application for a few minutes I must say that I like the fact that SPB bundled all popular time applications into one application and make it look very good. The application is really snappy on my HTC Touch Pro 2. Another great thing is that different processes can run simultaneously. So the stopwatch and the count-down can run at the same time.

The Classic, Paranoid and Bio alarms are a clever solution to create an alarm which can be completely personalized. The classic alarm is just an alarm at a set time. The Paranoid alarm generates an easy, medium or hard brainteaser, so that you really need to be awake to shut off the alarm. The Bio alarm is an alarm for slowly waking up. At a specified time it is possible to start a light bio sound, which slowly wakes you up.

It is clear that SPB spent a lot of time in the looks of this application. The default skin looks very well, but there are many skins which look even better. These skins can be downloaded and installed within the application itself.

Overall I think SPB Time 3.0 is a very nice application where all your time applications are bundled. Besides that it looks very nice and is a very snappy application.

Today SPB Software has announced a major upgrade for SPB Mobile Shell to version 3.5, their award winning-next generation user interface- application. It has been some time since I extensively reviewed SPB Mobile Shell in the article: “SPB Mobile Shell v3.0 User Interface Step-By-Step Review“.

This new version builds further upon version 3.0, however SPB Software has added a massive load of new features which I will try to cover in this article. Let’s start with a video-overview from the SPB Mobile Shell 3.5 product page:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IGrfQ7IKGBs

What is new in SPB Mobile Shell 3.5 ? 

When I first saw the impressive changelog  on the SPB website I really wondered why they just marked it as a .5-release instead of naming it SPB Mobile Shell 4.0. In this section I will focus on the most important new features, which are the result of a further “widget-ization” of the application in the different screens of SPB Mobile Shell.

Two improved homescreens: Professional and Lifestyle

One of the basic concepts introduced with SPB Mobile Shell was having two homescreens: Professional and Lifestyle. The reasoning behind this approach hasn’t changed:

“Windows Mobile devices are traditionally popular among mobile professionals, users that need the power of this platform in their daily lives. Very often you need the professional features of a Windows Phone at work, and in your free time you still want to use the same phone, but with a more generic “consumer-ish” angle.”

The left screenshot above shows the Lifestyle homescreen, while the right screenshot shows the Professional homescreen. At first sight you would expect just minor changes, but that is completely wrong since both the homescreens are fully widgetizable.

Especially for the Professional homescreen this is something new, as you can see in the left screenshot above. In the right screenshot a settings window is shown for the homescreens.

You can see that both the homescreens are enabeled, and that the Professional homescreen consists of 1 page, while the Lifestyle homescreen consists of three pages (in fact you have 3 Lifestyle homescreens). Finally you are able to set commands, which the buttons in the bottom row should open.

3D viewers for e-mail and sms messages

A second set of new feature is the addition of 3D viewers for e-mails / mms / sms-messages, which make it more easy to manage and read your e-mails / mms / sms-messages from within SPB Mobile Shell. On the top left you see a counter with new messages and the account name you are viewing.

Furthermore you see a “carousel” of e-mails, which in concept we also see in the TouchFLO 3D interface. The main difference in my personal perception is that the amount and size of the text is better implemented in SPB Mobile Shell. With swipes and gestures you can easily glance forward and backward through your e-mails. By hitting the button in the bottom right corner you open up a quick menu to reply, delete or forward a message (again without opening Pocket Outlook).

The same concept is also applied to the sms-messages, while you can easily select an account bit click the “account-bar”. If you don’t want this new feature, you can also set the widget on the homescreen to simply open Pocket Outlook as a default action. It is simply done by tap and hold on email widget and choose the corresponding default action. This is shown in the right screenshot above.

Facebook- and Twitter widgets

While we could see a Facebook integration in SPB Mobile Shell 3.0 in the contact card, with the goal to grab a picture from Facebook and add this picture to the person’s contact card. A same approach has been seen on TouchFLO3D of the HTC Touch Pro2. In the top left screenshot I have added both a Facebook- and a Twitter-widget to the Lifestyle homescreen.

These widgets can be used to update or post statuses to your Facebook-page, or in the case of Twitter simply sent out tweets from within SPB Mobile Shell. The great advantage is that you don’t need to install an additional Twitter- or Facebook client, but you can grant SPB Mobile Shell 3.5 to access you account (details). Again a clever improvement of SPB Software.

Integration with SPB Weather and SPB Traveller via widgets 

We all know that SPB Software always had an excellent integration of various applications into SPB Mobile Shell and SPB Pocketplus as well. While in the previous version of SPB Mobile Shell already one tile or screen in the carousel was for weather and weather forecasts, we can see an extention in SPB Mobile Shell 3.5.

Additional functions and information known from SPB Weater are now integrated with SPB Mobile Shell 3.5 via various widgets. Furthermore parts of SPB Traveller are as well integrated via widgets. SPB Mobile Shell now more and more becomes the overall umbrella for the different (specialized) applications of SPB Software.

Complete list of other widgets

The video and screenshot above show the complete list over selectable widgets, and the list below provides the most remarkable in addition to the widgets covered in the paragraphs above:

• Tasks (customizable task list on your home screen);
• Picture Frame (widget and full-screen slideshow);
• Four instant wireless switches (WiFi, Bluetooth, Flight Mode, Phone Switch);
• Internet Search (with instant suggestions);
• Birthdays reminders (never forget about your friend’s birthday again);

Looking back at the basic concepts from SPB Mobile Shell 3.0

Some coolness added in SPB Mobile Shell 3.0 was the so called carousel to easily switch between the different screens of SPB Mobile Shell, in addition to the other “tiles” option. Both concepts are still in place and are further improved. The carousel now has some nice shadows and mirror images, and can be manipulated around with the fingers (also up and downwards so you can look into the carousel).

Matthew Miller, Editor of ZDNet Smartphones and Cell Phones blog has published a great SPB Mobile Shell 3.5 demo in which the new graphics and this new carousel behavior are clearly shown.

If you look at the number of titels in the tiles-overview, I can count 12 which is different from the previous version. The following list of screens is present in SPB Mobile Shell:  Professional Home, Lifestyle Home, Launcher, SPB Menu, Call Log, Favorite Contacts, SPB Contacts, Contacts Carousel, Weather, Weather Conditions, Agenda, Time.

The main changes within SPB Mobile Shell 3.5 have been on the widget front, so in the basic idea’s there weren’t extreme changes. If you want to know more about the launcher or SPB Menu I highly recommend to read through the review of the previous version: “SPB Mobile Shell v3.0 User Interface Step-By-Step Review“.

Conclusions and thoughts

With the release of SPB Mobile Shell 3.5 and the developer’s focus on using widgets a next level in personalization of your Windows (Mobile) Phone is set. The extensive amount of widgets and options make it possible to create a unique user interface that suits your personal needs at best, without losing the basic concepts of SPB Mobile Shell version 3.0.

For the people who have had the chance to play around with an Android powered devices, as well as a HTC device with TouchFLO 3D on it see influences of both user interface on the design of SPB Mobile Shell. Homescreen widgets is something that can been see on Android devices as well. It is good that the different available UI’s learn from each other (look over the wall) and deliver the end-user a better experience !

There is one small remark that I haven’t figured out yet. In the Lifestyle homescreen you can customize the background as well as the colors. However the color of topbar (in the screenshots of the review shown in Windows Mobile Green) stands-out from the rest of the Lifestyle homescreen, and personally I do think the application loses some of its elegance on this point. I hope the topbar will be skinned as well in an upcoming release.

Finally I would like to recommend the SPB Mobile Shell 3.5 review from George Ponder, Editor of WM Experts, as well as the excellent video demo and review of Matthew Miller, Editor of ZDNet Smartphones and Cellphones blog.

Pricing and availability

SPB Mobile Shell 3.5 is available for Windows Mobile touchscreen devices (works on WM 5 or higher) from September 30th and on. A free trial version working for 15 days with some restrictions can be downloaded, or the full version can be purchased for $29.95 from www.spbsoftware.com. All registered user of SPB Mobile Shell 3.x can upgrade it to the version 3.5 for free.

Spb Softwarehouse combined a classical “old” game -in this case the jigsaw puzzle- with modern mobile technology, resulting in a brand new game called Spb Puzzle with an interesting gameplay. The article below will provide a brief overview of this new game, and will highlight on several features. The article will end with some first conclusion, and you might want to check out some considerations as well.

“A jigsaw puzzle is a tiling puzzle that requires the assembly of numerous small, often oddly shaped, interlocking and tessellating pieces. Each piece has a small part of a picture on it; when complete, a jigsaw puzzle produces a complete picture. In some cases more advanced types have appeared on the market, such as spherical Jigsaws and puzzles showing Optical Illusions.” [ref01]

How can you transform such a cardbord jigsaw puzzle onto a touch screen of  Symbian S60 or Windows Mobile Phone ? Well Spb softwarehouse had some important design key points:

“Building on the strengths of the classical jigsaw puzzle by using high-quality pictures;

Creating the simplest interface possible, minimizing the number of unnecessary and distracting details;

Keeping the game simple and attractive;” [ref02]

With these design keypoints in mind, lets have a look at the application itself. Below a step by step walk through will be provided, while some key features are highlighted.

Spb Puzzle overview

When downloading the installer of Spb Puzzle I was a little surprised by its large size of 13 MB, resulting in 7,2 MB (VGA)  in the ROM after installation on my HTC Touch Diamond 2. Opening the application from the start menu, directly shows me a clever designed logo, and a great flash screen with Leonardo Davinci’s Vitruvian Man as a background and Spb Puzzle as title on top of it.

If I want to start a new game there are three options (on first use) available at the carousel like homescreen we saw in Spb Mobile Shell 3:

1. Select an imagepack;
2. Select a custom image from your device;
3. Download a new imagepack;

Let me emphasize that the user interface is really intuitive, and Spb Softwarehouse has a solid track record in designing simple but very efficient user interfaces. with left right swipe gestures you can easily switch between the different options available.  However if you download and install a new imagepack, an additional panel is added to the interface. At some point in time with X panels available it would make sense to add a panel view like we are used from the Sony Xperia X1 and Spb Mobile Shell 3.

After this little sidestep, you can either choose an available imagepack (= a set of puzzles around a topic), or simply download a new imagepack.  Selec “Load new packs from internet” and your webbrowser is automatically opened and a list of imagepacks appears. Simply select one for dowloading (in the cab-installer-format), and open the file after download. Restart Spb Puzzle and you are good to go with the new imagepack.

“On release date around 3-5 additional puzzle packs will be available. Meanwhile a lot of new great packs are still in development and will become available bit a little later. ” [ref02]

Custom or personalized puzzles

Spb Softwarehouse has added a personalized approach in the development of Spb Puzzle. Users can create a puzzle from a photo taken with the cameria on the device. So just take a picture a your car, your girlfriend, your pet or what ever you like, and simply choose this image to create a puzzle from it. Set the difficulty level and you are ready to go ! In my perception this brings an additional funfactor into the application, while the process is very simple.

Gameplay and its highlights

Already described above there are three options to choose from when starting a new game. Two of these options are already described above, and this paragraph will focus on the gameplay using an imagepack. At the start with a new imagepack just the first image is available for puzzling, like in the screenshot above. However once you have solved the first puzzle, access to the next puzzle in the imagepack is granted. This approach can also be seen in Spb Brain Evolution, getting access to new games.

When you select the puzzle a preview is shown, and with pressing the right softkey “resume” the game is started. If you need to go back to the preview during the game, simply click the “back arrow” in the left corner below, and resume again after the preview. Some cool behavior in the gameplay:

“If two adjacent pieces face each other close enough and with the right sides – they will stick together and continue to behave like one. If piece is placed in its correct position, for example, in a corner – it will be fixed and will no longer move.” [ref02]

In addition when you put two pieces of the puzzle together, you get haptic feedback ( = short vibrate) on the moment you “click” the piece in the puzzle. Since this is hart to capture in a screenshot a short video is provided above.

If you have put the last piece right into the puzzle Spb Softwarehouse has included a nice “fading-feature”. The layer with puzzle-piece shapes is removed, and the original picture is shown.

“When a puzzle is solved successfully – an informative description of the assembled image will be provided, followed by the “congratulations” screen.” [ref02]

By providing some background information the Spb Puzzle game has also a learning / teaching aspect. Getting to know a little background on some pieces of art for instance. Spb Softwarehouse included a clever “auto-save function” if you close the game in a certain way, like described below.

“The game can be closed with the touch of the “End Call” button. This game will be automatically saved and will be opened at next launch at the same point.” [ref02]

Depending on the device and screensize, as well as the difficulty level of the puzzle, the size of the image exceeds the size of the screen. In other words it means that you just see a part of the image on the current screen, resulting in moving around the screen by using your finger or stylus. However you can also give the pieces a kind of swipe, which makes it easier to search among them.

“You can quickly move the necessary fragments through the whole field. This kind of jump can be performed in two ways:

1. Tap any field point, then quickly tap somewhere aside (at least a centimeter away) in the direction of the desired jump. If you do it right the screen will immediately move in that direction against the stop. If the first tap was done on a certain piece it will be quickly moved through the whole screen.
2. If the device has a joypad (hardware navigation buttons) you can carry out the same action: while holding a piece with your stylus, use the navigation buttons to move it to the appropriate edge of the field. ” [ref02]

First thoughts and some considerations

First I truly like the idea of transforming a classical “old” game into a digital game for use on mobile phones. I think almost everyone has solved a jigsaw puzzle, so it’s a very

“Puzzles are said to improve concentration, logic, attention, memory, and imagination.  Spb Puzzle lets you play the time-tested jigsaw classic on your phone – anytime and anyplace.” [ref02]

Second my compliments for the excellent designed gameplay. Because of the perception of a classical jigsaw puzzle is rather “simple” in concept, Spb Softwarehouse managed to develop an attractive and interactive game in a modern jacket.

Third the modular imagepack-concept is very welcome. The standard imagepack is about art, and if that doesn’t interest you it’s no fun in solving those puzzles. As stated in the overview above, several additional imagepacks will  be available for download, and hopefully the (Windows Mobile) developer community can add/or upload their own created imagepacks to Spb Softwarehouse.

Spb Softwarehouse developed a great gameplay in which touch (finger and stylus) are supported as well as the use of the hardware keys.

Als very cool that you can personalize the application and creat and solve your own puzzles. Simply take a picture of your girlfriend, car, pet or what ever you like and create a puzzle from it within Spb Puzzle. This brings an additional funfactor in this application.

Some considerations and remarks

“Typically, the size of images exceeds the size of the screen, so permanently a player can only see a part of the whole image.” [ref02]

This results in a lot of panning and moving the puzzle around. A screen on a mobile device isn’t as large as the kitchen table where you solved a 5000 pieces puzzle. Personally I find the relative small screen and resulting select and pan “actions” a little distractive. My view on this is that Spb Puzzle is shown advantage on large screen devices like the HTC Advantage, the HTC Touch or the Samsung Omnia.

Elaborating a little more in this direction, and adapting a part of the Microsoft three screen strategy, I would invite Spb Softwarehouse to develop a desktop version of the Spb Puzzle application. With touchscreens becoming more and more available for notebooks and desktops this might be a step to consider. Personally I use a Lenovo X60 tablet, and for instance the HP TX2  (= tablet) or the HP Touchsmart ( = all in one desktop) support finger-touch. The latter both I’ve played with @ CNTRSTG and we had great fun playing a simple game on the HP Touchsmart.

Remark that I wasn’t able to test Spb Puzzle on a Symbian S60 device with touchscreen. Simply because I don’t have such a device, but that raises an important  question:

“Why has Spb Softwarehouse  chosen for Symbian S60 as a second platform for Spb Puzzle, since there aren’t that many Symbian S60 devices on the market WITH a touch screen ?”

I’m only aware of one Nokia device that has a touchscreen: Nokia Xpressmusic 5800 and the Samsung Omnia HD also provides a large screen combined with the Symbian S60 platform. I don’t get the reasoning behind this, while there are large volumes in the iPhone market and Spb Softwarehouse already has experience with the launch of Spb Wallet for iPhone. Idea’s ?

Complementary Spb Puzzle review on Symbian S60

The review above just focusses on Spb Puzzle running on a Windows Mobile Professional device. Unfortunately I didn’t have a Symbian S60 device available. Matthew Miller from Nokia Experts has also written an excellent review about Spb Puzzle, but tested on the Nokia 5800.  His conclusions:

“Spb Puzzle is a fairly simple game, but like I said earlier I actually had quite a bit of fun putting puzzle back together on my 5800 XM. Spb stated they wanted to “Create the simplest interface possible, minimizing the number of unnecessary and distracting details.” I have to fully agree that they achieved this as I was able to jump right in and have fun assembling puzzles without any other menus, options, noises, etc. distracting me from the task at hand. While Spb Puzzle is quite enjoyable it is also a benefit that puzzles are said to improve concentration, logic, attention, memory, and imagination and we can all use some improvement in these areas..” [ref04]

The review is highly recommended and complementary to the review above, so head over to Nokia Experts !

Overall wrap-up

Spb Softwarehouse transformed a well known classical jigsaw puzzle into a modern game for mobile phones (running multiple platforms).  While this is version 1.0 of Spb Puzzle, the Russian developers did a great job with the haptic feedback, the realistic gameplay, and a very intuitive user interface. The custom puzzles give a high level of personalization, and the modular design with additional imagepacks and multi-platform approach make it a great application.

Available at the at the website of Spb Softwarehouse for a fair price of $9,95

Reference List:

1. WIKIPEDIA:  Jigsaw Puzzle
2. SPB SOFTWAREHOUSE:  Additional background information  about Spb Puzzle
3. SPB SOFTWAREHOUSE:  Spb Puzzle Product page
4. NOKIA EXPERTS:  Review: Solve jigsaw puzzles on your Nokia 5800 with Spb Puzzle

Today SPB Softwarehouse released a new version of their excellent user-interface application SPB Mobile Shell v3.0. This article will provide a step by step overview of the different, layouts, screens and highlight the main new features of this great add-on for your Windows Mobile powered device.

SPB Mobile Shell v3.0 Step by Step

1.  3D Carousel or Tiles View

During the Mobile World Congress 2009 the SPB Mobile Shell v3.0 was first announced, and one of the features that ended up on youtube was the 3D carousel feature. This graphical representation  provides an easy to use way of srolling through the different screens. However if you don’t like this 3D carousel mode you can switch to the Tiles view, which is also shown in the screenshots above. This looks very familiar, since this approach was also used in the Sony Xperia X1.

Although the 3D carousel is very cool, I personally do prefer the Tiles View, since I find it easier to manipulate with your fingers. And you are never one-click away of all the screens.

2.  Home Sceen(s)

In this new version of SPB Mobile Shell, there is not just one homescreen layout but two homescreen layouts: (A) professional now screen, (B) lifestyle now screen.

“Windows Mobile devices are traditionally popular among mobile professionals, users that need the power of this platform in their daily lives. Very often you need the professional features of a Windows Phone at work, and in your free time you still want to use the same phone, but with a more generic “consumer-ish” angle.” [ref01]

This reasoning makes sence, and is in line with thoughts about the strategy of Microsoft Windows Mobile and HTC. You don’t have separate devices for work- and for private use, and therefor you need to combine both into one device or application. Furthermore it is one of the drivers why Microsoft would like to move a little more into the consumer space. However let’s focus on the features of the SPB Mobile Shell application:

Professional Home

Of course the professional home is optimized for power and usability, having all your important information in one single overview and accessing it with one tip of a finger. Although it looks similar to the home screen of the previous version there are made some clever improvements under the hood:

• “There is an algorithm to choose which account to open: if there are unread emails, it will open the first account with unread emails; if there are no unread emails, it will open the account that had unread emails last. As result, it will almost always open the account you want to use.
• Shared space for upcoming events, today’s all-day events, graphic calendar, and the next alarm. The challenge is to show all important information in limited space, but nicely. This algorithm can be tweaked in Spb Mobile Shell settings (“Calendar Widget”). ” [ref01]

Both are very useful in every day life and help you to work more efficiently with your Windows Phone.

Lifestyle Home

The lifestyle home is aimed at customization and personalization, so you can build your own home screen for personal use.

• “Three screens with horizontal scrolling (so there is more space)
• Widget-based (so you can also put shortcuts, photo contacts, indicators for power, specific email accounts (e. g. gmail) etc.)” [ref01]

Looking at the features of the Lifestyle home, I could find similarities with the Homescreen on the Google Android based T-Mobile Google G1 . The T-Mobile G1 device also provides three screens, with horizontal scrolling and the use of widgets. However the number of available widgets is limited, while SPB softwarehouse has done an excellent job a offers a wide range of avaialble widgets.

The professional home and the lifestyle home are the first two screens in the 3D Carousel.

3.  Applications and settings

The next two screens in the 3D carousel are aimed at quickly launching applications and/or having access to your settings. These two screens are (A) Launcher, and (B) SPB Menu.

“On any home screen (Widget-based or Professional) you always have a big button called “Launcher”.”[ref01]

This launcher has a simple- and an advanced mode, and is used to quickly (re-)open the last used applications. In practice this is a scenario that occures very often. The SPB Menu on the other hand is a feature that is familiar from SPB Mobile Shell v2.0, and it perfectly integrates with the start menu. However next to the programs and settings you can quickly access applications and settings around central topics, for example “internet” or “messaging”.

5.  Contacts

The next three screens in the 3D carousel are all centered around the keyword “contacts”:  (A) Call Log , (B) Favourite Contacts and (C) SPB Contacts. In the version 3.0 release SPB softwarehouse has focused on making the process of working with contacts efficient and enjoyable, with an optimized dailing scenario. The reasoning behind this is outlined below:

• “Most likely the contact you want to call is in your favorites list (since most people make 90% of all calls to their ten top contacts). This scenario is solved by the center tab (Favorite  Contacts)
• If not, there is a high chance that you want to return a call, or call somebody you’d recently called. In this case, you can easily switch to the left tab (Call Log)
• If neither of the situations is the case, then you can still go to the right tab (Spb Contacts) and quickly find the right contact by using T9 search” [ref01]

Contacts Carousel and Facebook Integration

“Photo Contacts is a central component of contacts management in Spb Mobile Shell” [ref01]

This approach is already supported with the development of the widget based favourite contacts screen, however the contacts carousel also proves the easy of use of this concept. Analogue to the easy manipulation of the 3D carousel for switching between the different screens, the contact carousel is aimed at switching between your most important contact.

Furthermore a custom ringtone can be set, or the contact picture can easily be changed (even cropped or rotated !!!) via “change picture”. It is not only possible to get a picture from teh Windows Mobile Phone’s camera, but also from the social network Facebook !

“We found that most users don’t have good pictures for their friends in their phones. We think that today, social networks are the best way to get great high quality pictures for your contacts. I like to say that “It is hard to make good pictures of all your friends, but fortunately, your friends take good picture of themselves”.” [ref01]

6.  The other screens: Weather, Agenda, Time & Edit Profile

In the 3D carousel there are four screens left, however the most significant changes were in the screens described above. The Weather- and Time screens form excellent opportunities to perfectly integrate with SPB Weather and SPB Time, while the Agenda en Edit Profile screens are new in comparison to the previous version of SPB Mobile Shell.

The Agenda screen seems to have some elements of Mobile Shell v2.0 Homescreen, however it provides a more detailed and extensive view of your calendar and agenda. The advantage is that you don’t need to open the underlying applications, but you have direct access to the information needed. The Edit Profile screen makes it possible to easily change the settings of your phone profile, without have to click through two levels in order to acces the settings you need to change. Also this screen can be perfectly be integrated with SPB Phonesuite.

Video overview

Below a short video overview of SPB Mobile Shell v3.0 is shown, which is released today on youtube. It is a good complement and summary for the written review above.

Conclusions and first thoughts

Personally I do think that SPB Softwarehouse again has released  a great application, which builds further upon the success of the previous versions. SPB Softwarehouse keeps on improving their applications, resulting in very clever improvements which make your device even more usable. In other words the bar is raised again with the release of version 3.0 of SPB Mobile Shell.

On the user interface level, SPB Softwarehouse is doing a great job. One of the results is that SPB Mobile Shell v2.0 has been shipped on Acer, Sony Ericsson, Toshiba, O2, E-ten and Pharos devices. If I have a look at the great potential and eas of use of version 3.0 I think there is a good chance that some OEM’s (except for HTC) will embrace this application as the user-interface-solution.

With only HTC having a mature user-interface in the form of TouchFLO 3D, it’s self-evident that SPB Mobile Shell will be a must-have application for a lot of Windows Mobile users. I thinkthat SPB offers a fair price for the value you get from this application, and for current SPB Mobile Shell users, they offer an upgrade program.

The only minor point for improvement I can find is the relative large footprint / size in ROM of 4,87MB  for the QVGA version and 7,70 MB for the VGA version.

Windows Mobile 6.5

“As a close partner of Microsoft and Windows Mobile device manufactures we had early access to Windows Mobile 6.5. Therefore, we kept it in mind when we were designed Spb Mobile Shell 3.0. As result Spb Mobile Shell 3.0 complements Windows Mobile 6.5 features without any conflicts.” [ref01]

So also on the medium- / long-term SPB Mobile Shell v3.0 is a good investment on your device. SPB software house always keeps surprising me with clever improvements, so keep up the good work building great software !!

Price and upgrade policy

The price has not changed with the new version. Spb Mobile Shell 3.0 will be available from www.spbsoftwarehouse.com for USD 29.95.
If you are an Spb Mobile Shell 2.x owner, you can upgrade to 3.0 for 50% off the retail price. If you purchased previous 2.x version within 90 days of the official release date – you are entitled to a free upgrade.

Reference List

1. SPB Softwarehouse:  SPB Mobile Shell Additional Background Information
2. SPB Softwarehouse:  Work-Life Balance with Spb Mobile Shell 3.0: New Version of World’s Bestselling Mobile Application
3. SPB Softwarehouse:  SPB Mobile Shell Product Page