I recently published a detailed review @ mobilityminded about the Windows Mobile 6.1 Standard powered HTC Snap device with the unique Inner Circle feature. However let’s have a detailed look at the Inner Circle feature, and how unique is it actually? This article will zoom in on HTC Inner Circle, and compare it to a possible alternative: Watchflag. Which of the two performs best, and is there a winner ? Read on to find out.

HTC Inner Circle

As already described in the review, HTC Inner Circle is mainly a filter for the most important people you add to your Inner Circle. With one click it is possible to get the messages of these most important people accross the different e-mail accounts in one overview. However it depends on which e-mail addresses are entered in your Outlook fields, despite the fact that you add “people” to your Inner Circle.

In other words if the e-mail address isn’t entered in your Outlook-Contact-fields, despite the fact that you have communicated with that person the messages don’t get filtered. However you can also have the option to add simply an e-mail address to your Inner Circle as well. Via de left soft key “All Email” it is easy to switch to the normal Pocket Outlook Inbox as well.

Let me elaborate a little further. The HTC Inner Circle software is developed as a layer on top of Microsoft’s Pocket Outlook, just like it is the case with TouchFLO 3D on the Windows Mobile Professional devices. This means it is part of the HTC Experience and has for instance implications for the color scheme of the “application”.

Furthermore one of the great developments of TouchFLO 3D on the HTC Touch Pro2 and the HTC Touch Diamond2 are the fingerfriendly notifications and alerts on these Windows Mobile Professional devices. Knowing this you certainly see some of the limitations of Inner Circle as well.

1. It is just a filter without a set of notifications (despite an icon in the topbar);
2. HTC Inner Circle is purely aimed at e-mail communication;
3. Furthermore it’s depended on what is entered in the Microsoft Outlook contact-fields;
4. HTC Inner Circle doesn’t search SMS / Text Messages despite the fact that these are also part of Pocket Outlook;

Watchflag

For the readers who have never heard of the application Watchflag, below I have stated a short description from their website:

“Watchflag provides flexible alerts for email and text messages on your Windows Mobile device. Alerts are based on rules you define and work with all synchronized folders. Rules can be customized by sender, recipient, subject, importance level, folder name and content of the message body. Watchflag will play distinct tones, vibrate, flash the LED and display a color-coded acknowledgment screen for direct access to new mail.” [ref02]

Watchflag therefore isn’t a filter like HTC Inner Circle, but it alerts you based on a higly flexible and customizable set of rules you set up as an end-user. In the help-section on the Watchflag website you can read more about the ways and possibilities to set up the alerts. Setting up the rules is easily done in a step by step process, making it possible without the need of specific technical knowledge.

“Watchflag will play distinct tones, vibrate, flash the LED and display a color-coded acknowledgment screen for direct access to new mail.” [ref02]

From my own experience I know that one of the great advantages is the personalization, and high level of customization. Therefore you can set custom alerts for every contact, based on it’s level of importance. This makes it possible to quickly reply on an important incoming e-mail or text message.

A second important advantage is that is searches the SMS / text messages as well, however based on words in the message and not yet based on the sender’s name. However it can while HTC Inner Circle simply doesn’t. Furthermore Watchflag works on both Windows Mobile Standard and Windows Mobile Professional, and therefore has a wider possible install-base (in comparison to HTC Inner Circle)

What I really liked was the fast and responsive customer service of Watchflag in case you have a question or I my case I needed to transfer my old license to the new licensing-system. Within 1 business day you have an answer, and when you have a look at the changelog on the website the tool is under continuous development, so great job developers !

On the other hand I also have found some limitations as well:

1. There is not way to import / export your rules and program-options very easily;
2. Another comment, although personal, is the not-so-great program graphics, however this doesn’t affect the functionality;
3. Watchflag isn’t yet optimized for finger friendly navigation and set-up needs to be done with keyboard and stylus;

Overall thoughts

Let me start the conclusions and overall thoughts that there is no “real” winner in this comparison, simply because it are complementary applications for Windows Phones. I truly hope that the HTC Engineers and the developers of Watchflag will get in touch with each other.

However I wanted to show some of the possible options and directions for on-device smart filtering and smart search. Listening to the live WinMo Week #31 podcast with Paul O’Brien from MoDaCo, covering the HTC Snap and discussing the Inner Circle feature as well, I heard another interesting possibility:

“It would be cool if Inner Circle could also work with applications like Twikini, filtering the tweets of the favorite people you follow”  [Paul O' Brien, MoDaCo, WinMo #31]

However I also must place a critical note to Microsoft Windows Mobile, since Personal Information Management is still one of the core functionalities of (smart)phones and mobile devices. While we are used to easily search across the different mail-accounts within Microsoft Outlook 2007, and have the possibility to set up rules as well it still isn’t possible to perform these actions within Pocket Outlook in a comparable-like-desktop-experience. Despite the fact that there are some really good smartfiltering algorithms in place across Windows Phones.

Remark also analogies with thrid party call-filtering applications like Novosec Smartfilter and Trinknet Software No-Calls. Therefor I hope that the core experience in Pocket Outlook will be improved so that it opens up new opportunities to third party developers, who even can create an experience on top of the core functionality.

Wrapping up, people centric communication is definitely the direction to go and HTC Inner Circle is probably a first step on Windows Mobile Standard into that direction. However in contrast with the latest TouchFLO 3D versions on the HTC Touch Pro2 there is still room for improvement.

Although not a filter, Watchflag does an awesome job alerting people when they receive certain people centric communication. The high level of flexibility and types of customization make it fun to use, and give the end-user a rich tool for managing the flows of e-mails and text messages. Looking for such a tool, than you certainly need to order Watchflag via the website for $20,00 and getting a 10% discount for a limited time.

Is there a real winner ? No, but I hope this article outlines some of the challenges in upcomming development as well as possible directions which could be taken. What are your thoughts about people centric communication and what tools or applications do you use to manage your daily information flows ?

Reference List

1. MOBILITYMINDED:  HTC Snap review – the ultimate messenger ??
2. WATCHFLAG: provides flexible alerts for new email and text messages on your Windows Mobile device