What’s Your UI?
I was just reading the headlines and noticed how much Windows Mobile users focus on the user interface (UI). Just think about it – Toshiba has that crazy one with the bold colors; Acer has a custom UI; Omnia has its widgets; Xperia has its panels; HTC is releasing TF3D 2.5 (that extra .5 means a lot apparently:)) and there are rumors about the HTC Sense interface. Personally, I am buying time before I upgrade to 6.5 and TF3D2 was great but started to wear thin on me so I’m going through UI’s like I go through underwear (one a month or so:)). Anyway, I figured we were due for a poll so everyone can share their thoughts on what interface is the best. And remember, there’s no right answer so cheating is allowed!
Here’s a bunch that I can think of (in the order that my brain gave them to me) but if I missed any please remind me and I’ll add it:
TF3D (stock) This is the version of TF3D that comes standard on the Touch Pro/Fuze/Diamond series. We all know it. It’s a series of tabs on a slider that has a tab for most things you would use frequently (like email, texts, pics and settings) and felt very revolutionary when it came out.
TF3D2 This is the newer version of TF3D that has more tabs (including calendar and stock) and is fully functional in landscape mode. We also associate this with the upgrades it brought that are more than just a home screen like the contacts manager and SMS interface that’s pretty sleek. Since this is a ported version it’s a little buggy and it’s a pretty heavy application. There’s only a hand full of people using TF3D 2.5 at this time so I won’t separate it but it is very anticipated:)
HTC Home I’m going old school now and I’m about to confess that this is the UI I am currently using. This was the UI that was introduced on the Tilt if I recall and is available in VGA as well. Depending on the version there are various tabs but there’s no sliding here – the tabs are just buttons that change what is shown at top from the home screen (clock, emails, texts and VM count), speed dial tab, weather tab (which switches to 5 day mode by pressing it), app quick launcher and sound profile tab). Later versions had a music tab as well but I haven’t seen it in VGA. You can still load standard Windows plugins below HTC Home like the calendar, wireless profile, etc.
PointUI Home This is available in a paid and free version but I think if you want to be serious about a UI you probably upgraded to the Pro version by now:) This interface lets you customize your experience by setting your own pages as you want and adding applets onto each page. It’s generally fast and received pretty high ratings overall. The paid version is $20 and you are limited by the applets but that’s still a very large pool to fish from.
SPB Mobile Shell This one is pretty neat since there are pro and casual screens you can flip through. Instead of tabs there are screens you can flip through with a screen dedicated for whatever purpose you would like – so you can have a page for apps, one for contacts, etc. This is also fully customizable and skinable. Herg called it the best UI and that’s a pretty big endorsement:) It is also noted as the top selling WM professional app at $30 so that also says a lot about it.
Wisbar Advance This may be the king of customization. You can pretty much create any interface you want to with this…or if you’re lazy you can import someone else’s interface. So if you want your phone to look like Windows 7 then go right ahead. I’ve seen versions of TF3D, WM 7…there’s really a lot out there. The downside is that you need to actually customize the thing and it’s not as simple as the other shells but that’s partly because of the fact that most customization is very advanced (you can obviously opt for the simpler customizations but this app seems to have found a niche in the ultra-mod category). It’s $15 for the license.
iPhone Clones Do I need to describe this?:) It looks like Steve Jobs’ phone…except it’s unlocked, is in VGA…ok I’m not going down that path:) We’ve mentioned iPhone Today which is now up to version .9.2 and as expected you get essentially an app launcher with a few pages to flick between.
Winterface This is Vitotechnology’s UI which is very iPhony looking but can be installed as a home screen plugin and is pretty configurable (while remaining in the iPhone category). You also get a few perks beyond just a UI but it’s also a paid app at $20.
SBSH Skins I’m cheating here and combining all of the SBSH apps into one. They have a few different products like PocketBreeze and iLauncher that are high end today plugins but are powerful enough to count as a UI by themselves. These are paid apps which vary based on what you get.
WM 6.5 The stock 6.5 home page with it’s plugins is a pretty big step for WM especially considering how long it took them to realize that UI is important. Of course, we’ve already seen a lot of custom plugins developed for this.
Windows Standard Hey, don’t mock it. We used this for years and collected plugins like baseball cards:) Just go to Settings – Home – and uncheck TF3D and start checking away at the other boxes and there you have it. But if you’re a long time WM user then you probably have a ton of plugins, like weather, connections, speed dials, app launcher, etc. Good times:)
MobilityFlow’s Touch Shell This also comes in a free and pro version. This is also fairly customizable and has some neat graphics but was noted as being a little choppy.
Touch Flo 2D This guy was ground breaking for HTC. In fact, it’s still pretty nice. It’s like TF3D but without all of the fancy graphics. And because of that it’s actually a little lighter to use. And don’t think work has stopped on this – You Know Who is still beating this UI and while we’re waiting on TF3D2.5 for a FootPrints tab these guys have had it for a while already.
OK so there was your overview just to remind you of your options (which were not reviews – just overviews…I’m leaving the opinions for you guys:)). I’m also including non-HTC UIs in the polls just so if anyone out there is not a Fuze reader and they want to chime in they don’t feel left out of the party:) Oh and since a lot of users switch between UI’s you can select up to 2 answers.
Loading ...And just think, some other phones have one user interface that everyone is required to use…that’s crazy talk:)
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Comments
[...] So jump over to Fuze Mobility to cast your vote! (Sorry but keeping it on one site leads to one big poll instead of three polls:)) [...]
Christian Hughes Sweet wm 6.5 takes an early lead!
And on an off note, can someone please put a BOOT diskette into drive A and press a key already?
drjim I’m going with TF3D2 and iPhone Today. Not perfect, but they work for my needs. Definitely curious about 2.5.
jimski Using stock TF3D, but it’s Hergified, so it includes Call History, Profile, Calendar and Communications tabs.
RaudelJr I can’t believe SPB Shell is winning, it is a terrible applications, and slows down your device greatly! But that is just my opinion after several fair tries, I’ve tried all their versions as well as the newest one which was suppose to address all the lag that SPB shell causes. Guess what? The lag is still there.
Raudel
Richard I use SBSH Pocket Breeze in “panels mode” on my Fuze. No today screen plug in bs: each panel fill the entire screen with useful information. Change panels by swiping horizontally. It’s so cool even the AT&T Store manager asked me how to get his Fuze to work like mine.
Panel 1: daily agenda incorporating local weather and special events
Panel 2: detailed weather with buttons for current radar, hourly and 7-day forecasts. Switch to different cities by swiping vertically.
Panel 3: phone control, messaging access, launch panel
Matt Chapman I’m WM6.5 and not looking back… On a side note, thats a nice looking theme on the TouchFlo 2D!
jobot standard all the way with a black theme. it is faster and i still really like the look
Dude1 For me Mobile Shell 3.0.1 works best. Especially being able to add 10 screens to “Lifestyle” Screens and fully customize them. As well customize the Professional Screen.
l3it3r I’ve been using SPB Mobile shell ever since Version 3 came out. It’s fantastic. Combining that with Kinoma Play makes my device more useful than ever. I rarely used TF3D, and I was an early adopter of TF3D2, but got tired of the few bugs that kept creeping up. I’m sure I’ll stick with SPB MS3 for a while. I’m VERY VERY interested in HTC Sense though!
shylohmonster I just flashed to Shep’s latest 6.5 ROM with TF3D2. Until then, I was using SPB Shell 3.0 and loving every minute of it. Although a great portion of mobile shell is amazing, several parts seem redundant to me and I don’t feel like messing about with it. More widgets would be nice.
I’ve recently ran out of zest for tweaking every little thing in my UI. So for now I’m sticking with TF3D2. Currently, It’s my favorite. At one point, I had Mobile Shell, PointUI, Titanium, and TF3D2 all running at once. It was a fun experiment and I got them all working properly, but I obviously took an epic performance hit.
I’ve given each UI in this list at least a week’s try and honestly TF3D2 is the most uniform UI to the system as a whole. (Not that it doesn’t have it’s subtle annoyances) I’ll be using TF3D2 until 2.5 is released -OR- I get that particular ‘tweaking bug’ back in my blood.
On a side note, this poll cannot be complete without at least a mention of the very awesome and customizable Throttle Launcher. http://www.throttlelauncher.com/
The Jack of Clubs for the longest time i wouldnt use so much third party software and just stuck with the standard today screen. i had a nontouch screen smartphone when chome fist came out for 6.1 and thought it was very cool. when i went back to touch screen phones i fell in love with tf3d. i use tf3d1 cfc with the standard htc black theme on my fuze. i would use tf3d2 if the vga port felt more polished. im looking forward to tf3d2.5 though, especially if i can ever get a wvga phone. if the android port for the fuze/touch pro gets to a decent running level ill look into htc sense too.
Just get the IPHONE If you get the iphone you don’t have to worry about what UI to use or whats stable or not…
dangby You are missing an option for ‘Yeah, I’ve heard of being able to change the UI…’ Seriously though, I’m still using the stock TF3D and don’t know where to start to try out other UIs. It is good to see the voting results as that might tell me which is best, but not really. I’d like to see why people are using them. Function is only slightly more important than speed to me, and nothing I use on my phone should crash or lock up. I’ve had TF3D lock up sometimes for unknown reasons, and wonder if there are more stable things? Is WM6.5 more stable? Does WM6.5 run in the background whenever TF3D is running? Can WM6.5 be made to look good and work really cool like the other sliding UIs? I want a good feature set but not something that locks up the phone or slows it down…
drjim The diversity of responses suggest there is no single ideal UI. Different needs, different aesthetics, different functionality, different expectations, different tolerances.
As the saying goes, to each his (or her) own.
Mark A Sure would love to hear from anyone running Android on their Raphael/TP/Fuze.
http://connect-utb.com/index.php?option=com_rokdownloads&view=folder&Itemid=68&id=2:android-port
David K Mark- Android is pretty far along on the Tilt but isn’t too far along on the Touch Pro as I understand it.
Brian.Halcyon Like l3it3r, I am using SPB MS 3, but I am very interested in Sense. SPB proves that a widget style interface can run well on WM6.1/6.5. I find it quick, stable, practical. I leave the UI only to read email and browse the web. There are no issues with one version of Opera working while another doesn’t. I have fewer data update connection issues and have experienced better battery life.
That said, I use the browser for more things now, checking stocks, etc., but Opera on Edge with iGoogle mobile has all I need in that regard.
NATF 4.7 with SPB is a great and stable combo, best I’ve used yet. Titanium was a little limiting because of all the sliding required to quickly get to contacts and I found myself using the D-Pad quite a bit. It also would wig out when pulling down weather updates, etc. on all of the user created panels.
TF3D2 is pretty. I wanted to like it, just too buggy and it still feels ported. The guys at XDA are doing amazing work, though and I can’t wait to see Sense UI as it will be less resolution dependent for formatting.
bitbucket @Just get the IPHONE: “And their all made of ticky-tacky and they all look just the same.” http://tinyurl.com/yr66uw
Point is, some of use LIKE having a choice for flavor-of-the-month. And as people are all different, we like our UIs to do different things.
Brian.HalcYoN A friend of mine that is a full on iPhone loving freak liked both SPB MS 3 and TF3D2. SPB moreso due to its customizable widgets pages. He admittes that there many things he wished he could change and was jealous of the 3G Slingbox App and stylus. Heh.
Dan I made folders (Such as “Media”, “GPS”, “Work” etc) in windows >start menu >programs. I then pasted short cuts to the relevant programs in these folders. Then I added the folders, to the start menu (usings settings). Of course, my PTT button launches the start menu, and thus I have a list of my created folders. No touch Flo, no battery draining SBP MS, best user interface I have ever used!
Nightcookie David,
I think if we’ve SBSH’s Today plugins as a vslid option here, to be fair we’d have to add Spb’s apps too. Some are so similar you can barely tell them apart (Pocket Plus = iLauncher, Diary = PocketBreeze etc).
In fact, having played around with most of the other alternatives, I’m now back at my Spb plugins. Great functionality, easy on memory. I do switch to TF3D2 occasionally when I want some eye candy.
I guess I’d have to vote for SBSH for the purpose of this poll.
N.
adamantypants Using Titanium/Chrome on 6.5.
Widgets and plugins FTW! Definitely smoother and faster than my experiences with TF3D though it could be and likely is the superior ROM (RRE 6.5).
Madmaxllc SPB MS3 – very easy to delete everything from the lifestyle screens and add back in the widgets for the programs/contacts/etc. that I use the most. I don’t mess around w/ the carousel….yeah, it’s fancy, but it takes too much time to flip through and get to where I want to be. I also find the scrolling extremely smooth, and I rarely click/activate something by accident (one of my problems w/ TF3D…not saying others share the same issue, but it frustrates the heck out of me).
Stan City You mean someone actually ruins a WM device with an iphone UI? I pitty the fools!!! MMMM the does the iphone UI have shorten sequences like the iphone commercials?
[...] We’ll be really greatful if you vote for Winterface and underlin its good points in comparison to other UIs for Windows Mobile: http://www.fuzemobility.com/whats-your-ui/ [...]
nikhil s you know, i’ve been toying with the idea of wm6.5 for a while now.
i’ve been using tf3d for the longest time now. I was on tf3d2 when it first came at, but the bugs got the best of me. then i tried it again a little while back and still decided it wasn’t for me…i spent about a month on spb ms3, and it was an awesome time for the reasons stated above. the reason i switched back to tf3d was because of battery life. i was able to get the same exact functionality out of ms3 as from tf3d. the only one slightly annoying thing was the inability to preview messages and sms’s in ms3. It was so much fun to play witht eh lifestyle screens too! but yeah, battery life issues got the best of me, so i switched back to tf3d with mobilematt’s awesome fuzeberry skin. after a while, i kind of got sick of the very slight lag associated with switching tabs so i eventually switched back to tf3d stock.
tf3d2 bugs – what are teh most current bugs right now? i know weather’s still being a pain in the butt…how’s battery life, etc?
wm6.5 – how’s the overall stability of wm6.5. i’d love to try it, but i’m afraid the instability of wm6.5 i’ve heard about will piss me off…
and yes, i want the new Sense UI. i saw the HTC Hero video engadget put up and i have to say…i’m kind of slightly very much so jealous :p
andyr @stan city: What the heck do you know about MY needs??? I need to have all my programs that I use on the 1st screen)so that I don’t have to swipe to get to a particular screen to get to a particular program etc.) and iFonz 1.1.2 does that. and it’s free.:P
Nancy A Huber I am using Mobile Shell 3.0.1..but really don’t love it. I liked the previous version better and after playing with my old Tilt yesterday, realized that I really liked the HTC Home better..got me to everything I needed with no tweaking
drjim @Nikhil S: I’m using EnergyROM 3.0 WM 6.5 with TF3D2 and haven’t found any bugs of note (I can’t actually think of any). One thing that is clear is that different phones have idiosyncratic reactions to different ROMs, OSs, and UIs.
@Nancy: Nice to have a woman chime in; real rarity.
@Vito: We try to be objective and only give a shout out to a UI we like. How grateful you are isn’t part of the equation.
@Andy: Can you explain more about your experience on iFonz? How is like and different from iPhone Today? Can you link it to a button or tab? And can you add icons for apps that it doesn’t have in its library?
andyr drjim, i’ve never had an iphone, but I like to have all my must-haves on the 1st screen (The extras are on the 2nd:p) Ifonz v1 (there’s a v2, also.never used it) You can have the background any color or a photo. There are lots of iconz for the apps that you want to have. It’s an exe., stored my storage card, so I have it on my left soft button on a plain today screen. Works great on my i900, my daughter uses it on her fuze, but not as much real estate. HTC home would be my 2nd choice:)
mark Brown Hey, thanks for an ALL in one spot review of all (almost?)
all of the UI’s available for the site.
We need this for the beginner’s (noob) thread. it’s great!
(and I just installed pointui 2.0 free)
jim Spb: A complete software with many features. Good customization (with limits). BUT very complicated menu, many features not usefull for every day use
Pointui Home 2: The best out there and FREE. i’m using it now. BEST customization without limit, many applets to add, many themes,the best community. BUT many basic features is missing (like contact filtering with T9), i know that will be included in the next version 2.2.
TF3D: like spb it’s a completed software with many features, BUT little customization, i don;t like the bottom scrolling idea.
I belive that in 4-5 month when pointui 2.2 will be realesed it will be the best!
Dave Entenman My choice… WM6 with Elecont Desktop. In my opinion it gives me the best of both worlds; The handy manuverability from the WM Today screen coupled with the fully customizable (and fast) slider functions for contacts and frequently-used apps.
Tiffany Preston I installed Winterface and I love it. Not as cool and futuristic at Spb, BUT very functional. You can arrange little square icons the size of your fingertip. You can put as many as 20 ICONS on each page. Each Icon can be a an app, Internet shortcut, contact, system setting, or file. I remember Spb insisted on categorizing each icon on its own type page. But Winterface allows me to put all 5 types on one page. This is what sold it for me. My top 20 destinations on the front page.
Read more here: http://www.tiffanystreo.com/journal/2009/6/21/winterface-ui.html
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Cassetti Wow, very interested in pointui, it seems at is really is the front runner of the bunch.
I’ll keep watching it, and maybe toss it on top of an EnergyROM, for now, i’m sticking with TF3D2, its a bit sluggish but its what I’m accustomed to using
[...] on June 30th David K wrote a great article “What’s Your UI?” that breaks down all the different UI’s available and some of the highlights about each one. [...]
mars Yes i agree with “shylohmonster on July 1, 2009 @ 10:00 am” http://www.throttlelauncher.com UI is a must have in this list.
I have been using TL for some month with good results and since some days i’m trying SPB MS3:
pros: nice interface, very lightweight
cons: just a little redundant (mostly general carousel and carousel-contacts), too few widgets and intricate to customize.
[...] the bloggers seem to be reporting a lukewarm reaction to it and are generally underwhelmed. In our UI poll it garnered a decent 12% which is pretty good considering it’s not even out yet:) So to resolve [...]
Neil I’m using WisBar Advance Desktop because I like the FULL CONTROL it gives me over the interface. If I don’t like a feature, I can change how it behaves. It I don’t like its appearance, I can change how it looks. If I find that I need an additional feature, I can add a new one. Does that make me an A-type personality? I just know what I like and how I work. 
Darrin I tried SPB and found it very confusing. Winterface was easy to install and configure. I thinks it interesting that you linked to a review of version 1.2. Many items were cleaned up in version 1.3.1. I bought 1.2 hoping for skins and some fixes. Fixes happened in 1.3 and I hope skins are coming in 1.4?? There are other places that offer Winterface skins. I have had no problems with blue tooth or ring tones. I think it works great and is simple to customize.
[...] know I always love to get my hands on as many user interfaces as possible. Well here’s the latest. It’s the UI from the new Moto Surf A300 which is Motorola’s latest [...]
Franklin PointUI is the best UI there is for the novice or the expert. I have it on the vogue6900 and it makes this tough phone better than a iphone to me. Its fast, its hackable, its stable and if it had more community support would be better than all else. Have anyone seen the NextGen over at PointUI or youtube. The best UI I have seen. Hope it get more attention.
DAtristan As A PointUI fan i am offended by the statement “you are limited by the applets”… this is untrue…
If you can program it … or worst case scenario start a new topic asking someone to program it for you… you can have it.
Even better is the customisations (in the true sense of the word) that are coming out now (Next Gen, PointSense, + more on the drawing board)
Hehe, my vote is for wm 6.5, I got tired of the tf3d2 a long time ago =)