Review of "Pointui Home"

Check out New Version is available (Monday, May 5, 2008)

I call it revolution for a Windows mobile devices, pointui.com has changed the way people looked at windows mobile.
With this program it is no more complicated for a newbie to use a windows enabled phone, it has got all the eye candy i think anyphone can give.
To scroll up you need to move your finger in the opposite direction, and if you need to move faster may be when you are searching call history move you your finger from top to the bottom.
It also has bookmark searching, it will activate itself if you'll scroll on the left side of the screen.
As you can see in the above image it has "Home" same like windows "Today". It shows all relevant information like Radio signal strength, Battery indicator, Volume status and on the top left corner is the setting menu(I will come to it later on). Now in middle of the screen is Digital timer, Analog timer, weather, upcoming task-appointment, calender, you need to slide your finger on the middle to cycle all the program.

At the bottom of the screen is call history icon, email, text message and windows media player. Below that you can see a triangular arrow facing downward, clicking on it will display the following tab- New, Favorites, Applications and Currently running.

Now i will explain you one by one what this application does. New tab has option to create new document, text-multimedia message, email, contact, task, appointment and spreadsheet. Favorites has all the item you enabled in startmenu menu. Application has all the item there is in your programs menu. And Currently running is same as its name suggest(see image below).

Now on the top left of the corner of the home screen you can see a setting icon. Clicking on it will take you to system menu.

In system menu there is everything you have in your startmenu\settings.

And Lastly there is two type of navigation in this program- object navigation and
slide navigation.

Pros:
1.Smooth transition in a really slow 200mhz processor
2.Big buttons for more practical use.
3.Cover all the menus
4.Fast
5.Uses marginal RAM
6.Support for Window Mobile 2003

Cons:
1.It doesn't Allow for theme
2. Contacts and Phone still not covered.
3.It doesn't support VGA.

Conclusion:
The powerful function of windows mobile and the all the transition and beauty of this UI(User Interface) will make using windows mobile a joy.
This application covers the startmenu and settings menu and all other small things you can think of. It also support call history in its program. The knockout part of this program is that it runs smoothly and with all its glory in merely a 200mhz processor of my HTC Wizard. This application is a must keeper for all Winmo users if they truly hate the winmo's default UI and love to have something more user freindly in their pocket. And above everything all the thanks goes to www.pointui.com for keeping this program free.
But dont forget donate on their website.

Update:
There is a new version available with lots bug fixes and new features.

New Features

• Smartphone support
• PDA's (without phone) support
• Voice mail count is now displayed under the missed call count for those with phone networks supporting this feature.
• Lock screen will fade back to Home screen to allow you to see all of the status information even when device is locked.
• Translation support - see the forums for more information.
• New customise option: can choose digital or analog clock.
• New customise option: Lock Device, Show Home, or Show Home Screen when device is switched on.
• New customise option: automatically switch bluetooth on only during phone calls and switch off at the end of the call (not supported on all devices). The idea behind this is that if you only use bluetooth during phonecalls for headset etc and don't need it on all the time, then this option could be useful to you. It will turn bluetooth on as soon as an incoming/outgoing call is detected, and turn it off when you hang up.
• New customise option: can choose to use Home's comm manager or system default if supported.
• New customise option: can choose to not show screenshots in Currently Running screen (if your device has issues showing the screenshots).
• New customise option: can choose to Show Home, Show Call Summary Screen, or Do Nothing when call is finished.
• New customise option: can choose to use Home's task bar or standard system task bar.
• The list of applications now merges the list of favorites so you can view the entire list together
• Call summary screen added to display who was called and how long call lasted for at end of call.
• Lock screen can now be used on smartphones - you press up then down on dpad.
• You now have an additional option to "Lock Device" on power on.
• Battery saving - now only uses marginally more battery power than normal - smartphone users should notice a big difference (of course this is dependent on how excessive you are with using it).

Changes

• Taskbar in all other standard apps is no longer changed except for the Start button area which still takes you to Home's Task Menu.
• Windows Media icon has been replaced with Favorites.
• Appointments summary shows only the next 7 days of appointments.
• Tasks summary no longer shows completed tasks.
• Force close now returns focus back to Home.
• Ringer volume and profile button on sound screen for non-phone devices are no longer displayed.
• Appointments now display all day events in bold and should not display events that have been completed for the day.
• "Today" and "Tomorrow" in appointments also now show the date after them
• Smartphones no longer have a Windows Mobile section as it's not relevant.
• Shortcut no longer includes "." at start which was causing issues for button mapping.
• Soft key on Today screen no longer overridden. (NOTE: you will need to reset it back to what it was manually if you have a previous version installed).

Bug Fixes

• Many bugs fixed!
• Memory leak issues fixed.
• Lock screen locks keys as well, and when orientation changed while locked the keys remain locked.
• Recurring appointments now displayed.
• Hardware buttons now working.
• Volume controls now working.
• Volume controls support stereo.
• Control panel applets have had a number of bug fixes. They still are only categorised correctly for English ROMS unless you use a translated terms file as described in the forums.
• Battery shouldn't show 255% any more but some devices for some reason do not report the correct % when asked and can take a while before they report it successfully.
• The speed that tasks load has been improved and should no longer cause freezes.
• Currently Running screen causing device to freeze has been fixed on most devices, but still is problematic with some devices in which case you need to switch off the screenshots option.
• Closing home sometimes caused it to freeze needing soft reset issue has been fixed.

To Download click HERE