Review: EyePhoto 1.0

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After reading Tariq’s post announcing Vito’s EyePhoto I was extremely excited to try the software out myself. As he mentions, Window’s Pictures & Videos is not what one would call ‘finger friendly’ and I have always been looking for something easier to navigate pictures with. EyePhoto offers just that. In line with much software developed post-iPhone, navigation in EyePhoto is finger-friendly and easy. It is an image viewer that supports gestures, which means you can drag, zoom, go to previous/next image with tap or slide of your finger. Everything about the software was intuitive and it was very easy to navigate and view pictures. On top of all this, one thing that surprised me was EyePhoto’s responsiveness. I have a 400MHz VGA device without a dedicated video processor and things tend to lag a little, but EyePhoto was still extremely responsive. Still, no matter how responsive the controls are, the program must still work and display photos easily. Let’s take a closer look and see how Vito did.

Installation of EyePhoto 1.0 was a breeze. It was your typical select install destination and go. Once installed you find an icon within Programs to launch to software. Upon launch, you will be greeted by the following screen.

Click on the refresh icon located at left top corner and it goes out and grabs cached image of all supported files in both the device and storage card (if available). For the purpose of this review, I loaded 264 images (24.5mb) onto my device, and EyePhoto found all of them without any problems. It only took about 4 minutges and 25seconds to generate full albums and thumbnails. Album names were generated by the name of the folder in which the pictures reside. While the process did take some time, once Albums and thumbnails are generated, the process does not need to be repeated unless images are either deleted or added.

Options is located next to the refresh button. The exit button provided here is the only way to exit out of the program. From here, you can also switch to one of the other included langiages, such as: English, French, German, Japanese and Russian.

Upon entering an album you see list of images within. Previews of images did show up fine on my qVGA device, however, on VGA device all previews came up tiled (please take a look at screen shot to see what I mean). I’m not sure whether this is a first release bug or not.

Upon selecting an image all was fine. Images were brought up quickly and quality was as it should be. Upon single tap on-screen menu is displayed with option of going back to Album view or change from portrait view to landscape view. Double tap on the screen will zoom the particular area that was tapped. Once zoomed in, you can also drag the picture around to see what’s outside the viewing area.

For activation, EyePhoto requires an Internet connection. A little pain if you ask me, with all the piracy that’s out there, I completely understand their reasoning behind this, but it was still a minor hassle.

Final Thoughts:

There are some major set backs for EyePhoto. For starters, it only supports .jpg files and does not have an option to send photos via SMS/MMS or email directly. Sure EyePhoto provides a neat way to view pictures, but I would expect it to do at least what the default Windows Mobile Pictures & Videos does. Pictures & Video supports not only .jpg, but .bmp, .psd, .gif, and .tif (maybe more, but these are what I have confirmed) and you are able to send the image through either SMS or email as you are viewing the picture. At $14.95, would you not expect the software to do at least what a built in software would (and do it all better)?

EyePhoto sounded and felt like a software I would go out and buy in a heart beat, but in the end, I was left frustrated and disappointed. If EyePhoto had started with the features available in the default Windows Mobile Pictures & Video, and built it up from there (such as support for .rab or .pdb files), this would have been a winner for me even at higher cost for the software. This time around… Sorry, definitely missed the mark…

What I Liked:

• Easy to use, finger friendly controls and menus
• Supports gesture
• Felt very responsive
• Can be installed on Storage Card to prevent re-installation after reset (but needs to be re-registered)

What Needs Improvement:

• No option to send image via SMS/MMS or email
• Thumbnail images are tiled on VGA device
• Needs to support more image types to be contender
• Quick access to Exit

Vital Stats:

Name: EyePhoto

Version: 1.0

Developer: Vito Technologies/iWindows Mobile

Tested On: Glofiish M500 (Windows Mobile 5.0), Glofiish X500+ (Windows Mobile 6.0)

Also Available: Windows Mobile 2003, Windows Mobile 5/6, Windows Mobile Smartphone

Where to Buy: EyePhoto 1.0

Price: $14.95

Trial: 14 days

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