Want Winterface On Your Device?
Well if you answered yes, then you’re in luck. My Today Screen has 3 copies of Winterface from VITO to give out. All you have to do is provide feedback on the application. It could be about features you would like to see or removed or even your experience with it. As long as it goes towards making Winterface a better application, you’re in for the draw.
So just leave a comment below and that’s it. Deadline for this will be at 9pm this Sunday, July 13th 2008. Just a quick recap for those who might have missed something:
- How: A comment on how to improve Winterface.
- Where: At the end of this post.
- Before: 9pm on July 13th 2008 (that’s a Sunday).
- Up For Grabs: 3 licenses of Winterface.
So what are you waiting for? I’d highly recommend you download the application and give it a go yourself. That’s the best way to find out what this application needs. All the best.
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The one glaring issue is the lock screen. When a call
comes in the lock screen should display caller information and allow you to answer the phone by sliding the slider. The lock screen should also be able to show weather information, missed calls, voice messages, and missed SMS.
Themes for the primary interface should also be supported.
Seems to be a good app from the initial try. I have SPB Mobile Shell 2.1 and like it. But Winterface has a couple of features I like. I like that it is flexible for two screens. The lock screen works ok so far, but I haven’t had a phone call.
I wish that with contact that you can have a text option, instead of pictures. I don’t have pictures on many of my contact.
If I didn’t have Mobile Shell already I would seriously consider it. As it is, I am not sure I can justify another $20 for a product that is a direct competition with one that I already have. (Of course if I won it, I would probably start using it instead of Mobile Shell.)
Ok there is a text option on the calls. I just didn’t do it right. The new complaint I have is that in contact there is only the first name. So you are kind of guessing which “John” you are picking, or you have to pick all of them and delete the wrong ones. The more I have used it the more I like it. I am tempted to dump Mobile Shell for a few days to see how it works. The biggest problem with Mobile Shell is the amount of ram it uses. So if winterface uses less that would be a plus.
Appears to be a good app. Two items I do not like are the lack of dedicated weather and the way calls work with the lock screen.
If I did not already have Mobile Shell and GoodWin, I would probably buy it now, I just cannot justify it. Thats what contests are for, to win cool new software!
The close button in task manager is too small. I also don’t need my screen to lock–that’s just annoying.
Couple of things. I would first like to see more customization. I personally like to mess with it, and try to get it to look exactly like I want. Another thing is I would like to see the transparent feature, a little less transparent (little!). It should enhance the looks, but yet, not be a distraction. Also, I really miss the top bar on the lock screen. Other than that, great job VITO! Keep up the good work. Im always looking forward to see what new things you come out with.
Nice interface.
Must have feature: contact address.
One of the things I wish Winterface had was a means of featuring certain Today Screen plugins. For example, with my default phone/ppc setup, I can either glance at the screen or tap an icon to get my appointments (a la PocketPlus and it’s plugin support) and weather.
I do like the fluidity of a large virtual page of icons and the reasonably lightweight memory usage. Performance is snappy on my SCH-I760.
Icon and color theme customization would be nice. Tired of stark black? What about a nice blue? Or green? Or Crayola Spring Green?
I think the page status dots ought to be selectable. Let’s say you have a set of contacts on page 4. Rather than having to whiz through 4 pages (okay, I admit it looks cool), why not allow a single tap to instantly jump to the desired page?
It would really be nice if I could actually see the little ghost of a status bar on the lock screen Didn’t even know it was there until someone mentioned it.
Plus i would like a status bat over al the launcher tabs. Network connectivity, network type, sound profile type, time and date. Most of this info is already on the dynamic icons but i would honestly prefer it at the top. Or perhaps you could put a signal strength/network type/network connectivity icon on the phone button.
I just think all the normal windows top bar information should be visible in winterface.
Ok, I’ve removed SPB Mobile Shell (which I LOVE) so that I wouldn’t use it as a crutch while I tried out Winterface. I really like the ease of use in winterface. Adding icons is intuitive and painless. Scrolling is smooth and it integrates well with VITO’s other applications (SMS and Contacts). The interface is beautifully simple and I began wishing that when my applications opened that they looked as elegant and were as finger-friendly. The footprint in memory is relatively small (especially in contrast to Mobile Shell).
Having said that there are a few things that are desired if not out-right needed (not to mention a few bug-fixes):
Must-haves –
1) As stated by others before, a status bar of somekind… on the top… on the bottom… customizable to be either or? It needs to show signal strength, time, and battery at the very least, but it needs to be on every screen as I scroll around. Looking like the beautiful UI on the iPhone is nice, but don’t limit yourself to it. It can be improved upon.
2) Get rid of the unlock slider. Or give me the option to not have it. Just a simple tap to close the screen. Obviously the incoming call feature needs to be more integrated with the Winterface UI, but the bottom line is that it seems to be too difficult to use on my Tilt as it doesn’t capture my sliding gestures well enough. Not like the gesture to start Winterface which works remarkably well and I’ve never had to perform that gesture more than once for the interface to start.
3) Allow me to scroll from the “first” page back to the “last” page rather than having to scroll past the pages in between. For that matter, let me use my hardware buttons if I want to navigate with them instead. Maybe allow me to go directly to a specific page with a gesture or a single tap somewhere. What about scrolling up & down to something of my choosing besides side to side. Or what if I could tap an icon that took me to a second level of scrolling screens, like a “games” icon that switched my scrolling to screens where I put my game icons. Or a multimedia icon, or a settings icon, or… you get my point. That way I’m not limited to one linear track of icons.
Nice-to-haves –
4) Give me more information on the “Locked” screen. Weather is nice. Maybe upcoming appointments. Let me choose what will be there–either a lot, or a little–give me the option.
5) Let me edit my phone’s profiles. Mobile Shell has this one dialed. Don’t limit me to “Ring”, “Vibrate”, & “Silent”. Mobile Shell gives me “Quiet” & “Loud”, and anything in between. They offer customization at every level of the profiles from adding my own to editing the existing ones.
6) Give me more choices on the “theme”. Let me change colors at the very least. Back-ground pictures would be nice. And have it all integrate with your other applications.
7) Show a percentage on the battery icon instead of just the graphic (a bit of a bonus info to add with the status bar I mentioned in item #1.
8 Let me customize the icon graphics and what gets opened, i.e., the clock icon opens up my stop-watch app, or whatever I want, instead of the clock settings (who wants to change that).
As far as bug fixes go many have been enumerated already on this site and others. You know what needs to be fixed so I won’t go there. I like the concept and have been impressed with VITO’s output in the past (I own several of their other offerings). Keep it up!
Hi,
In addition to the issues with the lock screen mentioned in other comments (more info, ability to not use lock at all, etc), I would like for there to be an option to use the directional hardware keypad to arrow through the different pages..
I just installed Winterface and loved it. I haven’t been using finger friendly applications that much but here are my shots…
1. Include a “page overview” icon. One could click there and go directly to a certain page;
2. Select language during installation. Nowadays a lot of kbs are lost with several language files;
3. Try to use as less memory (both installed and ram). Nowadays it’s taking arround 3.5Mb on my VGA device. Quickmenu for instance uses 350kb.
4. Have more gestures… moving finger up could lead to contacts directy (something like FunContact and not the current layout that looks more like a quick list). Moving finger down could go to settings.
5. Let the users add pages to all sides and not only to the right;
6. Use a plugin system for things like weather, news, clock etc… this way users could have the main app in memory and the rest on the SD card;
7. Have skin based system where users could download or even make their own skins with a desktop freeware companion
Here are my impressions… hope it helps
Well, I came here with what I thought were some really insightful comments, but I see that others have already got in first with many of the same opinions! Oh well, here you go anyway…
1. Overall impression is of a good Version 1 product. It is stable, looks great and can make a Windows Mobile device quicker and more enjoyable to use.
2. The top bar as it stands is (as we say in Yorkshire) neither use nor ornament. That’s useful information in there – it needs to be made clearly visible on the lock screen and the launcher screens.
3. I like the idea of the ‘outstanding items’ count on the email, SMS and phone icons, and having them show through the lock screen is a very original idea. Can we have an icon for voicemail please?
4. Maybe this is just me, but I just can’t get the ’swoopy’ gesture thing to work at all. It always seems to activate some part of the application screen where I make the gesture, so I end up switching off and on again in order to get back to Winterface. Launching Winterface from the icon in the start menu doesn’t help – it just tells that I need to make the swoopy gesture, which I just can’t manage.
5. Although the SMS icon goes straight to the SMS account, the email icon just goes to the Messaging ‘choose an account’ screen, which is annoying as I only have one defined. Maybe this needs to be customisable, to allow a default email account to be selected.
6. The ’slide to unlock’ feature seems very picky, requiring the user to be very accurate about where the gesture starts and finishes. This makes it hard to operate in a hurry.
7. I would like to see a Today icon, to allow me to go straight to the standard today screen. I can do this with two taps (menu, then minimise), but one tap would be better.
That’s all I can think of for now – hope it helps.
Can someone tell me how to install Winterface on my Samsung Omnia please!! i can’t find the file anywhere!