New version of PointUI Home (1.02b)

The guys from PointUI have just released a new version of Home, their new "shell" for Windows Mobile à la iPhone. It has a lots of improvements, changes and bug fixes as you can see in the release notes.

It is great that they support Smartphones and PDAs without phones, a lot of customization options, the removal of the Windows Media Player shortcut in favour of a Favourite/Start Menu shortcut the use of less CPU and a lot of bugs having been fixed.

Fixing the mobile operator name in Windows Mobile (useful for Pointui Home)

One of the things that I would love to get fixed in Pointui Home is the fact that the operator name is too long and does not fit the space allocated for it in the screen. Besides, it is untrue (Vodafone E) while my operator is Yoigo.

I guess that this is because GSM networks provide certain information (mobile network code, mobile network country, operator name and network name, for example) to our phones, and some phones are not using the proper information.

For instance, Pointui Home displays the network name as stored in the registry in Windows Mobile, in \HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\State\Phone\Current Operator. Windows Mobile is missing the operator name (Yoigo). So we can change the string to Yoigo and show a more accurate information and a shorter string. Well, not that easy... As we switch our phone off and on, Windows Mobile will replace again the string value associated to that entry in the registry to the network value provided by the operator. You can override the value again, or you can create a program that periodically does this task (there are some available).

The fact is that Yoigo is operating on Vodafone Spain network and that leads some mobile phones to make users unsatisfied with the information displayed on their phones' display.

[ADDED SOME MINUTES LATER] I guess that it would be possible to permanently display the string that we want for our operator by adding a key to the registry entry
\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\RIL\OperatorNames\ named like the mobile network code and with a value equals to the string that we want for our operator. I have to try it.

Pointui Home reloaded

I have not had the time yet in order to comment Pointui Home and its update tool has made it jump to version 1.01b. In fact, this afternoon it updated to version 1.01a and this evening it made it to this version.

You can see the changelog here. It is great not only that they show what they changed, but that they declare known issues taken into account for future releases.

I love that they think of users wanting to customize their tool, although it is achieved by having to write some entries in the registry. Fast prototyping is great!

Pointui Home

I have been trying the 0.92 beta version of Pointui Home, a new UI for Windows Mobile that I already commented (very briefly). It is time to go to bed now, but I want to say that I love it.

I'll comment it in detail soon, but I can advance that -although it is a beta, it has bugs and there is a lot to do- it is a great approach to iPhone-like UIs on Windows Mobile and I recommend everybody to try it. Remember that it is FREE.

Pointui Home

Being introduced as the ultimate iPhone-like user interface for Windows Mobile, Pointui Home promises a lot. Here you have two videos:





Minus two days and counting.

Oh, and it's FREE.