If, like me, you've ever looked at the user interface on an iPhone on an HTC device with TouchFlo and felt a moment of jealously because your Windows Mobile Professional / Pocket PC device wasn't as cool then I've got some good news for you.

Pointui Home for Windows MobileNo longer does your phone have to be green with envy, when it can be blue. Blue with the new "Home" interface from Pointui. They modestly describe this little add-on as the definitive interface for mobile devices and, for a usually stylus driven device, the last few days running it on my Wizard have been quite impressive.

A quick summary of what Home delivers is found on the site but to give you an idea of the number of ways this little (and did I mention free) app makes life easier they I'll repeat them here:

  • Control your device via touch or your thumb with the directional control
  • Smart Lists Navigation ™ with bookmarks allows you to easily locate an item in even the largest lists
  • Choose the slide navigation that suits you
  • One touch access to calls, email, text messages and music
  • Easily see who and when calls were received, made and missed
  • Using the Applet Ribbon ™ you can easily access the time, tasks, appointments, calendar and up to date weather forecasts and current temperatures
  • Easily manage your sound, wireless, battery and device settings
  • Easy create new emails, text messages, multimedia messages, tasks, appointments, documents and spreadsheets
  • Load and switch between running applications effortlessly

I should point out though that the software is still in it's early days and has some blemishes but, as the very active forum on the site shows not only are the developers encouraging feedback they are responding and improving at quite a pace (and the build in updater means that you're never too far behind when they do release some improvements)

Despite some of the little hiccups I've found with it in the few days of using it I'm going to keep it hanging around, which is more than I've been able to say for most of the other alternative launcher apps after a few days.

So, what don't I like about it at the moment? Nothing serious luckily (and I've got high hopes these will be addressed)

  • No direct link to contacts. There is a (for me) redundant top level icon for the music player. I'd happily trade that for a link to contacts. I'd happily swap the SMS link for a customizable option as well.
  • The Mail icon only shows one of the inboxes (I've got three - Exchange, Hotmail and Gmail as well as SMS) ... I'd like to see that take me directly to whatever one is selected on a press and hold, with taps cycling through (or expanding the icon to show what mailboxes have new messages)
  • On the Applet Ribbon I love the fact I can cycle to tasks or my calendar, but I hate the fact I can't thumb down on a specific one and have it open. The calendar takes me to today... which can be quite irrelevant.
  • There are very nice replacement icons for WiFi, Bluethooth and Data connections... but the WiFi doesn't really show me if it's connecting (or when it's connected which base station)
  • While I'm on the subject of the WiFi and other connections... because of the mess of Windows Mobile native functionality and the HTC Comms Manager I end up having to delve into various settings screens just to get things turned on and connecting. Not really a Pointui problem but something I wish they wrapped more intelligently)
  • The hardware buttons don't work. This one is a real pain. I've mapped ActiveSync to the voice recorder button and TinyTwitter to the comms button because they're things I activate frequently - but with Home running they get ignored.
  • Task manager is great - though it would be nice to be able to stop a program from it as well as switch to it.

My only other gripe with using Pointui's Home is what happens when I hit the end of their customization and revert back to a standard Windows Mobile interface in say Pocket Outlook or Pocket IE (I keep meaning to replace that with Opera but I'm too cheap! At least Skweezer gives readable pages on that screen). It's less jarring than using the HTC TouchFlo  launcher (and of course the iPhone has a consistent UX so it's not really an issue) but it's still something that reminds me that Windows Mobile is starting to show its age, especially on the Professional (touch screen) devices.

All in all there's very little that I'd say is a show-stopper, and it does demonstrate the sort of functionality which could easily be incorporated into Windows Mobile. As the UX is starting to look a little aged (like PalmOS before it) with the new contenders in the shape of iPhone, Android and Series 3 S60 devices from Nokia it's about time WM got spruced up a little... and Pointui is a good step in the right direction.

Edit: Check out this post in the Pointui forums for documentation on some of the customizations that help address some of the issues above.