SBSH Calendar Touch v2.1 Review
Windows Mobile calendars have long been dominated by Pocket Informant and Agenda One because the standard Windows Mobile calendar is far from ideal. It would be fair to say that it is the worst standard calendar of any of the major platforms and this explains the success of the third party solutions. SBSH has just released the latest version (2.1) of its calendar replacement, Calendar Touch, and boosted the already considerable functionality with many new features. As is normal for SBSH, the testing process has been running for a long time and every conceivable issue should have been ironed out through feedback from testers who are more than happy to push SBSH products as far as is possible.
I haven’t used Windows Mobile as my daily device in over a year now and the main reason is because the PIM side is lacking in usability and crucially, for me at least, the way it looks. When you are viewing a busy schedule on a small screen presentation means a lot, and can make the difference between being highly organised and having no clue as to what is coming next. Being able to grab a visual clue of the day ahead puts a subconscious plan in place and this is highly effective. Palm and BlackBerry devices pull this off with ease, but even the good replacements such as Pocket Informant can look a little busy and thus counter the effect they are supposed to have.
SBSH has consistently produced good quality products and PocketBreeze stands head and shoulders above most applications in the Windows Mobile market. It presents a list of upcoming appointments on your Today screen and was the organisational tool that worked for me above all others. Let’s start this review backwards and conclude that Calendar Touch beats it hands down, and any other calendar application on Windows Mobile.
Starting up the application brings up a smart looking screen with a professional yet fun navigation bar at the bottom. Clicking the left-hand icon brings up a choice of views (Daily, List, Weekly, Monthly, Tasks and Search) and each brings the same presentation style to the party. Each screen is presented in a manner which mixes complex organisation in a simplistic form and this somehow caters for all types of user. Power users will be happy with the icons displaying in the weekly view and the huge number of customisation options and those who require basic organisation will find it easy to use and to understand.
On the left of the daily view is a strip showing the day and date which in itself is of little consequence, but it brings with it an air of the classic paper based diary which Psion took advantage of so well in the early days of mobile computing. The choice of icons is plentiful and you will be hard pressed to not find one that suits the category you are using at the time. The use of these icons in the various views is a nice touch as well, and one that is not used often enough. Many people like visual cues when organising themselves and this is a great way to do so.
Let us not forget the ‘touch’ aspect of this application. It is designed to be used with a finger and is possibly the best Windows Mobile at utilising this form of navigation. Everything feels natural and the ability to scroll through date is seamless, even on the older HTC device that I am using for this review. Picking out individual entries is easy almost all of the time (slightly tricky in the list view) and the animation as you scroll is very ‘iPhone’ like.
I haven’t got too much to say about Calendar Touch because it is seriously impressive. On the iPhone this would sell by the bucket load, and the reason I say that is because it feels like an iPhone application which is difficult to achieve on this platform.
Conclusion
SBSH do advertise with us, but that has never stopped us from saying it as it is. I can easily recommend Calendar Touch and would go as far as saying that it is the best PIM style Windows Mobile application I have ever seen. The marriage of simplistic visuals with complex organisation is the holy grail of PDA management and rarely has it been achieved as well as this.
Available from SBSH for $24.95.
There is also a video here which shows off the application very well.
I updated earlier today, and I have had a wee chance to play with it on my HTC Touch (you know, the old one, Elfin.)
Initially I bought both this and Agenda One (long story!) And in the end I preferred this, but there were some grave things missing, and I ended up using Agenda One. But now that I can get to “Today” easily, and I can scroll through my daily agenda with a mere “touch” I am a happy chappy. Still, adding a new appointment is something that still takes just TOO MANY clicks, it’s nothing I haven’t got used to with WM, and one of the reasons I’ll be happy to leave it again soon for a Nokia or perhaps the new Palm Pre. Still, I really do need to spend some more time with it before I can truly say it will stay as my default calendar, but after one day and setting up some of my own preferences, I am really liking the vast amount of improvements they have made to this free upgrade.
P.S
I don’t get sponsored by anyone… apart from myself. At the moment I’m trying to get me to give me another upgrade since it’s been a year. But I finding myself a tough nut to crack. It’s fathers day here in Spain on Thursday, I get a day off an all, but I’m still finding I’m hard to budge on possibly giving me a cheapish E63. Sponsors really are tight sometimes huh?!)
Hi vboelema!
Thanks for letting us know about your experience with Calendar Touch.
I will be sure to pass your comments to our moderators team so they’ll be able to work on more changes for the next version release.
Thank you for your support.
Hi vboelema
Just to give some inside information – I can say that we are aware that the new item dialogs require some more work and you can be sure that upcoming new updates will adopt new touch-able interface along with much faster ways to easily create new items – so the distance from the new touch-oriented View-Design to the Edit-Design will get much closer!
We hope to have some more news on this direction shortly now, so stay tuned!
It been two days now, and the SBSH Calendar Touch is still my default calendar.
The things I like apart from perhaps the obvious and things I may have already mentioned:
* It’s fast (something that bugged me on Calendar One). I overclock my Touch to 247MHz anyway, but even on such a slow machine it works efficiently.
* I like that I can make it do what suits me. By that I mean that I like having different colour text for my job appointments, my business, my personal things, birthdays and holidays. They’re all part of my life, so I don’t want to filter any of them out. But I like having the categories in various colours because it helps me focus.
* I like that in the week/month view I can be on a day, and scroll through it to see what’s there.
* I like the “pop out” affect and the fact that I can set it at my preferred size, or get rid of it. Again, it helps me focus on one item or day.
* It’s easy to filter my tasks – again, it helps me focus on what I need to at that moment.
Dislikes:
* I’ve already mentioned the many steps it takes to enter an appointment. For me it’s 5 clicks! because I my keyboard won’t stay open when I get the the place where I can input my appointment. I have to click to get the “full screen editor” and then click again to get the full screen, and then I have to bring up my T9 keyboard so I can input data! I don’t have to do this if I use the standard tiny little WM keyboard… but I like the T9 input method (Panel Touch)… it works better for me.
* How do I highlight multiple tasks to delete them?
* How do I make the completed tasks disappear from my “Daily” screen once I’ve ticked them off?
* Why can’t I go from the beginning of a day, and scroll up to go to the end of the day. I don’t know of that makes sense. But I can scroll down one by one using the joystick, but on the built in calendar, if I go up, I get straight to the last appointment of the day, and that way I can have a quick overview of my whole day.
But like I said. I do really like it. It feels nice, it works quick, and now that I’ve used it a bit more and now I’m getting used to it (which didn’t take long) I’m really loving it. I can see it staying as my default calendar for some time to come!
Hi vboelema!
Thanks for the feedback you’ve provided after using Calendar Touch 2.1!
Our moderators will take your comments into consideration and I hope you will see most of them handled within the next release.
Thanks for the support!
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