S60 Active Standby vs WM6 Today Screen
As I mentioned in an earlier post, I’ve recently picked up a few new toys - one of them being the upcoming N95 with US HSDPA. Well I also picked up another nifty little device that I’ve really been enjoying: the HTC Touch.
No I’m not jumping ship and running off and launch WiMo! Despite the fact that I do really like this device, the real reason I got it is to do some comparisons between the two OSes. While Windows Mobile doesn’t have nearly the global market share that Symbian owns, it is pretty big here in the US. Each OS has it’s pluses and minuses and I’ll be posting every so often comparing certain features of each.
To start things off let’s take a look at the first thing you see when you pick up any device - the home screen. We’re all familiar with Active Standby on S60 and we can probably all agree that it’s extremely limited. Beyond the basics, Nseries devices offer a few shortcuts along with calendar entries, tasks and the WLAN wizard on WiFi-enabled devices. With the Eseries you get a few more options such as the Active Standby mailbox which displays the two most recent emails in one mailbox and a few other configurable choices.
In terms of third-party apps integrating with Active Standby, I’m no programmer but the possibilities seem quite limited. Certain apps can place icons on Active Standby (such as TalkPlus as seen above) and pop up little graphical or textual indicators but I’ve yet to see an app add any type of real functionality to the S60 home screen.
Windows Mobile is a whole different story however. Focusing on WM6, each device comes equipped with its own unique Today screen and it is highly configurable in most cases. Beyond that there are a plethora of apps that integrate with the Today screen to provide a whole variety of additional functionality. Let’s take a quick look at the Today screen on my HTC Touch.
The home screen is quite slick and clean with the time displayed in nice big digits near the top. Beneath the clock are unread email, unread SMS and missed call tallys that access the appropriate app when tapped. Finally you have three buttons that access the three different views on the Touch’s Today screen. The second button displays the current day’s local weather (tap on the weather to display the forecast for the following four days) and the third is a configurable launcher.
Third-party developers have the ability to ‘go crazy’ with the Today screen. There are countless apps that add a wide variety of functionality. To illustrate a few examples, below you can see three apps that I have installed with Today plugins. Furthest to the top you will see BatteryStatus. This app displays a variety of information such as remaining battery life, signal strength, free RAM, device temperature, the rate at which the battery is currently being drained or filled, and the processor speed. It also gives you the ability to quickly and easily overclock or underclock the processor (below you can see that I’ve overclocked the 201 MHz processor to 312 MHz).
Below BatteryStatus is the Today plugin of an app called PhoneWeaver. This app allows you to create profiles and switch them based on a time schedule if you choose. The Today plugin lets you easily toggle between any profile (above you can see that I have my “Day” profile selected). It also adds a few useful buttons - any of which can be tapped to quickly enable or disable the associated communications type - bluetooth, WiFi, phone (forces the phone online or offline) and push email.
The third plugin displayed above is PocketAlarm. Here you can see configured alarms, quickly enable or disable them, or tap a shortcut to create a new alarm or note.
As you can see, the home screen on the Touch is all about functionality and you can easily pick and choose exactly what you want to display. Within the Today settings you’ll find the full list of available Today plugins - both stock and third-party additions. You can also arrange them in any order that suits you which is a very nice feature.
The last thing I’ll mention is that there are a variety of integrations between the Today screen and various settings. For example, each of the icons at the top of the screen is interactive. Tap the data or signal icons and you will get a pop-up that displays your current data connection and gives you the option to disable it or enter the comms manager. Tap the battery for quick access to power management. Tap the volume indicator and you can easily adjust the speaker and device volumes or switch the Touch to vibrate-only or silent mode.
Beyond settings, the Touch’s Today screen integrates well with incoming communications as well. Below you can see an example: When a new incoming SMS arrives, a ‘new SMS’ icon appears at the top of the screen and the left softkey changes to “Notification”. Tap either one and after a nifty little transition animation the new SMS will display right on the home screen along with the option to reply.
Thanks to the release of the iPhone I think that Symbian might finally see how important a UI can be to the user. Taking that notion a step further, the home screen is the first piece of the UI that a user encounters and it certainly spends a good amount of time in the foreground. Providing a solid customizable framework and allowing third-parties to integrate with the home screen makes for a far superior user experience. Symbian clearly has their work cut out for them as they develop the next generation of their OS and personally I think that they’re going to impress us all.
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