Symbian in Motion

T9nav, a New SkyQuiKey Competitor

by Zach at 6:33 am | June 26th, 2008 | Category: Application Reviews, Freeware

It’s no mystery that SkyeQuiKey is one of my favorite S60 apps - I’ve mentioned it plenty of times here on SiMo. Long story short, it’s a contact / application / game / bookmark / new message launcher that allows you to type directly from your Active Standby screen to pull up and launch your desired item. Thanks to a post from Stefan on Jaiku I’ve learned of a new SQK competitor that is currently available as a free beta. The following are my thoughts on T9nav as found in Stefan’s thread.

It’s a nice attempt at a competitor IMO but it has some big flaws… Here’s how they match up in my eyes:

T9nav Wins…

  1. Less RAM consumption: ~265KB (T9nav) vs. ~965KB (SQK) [of course in modern S60 phones the impact is minuscule]
  2. Ability to save a number to contacts: This is important and it’s basic functionality that SQK should have had from day 1.

T9nav Loses…

  1. No history: SkyeQuiKey maintains a history. For example, because I visit my ESPN bookmark often, when I press 3 for “E” SQK places ESPN at the top of the list.
  2. Slooooow to launch: Indexing media files was a horrible idea. Who launches a track but clicking on it in a menu? The first time I launch T9nav it takes over 2 minutes before my search results are shown. Fail. They should add settings to choose which categories should be indexed.
  3. Slooooow to use: While keying in digits and navigating around, there are a lot of pauses and jumps.
  4. Tabs: In one respect, separating categories into tabs is nice because the app indexes so many things. On the other hand, it eliminates the possibility of dpad shortcuts. I prefer shortcuts - ie: with SQK I can press left with a contact highlighted to open a new SMS to the contact or right to open a new email.

In my eyes, SQK wins by a long shot. It’s infinitely faster and much smarter. T9nav is five times better than digging through menus and apps, but SQK is 10 times better. The app is still in beta though so it is likely being actively developed. Looking forward to future versions…

To check out T9nav for yourself click here

Viewing 8 Comments

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    I have tested both, conclusion ? The anemic processor and RAM on pre-FP1 devices like my E50 don't allow me to be happy with these kind of apps.

    I'm looking forward to an E71: with all the hardware shortkeys and contacts software improvements, I hope I won't need these kind of app.
    Plus I don't like the way the interface for showing results looks messed up. They better implement an option to choose what you want to be indexed and what you don't.

    I don't know if it's only me, but I'm starting to get fed up with all these apps being in "beta stage" forever.
    Last one is Adaptxt: it's taking them so long that I'm now simply going to buy a full QWERTY E71 with built-in predictive input and 'spellchecker'.
    Are they aware that the guys who buy mobile software are the same who buy new hardware when available ? Perhaps they are waiting for Nokia to roll E71 enhancements to all their future devices....

    Oh well, just a rant....
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    This looks ok, I'll test it, because SQK works only half way on my phone (E51). As I told you Zach a while ago SQK makes my caller ID disappear if I call contacts through it. Unfortunetly the Skyteam support dose not support and just gave me a lame answer "we have tested the product on our devices and there was no problem" well THX Skyteam I wasn't interested if it works on your end... Anyway I updated SQK about a moth ago and it still has this bug :( I hope when the new firmware (T-mobile version) comes out for the E51it will fix this problem... Then again I might just wait for the E71 as merlin said and just use qwerty. Otherwise SQK is great, I use it for starting apps.
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    This might be a great temporary alternative for you then. Definitely worth a look...

    --Sent from my Nokia N95 8GB
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    Well I started testing...
    It works for me far better than SQK!!! It has some lag compared to SQK at first, but it's hardly noticeable.
    Zach I have to disagree with you on point number 1. It dose have history and it dose put the most used apps or links at the top of the list. Just tried it with "clock" - i use that a lot for waking up on time - at first i had to choose it from the middle of the list but the second time I pressed "2" (=c) it was right there at the top. Same with contacts. So it dose learn what you use most.
    Pleased to say that my caller ID shows through T9nav unlike SQK.
    On point 2 and 3 also have to disagree. I stared the T9nav and it worked instantly like a charm. I did not have to wait any time before getting results.
    Navigation is just as fast as SQK, it is a bit chopyer than SQK, but still dose a great job.
    On point 4, well tabs are good but in the first tab you have everything combined, and then why use them at all... I'll probably let them know to have a tabs on-off feature, and then the D-pad functions can be integrated.

    Opposed to SQK T9nav brings out the entire options menu for contacts, meaning not just call and create message, but all others too (that I don't use but it's there and that's good)

    One other feature I noticed is that it indexes calendar events too, which is very usefull.

    So all in all I'm switching to T9nav from SkyQuiKey. IMHO it's better.

    The discrepancies of lag an history can result that I have a Nokia E51 and Zach probably tested it on a N95 8G NAM (Zach correct me if I'm wrong) and also it could be that I downloaded a different updated version (v00.05.06_RC11 ; build 20080521_185434)
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    Interesting. History still doesn't work for me on either device I tested with.

    As for lag and indexing, I am using an N95 8GB but I find it to be slow on my N78 as well. Indexing 800+ audio files along with my 1500 contacts, etc is going to be a disaster regardless of the device. Until you can select which content to index, the app is totally useless for me. Once that happens though, if they also add shortcuts (and if history works for me) I'll definitely take another look at it.

    And I still find that where SQK is smooth and instant, T9nav is constantly freezing for two seconds at a time during use. Makes for a poor user experience in my opinion. Looking forward to future builds...
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    Yeah I'm sure the media files make it sluggish in the indexing faze. I have a little over 1000 contacts, but only 3-400 media files, so It wasn't so much to handle.
    Smoothness goes to SQK for sure, but as you have the history problem with T9nav I have the caller ID problem with SQK. These bugs will remain mysteries... :D
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    Well after testing T9nav for a few day I'm going back to SQK. Zach I have to give this one to you. T9nav looked great at first but it slowed my phone down noticeably. I have to wait seconds before anything happens. This is weird, because T9nav should have lower consumption than SQK. I hope the dev guys hack the bugs out, because there is potential in this app.
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    Thanks for finding this, to be honest I'm happy to try anything other than SkyeQuiKey. I recently had a miserable experience with them...and have realized just how bad their customer service is!

    I had to have my phone replaced due to a hardware fault, but due to their stupid licensing agreement I'm now in the position where I own a product that I can't use!

    It's amazing to me that I've purchased their product, but they are unwilling to help me get it up and running on my new phone.

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