Review: Tracker for S60 3rd Edition
Score:
85%
Version Reviewed: 1.02
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Smartphoneware have been working on a 'real and fully customizable desktop application designed to help a user to optimize, simplify and organize most common everyday actions'. Lets see if Tracker really is the new best friend of the power-user.
I have always been a firm believer in personalisation. Not only thinking about changeable wallpaper, themes, ringtones and fascias but also the ability to access all the important functions of your device as quickly and easily as possible, exactly the way YOU like. The decade year old menu system introduced by the first Nokia phones was later replaced by icons – icons that you could re-arrange on the first s60 phones - some of them could be (even) later placed on an 'active stand-by screen'. These are/were nice and welcome ideas but the evolution of mobile phones seems to be much faster than the evolution of the user interface at Nokia – Smartphoneware (with an excellent sense of timing) helps this evolution with not just a single step but several giant leaps!
Tracker is advertised as a ‘desktop application’, which might mean different things to different users. It definitely does not aim to replace the active stand-by screen, look on it more as a menu replacement with the added functionality of a sophisticated 'Recent' list and a built-in task manager.
The (first) main screen is the Tracker Desktop, with a number of panes and icons. The possibilities to form and arrange these icons is almost ridiculous, you can change the number (practically any number between 2 and 120), the layout (icon only, icon on top, icon on left), the text size (3 different sizes) and their order (manual or alphabetical). You can also hide the pages pane, which shows time and date as well. Icons can not only be applications but 'actions' as well, which means calling your Mum, starting a MMS to your mates, placing any note, document, picture, film, installation file or opening your favourite web page is never more than one click away, exactly as you'd normally start ANY third party application (Java or S60 native) or built-in function. The icons can be placed in many levels of folders (with their own optionally distinctive icons), arranged on and into pages and, to top it all, you can add keyboard shortcuts to ANY of those icons, folders or pages. It is possible to turn on Autostart, smart navigation or to pick your own Tab key.
Two actions worth highlighting are 'New call' (it opens Contacts with 'smart search') and 'Launch application' (which lets you find and start any application, including ones not on the desktop with the same smart search). By defining these settings you can easily create a 'granny phone', with just a few important icons, or a power-user heaven – or anything else in between. It does take some time to find and build the best setup for yourself but when it's done you will never want to see the built in menu ever again. I don't.
The second screen is called Tasklist. It is basically a list of the currently running applications, the available space in your phone’s flash memory and the memory card, plus the size of free RAM. There are options to close or kill any or all of these applications, display information about them or compress the RAM. You can choose to show or hide system applications, add exceptions to an 'include in task list' and a 'Close all list'. A really welcome option is to set this task list as default instead of the built-in one; it doesn't mean you lose the 'icon only' display of your running programs because you can also set a hotkey to Tracker's nice and shiny 'switcher'. Another neat idea is that you can set up the list of applications you can cycle through with the Menu button, giving you the opportunity to eliminate the built-in menu or even the stand-by screen and then add anything else you fancy.
The final screen is another improvement on other previously available applications with similar functions. 'Recent' not only shows the list of recently used applications but also includes the last received, missed and outgoing calls, unread text messages. It also gives the opportunity to access your Inbox, Calendar and To-do list through their own separate icons with basic new content indication. In the settings you can adjust how long the history should be kept for, how many of the recently used applications you want to see (0-15) or change the maximum number of displayed calls and messages (0-5 each). A very nice touch is that, when a call or message is highlighted on the list, 'Options' has extra items to start a phone call, text or multimedia message. Again, this screen can have its own hotkey.
You get the idea: Tracker is a complicated piece of software. Although there is no built-in help, you can find a very detailed description here, with all the hints or possible ideas you might need for the best available setup. There are a few minor bugs to get rid of, plus possible missing features to add that could make this software even better, but this is early in the life of Tracker and Smartphoneware is known for doing regular updates – in fact, they are already working on one for the near future. It is worth noting that every customer can get any future update for free.
If you are still not convinced, you can download a demo version of the software and see it all for yourself. Personally, I'm definitely hooked because in my opinion, in the hands of those who care enough to learn to use Tracker properly and who have the patience to set up all their own favourite icons, settings and hotkeys, it will make their mobile life a LOT easier.
Attila Katona, AllAboutSymbian, 6th August 2007
Reviewed by Attila Katona at