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Winterface – Cool & Fresh Breeze in the World of Windows Mobile Interface

Posted by Kristofer on Jul 07, 2008

closeThis post was published 1 year 5 months 15 days ago. This info might have changed or might have become outdated.

Highly customizable Shell to improve standard WM interfacewinterface01
July 7, 2008 – VITO Technology releases Winterface – a major breakthrough in the world of Windows Mobile interface. Winterface is the Next Generation Shell for Windows  Mobile comprising the options of a launcher, a task manager, and a multitude of Today plug-ins. Winterface gives the user unprecedented freedom to easily lay out interface exactly the way they like it.
As a shell Winterface removes the necessity to turn to default Windows Mobile interface: Today screen and Start menu. Winterface opens instantly whenever users draw a simple gesture on the screen.  It allows users to have as many screens as they need and put on them icons for applications, settings and contacts. The screens are flipped through with sliding finger gestures. The icons for such applications as phone, sms, email, battery, clock, calendar, memory, etc. – all show relevant information and thus replace a number of Today plug-ins.
As a launcher Winterface features one tap launch of any installed applications and settings. A tap on a contact icon opens a menu with contact details from where you can call, send text message, email, browse URL, etc.
As a task manager Winterface lets you easily switch between running applications. A winterface03 fixed icon on the first screen lets users see running programs, switch between them or close them.
It is very convenient to organize icons on screens by a certain topic. Users can set up a screen with favorite contacts, a screen with most used applications, a screen with icons-indicators (battery, memory, calendar, clock, etc.), and so on, as far as their fantasy goes! Icons are easily moved on the screen and between screens by drag’n'drop gestures.
Winterface is available for $19.95 at www.iWindowsMobile.com/vito-mobile-shell.html. There is also a free 14-day fully functional trial available as a cab or exe installer.
VITO Technology Inc. is known for its innovative products in the field of Windows Mobile and Symbian software, GPS navigation and custom projects. Introduced in this press-release Winterface is a next generation mobile shell for Windows Mobile touch screen devices.

Useful links:
Download desktop installer: http://iwindowsmobile.com/files/Winterface.exe
Download mobile (on-device) installer: http://iwindowsmobile.com/files/Winterface.cab
Program page: http://iwindowsmobile.com/vito-mobile-shell.html

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    • sit2k
      one other thing... this app is amazing for those that are constantly on the go.. i find it so easy to just use my thumb to call people while im driving.. split second looks between taps..

      voice dialing does not work for me as i drive a convertible..

      great job vito.. we just need to work on my suggestions and a background please
    • sit2k
      i think the calendar icon should display the events of the day the same way a contact displays all the contact info.

      the contact info lacks the individuals address. they should work on a filter that picks up all the fields that have info in contacts instead of just telephone numbers and email.

      weather icon should be there also and when tapped on should show weather like the contacts window that pops up.

      in fact anything that brings up information should allow you to bring up a window like the contacts buttons do..

      one more thing.. i would like the ability to change the background as black is a bit dreary and tiresome.

      that would be awesome!

      otherwise it's my favorite plug in..

      for the lazy... hit the end call button to go back to the today screen for the meantime for calendar :-)
    • Thanks for your feedback. I've put all your ideas and recommendations in wish list. We are going to work further on improving Winterface.
      For those who haven't decided yet wether to try Winterface or not read reviews by different reviewers. Here in blog http://blog.iwindowsmobile.com I put the links to different reviews.
      For our convinience it would be great if you post your ideas on improvement of the program there.
    • Don
      I have been using it for about a day, and then went on line to read all of the comments/reviews - which are very much spot on. Great interface, but not quite ready for prime time. Biggest frustration is that I cannot delete/remove the program. I intend to come back in a few months, when hopefully the programmers address the deficiencies. Meanwhile, I just what to remove it - any help would be appreciated.
    • Dr
      Well, I mentioned that doing that arc swipe to start Winterface was difficult.... Lately, I've been having Winterface start, when I don't want to... It seems that I make the arc when doing other things.

      Again, it is a great start and as always, it takes a bit to get it polished.
    • Mike
      not a bad program but has a lot of kinks. not worth paying for at this point until kinks are worked out.
    • It's not even close to mobile shell in terms of a full interface....

      BUT it is only a 1.0 release, and it's better than most of the iphone wannabe launchers. By the time version 2.0 comes along it may be worth looking at properly
    • KCMatt
      I have to agree with j's sentiment (6th comment) a little bit.

      If I wanted to read through pages of comments to decide if I want to try a program or not, I'd be on xda-devs, not here.

      Okay, I'll be patient... I'll assume if it can hold a candle to Mobile Shell, we'll see a more thorough review on Tiltsite in the future. If I never hear about it again, I'll assume it was crap.
    • oh, and FYI, the manual is now available on their site to download and check out: http://iwindowsmobile.com/manual/winterface/win...
    • Holy comments Batman!

      anyway, yes I noticed clicking the battery icon leads to sliding sounds, I was wondering about that myself..

      to comment about the lock, yes it doesn't actually lock the phone, I actually had to email them and ask how to lock the phone because I couldn't get it to work, you don't use the lock icon to lock it, you just hit your power button, which actually I kinda like

      as for starting the program by drawing the arch, yes that does take a bit of getting accustomed to, but you can always just hit start and it's there on your menu

      and yes it would be very nice to be able to slide right or left with the menus

      overall it's a great concept but of course it needs work, that's one of the reasons we're doing this for input from our readers about the product, pretty much every type of software product needs to be tweaked or fixed after it's been launched..
    • Li
      Here are my 2 cents:

      Pro -

      Extremly finger friendly, smooth flow, elegant design layout.

      Low memory useage, fast start up anywhere in the OS.

      Very intuitive interface, texts under icons are extremely useful, compare to some other apps who only incorporated icons.

      Love to be able to mix and match the apps I need and put them in order.

      Room for improvement -

      Contrast of the default icons are rather low (The whites is a bit above mid gray)

      Would be nice to flip from first page to last and last to first

      Would have option to display non-clear type fonts

      Would be nice to intergrate with SMS-Chat and FunContact and have no landscape orientation blank text input problem in windows mobile 6.1 (I would buy it if this were solved.)
    • Eric
      I've been using it all night, so here's my 2 cents.

      * clicking on battery sends me to "keyboard sliding" setting. oops!

      * deleted battery icon and added power icon. clicking on it does nothing.

      * speaking of doing nothing, I'd prefer to see me battery life in percentage rather than a picture.

      * color icons would be nice on the defaults. as would changing the skin colors.

      * had no trouble with contacts but I use FunContacts (same company).

      * love how the icons tremble like they're afraid they'll be deleted. Cute. also lets you know you're in that mode.

      * Since one of the designers obviously reads this, email program that looks like SMS-chat would be lovely.

      * being able to choose the icon for your program would be cool.

      Love your work. Keep it up.
    • ok.. so i've tried this out for about 3 hours now and i love it..... and hate it.

      it's a great program. functionality, customization, and it's extremely finger friendly.

      the downside is that i can't see my caller ID when someone calls and when i'm on the the phone, i must slide to unlock, select phone, and from there i'm able to end the call. just a little too much hassle for a simple man like myself. if anyone could help with this, that would be great because like i said, i really like this program. just needs some simplifying.
    • Mike
      Contacts leave a lot of slots blank with not enough short info being display on them. being able to run HTC Home would be fantastic...kinda mislead about the whole today screen plug in. color scheme is nice but not being able to run HTC is kinda a bummer. seems to take up a lot of memory to run the shell itself too.my phone is at 47% and the only thing I have running is the shell. be nice if you could load up unsigned applications like "mini opera' and the like.
    • Ricardo
      The Battery icon takes me to Settings - Keyboard Sliding Sound

      The Lock icon takes me to Settings - Password

      I'm running HTC/ATT ROM 1.62.502.0 on my Tilt.

      Everything else seems to be working good. It would be nice to go from the first to last page by sliding it from left to right. A weather applet would be great.
    • Jason
      I'm not entirely positive how I deleted it. I was in the edit mode and then tapped it, and it disappeared. I ended up closing the program all together and then restarting it and it came back, but I was curious if there was an easier way.

      As for the battery, I prefer to use the VistaHide Battery Gauge (http://www.freewarepocketpc.net/ppc-download-vi...) as I like that it only takes up about 2-3 pixels at the top of the screen.

      For me, the contacts seemed to work as expected, and I was actually rather pleased with, but then again I didn't have the program installed for long to get a true feeling.

      If I had to, I could live without the weather being available when I turn on my Tilt, but not having my agenda at a glance is a major deal breaker.

      Again, I think this program has potential, but it's just not ready for my Tilt yet.
    • How did you delete the menu? there is no 'X' to be able to delete it...

      There is a battery gauge standard that is there, you can just move it to the top, or you want the regular batter gauge like the phone has?

      when the phone is locked the battery gauge is there at the top along with other icons

      the contacts are weird for me, I can click the contact icon and it takes me to the regular contacts in the phone to get the contacts for the program I have to use menu then select contacts

      and yes I agree about flipping screens, I had four screens actually, but you can flip through them rather quickly once you get the hang of it

      for me I've never used the weather functionality, and agenda doesn't do much for me.. I'm always confused so that wouldn't help me, I've got too much going on at one time...

      one thing that would cool is that if they skinned everything in the same style, I've got light blue background for regular phone, and it's kinda shocking to go from black to bright blue, I may have to change my phone to black color scheme
    • Jason
      I tried it earlier today and here are my thoughts:

      * need to be able to 'flip' from the first to the last screen by 'flipping' the first screen to the right. Right now you can go from 1 to 2 to 3 to 2 to 1, but not from 1 to 3 and back without going through the 2nd screen.

      * would love to be able to use my today plug-ins. this lack of capability in itself will keep me from using this product. I need my agenda and weather available

      * like the contact functionality

      * like how easy it is to customize

      * if you accidentally delete the 'Menu', how do you get it back?

      * being able to leave blank spaces would be nice. that way I can organize with say 2 icons on the 1st line, 3 on the 2nd, etc.

      * would like for the vistahide battery gauge to be on top.

      other than that, I think it's a good start.
    • Peter
      And it's way more fun than SPB Mobile Shell!!!! OMG, I love this thing!!
    • Peter
      Just freaking great! I just plunked down the $30 for SPB Mobile Shell yesterday and this sweet looking shell shows up... *grrr*
    • boorishid
      I installed this this this morning, and it seems like most fo there other products, needs more work. The most annoying thing about this and goodwin is it just dumps all your icons on the screen it doesnt seperate them by directory. SPB mobile shell is a much more polished alrernative and it will show your appointments and weathewr and things!

      To Eric have your tried HTC album? search for it on XDA if not. I does the same thing as there photo viewer and its free :(
    • Mike Allen
      CAB file on-device says tilt isn't a valid PPC device. Wont install.
    • Dr
      The disappointing thing is that once you enter a program, the program is still not always finger friendly...

      I also seem to have a problem drawing that arch to start the Winterface. It may be because of the Today plugins that are sitting there already.

      Is there a way of making it there by default (replace the Today screen?) I'm not yet sure if I want that.. but exiting/entering the interface gets to be a pain.
    • well, I've got it installed and running perfectly, it's actually rather cool, it takes a bit to get accustomed to, but so did switching to the HTC style home screen with home customizer.. I've got my kids here with me, so it's kinda hard to really get into playing with it, but what I have seen is very nice, you can keep adding apps to different pages and slide from page to page, each app has it's own little icon, that's fairly large..
    • well I have to assume this was meant for me.... Titlsite gets nothing for posting verbatim, and why not post verbatim? I do it all the time with press releases I receive on my sites, they're sent to be posted that way...

      as for lazy, umm no, don't think so... irresponsible, ummm no not that one either... as for trying the product, I'm installing it right now actually, you interrupted me actually as i was about to install it..
    • j
      Two questions. First one might not apply:

      1) How much $$ does tiltsite get for posting verbatim press releases for products?

      2) How lazy and irresponsible is the author to post a press release with no other information? Have you tried out the product? Are you sure it's fully compatible? And so on.
    • Manual is coming soon. We tried to put everything intuitive, so no manual so far ;)
      Today plug-ins? I meant the icons-indocators like memory, email, text messages, power and some other icons. They can quite replace Today plug-ins from the 3rd party software. We plan to develop more plug-in of course, we just call thm applets internally ;)
      Thanks for the feedback. you can always get in touch via email and let me know what you think: konstantin@vitotechnology.com (we're using Google for corporate email, so no worries about spam, it ends up where it's meant to be)
    • Hopefully I'll be getting this for review, I'm very curious myself as to how it all works, but I'm not sure I care for the whole iPhone imitation look.... I mean if I wanted an iphone I could've got one, but I wanted the Tilt not the iphone..
    • Wow that looks Suh-Weet!
    • John
      Says you can use today plugins.. How? Manual link on site doesnt work. Seems ok, but would be nice to be able to show upcoming events (arguably the reason for a pda).

      Runs good.
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