This is sort of a joined post between the N81 8GB coverage and the Saturday Software Reviews posts.

So you got an N81 or an N82, you used to love NStarter and Tracker and all those shortcut applications that made your life an awful lot easier and simpler. A couple of seconds after you held your new device, you noticed the pen button was missing. Oh Shit was the first word that came to your head: no more shortcut lovin’, no more fast access to your beloved applications. Well, guess what? The team at SymbianGuru (yes the name is familiar and no there is no affiliation) have got a nifty surprise for you. It goes by the name CuteKeys and it is as cute as it gets for N81 and N82 owners.

Jump after the break for the full insight and a nice surprise! Edit : Contest ended, check the rest of the comments for the winners.

CuteKeys, What?

CuteKeys by SymbianGuru is a nice shortcut application for S60 3rd Edition that runs in the background, without appearing in the task manager, and that can be autostarted on boot. It allows you to access any application (and other functions) on your device with a couple of button presses, no matter where you are or what you are doing on your mobile. Quite nifty, ‘ight?

How?

When you first launch CuteKeys, you see a list of your current shortcuts. You can add a new one, delete some of them or all, adjust the settings, get help and see information about the app.

1. Settings : You can set the application to be active or not, and to autostart when the phone boots.
2. New : when adding a new shortcut, you get to choose what type of content you would like to link to, as well as the shortcut key combination and the name of the shortcut you just created (so you can see it in the main viewer).
3. Shortcut types: you can link to applications, multimedia files, documents, websites, call or SMS or MMS or email to specific people, a certain contact’s details, as well as bluetooth settings.
4. Shortcut combinations: as the official cute key page states, they can be made of 2, 3 or 4 keys pressed together. I wonder how easy it would be to press 3 or 4 keys at the same time :s so I’m sticking to 2-key combinations. Combinations have to be made of a special key, associated with a number key or another special key. Special keys are the directional buttons on your joypad (up, down, right, left and ok), as well as the * and the backspace (c) button. These are the ones I found so far. That’s 7 specials, and with different number keys associated with them, you’ve got yourself more than 80 shortcuts! We’re not saying that you could memorize all of these, but if someone has an unbelievable memory, he’s served.

Pros

The best thing about CuteKeys is that it allows you to work with any key combination, without needing to have the pen key, which is the major limitation that other software have for the moment. What I also love about this software is that in the main view, there’s an icon next to each item that allows you to see the shortcut type as well as the name you picked for the shortcut and the key combination. Another notable thing is that you can call/sms/mms/email people who aren’t in your contacts (why, I wonder, but still someone could make use of it). One more nice thing is that if you pick “Application”, you get a list of all software on your device, the list is in alphabetical order and the 3rd-party apps are enlisted with the built-in ones. Why is that a big deal? Because if you ever tried to change your standby software shortcuts in Settings, you would’ve noticed the apps are listed in a weird way, with no order or easy logic what-so-ever. All other shortcut software so far use the same listing as the default one, so I applaud CuteKeys for getting around it.

Cons

The main problem lies in the way the shortcuts are handled. As you see in the screenshot below, I picked *+6 as a combination. You would think that I pressed * then I pressed the 6 button. No. I had to press 6 and then *, and on the contrary, I see *+6 on the screen. Weird. If I want to access this shortcut from anywhere on the phone, I’ll have to press 6 then *, unlike any other shortcut app where the special key (usually the pen button) has to be pressed first, followed by the number. One other problem is that if I’m on the standby screen and I press a certain shortcut combination, let’s take the 1+* for example, the item is launched right, but after I’m done, when I come back to the standby, the 1* are still on! I hope the SymbianGuru team works on this as it is the major issue so far.

In Real-Life

On my 3250, I used NStarter to toggle bluetooth and quick launch some software, and Tracker to access mobireader ebooks immediately in my daily life as a pharmacy student. Without Tracker, I have to launch Mobireader, then pick the ebook I want amongst a huge list, then open it. This normally adds 10-15 seconds to my research process, which is annoying. Ever since I got the N81, I missed this fast access possibility and CuteKeys gave it back to me.

This may not be your case, but there’s got to be one type of document you process very often: quickword, quickexcel, zip, pdf, pictures, videos, music… Cutekeys will allow you to access those as fast as it can get, from anywhere. If it’s not the case, there’s also the quick call/sms/mms/email to specific contacts. Now tell me you don’t sms a couple of persons more often than others!

Wishlist

I am a picky person, and besides the real need to manage the shortcut handling problem stated above, there are a couple of improvements I would like to see:

1. Quick access to messaging: inbox, sent items, outbox, drafts,… Now don’t tell me that isn’t possible, SkyeQuiKey proved that it can be done.
2. Quick access directly to the Images & Videos part of the Gallery (not the gallery itself)
3. Bluetooth toggle: right now I have to have one shortcut to turn bluetooth on and another to turn bluetooth off. I would like to set one shortcut to change my bluetooth status, whatever it is.
4. Language toggle: I use the arabic language a lot when writing sms, and with Nstarter, I had the option to toggle between my main writing language (english) and arabic. How about adding that?
5. One odd thing is that right now you can’t set a shortcut to access CuteKeys itself. Weird. How about adding it, guys?

Talk Money & Availability
CuteKeys is available for the mere sum of 9.99$. You can also download a 10-day fully functional trial, which should give you an idea of the overall performance before you buy it.

But the SymbianGuru team has been kind enough to give 3 of our readers free licenses. If you would like to have a chance to win, just post a comment here saying what you like about the software or what features you would like to be added. Deadline is Wednesday February the 6th, at 8pm GMT. Winners will be announced in the comments here, in the following days.

Categories: Applications, Saturday Software Reviews
Tags: CuteKeys, Giveaway, NStarter, Tracker