We let you know about the new Handy Shell application a few weeks ago. Handy Shell completely replaces the Active Standby screen on your S60v3-powered cell phone with its own, featuring user-configurable plugins and the inclusion of Handy Weather 6, which has also been updated and now is able to show weather right on your home screen – something most of you have wanted for quite a while.
The full production version of Handy Shell doesn’t seem to offer any new abilities over the beta version that was released a few weeks ago, though I’m sure they addressed a few stability issues. If you loved it then, I’m sure you’ll love it now!
The biggest change, however, is that Handy Weather v6.0 is now available, and included in the purchase price of Handy Shell. The new update to Handy Weather v6.0, in addition to placing weather information on your home screen, adds more detail in the daily forecasts, as well as a few other noticable improvements.
As usual, while we currently offer Handy Shell for sale in the Symbian-Guru store, where you can snag a free trial, we also got ahold of a few license codes to give out to you, our loyal readers! All you need to do is leave a comment below, and let us know a feature that you would LOVE to see in a future release of either application. That’s it, we like to keep these things pretty simple.
Note: Handy Shell is currently listed at $44.95. This price *includes* a 1-year subscription to Handy Weather v6.0 (which costs $24.95 alone), so you will not need to purchase both. We’re currently investigating if there is a discount for current owners of Handy Weather, and will update this post as soon as we have an answer. We have confirmed that current Handy Weather subscribers should have received an email offering a discount if they would like to purchase Handy Shell. Upgrading from earlier versions of Handy Weather to this new version is absolutely free to current owners.
Comments are closed, and the winners of the free license code will be contacted via email today. Thanks so much for so much feedback, it will be fed directly to the Handy Shell team, for future consideration. If you do not receive an email from us today, I would recommend purchasing the full application from the Symbian-Guru Software Store here.
I would like to see facebook and myspace updates streamed to the home screen. It would also be cool to see the subject line or a short preview of new emails/SMS messages that have not yet been read.
RM
PS: I am a student and I could really use free license of this product :)
1. Support E90 Communicator.
2. Smaller icons.
3. Smaller Clock.
4. Dont go to the default active standby when press exit in the applications menu.
5. Cheaper.
1) My main feature (Handy Shell) that I would like to see is quick transfer to a phone call when a call comes in. I have to hold down the menu key and move to telephone when I need to press a button to answer a call.
2) More customization of icons would also be helpful – particularly shortcuts for oft messaged/emailed.
I am facing lot of issues with RAM with this. Handy Shell seems to be eating up RAM like crazy. i just have 2 mb RAM left after starting any other app in addition to Handy Shell. Is this problem specific to e61? Also T9 does not seem to work in this version doesnt look up addresses and applications correcly. It ws working with te beta version, but even in that actual dialing used to fail after look up.
iLike!
I’d like to see a plugin that showed a small summary of any new messages or missed phone calls. I know that they are shown when you select them from the existing toolbar, but I’d like to be able to know who contacted me with a quick glance.
I’d like to see today only on weather with the windchill factor and humidity factored in as well as pop info. Also smaller icons to fit more shortcuts. Option for default behaviour of menu key and not remember last position (i go through menu using number shortcuts and start lots of stuff by mistake). Fix exit to standby from menu. Would love 1×12 speed dial in apps and contacts tab. Default speed dial on today screen is welcome fix from beta and should stay the same. Would love to be able to set stuff from deeper inside settings like network mode selection for example. Lots more ideas but legs getting numb from sitting on the toilet too long while typing this.
Why can’t you put a background wallpaper in this? It seems insane that you can’t.
My favourite option: RED KEY CONTROL! FINALLY!
I like the SMS preview on the E71 with Handy Shell. When a text comes in if you goto the SMS icon you will be able to read ur text message, see this example
Whoops, missed off the link, here we go http://media.share.ovi.com/m1/medium/0402/4d39e2c73262427ca1750b8cc534e8e8.jpg
ricky.
Run an internal campaign of finding out your posts with maximum comments. Am sure this one will rank very high for ‘obvious reasons’. Well done
Sms and email preview
sms, mms and email preview.
I can’t believe how many people are commenting on something free :)
Anyway I really like the concept of this application, I’ve waited for something like this for a long time. It needs more customization in future versions.
Thanks for free licenses!
This shows you just how many people read your blog but are just too lazy to comment.
What i would like next is a second layer on top of this shell. So than whenever highlighter is moved over contacts, a popup of the 5 previously called contacts should show, and a press of the joystick should open the contacts.
Moving the highlight to the Web Browser icons should quickly open the popup displaying your bookmarks, and clicking on any of the bookmarks should open that bookmark in the webbrowser.
The same popup should display the calendar entries when there are more entries than the few displayed on the shell.
There have been more free apps given in the past, but i have not seen so many people comment on them.
I love this cute looking!
And I hope it can let us custermize what I want to show and more themes
I’d love to see a ticker plugin that reads your RSS feeds and scrolls them along it’s segment. I’d also like an extended calendar plugin to show the month view from Handy Calendar. But my most wanted feature is the ability to set up more than one application shortcut bar.
I agree with all who said an added plugin of some sort for email notification.
After testing and customizing the application to my wish I still find a minor thing missing.
That is under the preferences you can’t choose the order of the “active pages”. Here I would rather have contacts as the first page after the shell instead of applications.
Why, someone may ask.
That’s because there’s already a handy function which let’s you type in the name of the application in which you then can load.
(Besides most people have their icons on the menu arranged in such a way that the most used applications already are displayed and available from the press of one button)
You could also say that the contacts and application pages are redundant. (But here they have made it optional, not forcing you to use it).
Other than that other minor things such as the GUI where the icons are taking too much space as well as the clock.
Here the calendar should have been the one taking more of the space.
There’s seems also to be a somewhat redundant function on the plugin Phone ind./settings.
When pressing on icon 4 there I just get up Messaging, while pressing on icon 3 leads me to inbox for messages.
(This could be due to that I haven’t set up any mailboxes, as I use Profimail for my emails).
Also when holding the menu key, “Standby” is displayed this could have been hidden as you can press the “hang up” / red key to simply switch between the shell and the “Active standby”.
(Also an optional setting in Handy Shell).
All in all there are no major flaws but some small inconveniences, that being many functions are a bit redundant. This again of course leads to that the least advanced users can still manage to use the application, making it more safe-proof for non-power users.
(Powerusers of course will customize most of the things on their phones anyway)
This is a very innovative application… the lack of customization of the S60 homescreen has been a drawback I have dealt with for many years now when compared to Windows Mobile. The homescreen is meant to be a snapshot of items you check or use often, and Handy Shell has been very effective in accomplishing this.
Additional items I would like to see added are:
- RSS Feed ticker…I am constantly checking my web feeds throughout the day, and it takes many key presses to currently get into the built in Web Feeds…maybe “Handy RSS”?
- a Quick pick for local radar for Handy Weather…It’s great to see the overall daily forecast, however radar gives you the current real-time conditions to expect…
- Support for decreasing the font type/size…I would like to fit the maximum possible icons/text on the home screen, and obviously everyone’s font desire is different…
- Ability to change color or theme of the home screen, independent of the rest of the operating system…perhaps change the background to white to maximize visibility but user doesn’t want to give up the look/feel of the rest of the device
- Lifetime subscription price for the Handy Weather portion…
- Permanent Google Search integration on the home screen
These are a few items I think could be improved in future versions to maximize the value customers see in the product given the price point, however the current product is very impressive and I will be utilizing in the future to maximize my customization capabilities of my N95-3 and possibly N85? :-)
It would be awesome to have a feature that you could create a shortcut to everywhere on your phone. I use to switch 3G off frequently when I don’t use to save battery. I hate to navigate through menu’s in order to put in on and of. Would be great to have a shortcut that would take me there directly.
My Suggestions:
- A small usability tweak: At the moment the icon tool-tips appear a second after you navigate to an icon and disappear after another second (like in the original standby screen). Why not let it pop up immediately and disappear after a second.
- Besides being able to freely configure the Menu button, also make the Multimedia button available for configuration (eg. go to main menu, standby or task manager). Many people don’t use the Multimedia button anyway.
- Since I tried it a few weeks ago, I can’t remember if the icon size was configurable. This would be very nice.
- Show a small symbol on the short-cut icons if the application is running (like in the main menu). This could even be a substitute for the task manager if there would be a second row with more icons for currently running applications (only those not accessible through other icons in handy shell). Having all running applications on the standby screen would save an extra key press.
- I can’t remember what happens if you press the keys 1-9 in handy shell, but if they just let you insert numbers like in the standard standby screen, this would be a waste. I suppose nearly all numbers you directly type on the standby screen start with a ’0′, so the others could be used for: a) short cuts to the icons, like jbak taskman does it, or b) starting a T9 search over contacts, apps, bookmarks or even music files (configurable).
- I admit that too much configuration could affect the appearance and usability of handy shell, but I quite like some options of jbak taskman, like fast task switching by holding down the menu key or setting the program rules like autostart and kill when in background.