Mobility Digest » spb

SPB Shell 3D passes $500K in three weeks and gets updated v1.1

Doug Smith — Thu, 12 May 2011 21:59:07 +0000

I have been using SPB Shell 3D on the Dell Streak for the last couple of weeks and I think it has an excellent user interface and was one of the most stable builds I have used of the years in the Mobile Shell family. But what I did not figure was just how popular the app would be! In less than three short weeks, SPB Shell 3D for Android has passed $500K in revenue making it one of the best sold Android products world wide!

With success comes a lot of attention an SPB has already released an update for SPB Shell 3D which includes the following:

Today SPB Software updates SPB Shell 3D to version 1.1; bundling some of the most requested features, such as free widget placement, live wallpaper support and 3D birthday widget. Having gathered valuable user feedback, SPB Software worked on features and quality – improving the overall memory consumption, performance and stability – to let Android users net the most out of the software platform and hardware.

SPB Shell 3D supports Android 2.1 or higher and will set you back $14.95 for the app. Head on over to SPB for more details or hit the link here: http://spb.com/android-software/shell/

SPB Shell 3D for Android is released

Doug Smith — Wed, 30 Mar 2011 17:58:25 +0000

Android owners will have some really cool eye candy to play around with because SPB has just released Shell 3D. If you remember back to the Windows Mobile days of old we were saved from a horrible user expereince by HTC Sense and the second biggest UI replacement SPB Mobile Shell. SPB really put a lot of time and development into this product and it has always show with excellent graphics and usability. Now that they have released Shell 3D for Android it is clear that they have another winner. I really like the speed and fluidity that it has and the massive custimization available.

The now famous SPB Carousel that allows you to rotate between pages, now enables you to interact with each frame while you are still in the carousel instead of actually launching the page and reverting back to the carsousel when finished. There is a ton of other enhancements that I am going to take for a (cough) spin shortly when I get this loaded up on my Android device.

For now, check out the video and press release below if you are using SPB Shell 3D on your Android device!

Here is the Press Release:

March 30th, 2011 – SPB Software, a leading mobile software developer, has launched SPB Shell 3D for Android – a 3D user interface for end users with the best-in-class user experience that offers a seamless fusion of functional usability and visual aesthetics. SPB Shell 3D is a product built on SPB UI Engine – a technology platform – optimized for building next generation, high-performance mobile user interfaces.

SPB Shell 3D is a successor of the SPB Mobile Shell product line. The SPB Mobile Shell series is the most awarded mobile UI solution available on the market today. It has been publicly recognized as the number one best-selling mobile UI application across all smartphone platforms for the past 4 years. SPB Mobile Shell has also been successful among mobile carriers and OEMs, and has been deployed by over 15 device manufacturers and carriers, including Sony Ericsson, Toshiba, and O2.

SPB Shell 3D provides the users with a rich engaging user experience that transforms the whole Home screen into a 3D space. Fast switching between screens with a single gesture, unique smart folders with easy access to all important apps directly from the home screen, and a rich set of animated 3D widgets, make the navigation simple, effective and intuitive. The underlying SPB UI Engine makes the UI fast, natural and highly responsive.

“The SPB Mobile Shell product line became very successful mainly because it matched up impeccably well with qualities that end users really like,” said Sebastian-Justus Schmidt, CEO of SPB Software. “SPB Shell 3D is a fine example of the UI that can be created using SPB UI Engine showcasing its capabilities, and it becomes a solid base for the custom UI solutions we create for device manufacturers and mobile operators.”

SPB Shell 3D currently supports Android 2.1 and higher. Available for Smartphones with an OpenGL ES 2.0 compatible graphic controller. SPB Shell 3D is available for 14.95 USD at Android Market.

Migrate to Android with SPB Migration Tool

Doug Smith — Wed, 12 Jan 2011 18:44:51 +0000

SPB is a great company that has been making software for Windows Mobile for a long time. At one time I had just about all their apps including very popular SPB Mobile Shell for Windows Mobile. Today, SPB has announced a new App that will help you “migrate” all your Windows Mobile Device information over to an Android Device. The cost for SPB Migration Tool is $9.95 and can be downloaded directly from SPB:

SPB Migration Tool product page
http://spb.com/android-software/migration/

SPB Software, a leading mobile software developer announces the release of SPB Migration Tool – a solution that helps you to migrate your personal data from old Windows Mobile or Symbian devices to a new Android smartphone.

To buy a new phone is always fun. But every change can cause the number of inconveniences at the beginning. Ask yourself a question: do you always save all of the important phone numbers to the contact list or maybe some of them are kept in the call history? When moving to the new phone these unsaved numbers can be lost without any opportunity to restore. Will you remember all of your favorite links without your old phone? Won’t it be frustrating to lose the text messages with valuable information or cherished messages from the beloved ones?

PB Migration Tool comes as a complete solution, which allows copying your personal information like call history, text messages, contacts, and bookmarks to a new Android smartphone. What makes SPB Migration Tool unique is an easy-to-use and convenient interface. The migration can be made in several simple steps and it doesn’t require desktop to save the data on it.

Android platform is the fastest-growing mobile platform. According to IDC, 4 of top 10 Android-based smartphone vendors recorded year-on-year growth rate upwards of 100% and growing presence of Android-based smartphone suppliers. SPB Survey results show that the users tend to choose the smartphone with Android OS as their next device. The need for the handy tool that helps to migrate to Android platform grows rapidly with the amount of Android devices being sold every day.

SPB Migration Tool gives the opportunity to choose between two possible data transfer ways. One is more convenient for users who have a MicroSD card and another one is easier for those who prefer to use mobile internet on both devices. Migration can be done easily by means of inserting the MicroSD card into the old device and copying all the information there. In case when the MicroSD card is missing the online migration mode can be used instead.

The user can download the application from the mobile migration site: http://mgrt.spb.com.

The data is encrypted and deleted from the server completely after 12 hours. The detailed instructions on how to use the SPB Migration Tool can be found on the service web site:
http://www.migratetoandroid.com.

"SPB Survey 2010 showed the tendency of migrating from all other platforms to Android and SPB is happy to support its customers with the right solution for it. It is much easier to get used to the new smartphone when all the favorite contacts, important text messages, recent call logs and bookmarks are kept on it. So we did our best to create the tool that facilitates the migration to the new device by making it really smooth and convenient. With SPB Migration Tool it won’t take any effort to move to the new phone," says SPB Software CEO, Sebastian-Justus Schmidt.

SPB Time for iPhone and iPad Released

Doug Smith — Wed, 15 Dec 2010 20:14:16 +0000

If you are looking for a a way to make sure you get up in the morning using your iPhone, then you can add another app to your list to check out from our Friend’s at SPB Software. I have been using Alarm Clock Pro Version 1.2.1 from iHandySoft Inc and overall I have been pretty impressed with it, but it does tend to be a little buggy from time to time. Having used tons of SPB Software in the past, I know that SPB Time will be a very good choice.

SPB Software, a leading mobile software developer announces the launch of a skinnable time toolset for iPhone/iPad devices with lots of useful features and an eye-catching user interface – SPB Time.

iPhone users can now enjoy the variety of analog and digital clocks with more than 50 time skins available in the built-in online catalogue. The clock appearance, hands, digits, alarm icons, and background are highly customizable. World timer, stop watch, calendar and moon phases are also included in the toolbox.

Especially useful will the new application be for those iPhone users who have difficulties with waking up. SPB Time offers the choice of alarms for all types of sleepers. Along with classic alarm that has over 20 tunes, it includes the Bio and Paranoid alarms. Bio alarm is for those who prefer thegentle and slow way of waking up on the correct stage of their sleep. It starts the slight ticks and sounds of nature before the actual alarm time. Paranoid alarm is on the other hand for those who consider the regular alarm too weak to wake them up. In paranoid mode the alarm suggests the sleeper to solve the puzzle and won’t stop until it’s done correctly.

SPB Time for iPhone/iPad Main Features:

– Classic, Paranoid and Bio alarms
– More than 20 alarm tunes
– 50+ free time skins
– Both Analog and Digital clocks
– Stopwatch and Countdown timers
– Scrollable Calendar with weeks numbers
– Moon phases
– World time

You can grab SPB Time for the iPhone at the App Store for $1.99

Mobility Digest Review: SPB TV 2.0 as free and awesome as ever.

Matt Anderson — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 23:35:44 +0000

SPB is one of my favorite software makers. Mobile Shell is an awesome program that I’ve used quite a bit. Today I’m going to go through the new version of SPB TV 2.0, an IPTV program for streaming a huge number of television channels straight to your phone. SPB was nice enough to provide us with a copy to review and I’m happy to report that the program worked great and provided a nice distraction from work with the Beverly Hillbillies. The program itself is very solid and well made and suffers from only a couple of issues that I’ll get into later. Let’s start with a few interesting design ideas that really make the program stand out.

The first thing that really sets SPB TV 2.0 apart from all the other IPTV solutions is their channel system. Most programs for TV streaming give you live feeds of the shows as you flip through channels. The problem is that these streaming tv channels take like four or five seconds to buffer up where you can see what the hell is going on. SPB solves this issue by giving you thumbnails of the video that update every so often. This allows you to have the illusion of channel surfing without having to sit through the buffer ever time you want to see what is on another channel. The interface is both quick and smooth. SPB has made sure this program runs lightning fast, even on my three year old Fuze.

This thing has channels for days. Some are slight variations of one another like a collection of Fox stations from around the US. Many are public access or publicly funded stuff but this is on par with other TV services. It does include some pretty awesome old-school sci-fi and horror channels that were a blast of nostalgia into my day. It had a decent comedy channel as well that seemed to load up stuff on demand. The number of channels is definitely impressive but with one issue. SPB, being a Russian software maker, have included a crap-ton of channels from all over the world. We’re talking English, Russian, Italian, French, and others. This is nice if you happen to be octolingual and all but for those of us English only people it just puts a lot of useless channels on your list to flip through. SPB was insightful enough to include the ability to remove channels and even denotes their country of origin making it easier, BUT (this is one of my only problems with the program itself) it does not give you a way to sort them by language. This would make the program much quicker to setup and have a more tailored experience.

The free-ness of the whole thing makes the biggest break from the older versions we’ve seen. The whole ad-supported business usually makes me cringe. From what I’ve seen so far the company only seems to be advertising their own products but in a manner that is totally unobtrusive. While the phone is working up its video buffer SPB gives you a still image of one of its own products, some key take-aways, and a link to download. This is the only place you will see ads throughout the entire program. No lines of text across the bottom of my screen. No banners across the top or breaks in programming to serve you ads based on what channels your watching. Just straight forward pictures that go up for about 2 or 3 seconds while the video buffers. It’s not like you can do anything else with your screen during this time anyway. It’s the perfect system to rake in some cash and not piss off your end user. I am the biggest ad skeptic on the staff and this didn’t bother me at all. It’s when they start taking away my usable space and interrupting my usage that makes my blood boil through my skin and out my eyeballs.

A few other design choices that make a hell of a difference in usage are the bits of information it brings to the user from within the program. While watching any channel the user can tap anywhere on the screen to bring up an onscreen menu (pic on right). As you can see you get the battery and time info from within the program and get maximum screen use for video. Clicking on that little matrix on the left brings up the guide while continuing to stream your current channel to you. The arrow following that allows you to change the quality from low to high. Even with okay 3G coverage I was able to stream the high quality feed with no problems at all. The low quality didn’t look too bad unless it was older black and white programming, such as said billies of the hills mentioned above. Obviously you’ve got volume next to that followed by a button to take you back to the main guide. I also want to mention the program’s ability to schedule reminders for television shows as somewhat of a cool feature but also sort of out of place. I can’t tell you when I have ever been in a situation where I desperately need my cell phone to watch something coming on television but it’s nice that it’s there.

All in all it’s a great program to have in your phone if you’re prone to boredom and like watching old TV or news. To pick it up for FREE, yes that’s right, FREE go HERE for the desktop installer or the .CAB.

SPB Mobile Shell Gets Updated To 3.5.4

Doug Smith — Mon, 17 May 2010 03:21:51 +0000

Looks like SPB dropped this one on us Friday but forgot to let the “press” know about it which they are generally really good at. Anyway, SPB Mobile Shell 3.5 gets an update and goes to a version 3.5.4. Here is the update release notes:

Version 3.5.4 (May 14, 2010):

Changes in the Internet search widget
Fixed a couple of issues around logging into Facebook and Twitter
Backlight support for new devices
Other bug fixes and optimizations

Doesn’t look like a few people in the forums are happy about the Internet Search Engine Widget getting changed from Google to Bing, but I have sort of warmed up to the new version of Bing. Nothing else has been disclosed about the optimizations but it looks like the SPB Forum Team indicate that they are subtle and not directly for Windows Mobile. In any case, it also appears that Twitter is also not fixed but that is something that has been on the burner for a while now.

Head on over to the SPB Forums for more information or download it HERE. We will keep you posted if there is any further information released by SPB.

(read)

SPB Software 40% Off Sale At Handango Ends Today!

Doug Smith — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 17:44:46 +0000

Great Software (SPB Software) plus Great Pricing (40% off) equals get yo’ self over to Handango and take advantage of this great chance to save Big ($$$)!!! Great software like:

And many more so hurry over to:

Click here for the online store

To visit our mobile store <>

Spb Flash Cards Now Available on Android

Matt Chapman — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 18:58:22 +0000

Traditional flash cards for learning foreign languages enhanced with smartphone technologies like photos, native speakers’ dubbing, learning progress visualization, smart adaptive algorithm, and detailed statistics. The program helps you to skip the stage of translating a word into your mother tongue first, but memorizing a direct match of a subject and a foreign word instead.

- 1000+ words
- 65+ categories
- Explicit photos for all words
- Sliding and rotating finger-friendly cards
- Voice records by native speakers
- People, different animals, birds, insects
- Clothes, shoes, furniture, tools
- Places, scenery, street, house
- Office, computer, electronics, school
- Fruits, vegetables, trees, food, drinks
- Art, books, casino, fairy tales
- Car, sports, weapon, jewelry
- … and many others
- Expand your vocabulary
- 5 different learning modes
- Track your learning progress with detailed statistics
- Smart algorithm for adapting the learning process
- 3 dimensions of memorizing: visual, audible and textual

New age approach to flash cards

1000+ most commonly used words

Natural memorizing skipping the translation stage

Source: http://www.spbsoftwarehouse.com/android-software/flashcards/

Spb Software Updates.. Just in case you missed them!

Matt Chapman — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 15:15:13 +0000

So the past few weeks, Spb has updated several of their products. In case you didn’t catch them, here is a quick snapshot of what’s been updated.

Spb News: The website shows the current version at 2.1.1 (April 2, 2010) but doesn’t show what was updated. Could be a minor oversight on their part.

Spb Time: Current version 3.3.0 (March 31, 2010)

Cumulative update for cities database and time zones
Fixed bug in bio alarms dismiss feature

Spb Weather: Current Version 2.4.0 (March 31, 2010)

Cumulative update for cities database

Spb Traveler: Current Version 2.9.0 (March 31, 2010)

Cumulative update for cities database

Spb TV: Current Version 1.2.2 (April 2, 2010)

Issues with video rendering on landscape oriented devices fixed
TV-Out for Omnia II supported added
Other minor bug fixes

As always, these programs can be had here: http://www.spbsoftwarehouse.com/

Brand New Windows Phone 7 Series Based Theme For SPB MOBILE SHELL 3.5.3

Matt Chapman — Sun, 21 Mar 2010 14:24:46 +0000

As the WP7 based themes start to roll out, there is one that stands out and It’s made by mskip of xda-developers. This theme is made for Spb Mobile Shell 3.5.3 so you will need that prior to installing this theme. It’s also recommended that you have a clean version of MS as well. As of this post, there are several resolutions available with more on the way. (WVGA, VGA, and soon to be WQVGA, and QVGA)

MSkip ProPlus Windows Phone 7 Theme for Mobile Shell 3.5.3
Contains the following:
+ All new layout with invisible buttons at top of Home Hubs for Carousel (top left) and menu (top right).
+ Links on right side of Home Hub 1 to main functions (top button to sound profile, middle invisible button to connections profile and bottom invisible button to task manager) which can easily be changed if desired.
+ 2 Home Hubs (slide up and down to scroll between them) which you can populate with a selection of panels or make up your own.
+ Panels are mostly made up of shortcuts and custom shortcut skins so easy to change images or look (if desired).
+ New menu bars in mobile shell screens.
+ All Screens fully set up for LandScape mode.
+ Lots more that I cant think of right now. Find out for yourself

Head on over to xda-developers and get this theme now; http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=649362