Smart Tile is Pretty Smart

Until a WP7 Task app, there are more than fifty now, get’s around to creating a live tile on the Start screen, having an updatable tile with reminders is still a good idea. Here is another app to fill that need, with a twist. Smart Tile includes four text boxes that allows you to enter four separate lines of type. The app is smart enough to know what will fit on a single line and limits the number of characters & spaces (about 15). There are options to clear all the boxes or cancel the most recent changes. And  how about a preview tile on the entry screen so you can see exactly what your changes will look like. Tap “Push to Tile” and your updates are on the way. With Push Notifications active (see below) updates should take about a minute, although in testing some were very quick while others took up to five minutes. Not bad overall.

But that’s not all. You can change the background of the tile with any of 18 different colors or opt to match your theme color. You can also add one of eleven background images to the tile, that sits as an unobtrusive silhouette in the background. There is a checkbox, “Use Push Notifications” to active push. Deselecting this box pops up a message warning that it could take up to one hour to update the tile without using Push. But when you check the box it appears that the app tries to communicate with a server (those scrolling update dots) but they never seem to stop, so not sure if this is working correctly. After exiting the app this checkbox resets to unchecked (for me). The developer noted that this is an unusual action that they can’t reproduce but will look into it. Despite this checkbox quirk, my tile is generally updating quickly, so not a problem. The app is free and it’s ad supported. But the dev chose to put the ad panel at the top of the screen, away from my thumbs and not really interfering with the functionality of the app. Thank you.

Not bad for a v1.0 app so this one is going to be a keeper, sitting right next to my “static” WinMilk tile. If you want to give it a try you can find it in Marketplace here.