Greetings to all here at touch-innovation. I'm dschoenike and today is my first day as a staff member. I just want to say I'm going to do my best to keep applications up-to-date and help out in any other way i can. I really do enjoy helping others out, so if you have a question or concern about any of the software posted, you can contact me at dschoenike@hotmail.com or here on the forums (i'm there alot) and i will help you out. Or i'll find you somebody that can :) Take care..

First of all, I'd like to say hello to everyone here at touch-innovation. I'm a new staff member and today is my first day. I'm going to be giving you a brief summary on Manilla2D.

How many of us have been waiting for that really nice interface called TouchFlo3D to be ported from the HTC Diamond to our QVGA devices? herg62123 worked hard on trying to port the Manilla interface to QVGA, but it was not a functional version. But, just in time came TF2D. From HTC too! It was their version of TouchFlo that did not require as much memory and did not have the fancy 3D features of it's older brother. TF2D will be releasing with the new QVGA devices such as the Touch 3G and the HTC Opal/Jade. A leaked rom was found and as soon as it was found, Manilla2D was created. So for those of you with a QVGA device that are in search for a simple user-interface, go for TF2D. I'd like to thank HTC on a job well done.

Review:
Basic TF3D tabs if you know about TF3D
Has the basic Home, people, messages, mail, internet, pictures, music, settings, and programs. The tabs can be easily removed or moved via the Manilla2D Customizer created by mpenguin14. Found here:
>> Click here to download
Anyways, this version of TF comes with the analog clock. Personally, I prefer both clocks. To me it looks elegant and simple. It is also very skinnable. Very simple to use and smooth as butter. Goes nicely with every other Thumb-friendly app you have. I've used ThrottleLauncher and this is nowhere near as customizable as it was, but it is far more smooth. I have enabled SecondToday and use both. It might not be as smooth on low memory devices as it as a memory hog. It does not worry me as much since my Kaiser still has 41mb of memory left. The following are really the only downside I found to Manilla2D:
Memory hog
Needs a lot of programs to run (which take up memory also)
No animations (Thus why it's called TF2D)

I find that the smoothness of it makes up for these downsides. It may not be for you, but I suggest you give it a shot.

Grade: (0 to 5)
Looks: *****
Functionality: ****
Memory: **
Ease of install: **
Ease of skinning: ****

Well there's been a dilemma on my behalf. My laptop has finally given up on me (luckily I took a backup the night before - lucky!!) so I still have the data but my new laptop is on order but as alienware are slow building their laptops it's going to be a few weeks till I really can sort out the problems on this site. I can't work on desktops.

I have a new member of staff though, Veyka is a proud new member of this site's team!

I had started recoding the websites html and css to make it cross-compatible for all browsers and resolutions. I also plan to make the mobile website better. Also there will be a better submission system where i will add directly into the site, but they're will be security measures implemented as well.

I've noticed the comments system aren't being used much - so I plan on re-placing it, so it's seen by more people.

So look forward to some updates this month, and I hope you don't mind that we've added adverts into our site. It's to pay for the server!

Good day :)

Hello everyone, I just started helping out today!

My main aim is to get the site up-to date with all the fantastic skins out there :)

If you want to get into contact with me, you can find me on XDA Developers as Veyka, or email me at demidevil at gmail dot com!

Hi,

Today I noticed the RSS feed was a little bit... wonky. So I've done a few improvements. You now have a choice of 4... yes 4! RSS feeds, how kind am I?

If you use firfox (then you are sensible, and clever) then just click the little rss icon in the address bar and it will give you a choice of 4.

Alternatively here are the links:
>> http://feeds.feedburner.com/Touch-Innovation-Programs (Program updates)
>> http://feeds.feedburner.com/Touch-Innovation-News-Feed (News updates)
>> http://feeds.feedburner.com/Touch-Innovation-Skins (Skin updates)
>> http://feeds.feedburner.com/Touch-Innovation-News
(All updates)
Enjoy :)

Hi,

I have been working on the mobile site the past few days - it's not perfect, but for the moment it's good enough to use! If you are on your mobile, it will automatically redirect you to the mobile site when you are on http://www.touch-innovation.com. Alternatively you can go directly there (heck, set your home page to it ;) lol).

http://www.mobile.touch-innovation.com

It's a stripped down version of the current site, and is fast loading. Much faster than current! Woo... party!

Alright, alright, this is up to you folks! Soon here, I will be starting a series of video reviews for "Finger-Friendly" applications. The question is, what do you want to see? I will leave the application up to you! When you get chance, you can send an email to "staff@touch-innovation.com", or to me personally at "thechampjt@gmail.com." Hopefully, we can do a weekly review of the application of your choice!

Thanks!
TheChampJT
The Touch-Innovation Team

Sorry about the wait, it took longer than I expected, I had to fix some un-expected bugs.

Anyway, there is now a search feature, and comments system!!!! I hope you like it :) If you have any suggestions use our contact form.

The comments system are at the end of the program details page. Simply fill in the details (all the personal data is encrypted), and click submit. NO REGISTRATION needed!

We promise, we will not re-distribute your details.

Enjoy the new update :)

Hello all, Just wanted to introduce.. Myself "GODZSON". I shall also be here to give a helping hand, Thx to Nathan for the invite and everyone else here for their fellowship. I shall be posting up apps and skins so be on the look out..
Have a blessed day!

Well I promised you an update and that's what will be coming by the end of tonight (if everything goes to plan). It's major feature is it's comment feature. And there's alot of behind the scene changes. So that site will go down for about 10mins - but if everything goes to plan it should be flawless.

Another great peice of news, is we have TheChampJT on the team! He is adding a ton load of skins and a few programs here and there. So welcome him!

And my final piece of news is a good one... We will have some official content - unique to this site soon. Ather, the creator of a new SMS program (it's not out yet) has agreed to host it specifically on this site.
Preview of this program:



Well I hope you are all interested, and look forward to the new update.

Oh wait!!! I nearly forgot!
This website will have a MOBILE version, where the design is minimalistic and only has one image. Just make sure you have it on "full screen/desktop" otherwise the layout will mess up slightly. I will post more info on this when I release it :)

Keep watching this space!

Well it's been a hectic few days - I've been offered website jobs here and there, I've been coding the comments section for the website, making skins for applications and more.

Anyway, in my last news post I spoke about a new comments system with no captcha for news and programs. Well I've decided I am going to include captcha (purely because coding a system without captcha that can recognize spam is a lot of work). I also said I was going to release it in a few days. Well I've decided to release a "big" update, where comments will be included into news, skins and programs. But it will also include a lot of compatibility fixes (in IE6 this website is messed up).

If you've read this far - you must be bored, or maybe a teeny weeny bit interested, so I will explain a bit more about the new comments system.

The comments system will have an edit and delete feature - I originally was going to place a timer, and give you 5mins to edit or delete the comment due to security risks. But I've though of a clever but simple way of checking you are the original commenter, without you having to sign up or anything. I won't go into detail.

You should be seeing the update within the following week. The site (may or may not) go down, so be warned.

Anyway - back to coding...

WARNING: This is some seriously amazing stuff you are about to see. Please wear a hard hat.

Throttle Lock, doesn't it just sound... amazing ... no? Well you HAVE to give this program a go. This was released tonight, so it's new stuff and even though it's new its pretty much bug free. It's abit sluggish to load up, but the response time is amazing once it's running. It's so damn cool.

Instead of typing in your hexadecimal passwords (or number passwords) you just drag your finger in the right pattern to unlock it. It's great for security and also ease of use.
iPhone and touch had it sorted with their "cool" slide to unlock thingy ma bob, but this just puts it to shame.

As you can see it looks fairly cool, anyway you have to download it and try it out, credits go to APBilbo of course :)

>> Download Throttle Lock
>> View a video of this program

I've decided to implement a comments system, I'm thinking of the best way to do this - make it bot proof - without covering you with captcha images (I have some ideas)...

So expect a comments system for news and programs (not for skins yet) in the next few days!

Hey there,

I've had a few complaints here and there about the menu slide-down animation, so for the time being it has been disabled. If you want it re-enabled contact me - and I will review how many people want it, and decide whether to enable it again. After all, it is all about you

>> Contact us here
>> Alternatively contact us via our forums

Well as you may know A_C is a very busy man, he is constantly supplying us with free updates of him amazing free media player (Slide2Play), and every update he releases it gets better and better. For example the new release he has popped out his magic hat, has album flow - which is just like the Apple iPod touch's cover flow, and iPhone's etc. It also has better memory management etc.

However the album flow is cpu intensive so it may not run all that smooth if your cpu is under 200mhz.

Enjoy




>> Download Slide2Play
>> A_C's profile

Well I took it upon myself to make a few skins here and there for certain applications, and well, first on my list is SMS smiley - I spoke to the owner, and if I make a sexy skin that he likes he will include it in his skin! So I thought I'd show you all what my skin looks like "so far", it's not complete yet but it's coming along at a nice pace. I based it on the same colour scheme as this website, because I like this colour scheme yellow and black = hot! Hope you like it:


>> Post your opinions here

Hey again - been busy few days, mainly been sorting out the admin panel so it's easy for dev's and helpers to control the site.
So I've had no time to setup the forum properly... Anyway I've had a few people pester me to get it online - and that's what I've done.

I hope you use it :)

P.s don't forget if no one registers because there's not much going on, it will never grow!


>> Touch-innovations forum

The website is undergoing some code updated myself, as I'm coding straight into the website, and not via local - expect alot of errors, don't worry they will be fixed

In the mean time check my forum

The Windows Mobile interface has never been anything spectacular. Right out of the box the interface is usually boring, with a heavy reliance on the less than finger friendly start menu. Well, since this IS a site meant for finger friendly apps, we want something that doesn't have a large amount of overhead, we want it customizable, and we want to keep the stylus out of it!



Here is UL doing its best to impersonate an iPhone interface

Ultimate Launch fits this discription perfectly, although not without some work. After installing UL and activating the plugin, the first thing that pops up on the today screen are a few tabs, each with a few standard icons in them. In just this standard form, the plugin is not worth it's $15 price tag. Spend some time with it though, and it can be one of the best $15 you have spent on your mobile. My impressions of this plugin are viewed through a Verizon branded XV6700, overclocked to 624mhz.



User Synned's UL setup. You can see this tab has both the HTC-home plugin as well as icons.

UL at its simplest is just a set of tabs with content in each tab. The icons that represent each tab can be changed with any .ico file, and text labels can be added as well as the number of tabs. The content of each tab boils down to either shortcuts, or today plugins. It's also possible to have a combination of the two. Explained this way, UL doesn't sound like anything special, but the number of options and settings in this plugin is incredible. Any icon you see can be changed with a .ico file, options like the number of tabs, size of icons, margins, transitions between tabs, and even gestures can be used. The gestures was the thing that got me hooked. A swipe left or right transitions to the left or right tab, but can be changed to launch applications. A swipe down or up can be programmed to launch programs as well. The transitions between tabs use animations which can be selected from a menu of 6 options like slide, turn, cube and blend. For anyone familiar with Linux, the cube is strangely similar to a compiz cube. Also from the Authors site, programs can be downloaded that turn on and off various functions on the phone, as well as make a call. So an icon can be linked to make a call like to 'makecall.exe -phonenumber'. These can be downloaded from UL's site, which is http://www.ultimatelaunch.de/ Just look for SmartUtilities, which is a free download and a quick .Cab install.



A screenshop of the configuration screen of UL. There are a total of 8 tabs just to configure the basic of UL, plus separate screens for each tab you create.

So grab a cup of coffee and get to customizing, because that's really what Ultimate Launch is made for. Do you want an information crammed tab? Then take your favorite Battery Status plugin and HTC-Home and stick it in a tab, right next to your tab used for contacts, which is right next to all your system shortcuts. Move all the icons down to 24X24 to fit more in per tab, and you have yourself a jam packed setup. You can take as long as you want with the shareware version as well. The only downside to the shareware version is that every now and then 'NOT REGISTERED' will appear in the corners, but will not affect the functionality of the plugin.



Gestures launching programs? Eh, sure why not.

I did find some downsides to the plugin since I have had it. If you install the plugin into the storage card, when you reboot your device UL won't show up except for an odd icon. You need to either switch the plugin on and off from the settings menu, or long click on one of the visible tabs and select 'reload .ini'. Also, if you have a page full of icons, the transition animation from tab to tab can slow down. This is more your device though, and on my XV6700 I just had to change it from cube to something like slide even when I was overclocked to 624mhz. It also takes a second to load today plugins if they are in a tab and more complex than the messages or wireless plugins. Something like the HTC home plugin can sometimes slow down UL when switching to that tab. Having more plugins as tab content also increased the memory footprint. The configuration menus are also less than thumb friendly, but can be navigated without a stylus depending on how accurate you are. I personally broke out the stylus when I needed to configure the plugin.

There aren't many apps that I would recommend someone go and pay for, especially when there are so many apps on XDA that prove similar functionality. But the customization and the fact this plugin feels polished and does exactly when it needs to makes it a winner for me. If you are willing to spend some time before you plunk down $15 for it you might find you like it as well.

Today on xda, willmatic08 informed the forum that there is a new skyfire code which works!
Just go to Skyfire's website sign up and use this code:

SymGuru

If you have already used all your phone numbers, then you can simply follow mbarvian's instructions here

EDIT: It seems it's dead now - so anyone who isn't on my RSS feed lost out! Sorry guys, was good while it lasted!


>> Skyfire's website
>> View mbarvian's instructions
>> Credit too willmatic08

I stumbled across this sleek app by accident, totally irrelevant Google search - but it caught my eye, and the screenshot it provided made me want to download the same instant. So me, being me - I read their review they provided and decided it was worth a shot, so I downloaded it and installed onto my HTC Touch.

It's a really cool app, maybe a bit of a novelty but the interface is like vista and mac wangled togeather, it has the smooth interface of the mac and the glossy look of vista (best of both worlds!). Anyway I've provided a video - it's recorded at a crappy 3fps so the video does it NO justice, but it gives you an idea.
I plan on making a skin for this, so keep an eye on this page.

>> Click here for the video
>> Gsmart Touch download page

Hello there! This is my first review for the site, and I hope you enjoy it!

I'm going to be talking about PointUI. PointUI is an amazing shell for Windows Mobile, and it provides a complete shell for the touch screen and Smartphone phones.

We all know how much Windows Mobile lacks design and personal touch, and that's where PointUI comes in – changing the way you look at your mobile.

It is a unique design, and very unlike the iPhones interface (which is black and white - oh and black oh and a bit of blue here and there…). It weaves colour with style.


There's several different 'home' styles:

above, are the clock, the calendar, the weather panel (which automatically updates when you dock, amd you can set times during the day for it to update), the tasks and appointments panel


All the different home screens can be accessed by a swipe of a finger (left or right) and tapped on, to get more information. The 'dock' at the bottom of the screen is extremely useful as it displays 4 rather large icons to send you to recent calls, SMS, email and favourites.

The shell is incorporated everywhere apart from the SMS, and email interface. This is a shame, because I would personally love to see PointU'Is approach at an SMS interface, as I'm sure it would look absolutely amazing. I actually think they are secretly doing just that, because on their homepage they have announced different products (which I can’t wait to have a go at). Unfortunately, I’m almost certain that they will charge for these – and to be quite frank, I don’t blame them, since creating and maintaining a program like PointUI is very time consuming and costly! Another pointer is the fact that on their downloads page PointUI is hinting the fact that there might be a paid version coming soon due to the 'home, free' column.

Anyway you’ve just had some information which isn't totally relevant, but maybe it will interest you!

PointUI replaces every Windows interface, it eliminates the use for a start menu, incorporates its own today screen and organises your Windows Mobile. Everything is so much easier to get at:
flick your finger up to go up the list, and flick down, to go… wait for it… down!

Granted, it’s weird to begin with, but it’s different and straying away from the iPhone route. It takes some time to get used to but is very nice to navigate with. If you swipe your finger left or right on a folder, it will open the folder in a cube (or, if you have it enabled, slide) like fashion.

It even has its own (if not limited) task manager – which does draw you out of the PointUI interface, so you can close the program. Personally, I would have preferred this to have a hold down gesture, meaning you hold your thumb down on the application you want to close, and it gives you a list of options.

The memory footprint (how much memory it uses) is, (for me) 4.2mb. To be fair, this is a lot if you’re limited to 20mb of ram from start-up, or if you like to multi-task, but 4.2mb of ram is seriously worth it.

(Shh, don’t tell anyone – but my HTC Touch actually crashed when I tried to close PointUI. I doubt it had anything to do with the program though, as it's usually Active-Sync (which really lags my phone).)


Anyway after a quick reboot of my phone, I get back to work.

I haven’t mentioned that I’ve been using PointUI since they released their first version – and I have been on the ball watching their site with an eager eye ever since, anticipating a new version. Heck, I even contacted the admin and asked if I could design their site (they said no, though – they had a design already).

Oops, I keep going off-topic, at this rate we will be here all day… I’ve decided my phone needs a new ROM flashed to it, it’s really unstable at the moment…

PointUI comes with a volume changer, a locking device, battery status – which I would love to see them add a “remaining battery time”, instead of a percentage. And a settings panel:

I could go through every little detail of pointUI Home – But I think you can see now that it is indeed an amazing program and that you should download the latest version now

>> Download HERE
>> PointUI home page

Are you getting a bit bored of your today screen - is it the standard one with your HTC? If it is, there is nothing wrong with it as you know (the new diamond's today screen is very nice!) but either way, there's nothing wrong with putting a bit of spice or sexiness into it.

Anyway back onto topic, the BatteryStatus plugin for the today screen will supply you with everything you need. You can see everything from your CPU temperature, to the number of messages you've sent.
Another HUGE feature that is unique to this program is the overclocking part, you chose the MHZ and it will overclock, simple as that no faffing about with ram timings (like on a normal desktop computer) - just make sure you test it out for a bit to make sure it's ok. You're device is a touch away from being doubled in speed.
Note: I cannot be held responsible for any damages induced by overclocking!

The task manager feature is also very handy, for quickly closing applications that are eating your memory!


It also features a skinning engine (via xml) so it's relatively simple to design your own today screen.


All you need to do is either, make your own theme or use someone else's

>> BatteryStatus Theme's

>> Download Battery Status

I was recently browsing through my source's and someone informed me of the new release for Slide2play, a few bug fixes and what not.

Anyway, you may be thinking "what on earth is slide2play?", well it's the only media player that you need for your windows mobile. It has everything you need or could want in a media player for a hand held pc. Here's what I thought if it anyway:

So I installed it on my pc (a breeze, simply copying the cab over and running it), the windows installation interface took over... blah blah... anyway so i got it onto my phone really easily.

Anyway I went to my programs and looked for the little Slide2Play icon (it's called S2P on programs), tapped on that and watched it elegantly fade onto my screen:
Simple thumb gestures was all that it needed to change track or move up and down the list, or to change the volume you needed to slide your thumb left to right.

Listening and managing music couldn't be much easier.

The other part I liked was the built in music browser to search the whole phone for music.

I think what does it for me, is the fact it's so smooth and easy to use. And I'd definitely recommend this to anyone lucky enough to have a window mobile.

>> See Feature List
>> Download Slide2Play (S2U)

Hey there,

What is touch innovation? Simple, it's a website dedicated too supplying you with the best applications / programs for your windows mobile.

So chuck those stylus's in the bin and get ready to use your finger to control your phone!

Thanks - Oh and by the way, this website is working progress, tweaking it too how you want it!