projectz me

I’ve been trying to find the replacement Android shell on my Samsung Galaxy S and i think i may have found it.

I’ve installed over the past few months I’ve given ADW, LauncherPRO, Zeam, GoLauncher and OpenHome a go and out of all these ADW EX was the one i’ve used the most for my Desktop on the phone until today.

Today i downloaded and installed SPB Shell 3D onto the SGS and this is the one, this is the launcher which everyone should be using on the Android Phones..

On first launch the SPB Shell looks much like the others i have mentioned above, albeit just a little more glossy. However one press of the home button and you get a look at what you are dealing with here. 

The available screens pop out to a touch sensitive carousel which on the SGS is VERY responsive and quickly displays the selected screens.

I’m not sure how, the screen does seem to also be VERY vibrant. 

While in the desktop chooser the ability to add extra screens is well designed using again as expected a nice slick flick and pull screen adding system (See video, its too difficult to explain, but is intuitive)

I had a fair number of desktops running with no obvious slow down on the system.

What is also interesting is the level of polish on the system which is reflective, and as a whole so far i am reminded of the first time i saw Compiz Fusion running on Sabayon Linux, the firs time i saw the Wobbly Windows etc implemented correctly within KDE. Slick.

On the Desktop itself Icons can be added as expected, however as well as adding icons to the desktop, SPB makes very interesting use of the folder system. Which allows icons or shortcuts to be added within the folder.

SPB also comes with additional Widgets, so i now have Android Widgets, Orange Widgets and SPB Widgets. However the SPB widgets do show what can be done with Android systems just to add some extra slick to it. As an example the World Clock displays 3 timezones on it, however clicking on the globe on the Widget brings out a 3D globe with the 3 timezones pinted on that globe. Slick.

This is how Android is supposed to be, and takes it to the next level past the now rather flat IOS systems. 

And at no point am i suffering slowdown on a phone design which is well over a year old.

The system comes with a good breadth of preloaded widgets and using them on multiple screens as expected.

Each of these potentially has customizations which can be applied to it

Within the apps list screen, which is a vertical up down scrolling screen, quick, and reactive, another nice twist is the apps which you have already installed on the desktop have a little pointer stating the fact the app is being used on the desktop.

Now this isn’t free, and it appears its available for other phone OS’s too, however i belive this is the way forward for Android, a true next step for interfaces on large screens and its going to be interesting to see what the SPB team do with a Tablet/Honeycomb interface. If google choose manufacturers to make key phones for them, i honestly belive they may need to be in touch with these guys to make a signature OS for them.

Not without its faults, the version i’m using doesn’t allow Live Wallpapers, however i’m not that gutted about that.It will come with time..

Well done, great job.

Read More:

• http://spb.com/products/mobileshell/
• http://androidcommunity.com/spb-mobile-shell-3d-ui-for-android-hands-on-20110224/

Video Reviews: