Introduction: The real estate market may not be hot these days, at least in the US, but the real estate on the today screen on any mobile device is always hot and precious. It is the place where we want to put the information that we need the most. There are so many today plug-ins and so little space on the today screen, selecting the best and most important can be a difficult and frustrating venture.

So, we all come up with our favorite tricks to grab back just a little extra Today screen space. I remember trying the hacks to remove shell tray (that was a little bit easy) and to remove the soft keys from the bottom of the today screen, when WM5 came out, to make more space to fit as many plug-ins as I could on the today screen.

And then there is PocketBreeze. PocketBreeze is a tab based today screen plug-in developed by SBSH Mobile Software, one of the leading mobile software developers. It is designed to replace the default today screen that comes with the device. More than just displaying your contacts, calendar and other PIM information, PocketBreeze can replace all other plug-ins on your today screen. The most recent upgrade to version V5.3, released on 7/29/2007, includes a plethora of new features, including integration of MyList, their brand new list manager application.

Installation: Installing the software is pretty simple. Download, un-zip and run the installation file. It is highly recommended that the software is installed on built-in storage.

During the installation process, the prgram will recognize whether you have any other PIM software installed. This allows Pocket Breeze to offer incredibly tight integration with Agenda Fusion,Pocket Informant, or any other PIM software (including the default outlook PIM)

General: PocketBreeze is very customizable and tab based, featuring tabs for - Calendar, Tasks, Notes, Contacts, Messages and Special Events. You can organize the tabs either vertically or horizontally.

Out of the box – the default settings work great, meaning you don’t have to touch a thing.  If you are into customization, however, (and most of us are) then there are many options that you can use to control the interaction between PocketBreeze and the today screen. For example, the calendar tab itself has over 50 options (8 tabs, with an average of 7 options for each tab) which you can adjust to satisfy your needs.  If you don’t like what happens when you click on any item, you just have to go to the settings and change its behavior.

You’re Always In Control

Of course, you may want to use other today plug-ins along with PocketBreeze. In that case, you will need to resize the plug-in. No problem, you can do that, or you can simply leave it to PocketBreeze to figure out the height. You can even enable other plug-ins as new, customizable PocketBreeze tabs if you wish.

As a developer myself, these customization variables really made me feel like I was always in control, not the developer who built the application. Don’t worry, you don’t need to be a developer or have an advanced degree in computer science because this is so easy to do.

In the new release, this customization is made even easier with new and improved settings pages. In previous versions, each of the options needed to be highlighted to see or set the value. But in the new version, they changed the layout and the interface looks clean and easy to change values, except the settings for the Calendar Tab.

PocketBreeze Tabs

Calendar Tab: Calendar tab is the main tab in PocketBreeze. Calendar entries for up to 30 days can be shown in the tab. This is a huge improvement from the default plug-in, which shows just one entry, the next appointment in the calendar. As I mentioned, you can completely configure this tab to fit your style.

Popup Calendar is one of the coolest features on the Calendar tab. It is not just a monthly calendar that pops up, but you can do several things with it. You can quickly go to other months, or refresh the calendar entries. You can also highlight a date span. When you tap and hold on the selection, a new popup menu is presented with different actions.

There is also an option to filter the calendar entries. The "All" button on the top indicates that there is no filter and all entries are displayed. When that "All" button is tapped, all the categories are displayed and any of the categories can be selected to apply that filter.

Another option that is available is the ability to change the reminders. You do not have to open the PIM application to change the reminder. When the small clock icon next to the appointment is tapped, the current reminder setup will be displayed. You can change the reminder from the today screen and save it.

Tasks Tab: This tab allows us to manage the tasks separately from appointments. Using settings, we can control how much data to show on the today screen. We can view, modify, sort and create task from today screen. Similar to Calendar Tab, reminders can be modified and saved from the today screen.

Tasks can be marked as complete by clicking the square next to the task. You can filter and sort using the categories. Tasks can be sorted using up to 3 sort levels. Agenda Fusion users can also sort by ABC/123 Sorting.

Messages Tab: This tab shows emails, SMS and MMS. Emails can be previewed, marked (read/unread) and tasks can be generated from the today screen. Emails can be previewed by pressing the D-Pad action button, which is very convenient. The preview window also enables to reply, reply all and forward the email. You can also control the way you want to mark the previewed emails.

Contacts Tab: Contacts tab shows all the contacts on the today screen. It is the easiest way to view contacts. This tab supports D-Pad navigation to browse thru the contacts and contacts can be previewed by D-Pad action button. D-Pad is also used to search the contracts from the bottom of the screen.

Since I use a Dell Axim, which has no phone, I do not use contacts and hence disabled this tab from PocketBreeze. I was not sure initially, if I could remove the default tab that came with PB. So, just launched the settings, browsed to Tab, and very happy to see the check box next to Contacts. A side note here is, the Calendar tab is not listed here. So, Calendar tab can not be de-selected from PocketBreeze.

Special Events Tab: Special Events tab is where all the birthdays and anniversaries are displayed. This information is automatically retrieved from contacts database. You can choose the date span to load, number of days to alert etc. Another option for Special Events tab is to add calendar entries from up to four categories.

Notes Tab: I saved this tab for last. This is the one tab where the new update (V5.3) has more focus. The Notes tab got a completely new design and new features. The main addition is the MyList integration. MyList is the new list manager application from SBSH, with nice and easy to use features.

With the new Notes tab, multiple file formats are supported.

We can easily select/un-select the types of files we want to see in the today plug in. Also, the other option is to select the folders that we need PB to scan to show the files in the today plug-in.

You can also add your own folders if you keep your notes/documents in other folders. New notes/documents/excel workbooks can be created directly from the today screen. On the title bar’s popup menu, the options are presented to create new notes.

And now to MyList integration. There are options to view, duplicate, copy, move, rename and even delete the lists created by MyList, directly from the today screen. No need to open the MyList application. (check here for MyList review by TJChan)

Custom Tabs: Earlier in the review I mentioned that there is no need to have any other today plug on the today screen. The reason for that is the ability of PocketBreeze  to have custom tabs. You can add as many today plug-in as you need as custom tabs and PocketBreeze displays them as any other regular tab.

One thing that I noticed with the custom tabs is, when trying to add a custom tab to PocketBreeze, that is already enabled on the today screen, PB does not prompt that the particular plug-in is enabled on the today screen.

Other Thoughts: Another cool feature of this app is – skinning. There are so many skins available in their forums, PB can be skinned to the liking of just about anybody. And talking about the forums, SBSH Forums are one of the most active forums I have found. And participation of the developers in the forums, responding to all user posts, with in no time - the best customer support.

Conclusion: PocketBreeze is a very well designed and superbly implemented today plug-in. The ability to show 30days worth of appointments, tasks, contacts, notes and emails on that tiny today screen is not an easy task to accomplish. The folks at SBSH did a great job of putting everything together in this application. The ease of customization, support for D-Pad navigation, search feature on the tabs, tight integration with AgendaFusion, PocketInformant and their very own MyList makes this application even more attractive. Achieving some of the PIM tasks like changing reminders, viewing associated notes and e-mail preview from today screen makes this plug-in worth every penny (and more).

You can buy SBSH PocketBreeze from SBSH for $19.95 or from JAMM Store for $12.99 (until 9/5).

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