Having come from a Dell Axim x51 and a Sony Ericsson k750, my HTC TyTN Windows Mobile 6 Professional device was quite a change. I no longer had a number pad to activate silent mode during meetings or a big lecture, and the phone-related information was always all over the place. As a reviewer, I usually try to do a bit of a comparison between similar products so that readers can get the biggest picture possible. Unfortunately, in this case, while I do have knowledge of PhoneAlarm and the JAMM’s SPB Phone Suite review, I just haven’t had any experience with these kinds of programs.

All I’ve known thus far is the HTC Comm Manager that came with my device — but then I was offered the chance to review the newly released SBSH PhoneWeaver 1.2. Just looking at the product page, anyone can see that this thing is chock full of features to help you manage your Windows Mobile device like a real phone. It sounds simple, but it’s something the operating system has been sorely lacking.

Can you finally make your WM device operate like a decent phone with PhoneWeaver 1.2?

Slam the link below to find out (clicking harder makes pages load faster)!

Installation

Since PhoneWeaver is part today-plugin and part background application (it’s always running, so as to trigger profiles instantaneously), I’d highly recommend a Main Memory installation. As per all SBSH applications, you can get an .exe or a .cab off of the downloads page. One thing that surprised me right off the bat was how little storage space PhoneWeaver takes up: under 300 KB. I also haven’t noticed any major decrease in RAM, and I believe the program with the today plugin on should take up less than a megabyte. Good stuff.

Profile Manager

Profiles are the beating heart of the program. SBSH says you’re limited to 100 profiles. I currently use a whopping total of five. But regardless of the number, each profile is tied to one of these four triggers:

• Agenda — ex. trigger silent mode every time you have a meeting on your calendar, or even more specifically, a meeting that’s categorized under "school" or "business" in outlook.
• Manual — simple enough. Turns on when you tell it to. It can also set to last for only ‘x’ number of minutes.
• Time — My most used one: activates profiles based on the time of day. It’s very flexible and very powerful, and I use it to simulate the agenda trigger for my classes (more on that in a moment).
• Power — activates profiles upon an Activesync or AC connection, or both. Useful for situations where you want to maximize backlight and turn off wifi when connected to Activesync.

Once you choose a trigger type in the Profiles tab (shown above), there are four other tabs to customize:

Sounds — Configure goodies like volume, ringtone, and even the vibrating options.

Comm. — Manage the wireless radios and the data connection for each profile.

Backlight — Let there be backlight…settings!

Other — As the checkboxes say, you can specify the orientation during the profile, as well as the choice to call up any file or program upon changing to the profile. There’s even a small command line parameter below execute, but I always get confused by command lines and rely on direct quotes in forums to use them. This could be used for loading up WisbarAdvance functions or targeting Pocket Informant Utilities upon profile activation. As a small side note, I just saw on the SBSH forums that "launching on profile exit" has been added to the wish list. This should definitely open up even more possibilities in the future!

A new feature in this version is the ability to add an icon to each profile. This icon will show up on the today screen plugin or in the system tray, should you choose to let PhoneWeaver place itself there. This makes it easier for you to see, at a glance, which profile you’re using.

As a quick example of how users can define the phone’s behaviour, let’s take a look at my day. I get up in the morning and go to class, but it’s really easy to forget to turn the device to silent mode. What can I do?

1. I can make a manual profile and activate it from a pop-up menu or the today screen. The phone then turns to vibrate mode for ‘x’ amount of time, or until I switch it to another profile.
2. I can schedule all my classes as recurring events in my calendar program and categorize them under ‘school’. I then make an agenda-based profile in PhoneWeaver to turn the phone to vibrate mode whenever my calendar says I’m in a class. The problem with this solution for me is that I end up with a lot of clutter on the calendar (I don’t need to see each of my classes on my calendar, I go to them everyday!)
3. This is my optimal setup. I have it set up is to trigger time profiles (Day and Class Timed) to make sure that my device is always on vibrate mode five minutes before 9 AM. I then re-activate my Day profile 5 minutes after 12, when class ends. Easy peezy lemon squeezy.

Today Plugin

Useful as a quick switch for wireless radios, as well as a quick place to tap and change profiles (just tap on the name of the profile). The newest version adds counters for new phone notifications. You can pick which buttons or counters you want to keep on your today screen, if any. The icons are also fully skinnable, and I’d recommend the SBSH forums for those looking for more designs.

The plugin also supports square (240×240) and VGA (640×480) resolution screens.

These days I try to keep my today screen as clean as humanly possible. I’ve found that a more crowded today screen (even a good looking one running Pocketbreeze and iLauncher, or setups like that) just shows me too much information for me to really appreciate at any given moment. That’s why I like PhoneWeaver’s plugin: it takes up very little RAM and space, and it shows as much or as little as you want it to. It even works in landscape! The buttons for the radios (the orange smartphone icon in my screenshot, that’s the Phone radio button) can be set to large thumb-friendly sizes or stay small like the counters. The four small counters (icons with the 0′s beside them, shown right) are for new SMS, Email, Voicemail, or Missed Calls. They’re a great new feature of version 1.2, but I wish that SBSH had allowed me to customize their size as well. I’d really enjoy using the today plugin purely for information and leave it to the pop-up menu (covered below) for toggling the radios.

Pop-up Menu Mode

A very useful pop-up menu that’s essentially the today plugin in list form. It can be summoned from a system tray icon or mapped to a hardware button and opened from anywhere. Like the today plugin, you can use it to switch profiles and toggle your wireless radios.

You’ll also notice two extra items I haven’t mentioned earlier in this review: Phone Weaver Auto and Lock Profile. They’re both available on the today plugin, but are much easier to access in the Menu.

The Auto mode tells PhoneWeaver to go back into auto-pilot mode and activate profiles during the times they should be triggered. A bit of a mouthful? Let’s say I catch a quick break during 9-12, which is when I have my "Class timed’ profile scheduled, which sets my device to silent mode. I want to listen to music, so I summon the pop-up menu and tap on "Day" (my regular sound profile) activate it. I listen to music for a few minutes and then have to get back to class for whatever reason (*sob*), but I forget which profile I’m supposed to be on during this time of day. Enter the dragon — I mean, the Auto button. Upon tapping it, PhoneWeaver sets the current profile to "Class timed" because the time is still between 9-12, which is when it’s scheduled to go off.

The Lock Profile mode locks the active profile until you unlock it again (what, were you expecting another big paragraph?!).

I love the Pop-up Menu. It’s something I wish I’d known about from the moment I first bought my TyTN because I find it ridiculously useful. I replaced my comm manager button with this menu on my HTC TyTN and I’m not going back!

Command-Line Support

One other way for power users to interact with PhoneWeaver in this new version is the command line support. This is different from the similar feature I talked about in the profile management section, but instead of targeting outside programs, this feature allows you to target PhoneWeaver’s commands for execution. For example, you can now target "\Windows\PhWeaver.exe 500" to activate the Auto mode. You could put this line into a program like Mortscript or map it to another plugin like iLauncher. A list of command line possibilities is in this release post.

Weaver Winner!

Let’s not mince words: I highly recommend PhoneWeaver 1.2. I mentioned some other solutions just before the jump, but I can really only attest to this one as being top shelf! SBSH has created a fantastic, highly customizable program that leaves very little more for this reviewer to desire (I’d just like those bigger counters, please!). You really can weave that dream phone experience with PhoneWeaver!

Product Info:

Name: SBSH PhoneWeaver

Version: 1.2

Price: $14.95

Availability: SBSH, JAMM Store (33% until Jan 24)

Supported OS: WM 2003 Second Edition, WM5/6

Technorati Tags: SBSH,PhoneWeaver