Review: Fizz Traveller 3 Puts the World in Your Hand

Posted by: weiganla on Jan 27 2008 - 3,861 views

Traveling since the "liquid bomb" scare has been a pain in the neck. Just when I didn’t think airport security could be more aggravating, they manage to surprise me. Really, my minty fresh toothpaste is a threat to national security unless it’s inside a Baggie? Maybe I should just stay home and buy stock in Ziploc.

Looking at the freshly released Fizz Traveller 3 for this review has almost made me want to take a trip, and given how much I hate flying now, that’s saying something.

Anyone who does much traveling knows how difficult it is to keep all the information you need straight when you’re jumping between time zones, currencies, and all the items on your busy itinerary. On top of that, you have to keep up with airport delays and the weather wherever you happen to be at the moment. Fizz Traveller does all of this and more. From international dialing codes to packing lists, almost every tool a traveler could need is included in a package that’s not only functional but attractive and fun to use.

Warning to those who like long reviews: buckle up, you’re in for a ride!

Traveller includes a Today plug-in, world time and planner, weather and maps, alarms and stopwatches, travel information, and conversion tools. Even saying that doesn’t give a full picture of everything Traveller does, but we have to start somewhere. First, you have to get the program on your device.

Getting Started

Traveller installs in the usual way, an .exe file that uses ActiveSync. A CAB file is also available. The program takes up about 6K of storage space and is running without a hitch from my SD card. The free trial lasts for a brief three days, which seems even shorter after you get an idea of everything this program can do.

When you launch Traveller for the first time, a setup wizard prompts you for your local city.

 

Finishing the wizard brings you to an attractive welcome screen. You can’t tell from the screenshot, but the highlighted icon in the right-hand banner gets a tasteful, subtly flashing background. I love Traveller’s graphics, which contribute in a big way to its "fun of use".

As you can see, everything here is finger-friendly. Ever since the launch of the iPhone finger-friendly applications have been trendy, and Traveller is one of the most successful established programs to switch to a finger-friendly interface while keeping all its functionality. In other words, Fizz didn’t just make a few buttons bigger; they rethought the entire interface and came up with a winner.

From here, you can activate your product, add more cities, and access the settings. I suggest you take a look at the General Settings, where you set language, units, and even which part of Traveller shows up when you start the program.

 

One of my few quibbles with the software is that I wish a "units: metric or English" option had been in the setup wizard so it would take no extra effort to find that setting. Even better, the program could determine from your local city what units you are likely to want — OK, I think I hear the Fizz programmers yelling and pulling out their hair, so we’ll leave that on my marginally unrealistic wishlist.

So with only a couple of settings to select, Traveller is ready to go.

Now Screen

The Now Screen is the heart of Traveller, where all of your most useful information is collected in one spot. It includes an analog clock, calendar set to your local city, weather for all your cities, and your alarms. The calendar and "Time Now" for alarms are both pegged to your local city. The city shown on the analog clock is whichever one is selected in the weather panel.

  

 

There are a few nifty "hidden features" in the Now Screen, and I bet there are more that I haven’t found scattered through the program. For example, tapping a day in the calendar automatically opens Pocket Outlook’s calendar for that day (unfortunately, this is true even if you have another PIM set as default. I’ve mentioned this to the devs). Tap and hold on the weather box can zip you straight to the full weather feature. Also, tapping the analog clock makes it go fullscreen into screensaver-suitable beauty, which can be even more fun if you play with the themes to get your favorite look — more on that later.

International

Tapping services takes you back to the main screen, where, playing with the pretty icons in the right-hand ribbon, the cute little globe gives you access to Traveller’s international functions: Worldtime, Meetings, Dialcodes, Daylight, and MoonPhase.

These are most useful if you have some international cities set up. I’ve added Sydney:

Worldtime is an at-a-glance view of the time in all of your cities. I’m a lightweight so I just have two.

Meetings lets you translate a given time in your city to the ungodly hour your colleagues would be talking to you from. It’s even easy to see if your business days overlap. With Traveller, you won’t be "that person" who sets up a conference call with the big clients at 3am their time.

 

Dialcodes is reasonably self-explanatory: it’s a list of…dial codes, because international phone calls are a beast. Daylight is a pretty world map with your cities highlighted, also self-explanatory. I’m not really sure why MoonPhase is included here, but I think it’s kind of awesome. Especially for all the businesswerewolves among us.

Weather

The weather options on Traveller are robust enough to satisfy all but the most fanatical sky-watchers. Since obtaining Traveller, I’ve uninstalled my previous freeware weather program — Traveller does almost as much as the dedicated weather program, and it’s a lot more fun to use.

Forecasts come in 2-day and 7-day flavors, with current conditions displayed at the bottom. Selecting one of the icons makes details for that time frame display at the top. It’s a very space-efficient way to pack in a lot of information.

Maps include, by default, forecast, satellite, and radar pictures. There’s also a user-defined option so you can select your favorite weather url or webcam to feed into Traveller. Zoom and drag functions are available through Menu and work well. Although the screenshot is obviously a freeze-frame, satellite and radar images are played as a several-hour loop that runs smoothly.

I’m not sure how accurate Airport is about predicting delays, since I haven’t had enough experience with it. I also don’t know how well it accounts for holiday traffic because there’s not a lot going on at the end of January. However, if it turns out to be as trustworthy as the rest of Traveller, this is one cool feature.

The other major feature people expect in a weather app is a Today plug-in, and yeah, Traveller has that too. The plug-in can display either a simple time-and-forecast or a more in-depth tabbed view that is basically the Now Screen on your Today screen. Both handle cycling through your cities, provide an easy way to launch Traveller, and look good while doing it.

  

With all of these features, Traveller removes the need for a separate weather program for most users.

Alarms & Counters

I’ve already uninstalled my weather program. Traveller also made me seriously think about cutting loose Spb Time.

We’ve already had a look at alarms in the Now Screen, which is great for setting up a one-time reminder. However, Traveller can handle more advanced needs, too.

The other two functions in this category, Stopwatch and Counter (really countdown) are essentially what you would expect. Stopwatch counts up from zero and supports lap times. Counter can hold up to four countdown intervals that you specify, suitable for everything from regulating your power nap to getting your spaghetti al dente. Traveller keeps your device from going to sleep while these functions are running.

Travel Information

Hang in there, we’re nearly done! It’s not my fault Fizz packed so much stuff into one little program. By now you may be wondering if Traveller does anything to help you with actual traveling. Oh, ye of little faith. Of course it does!

Airports is a simple A-to-Zed listing of airports, sortable by either name or three-letter code. Itinerary is a handy place to store all of the details about upcoming trips, including flight times, confirmation numbers, hotel and rental car information, and so on. I used to put most of this in my calendar program, but Traveller makes inputting all that data much easier. You can view your Pocket Outlook calendar and make new appointments using links from Traveller, but I would like to see even stronger calendar integration so I can directly export my itinerary to my PIM of choice.

Packing is basically a list program with several pre-programmed templates for different kinds of trips. While this is a nice idea, as the program is currently, I do not have enough control over editing the template items to make Packing as much of a time saver as it should be. Once a list is set up, though, using it to mark off or flag items is easy.

I’ve left Flights until the end of this section because it is the only feature in Traveller that you have to pay extra for. Ten flight requests are included, but beyond that you’re on your own to the tune of $4.95 per quarter. It delivers real-time information on ETA, delays, even gate and baggage claim numbers.

Conversions

Traveller’s conversion tables are thorough and easy to use. Simply adjusting a number in one line converts it to the corresponding values in all the others. The only exceptions are clothing sizes, which are just tables, and currency, which should be updated to the latest exchange rates for accurate values. (Darn but the dollar is weak.)

And finally, that’s all the features. Almost.

Personalization and Other Random Stuff

Remember the Settings screen from way back at the beginning of the review? I can’t close without discussing the many ways you can make Traveller yours. The great thing is that the default settings will be fine for the majority of users, but if you’ve read this far you may want to know about some of the tweaks.

This is the place you set the options for the Today plug-in, which are naturally more detailed than picking a skin. How fast do you want the cities to rotate? Do you want to see the day or the date? How tall do you want your plug-in? I really like the preview that lets you see the effects of your changes right there.

Also, this is where you schedule updates and tell Traveller what it should download each time it updates. Updating can be done either through a wireless connection or when docked, using ActiveSync.

      

Have you noticed how most of my screenshots have had dark blue backgrounds but a few have been teal? That’s because, in the default skin, Traveller unobtrusively coordinates itself to your Today theme. On the other hand, if you want loud, you can go loud.

Hmm, I may have to keep that. Anyway, Traveller comes with a nice selection of skins but only two clocks. Those in the know can up their clock options to eight by going here. Between changing skin, clock, text color, and accent color, there are tons of ways to make Traveller’s look fit your personality. It’s easy, too — no more of this downloading and installing skins business, and no awkward, hidden checklist to deal with.

Conclusion

Traveller is one of the most impressive programs I have looked at in terms of feature list, visual style, and ease of interaction. If there’s ever an action you think would be nice to perform, just tap the Menu softkey and chances are good that it will be there. Navigation through the program makes sense, and I like the way Fizz has used the concept of tabs to organize most of their pages. Traveller isn’t perfect — I’d really like improved calendar integration, and the Packing tool doesn’t seem to be quite mature — but it’s pretty fabulous.

Word on the street is Traveller 4 will add a GPS navigation program and maps, including bus, subway, and rickshaw routes for all major cities. Kidding! Seriously, though, it seems like that’s about all Traveller doesn’t have. At this rate Traveller 5 may shave you and start your morning coffee.

Maybe it’s the gorgeous graphics and superbly designed user interface, or maybe it’s because Traveller is a Swiss Army knife of a program that combines half a dozen very useful tools into a user-friendly and well-integrated package. Either way, Traveller will be staying on my device for a long time.

Vital Stats

Fizz Traveller 3.0 is available for touchscreen and non-touchscreen Windows Mobile devices. Price is $29.95, which is very fair given the feature list. Additionally, Fizz is offering a 15% discount on their site to celebrate the launch. You can pick up Traveller from Fizz or here at the JAMM store.

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