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SPB Shell 3D finally on Market!

gemmydn

gemmydn

Member
:DYay, I have been waiting for this ever since I saw it. For those that don't know it is a home replacement. I downloaded it and it works great! No problems so far.
:p
 
Meh... It looks really cool, and is really smooth. However after test driving it for the last couple hours I've come to see that feature for feature, it's actually really lacking in functionality.

Not nearly as customizable as you initially think.
 
Looks like it may be nice but for $15 I'm good, maybe if they had a free trial and it was really worth it but with no way to take out for a test drive I'm going to stay away.
 
Thanks for the heads up on this one. I have been using their software for about three years and have been extremely satisfied with their products. Their support is great also - I emailed them a few times to see if they had their SPB Wallet for Windows Mobile 7 and they replied back within an hour. I still use the SPB Wallet actually on my local PC.

This actually might be what I am looking for to help customize the Home page and more.
 
This looks amazing. you can even rotate them? They have to make this for a free trial though.

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Ok, because of all the backlash it has been reduced to $5! Yipee!!!







//Scene 2: daydream ends//
 
If you want innovation then sometimes you have to be willing to pay for it. Now that WP7 is locked up like iphone, this is something that can only be done for Android.
 
ari-free said:
If you want innovation then sometimes you have to be willing to pay for it. Now that WP7 is locked up like iphone, this is something that can only be done for Android.
Click to expand...

I'm sorry, but I'm not spending $15 for an app that does nothing revolutionary over other free launchers. This isn't the iPhone, there is no reason to charge outrageous prices. Hell, there is a dev at XDA who is porting the ENTIRE WP7 UI to Android and even he's not going to charge $15 for it. I think SPB has priced themselves out of the ballpark for most Android users.
 
zerocool79346 said:
I'm sorry, but I'm not spending $15 for an app that does nothing revolutionary over other free launchers. This isn't the iPhone, there is no reason to charge outrageous prices. Hell, there is a dev at XDA who is porting the ENTIRE WP7 UI to Android and even he's not going to charge $15 for it. I think SPB has priced themselves out of the ballpark for most Android users.
Click to expand...

You can't compare baby blue and white icons to a UI done in opengl.

95003-windows-phone-7.jpg


vs

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What is the memory usage and the battery drain? These are two crucial things I would like to know before buying, but there is no demo and I am not willing to risk buying software I may not use that costs $15 for my phone. I'd risk it for $5 though, I think that for me is the acceptable premium phone app price.
 
Expensive, on the Market it shows <50 download and about 300 rates, so 250+ refunds. I'd buy it if it was under $5-8, they should realize they'd make way more sales at that price range.
 
braj said:
What is the memory usage and the battery drain? These are two crucial things I would like to know before buying, but there is no demo and I am not willing to risk buying software I may not use that costs $15 for my phone. I'd risk it for $5 though, I think that for me is the acceptable premium phone app price.
Click to expand...

Battery drain is too soon to say for me. I can say that with the phone off, Current widget is still giving me my normal 3ma. Phone on, 210 mA. I'll keep an eye on this for the next couple of days.

Running Memory, according to SystemPanel is 39.9M. Installed memory space = 14.62 megs. (No move to SD)

Oddly, I switched to Zeam a couple days ago 'cause I was getting upset at the constant refreshing of Widgets & items on my launcher every time I went to home. Zeam was quicker, if less features then LP, ADW.

I was a big Mobile Shell user, so I took the plunge. Amazingly, despite the major eye candy, this runs faster & smoother then all the others!

For the plusses, just look at the videos. I love the folders (app launching/favorite people), Weather, Calendar, recent calls. Dislike the look of the sms widget (not sure why it doesn't have the same look/feel as the others). I like that you can customize 3/4 of the buttons on the dock (not counting the middle carousel one), but dislike that their app draw one isn't replaceable (I'd use Organized Drawer instead).

You can add your own shortcuts & widgets, but no re-sizing options. You can have up to 16 screens. No ability to change rows/columns. Most importantly for me - no scrolling widget support. They have 16 of their own Widgets, but no RSS, no Twitter, and no Facebook ones. OH - no live wallpaper support either.

I'll have to read their manual to see what I'm missing, and I have a couple emails in to them already. Quite possible I'm missing many things.

So in short:

+ Eye Candy
+ Speed
+ Built In Widgets (ones they have are nice)
- No Scrolling Widget Support
- No Resizing Widgets/Rows/Columns
- Missing some important Widgets (to match theme of current ones)
- No Live Wallpaper

If they keep updating it with new features (like more Widgets) without waiting 6 months between updates, I'll consider it $ well spent.
 
ari-free said:
You can't compare baby blue and white icons to a UI done in opengl.

95003-windows-phone-7.jpg



vs

505.png
Click to expand...

I'm not talking about a launcher. I'm talking the entire Xbox and Zune integration built on top of Android code. It isn't a minor undertaking such as Metro UI or even Launcher 7, it is an extremely difficult and time consuming coding. I understand that SPB has definitely spent time (almost a year from what I've read) developing this, but I still believe they have priced themselves completely out of the market. I suppose time will tell.
 
zerocool79346 said:
I'm not talking about a launcher. I'm talking the entire Xbox and Zune integration built on top of Android code. It isn't a minor undertaking such as Metro UI or even Launcher 7, it is an extremely difficult and time consuming coding. I understand that SPB has definitely spent time (almost a year from what I've read) developing this, but I still believe they have priced themselves completely out of the market. I suppose time will tell.
Click to expand...

X Box integration? OK OK I'm listening...(not sure how they'd deal with the DRM/legal issues).
But you can't just say that there is nothing revolutionary over the other free launchers when this is clearly not the case. You may not want it, you may think it costs too much and is mostly flash but this is definitely something that is beyond anything else out there, technically as well as artistically.
If this was just a launcher that cloned launcher pro and charged even $1 more for it then I would agree that's ridiculous. But this is so much more and there are people who are willing to pay for this kind of stuff.

Another point that has to be made is that there is a price for popularity. If you are a small developer and have a $1 app and get millions of downloads, you'll have to deal with all their technical issues and customer support. That's impossible unless it's for a really simple game.
 
Good thing we have enough choice in Android launchers and widgets. :)
I hope SPB realizes their wrong pricing strategy. It is much better to sell your product with a low price and get acceptance in huge audience, rather than trying to sell it to a small number of users...:rolleyes:
 
Usta said:
Good thing we have enough choice in Android launchers and widgets. :)
I hope SPB realizes their wrong pricing strategy. It is much better to sell your product with a low price and get acceptance in huge audience, rather than trying to sell it to a small number of users...:rolleyes:
Click to expand...

Not always. It is hard for a small developer to have good customer support if many people are downloading the app because of the low price. This is a UI that people will use all the time so it may be one of those apps that really needs good customer support.
Maybe the price is truly messed up. But SPB has been around for quite some time (since 1999!) and this is the same price that the WinMo version had.
 
ari-free said:
Maybe the price is truly messed up. But SPB has been around for quite some time (since 1999!) and this is the same price that the WinMo version had.
Click to expand...
SPB may have been around for a long time, but times change.
The large price they charged to WM users was still OK in the old times.
The most WM users were business users that had also SPB Shell software paid by their companies. SPB also charged a high price for Symbian users and the result was that 9 out of 10 user had the cracked version of the application...

Android apps are mostly sold between $1 - $5, so this price is simply going to alienate potential customers (or worse, stimulate cracked apps use).
 
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