Ok, So I’ve had Winterface for a few weeks now installed on my Tilt, in that time I’ve  started to write this review a couple times, but since I’ve gotten it Vito Technology, the company that makes it has sent me two more updates, so I had to postpone the review a bit.

I started out with version 1.0, then got v1.01, now I’ve got v1.02 running on my cellphone.

A few changes have been made to the interface or Winterface since the initial release, mainly tweaks with the first version, then finally with v1.02 they added two new icons actually, a Network name/strength icon and a Bluetooth on/off icon.

The problems that were mentioned before are mostly not there anymore with the revisions, but the bug with the Battery icon leading to ’sliding sounds’ is still there, that is an HTC TyTn II / ATT Tilt specific problem and I am working with them to fix it. They sent me a little program that analyzes what’s going on when I access the interface and spit out a file or report for me to send to them. The other small thing is not a problem but more of a preference, you still cannot wrap around with the interface, in other words at the home screen you cannot go left, only right and then back again, it won’t wrap around to the last page. With that in mind let’s continue on to the actual review, I’ve got a bunch of screen shots for you and a couple videos as well…

The Interface:

First up here’s my Today screen on my Tilt:

It’s your basic modified today screen with a bit of customization by me with my company/website logo set as the background. Winterface itself is just like any other program you transfer it to your phone and install it very easily, no problems there at all. Updating Winterface with the new version is easy as well, just transfer it to your phone and run it, it will uninstall the old version automatically and install the new version keeping your registration information intact so you won’t have to re-register Winterface, this is a nice feature actually, some programs make you re-register the software, re-enter your key etc.

To run Winterface you just find it in your programs folder and tap it to start, to start the actual interface though you have to draw a semi-circle or arc across your screen. You can minimize the interface as well and to re-start the application you can draw the same arc across your today screen, but if you don’t get it right you’ll end up opening something else… so it’s easier to open Winterface just by hitting your task manager from the Today screen really, or at least for me it is….

Once running you’re greeted with a bunch of icons as your today screen, mine is actually three screens now that you scroll through with left-right motions of your finger, I’ve had up to four pages and I don’t think there is a limit to the amount of pages you can have.

You can see the addition of the new icons since the first release, the network icon which does show your signal status in bars and the Bluetooth icon, which leads to Bluetooth settings on your phone, the icon will indicate the status of your Bluetooth as well, either on or off. The gray icons you see are the standard or default icons for Winterface, these cannot be changed as far as I know, though it would be nice if you could change them.

If you miss any phone calls a small number will appear on the Phone icon in a red circle so at a glance you can easily see if you’ve missed any calls.

The profile icon or ‘bell’ takes you to you ringer profiles, here you can quickly change your settings to Ring, Vibrate or Silent. Simple, easy to do, and handy, I know many people change their profiles often and some even re-program buttons to do this for them.

Clicking the menu icon takes you to the a menu (imagine  that right?), on this menu you have a bar across the top with ‘i’ for information, ‘?’ for Help and the maximize and close icons/buttons as well.  Clicking the ‘i’ gives you version information about Winterface and your license status.

The ‘Applications’ and ‘Settings’ buttons on the menu allow you to add more icons to your ‘desktop’ or phone screen. To do this you just need to tap them and a check mark will appear next to the item to confirm, then you just click the checkmark at the bottom of the screen to add them to your phone. The icons you select are added to the last page you have, this is actually nice because it doesn’t interfere with how you have your icons laid out.

The ‘Contacts’ menu button works the same way, just check who you want to add and  it will create an icon on your home screens  to  make it so you can easily and quickly call certain people or businesses. You could make just one page in the interface for you contacts to make life easier instead of having to go to the contacts in your phonebook to call someone.

Winterface does support many languages, and you can easily select the language from the menu as well. I did ask why they didn’t just make language specific versions instead of including every language in the setup file, and they told me that the language files are small in total less than 1mb. The only reason I asked about it was because space can be a limitation of some peoples devices, and the smaller the program is the better in my opinion.

The Winterface interface is very easily configured as well, all you have to do is tap and hold the screen for a few seconds and all of the icons will shake or quiver and a small ‘X’ will appear on them. Clicking the X of course will remove the icon from your screen. To move the icons around you just need to tap and hold on one of them for a couple seconds, then you can drag it anywhere you wish to on the screen or even move it to another of the screens you have enabled in Winterface.

I’ve got two videos for you, the first I used ‘MyMobiler’ to record the action onscreen, but MyMobiler seems to have lag and really doesn’t show the interface as it should, in real life the interface is much faster than through MyMobiler software, but it does sort of give us a clearer picture than using my video camera.

The second video is a sort of mini review done by me, it’s a little over 2 minutes long and I try and explain everything that Winterface does for you.

So if we go back to my update on Winterface from the 11th of July, did the new update address any of these problems? The answer is both Yes and No.

Caller id: Caller id works now on incoming call, it opens the standard caller id pop up on the phone.

Incoming call says incoming voicemail: Incoming call does say incoming call now.

Phone lock: I actually got accustomed to pushing the power button to lock the phone, but I still would like to have the option of the onscreen lock as well

Phone Lock Icon leads to password settings: it still does that…

Sometimes when phone is locked, I have to ’slide to unlock’ and still use the standard unlock phone buttons:  it doesn’t seem to do that anymore, or at least not as often, it seems to do that only after a long period of time where the phone goes to sleep as it were.

Battery icon goes to ‘Sliding sounds’:  yes it still does that, but I mentioned that is Phone Specific and we are working on a solution to the problem.

Contacts not listing full names: yes they list full names now

It would also be nice to be able to customize the background screen, I would like to be able to use my own image for the background instead of basic black, while it does look nice, it’s not very personable…

As of now the version 1.02 is a nice improvement over v1.0, it addresses some of the problems and adds more functionality as well. Of course though this is still relatively new software, they’ve introduced two updates to the interface since July 11th when I first got it, so it seems they are actively addressing problems and working to fix them. They’ve told me that a new version will be out next month with many more updates and improvements as well, so I’ll be sure to report on those changes as well.

If I had to give Winterface a score, and taking all things into consideration, especially their support and quick fixes/updates, it would be a 4 1/2 out of 5 rating, with a Recommendation Tag as well.  Winterface is new but it is shaping up to be a great product really, in the span of a few weeks it has vastly improved

Winterface works well, it’s fun, and it really does add ease of use and functionality to your phone.

On a side note, or personal opinion though, Winterface makes your phone look like an iPhone.. if I wanted an iPhone then I would have gotten an iPhone.

Then again the iPhone is very popular and many people do like the interface, how it looks and how it works. So this could be a nice little program for people who want something similar to the iPhone interface on their own phones.

Personally I like the HTC Home Screen style setup, it works for me and works well, I like to be different. Winterface can be useful for me though, but my main interface will be the standard HTC Style Today Screen for some time to come.

When Vito Technology works all of the bugs out and adds the ability to customize the screens though, Winterface could become the main interface with my phone.

I would like to thank Vito Technology for the chance to review Winterface and for their support of TiltSite.

Posted by Kristofer | Filed under: Accessories, Plugins, Software, Tilt, TiltSite Reviews

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