Ok more in-depth first look with own screenshots!
The Now screen
I think this is the core of the app. Makes looking at the phone a pleasure when take it out of your pocket. It is not perfect though... here's some good and bad things.
* Not very customizable. The app is designed so that if you have a device with a square screen it will not allow you to display appointments as in 240x320 devices. I would prefer to have the ability to resize the HUGE clock and have more things avaialble on the Now screen.
* SMS and E-mail indicator take you to POutlook (from what I've read). If you use a third party PIM or Messaging app, you are out of luck... for now.
* No memory meter, only battery.
* Clicking on the clock or weather icon will bring you to the time or weather tab, respectively, on the Spb Shell Today plugin.
* Soft keys are remapped to Close (Now screen) and Spb Menu.
This is what my Today screen looks at the moment, yes it's crowded, but bear with me... it's for testing purposes.
As you can see you can keep your Today screen the same, you can disable the tabs (Spb Mobile Shell Today Plugin) or pin a tab. You can also choose to have them automatically minimized, like I do.
The tabs are 'live' tabs. The battery is an actual battery meter, the weather tab will actually show the corresponding forecast icon (although I noticed there are no moons, it's 11 PM and it shows a sun!), the Time tab shows the actual time on the clock, etc.
Unfortunately... there's no way to resize the tabs! You are stuck with them being huge, for now, and we all now real state is scarce on our screens.
The Home tab.
Now... did you see that??? I think it is awesome that these tabs are kinda 'virtual'. It covered my iLauncher and TodayAgenda to display the content of the tab instead of creating the dreaded scroll bar. And if I close the tab, my info it's still there... it basically just covers it while in-use. I love that feature.
So the bad with this tab...
* It basically displays the last apps you used. You can pin shortcuts, but it's annoying to modify since you cannot drag icons... or I haven't been able to figure it out.
* Also, so far... no way to change the size of icons and removing/adding icons. So you are stuck with 2 rows.
* BTW, the light bulb on the upper-left is a slider for screen brightness. You can choose not to display it on the Settings screen.
The Weather Tab.
Very basic unless you have Spb Weather. Which most of us here don't since we use WP. The stripped down version includes what you see... today info, and 3-day forecast.
Easy to change from F to C degrees, but only support for 1 city. Setting the city is not very intuitive, it is not done from the settings screen but you have to access the tab and hold down your finger/stylus.
The Time Tab.
Stripped down version of Spb Time, you'd get more features if you purchase the full version. Once again, what you see if what you get. It displays times for 3 cities and the next alarm.
You will see on my next screenshot that the 4th tab was changed... I did that on purpose to discuss something shortly. However, on the screenshots above it shows the Dial Tab which works as a Photo Dialer, basically what Treo 700 series users already have but a nice add for other users.
Replacing tabs.
Another thing I'd also like to see is being able to have more than 1 plugin per tab. As of now, see screenshot, you can have any plugin you want on a tab... but only 1. So having WP and WP-Pilot is out of the question... although someone may have found a way to still have them work together when tabbed. More on that after I test it.
Custom Tab.
On this tab I replaced the dialer for the Web Search plugin. Very cool, just as adding plugins to PocketBreeze for example. You can also customize the icon for the tab from a list given to you, it's be nice to be able to add your own icons. I haven't really tried to do this, so it may be possible.
So... so far the app is nice, very nice. I did not take screenshots of the Spb Menu since those are above, but it works very well and very responsive. Keep in mind your Start key will be mapped to the Spb Menu.
One thing I forgot to add... on most devices when you are on the Today screen your right soft key will be changed to Spb Menu, just as on the Now screen. However, due to how Palm coded the right soft key to other today plugin DLLs your soft keys will not change if you are on a Palm Treo device.
Once again, the app is very nice for a v1.0, however, with PA, WP, iLauncher, TodayAgenda, etc. I do not see the need to pay $30 for this shell. Would it be cheaper, or some of the features more customizable I would consider it.
One thing most people are complaining about is lack of support for 3rd party apps. For example... if you access the Spb Menu and then click on Messaging you get a nice submenu that allows you to go to SMS Inbox, E-mail Inbox, Send SMS or Send E-mail. Guess what though, it brings you to POutlook and most users have other apps. Same thing happens with Internet, PIE opens up even though you may have Opera installed and use it; file explorer instead of Resco; regular camera instead of cool camera; you get the point
If they fix these things I would consider it, but once again... having paid for PA and iLauncher, and being happy with TodayAgenda and WP I do not see the need to spend $30 on this app. The Now screen is not enough.
Ok I'm tired of typing... hope this helps! Don't get me wrong, the app is very responsive and looks awesome! But the $30 mark still is a downer for me...
Ohhh before I forget... as you can see hidelogo works with no issues whatsoever.