Today we chat to Alfonso Presa who has given us some great apps like ThrottleLauncher, ThrottleLock, etc. People who are in to customizing the look and feel of Windows Mobile would have definitely come across ThrottleLauncher. You can find all his apps on his website :
throttlelauncher.com. Thanks for chatting with us mate.
Tell us a bit about yourself ?
I’m Alfonso Presa (aka. APBilbo) from Madrid, Spain. I’m 27 years old and I work on IT. Currently I’m on a project in a multinational bank working on web development over Fatwire.
Tell us a bit about Throttle Apps?
To be honest I never intended to start a “big” project like ThrottleApps… It most of happened on the run
. It all started one day when I was trying to customize my Herald (around December 2007)… I was searching for the perfect freeware UI and I realized that there where lot’s of great apps out there but none of them was complete.
rltoday was customizable but very hardly and themes where fixed to the point that you have to change the files to suit it to your needs,
MortButtons was a perfect launcher but it was fixed to some buttons in a grid layout, the cube was very cool but very limited in space (only 9 contacts, only 9 apps, etc), HTC Home was good but functionality was fixed. I thought, hey I just want a simple kinetic scrolling row of icons… what a good chance to learn C#! Then I released a proof of concept app on XDA and people started asking for clocks, registry info, etc… An that’s how
ThrottleLauncher was born
.
About
ThrottleLock, I seen someone’s post at XDA asking if it was possible to make something like the Android lock for Windows Mobile… I though… “Hey! that can be funny!!”… and there it is!
What mobile devices do you own and use?
All ThrottleApps where developed for my “little” Herald but I got an Omnia i900 recently. I always test my apps on both of them.
How can we contact you ? ( twitter, facebook, etc )
I’m not a fan of IM applications or social networks… I prefer forums and email
(I feel I’m starting to get old… I’m sticked in the old technology). I’ve a facebook account though
, but I just check it from time to time. You can always find me at my
web’s forum…
Are you going to list your Apps on the WM MarketPlace ?
I will have to see which conditions does Microsoft offer in order to get your app listed. I don’t like how microsoft handle homebrew developments… if you want your software to be distributed without the user to get a warning about unknown software provided you have to send your app and pass through “Microsoft’s controls”… If that’s a precondition to get my apps published there I will definitely not do it…
What are your thoughts on WM MarketPlace ?
From the user’s point of view I think it’s a great idea to have a software catalog where you can access and download with just one click (just like linux systems has the apt catalog). Though I think this can kill the new developers creativity and will give Microsoft the complete control over WM software… If they don’t like it or if it’s against their policy they can remove it and no one will ever known of it’s existence… May be I’m a little bit paranoid here
.
Any plans to expand to other platform like Android , iPhone ?
Some time ago I started porting ThrottleLauncher to Android platform but I didn’t have too much time for it and that project is currently abandoned… Any way I like developing mobile apps and I don’t discard developing for those platforms someday if ever I get a device to test on
. May be when 1.0 arrives… who knows
.
How many hrs a week do you spend on WM development ?
Depends on the week… but it may be arround 20/30 hours… I also have to provide support and documentation for the apps
.
How many hours have you put into ThrottleLauncher ?
Many many more than my girlfriend would have liked
. It has been about a year and a half of work so I guess it may be arround 1200 hours.
You have made customization and skinning of your apps a high priority, how has the user response been ?
To be honest I expected more interest on my app from theme designers as ThrottleLauncher currently is capable of almost anything… though the lack of themes may also be my fault as there’s not too much documentation for ThrottleLauncher’s theme development. I’m working hard this days to write some tutorials that are available from my web. My target is to make ThrottleLauncher the first choice for theme designers when they have an idea… Then users will hopefully understand how powerfull ThrottleLauncher is
. At this point I have to say that there are many great designers (like Rumball, Paul de Groot, Zoltair Wright, m.schmidler, blazingwolf and much more) that have helped me to turn ThrottleLauncher in what it is and are working to make it the best UI ever
.
ThrottleStorage is a unique application , how was the user response to that ?
I think ThrottleStorage is a great tool that provides a functionality that Windows Mobile definitely lacks, specially with the small internal memory that devices currently have. As an app it’s not so appealing as ThrottleLauncher or ThrottleLock and users will use it when they need it. I think it’s a great tool for ROM cookers to include on their ROM’s.
What are some of your favorite apps ?
If I’ve to choose one, it will be
TaskMgr without any doubt. None of my apps would have been possible without this little handy tool. Definitely a must have for every developer. Other apps I really like are
MostScripts,
S2U2 (but I use ThrottleLock… sorry a_C
),
S2P and TouchCal.
What are your favorite development tools and Language?
For WM I use C# and C++ over VS2005 and I really like how flexible and simple things can become by using that app and that languages, though…. I think the most powerful and flexible language is Java (I use to develop using Eclipse platform). Also CVS/SVN is a must have in order to develop applications.
New WM devices come with better hardware like accelerometer , proximity sensor, etc are you cooking up some ideas to exploit these ?
ThrottleLauncher currently has support for accelerometer
. I plan to release some updates of the themes that will allow users to choose this as an option so they can scroll rows just by changing the orientation of their devices. Note that this support is still experimental…
Have you worked on any commercial apps ?
No I’ve not
.
The new version of ThrottleLauncher has a skin to mimic the iPhone, Android, Palm Pre and WM7 did you develop these yourself ?
I’m not a good designer so most of the graphics used on the themes are provided by other people. WM7 theme was almost 100% developed by Paul de Groot and I only made some tweaks over it. For the Palm Pre I’ve only made the layout as the icons where provided by Cpeacha. Android was enterily designed by me… but it doesn’t have too much built in graphics
. iPhone icons where taken for several places arround XDA, the base of that theme was initially dones by Gullum and continued by Blazingwolf.
Throttle Launcher has grown to a fantastic UI for Windows Mobile users and is close to version 1.0 , what can we expect in the future?
I’m starting to work on a PC .NET application that will allow users to visually create themes for ThrottleLauncher. This way designers will find a lot more easy to implement their creation in ThrottleLauncher. Also I have to make some experiments on 3d effects by using the gsensor. Probably ThrottleLock will be the first to use this feature.
Fantastic, the PC application is sure to be a hit and with the documentation on skinning on the way I am sure more people will be creating new and exciting skins for your apps. ThrottleLauncher has definitely come a long way from when it was first released, congrats on that and good luck with the apps in the future. Once again thanks for chatting to us @ 1800PocketPC.com