One of the most award-winning applications available today for Windows Mobile is Spb Software House’s Pocket Plus. This Today screen plug-in allows you to launch applications directly from the Today screen, close applications with the X (not just minimize them), and also features a battery indicator that appears on the Today screen. Now, after nearly a year of completely overhauling the application, Spb has released version 4.0 of Pocket Plus. The new version brings a complete overhaul to the application, giving it a faster new interface and making it smaller and less memory intensive. In addition to the Today plug-in, Pocket Plus 4.0 brings a whole new level of functionality to Internet Explorer Mobile (or Pocket Internet Explorer) with tab browsing and Google searching built into it. Ultimately, this new version reaffirms why Pocket Plus is on my Top 50 Application list (clintonfitch.com/top50/default.asp). It is a must have application for any Windows Mobile owner.

Installation requires less memory

Pocket Plus installation requires approximately 2.91 MB of storage space—substantially less than the 4.2 MB required by version 3.2. Additionally, the new version only requires 1.38 MB of RAM to run, versus the 2.2 MB required by version 3.2. In order to use Pocket Plus 4.0, your touch screen device must be running Windows Mobile Pocket PC 2003 or a later version of the software. The application will work on devices with QVGA and VGA displays. During the installation process, you will be prompted on which components of Pocket Plus you wish to install, and it will give you an indication of the space required for each feature. Both Spb and I recommend that you install the program into your device’s main memory because a storage card installation can affect performance and loading after a reset.

Key new Pocket Plus features

New UI; improved tab and Today screen functionality

Once launched, the new look of Pocket Plus is easy to see. While it is still a tabular layout like that of previous versions, the icons for the tabs are larger and look more up-to-date. To be clear, by tabs I mean the icon-based “buttons” which allow you to switch to different pages on the Today screen. The new tab features include the ability to make large or small tab icons, auto hiding of tab content, plug-ins for other applications into the tabs, and vertical or horizontal alignment of the tabs (Figs. 1 & 2). Additionally, Pocket Plus now automatically realigns the tabs when you switch to landscape viewing mode, making it much more user-friendly.

One of the new features of Pocket Plus is the ability to label icons on each of the tabs. This is helpful for users who have many similar icons representing various items. For example, if you have multiple shortcuts to documents, they all have the same icon. Now you can label those icons so you know which document is represented by each icon, saving you time and screen taps (Fig. 3).

In previous versions of Pocket Plus, you could embed the Today plug-ins from other Spb applications into Tabs on your device. With version 4.0, virtually every Today plug-in from any third-party developer can be embedded on a tab (Fig. 4). Additionally, you can use multiple Today plug-ins on one tab, which essentially makes the application the only Today plug-in you would need to use. This is a big step forward for the application and for the user experience. To add a plug-in to a tab, tap and hold the icon for that tab, then choose “Plug-in” from the menu. You will see a list of available plug-ins (based on what is installed on your device) which you can tap to add to the tab.

Adds tabbed browsing to Internet Explorer Mobile

For the Today screen enhancements alone, Pocket Plus 4.0 would be well worth the purchase price. However, Spb did not stop here. They also made major enhancements to how Internet Explorer Mobile functions. Pocket Plus adds tab browsing to IE, a feature that has always been on the desktop PC. Just like Internet Explorer 7, you can have multiple tabs from multiple sites open at the same time, allowing easy navigation between sites (Fig. 5). To open a new tab, tap the Pocket Plus icon next to the IE address bar, and then tap New Tab.