Spb has released what they're calling an operating system upgrade for Windows Mobile devices, although it's probably safer to call Spb Mobile Shell an elaborate skinning and program launching application.

The program is designed to account for the fact that many new PDAs are mobile phones, while the Windows Mobile operating system is really designed as an interface for tiny computer-like devices. In fact, for the most part, Microsoft's default interface for Pocket PC and Smartphone devices hasn't changed very much at all since Pocket PC 2000 was released. You still have a Today Screen, Start Menu, and separate pages for programs, settings, and connections.

Spb Mobile Shell lets you replace the Today Screen with a Now Screen, which provides some of the info you need most often. In addition to an analog or digital clock, battery info, and weather forecasts, you can customize the Now Screen to include info such as upcoming appointments.

Sure, you can install hundreds of programs on your Palm Treo, but what good are they if you can't ever find the program you're looking for?

Iambic, makers of Agendus, have developed Propel, an alternative for the default Palm application launcher. Rather than scroll through long screens, your applications are divided into categories like "utilities" or "games." You can drag and drop your applications into categories to arrange them however you like. You can also create a favorites list to quickly find the programs you use most often.

But more impressive is the way you can find the application you're looking for with quick keyword searches. As you type in letters, Propel filters out irrelevant programs. While this might not seem that helpful if you're tapping around with a stylus to find your programs anyway, it could save you a lot of time if you're using a PDA with a built-in keyboard like a Treo.

Propel comes in two varieties, standard and professional edition. The professional edition costs $24.95, or $10 more than standard, and includes voice recognition for launching your programs even more quickly. You can use the voice launch function to start applications, bookmarks, mp3s, or even phone calls.

[via Brighthand]

Have you been gazing longingly at every image of Apple's new iPhone, feeling like your would burst apart at the seams if you had to wait for it to come out this summer? Well, I can't really help you there, but if you just want a bit of the look and feel of the iPhone without all that, you know... functionality, there are a number of new iPhone-knockoff skins popping up.

For example, check out Mo's iPhony launcher. It's just a basic PalmOS program launching application, but it uses those sleek Apple icons. Click on them, and it opens your regular Palm calendar, email, and phone applications. But it looks pretty. It's only available for 320x320 screens at the moment, but there should be an updated version that supports 320 x 480 screens soon.

But I can't guarantee that the link will be good much longer. Apple's legal team is reportedly going after iPhone knockoffs pretty vigorously. Paul O'Brien posted some info on Modaco about a similar program the other day, and received a note from Apple's lawyers asking him to remove his post.

[via tuaw]

We recently went through a phase of showing a number of different application launchers. I thought we were done with that, at least for awhile, until DownloadSquad reader Martin submitted this utility through our tip form. Dubbed simply (and accurately) Hotkeys, this utility is pretty fantastic.

Like most hotkey configuration utilities, Hotkeys allows the user to setup specific key combinations to launch applications, switch between open instances of a running application, control volume (via an add-on) and even remap your Caps Lock key to be a Windows key. But where Hotkeys shines is in how it is configured; setting up a new hotkey is a matter of displaying the on-screen keyboard, and dragging and dropping a shortcut to the key you would like to use to launch it. This in and of itself is pretty great, but they've taken this visual aspect a step further.

One of the reasons most people don't bother to learn hotkeys is that they simply can't remember them long enough to stick into their long-term memory. Hotkeys helps you out with this by simply showing the on-screen keyboard with icons representing each configured hotkey when the user holds down the Windows key for more than 3 seconds. In practice what this means is that when you know the key combination you need, Hotkeys stays out of your way and is very fast. But when you realize you can't remember the key combination, by the time you've decided you need to look for another way to launch the application, the on-screen keyboard has popped up showing you what you needed to know.

Did I mention that the visuals are very appealing? Hotkeys is a product of qliner software, who have decided to release Hotkeys as an open-source project.

SlickRun is my newest favorite utility. It's a very small and simple application launcher, but packs some pretty powerful features into it's tiny self. Along with allowing you to assign keywords to applications and launch them, you can quickly navigate to both local folders on your filesystem as well as websites. Simply hit the SlickRun hotkey combination, type your destination and press Enter, and whammo - you're there. SlickRun also contains a very useful Jot application for taking notes. It automatically saves so you don't need to remember to, will accept any text that is dragged and dropped onto it, and timestamps entries to make finding them again easier. It also contains a Find function.