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Impressions from HTC - Windows (Long post)

Impressions from HTC Cruise - Windows Mobile
Hello All,
I have been relatively new here, but I thought I could contribute in the forums by posting my (unbiased) views about HTC Cruise here, hoping other people may find them useful. I am a software developer, so although I do not have an experience with hi-tech PDAs and smartphones, (never owned such a device before), I am fine with the technicalities of such devices.
My everyday phone was a simple sony ericson K510i . What had always annoyed me was that in most "simple" phones, it was quite hard to control the phone via my PC, do backups, backup contacts, SMSes, etc. My sony was good, I had found "MYPhoneExplorer" which pretty much did all those things for my phone. The screen was little bit outdated in terms of resolution, but I did not mind much.
And then came iPhone (which I never owned). I was impressed by its design, usability and user friendliness. I also liked the idea of having WiFi on it. I was close to buying that phone and using one of the available tools to unlock it, (noway I would pay for a contract - I am UK based). My brother who is into mobiles and gadgets more than I am, commented on the fact that iPhone is an "old" generation phone in terms of phone technologies and overpriced. I soon realised it was quite overpriced and started looking at alternatives. I was happy to see HTC would release a really cool phone, which I could get as my Christmas gift (yes, dream on, I had my eyes on it since November and managed to get it this February)...
So, what are my impressions so far?
I dare to say, quite mixed...
On the one hand this device is really wicked and cool! It has all the things I had always liked and needed in a single device. Packing a GPS, a radio, 3G, WiFi in a nice package is just amazing. I can now listen to music, watch videos, find my way around using GPS and have a nice PDA. These are really cool things! No need to have my pockets filled with separate devices...
On the other hand, this phone costed me little bit less than 400 pounds. One can argue you can get a laptop for that price, but then again, a laptop is not a phone. The video issues has not been much of an issue for me, I encode my videos at QVGA and all is well. However, I do get *very* upset when I realise that there is hidden potential in the hardware platform which has not been utilised. What I found bad straight from the moment i used it, is that when i press the "phone-call" hard button, there really is a lag when drawing the blue rectangle above the dialpad, (I am talking about the area which shows the names of your contacts as you type the numbers below.) I mean, come on, so much CPU power, and I can see the blue area being drawn? The other things is that if a couple of applications are running, then the phone does not seem to be operating so smoothly. Again, in order to be fair, it is still very usable. However, as things stand now in the market, in terms of specifications this phone is easily on the upper part, so in my opinion it should be fast, not just "very usable".
My other bit of criticism is probably related to Windows rather than HTC cruise. I find this OS quite interesting on the device, there is a huge applications' base and the things that are missing can be coded by talented people. However, I find the platform a little bit of a pain to use in a pure phone context. Why do i have to check an option everytime I want to get back a delivery report for my SMS? Why do I have to hack the registry to make this permanent? I set a wallpaper in my phone, then I set its transparency, then I realise it is hidden by the today plugin, which I can of course disable. If I disable it I loose certain features which are accessible straight away. I can of course get a new plugin that matchs my needs. Why is it so hard to have tabs with incoming/outgoing/missed calls? This is a feature that phones that cost 10 times less have. Of course Windows 6.1 has this, but then I would have to "install" a new ROM. Simple question: Why do I have to do these things? Why dont' they get it right from the beginning? Don't get me wrong, I am a technology enthusiast and I am sure I will manage to set up the phone the way I want. A number of users out there will do the same thing. However, is this platform one that non-enthusiasts would find user-friendly?
Look at all those skins and modding. Really cool. And the moment you press a button on your really cool new Today plugin, an ungly Windows application will pop up.
I hope that my criticism will be received well here! I like the phone, Windows is cool on it, but I think Microsoft has quite some way to go in order to make their platform really simple to use and user-friendly (think iPhone for example, my parents could use that, but I am quite sure if I show them my phone, they will not know how to make a a phonecall with it!)
In many ways some requirements are contradictory: Being user-friendly means you may have to hide settings, having your platform run on a variety of hardware means you cut corners here and there. Hopefully Microsoft will get it right with version 7 and 8, screenshots look quite good.
As for HTC... They lost a little bit of their credibility with a couple of issues for me. First the sound issue with the french rom which was initially denied and then fixed by people in this forum, then of course the drivers issue. I intend to make good use of this cool phone and customise it to my needs, it just takes time.
For your information, I find these applications useful:
Coreplayer (obviously!)
TouchPal keyboard works good for me
WKTask (and get rid off that default task switcher)
MyMobiler installs on your PC and a little "daemon-service" on your phone, (which you can disable). Then it allows you to control your phone from your desktop.
PocketCM did not particularly appeal to me, so I removed it
FunContact was cool, and loved it. Unfortunately, two things were not so good:
a) Splash screen and loading time
b) sometimes it made my phone freeze
Thanks for reading this (long) post,
Michael

Good post...Here are my impressions as well.
I used to carry a Palm Tx and a Motorala SLVR. I have been looking for the most ideal device to "do it all", PDA, phone (quad band gsm, tri band umts), wifi, and gps. There was nothing realy that appealing on the market until I read about the HTC Touch Cruise.
I read about people's complaints about the "driver" issues and hardware acceleration, and decided to take the risk and bought the phone from a gsm seller online. The phone was unbranded and did not have any stupid carrier proprietary software.
For the most part, I am very happy with the Touch Cruise. I have dumped the palm pda and the slvr, and have not looked back.
I just spent the last 2 weeks traveling to UK (London), Germany (Frankfurt), and Italy (Padova). As a mobile phone, the Touch Cruise functioned flawlessly and had 3G connections where they were available. Couldn't have asked for better features out of a "world" phone.
The TomTom GPS also ran quite well (Western Europe maps). Had to drive alot in Frankfurt and never got lost. Even traffic reports were right on the money.
As for a PDA, it blows the Palm syncing and calendar features out of the water. I used to be a Palm pilot only person, but Palm has become a dinasaur in their attutude to features and interface. The pocket pc has in my opinion surpassed them.
As a portable media device, it does kind of ok . Core Media Player is a must install, microsoft's media players still suck and are not usable and dont support all codecs. This device is not really ideal for video in my opinion. You have to re-encode videos to QVGA for ppc level quality, then video will play fine. You cant simply take a wmv file and dump it on the device to view, it wont work. As for music/mp3's, it works great. I got on a 10 hour flight from UK to US, and used it play music and games, and still had 40% battery charge left over and used an hour of GPS on the way home, with 20% left over.
In all fairness, the HTC could run a little faster, but I blame Microsoft and HTC for hogging up the cpu and not using hardware acceleration.
Since media (video) is not high on my list of required features, I am quite happy with the HTC Touch Cruise.

darkazally, I tend to agree with you really...
I guess if one did not have such a device before or had a really old one, then HTC Cruise is really super. On the other hand I can see certain people's frustration with Cruise. It is mostly people who owned 3 or 4 PDAs before and were probably expecting to be blown away by its specs; I kind of sypathise with them....
I read in an article written by someone at Microsoft, that companies tend to overload Windows with their own propriatory software and then the whole experience goes downwards. He mentioned that for the next versions of windows mobile, they intend to post stricter requirements just because of this situation.
As I also read in these forums, people who got their devices from O2 (just to mention a single company), seem to have more issues with HTC's performance...
I enjoy using the phone everyday and I am in the process of customising it to my needs, though it takes some time!

Uhhh mymobiler is amazing thanks for posting that! That is frickin sweet!

Great review, I tend to agree.
As far as PIM Management, I came from using two devices, a slim panasonic phone and a Xircom Rex 6000 PDA in the early part of this decade (circa 2001), like you I converged them into a Sony Ericsson phone (T610>T616) which had limited capabilities and lacked a lot of features my Rex had. In 2006, I got my first Windows Mobile smartphone, a Qtek 8310 (HTC Tornado), and now I have the HTC Touch Cruise.
Ever since getting into Windows Mobile, I thought that HTC/Microsoft had delivered great functionality, but poor usability and way too much lag for such high powered devices. Take for instance the settings panel. There are probably over 8 programs (4+networking icons, 3+ button config icons, ect) in there that only have one check box, when I'm sure HTC/Microsoft could very easily put them into one or two easy to use program with a Help feature.
But at the end of the day, I don't care if no one can use my device as long as I understand it. Additional consolation is provided in the fact that this phone looks so damned sexy

My Own impression
First of all, I'm new here & let me introduce my self...
I'm Richard & i'm from Indonesia.
I've waited for +3 months, before I decided to buy HTC Touch Cruise.
My other candidate are Atom Life & Nokia N82.
Soon (2 days) after my pal (who own a PDA shop) introduce me to Touch Cruise, I bought it
First impression is luxury.
Second impression........Windows Mobile sucks......
I have done hard reset for 4 times now....due to mis configure the registry....
I've done quite intensive test on my Touch Cruise, including Video,Audio,GPS,3G & Internet,Battery life & Applications.
This is my score (0-10):
1. Stability : 3 -> Typical Windows product
2. Looks : 9
3. Dimension : 8
4. Features : 8
5. Usability : 8
6. User Friendliness : 6
7. Battery Life : 7
Average score : 7
The Driver issue doesn't bothered me yet, so I'm very pleased with my new Touch Cruise
NOTE:
FYI,try not to uninstall anything from your TC.
Microsoft Windows product tends to leave "garbage" into the Registry & it will slow down your TC.
Choose wisely before installing & if you have to uninstall,search & delete any leftover inside the registry.

d4rkkn16ht said:
1. Stability : 3 -> Typical Windows product
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What's wrong with stability? I'd have to agree that it is probably not the best device overall, but I didn't have a single stability issue with it. Maybe, you've got a defective one?

You know, there are certain lag things that I don't think are due to video drivers. I mentioned this in another thread "Why the lag" but I used to have a Cingular 8525 and supposedly that device had video drivers. It still lagged with a phone skin when you hit the phone button. Rotating the screen was still slow. I hate little things that lag like that. it should be smooth navigation / interface.
The device doesn't have a cohesive feel to it when we have to customize the **** out of it to get it to work the way we want to. You're right when we make a today screen look good then all the underlying apps are ugly windows apps. Your transparency issue, that can only be done from within the Windows picture viewer not the HTC photo viewer. You need to install your own video player. The HTC video browser app only shows videos with certain extensions. It's like you have to have a specific app for every little thing and then it feels like there isn't a streamlined feel to the device.
I gotta give credit to HTC for trying to improve the interface with their apps, the Windows interface is archaic. It's just the combo of the 2 doesn't allow for a polished interface.

hambola said:
The device doesn't have a cohesive feel to it when we have to customize the **** out of it to get it to work the way we want to.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
On the other hand, thanks to HTC for a platform that allows us to do so and even greater kudos to all the xda-developer wizards who make it possible (and relatively easy for the most part).

Not enough can be said for xda. Although I'm a new poster I've been reading these forums for about a year now. Helped me out greatly with the 8525 and is proving to be helpful with the Cruise.

>You're right when we make a today screen look good then all the underlying apps are ugly windows apps.
I am happy we agree on this, I just wish it had a little bit of the Apple touch on it, that's all....
>Your transparency issue, that can only be done from within the Windows picture viewer not the HTC photo viewer.
All I wanted is a kind of minimal interface, so I can set my own wallpaper and not have it hidden by the huge HTC today plug-in. I have installed spb shell for a couple of weeks now and it looks great. I also discovered the HTC Home Customiser which looks cool, so, that's nice too.
>You need to install your own video player...
I think HTC should actually write a very generous paycheck for the people that developed CorePlayer. Without that one, Cruise would be a *little* bit of a disaster.
Overall I guess Windows is a versatile OS with lots and lots of space of customisation and at the end you do get it right, it just takes a lot of patience and resets to get there...

rev3nant said:
What's wrong with stability? I'd have to agree that it is probably not the best device overall, but I didn't have a single stability issue with it. Maybe, you've got a defective one?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
After some intensive test, I found some irritating bug that caused stability issues.
Quick Menu sometimes disappeared after running several applications.
System Hang at random cause.
Some system settings cannot be changed even if you've already change it.
Redundancy in Registry Entry that can cause stability issues if you change the entry. (not considered a bug if you don't change it)
and some other (not quite sure yet...)

Have you tried a different ROM?

killer WM App

Hi all!
I'm senior C# programmer and I want to develop a Windows Mobile Application with Compact Framework, but I want develop an useful application or tool that does not already exist. I have no limitations in programming or technology (gps, bluetooth, web services, ecc.).
Any idea/suggestion for this new app? Is there any application that is missing?

hey how about a touch guitar for the ppc..the one like we have in nokia 5800..there is a touch piano(known as omniano) for ppc but no touch guitar..!

What about a proper barcode reader/interpreter using the built-in camera? There are some tentative software but no trully good one out there. Could be good for personal databases like book collection.

wovens said:
What about a proper barcode reader/interpreter using the built-in camera? There are some tentative software but no trully good one out there. Could be good for personal databases like book collection.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There is I-Nigma a barcode reader...
http://www.freewarepocketpc.net/ppc-download-i-nigma-barcode-reader-v1-4.html

hardikrajgor123 said:
hey how about a touch guitar for the ppc..the one like we have in nokia 5800..there is a touch piano(known as omniano) for ppc but no touch guitar..!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the idea, but already exists Guitar Hero for PPC...
http://www.handster.com/news-pda.php?id=1250&for=WM Guitar Hero

giugua said:
There is I-Nigma a barcode reader...
http://www.freewarepocketpc.net/ppc-download-i-nigma-barcode-reader-v1-4.html
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yea! I know! But it is no good! If what you are after is an idea that nobody had before, than I think it will be very difficult.

Here's an idea that might be something handy you could knock out fairly quickly: a battery drain indicator. An app that polls your battery life and generates a report telling the current rate of decrease (and maybe indicates what other applications are running and how often the backlight was on).
It'd be darn useful for trying to gauge the effect different ROMs and apps have on battery life.

There is no DLNA app for windows mobile as far as i know.
Would be good just to have one that can get pics, videos, music from over dlna machines.
Or as above a app that moniters battery drain to see the worse apps and roms for battery

typo said:
Here's an idea that might be something handy you could knock out fairly quickly: a battery drain indicator. An app that polls your battery life and generates a report telling the current rate of decrease (and maybe indicates what other applications are running and how often the backlight was on).
It'd be darn useful for trying to gauge the effect different ROMs and apps have on battery life.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I second this. I've started one, but it's pretty ugly, slow and buggy as I'm in no way a C# developer and I have no time to complete it. There are several battery monitors out there, but neither of them are really usefull.
If you are interested, PM me, I can share some further ideas.

A finger friendly message app instead of wm ugly tiny inbox, outbox etc

giugua said:
Hi all!
I'm senior C# programmer and I want to develop a Windows Mobile Application with Compact Framework, but I want develop an useful application or tool that does not already exist. I have no limitations in programming or technology (gps, bluetooth, web services, ecc.).
Any idea/suggestion for this new app? Is there any application that is missing?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hmm, a killer WM app? Well, I would imagine that it has to be something unique, and fairly difficult to create on other platforms or, hell, just the Windows Mobile platform.
Meh, the best idea I can come up with are these:
1) A GPS software that displays street level navigation (sort of like what was shown in Sony's new NV-U3DV).
2) A Hulu player
3) A program that scales programs/games not designed to work on a particular resolution
My, this was surprisingly difficult to think of.

stu-k said:
A finger friendly message app instead of wm ugly tiny inbox, outbox etc
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Quote it!!! A real finger friendly msg app (a simple mail/sms client) will be the top!!
D'rath

how about a directory assistance program like they had on palm.
when someone calls u it automatically tells u who is calling giving the persons address and info

Killer App, how about something that ties Windows mobile together...not some much a launcher or something like but something that smooths everything out.
Maybe a simple program that transitions the screen of current gen devices to make landscape to portrait smoother.
Maybe a cool task manager is smooth and dynamic...(opengl) that flows through the open programs similar to Coverflo (this would be amazing) mix that with functionality.
How about when you open a new program, there is an onscreen popup that shows whats opening while the app is loading up. Similar to Opera or Winterface.
Maybe a unique Locksystem different from S2u2 and G1 Locker...Something graphical and beautiful. I love the growing panel and the fish panel for xperia, having something like that for a locker would be amazing....
I have dozens of ideas. but I'd say..
Music player=covered by S2P, Kinoma, Nitrogen
Pictureviewer=covered by imageviewer, s2v
Shells= too many to name
Iphoney= ad nauseum
I think we should be focus on making PPC more functional...That SMS app is really worth the time an effort as well.

style1 said:
Maybe a cool task manager is smooth and dynamic...(opengl) that flows through the open programs similar to Coverflo (this would be amazing) mix that with functionality.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This would be cool, although being a Windows user, I'd rather it be like Aero Flip than like Coverflow.
If you haven't seen it, check out TaskFacade -- it's more like Expose than Coverflow, but it's still a great app switcher with decent eye candy.

I've tried TaskFacade...love it..but it would be awesome to have a full blown beautiful app. I don't know if you've ever played around with Pocket Cm ImageViewer its amazingly beautiful. The way it displays pictures and how fingerfriendly it is it would be awesome to have taskmanager that flowed that smooth. Flick up on the application to end it, click on it to go to it. Would be amazing

8525Smart said:
Hmm, a killer WM app? Well, I would imagine that it has to be something unique, and fairly difficult to create on other platforms or, hell, just the Windows Mobile platform.
Meh, the best idea I can come up with are these:
1) A GPS software that displays street level navigation (sort of like what was shown in Sony's new NV-U3DV).
2) A Hulu player
3) A program that scales programs/games not designed to work on a particular resolution
My, this was surprisingly difficult to think of.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Id love to have a Hulu Player but also would kill for a free Xbx Live app but i guess tht alrdy exist but the Hulu player is very orginal...Nice idea 8525Smart and i also like option 2

how about an onscreen semi-transparent dpad that can be toggled via a button on all apps? That way for phones without dpads or with dpads hat are not functional (touch pro) you can still use a dpad. This would help in gaming but also basic navigation.

You might consider putting your talents towards the finger friendly SMS application in the Development and Hacking section. They have nonfunctional, graphics only alpha versions, but they need developers to actually get the application functional. There's even a $275 bounty.
Dave

Diagrax said:
Id love to have a Hulu Player but also would kill for a free Xbx Live app but i guess tht alrdy exist but the Hulu player is very orginal...Nice idea 8525Smart and i also like option 2
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you. Yes, with a Hulu player, the multimedia experience on Windows Mobile would pretty much be complete (at least for me).
Regarding the Xbox Live app, I did find one if you want it: http://ts.zumobi.net/partner_pages/partner/xbox

Lack of painting app on windows mobile

Hi..
I hope this is the right place to ask..
I've been searching for couple of months now, for a good painting application, preferrable finger friendly for windows mobile. I currently own HTC HD2 and even have a stylus to test older non finger friendly painting apps available on winmo.
I guess the biggest issue at the moment is not being able to find an app equivalent to "brushes" on iphone (http://brushesapp.com/) and I've seen a similar on android. Yet nothing on windows mobile.
Dynaink is probably the closest (http://www.dynaink.com/)
but it has issues, the colour palette doesn't have "saturation" meaning you can't pick any colours that has dull look to it. it does have "hue" (horizontal) and "value" (vertical) in colour palette but that's as far as it goes. Actually this is true for most apps on windows mobile, some do have a little more choices with swatches but doesn't let you manually pick the colour. Also lack zoom in & out feature. (come on you are painting on 4.3" screen...:S)
It's funny, because you can get a simple painting app on Nintendo DS lite.. and has the right colour palette.
Yeah, I am a bit disappointed.. Very disappointed actually, almost a deal break..
Reckon it will change once windows mobile 7 is out?
Maybe I missed something, if you know of an app with a simple function like "brushes" and has the right colour palette.. please let me know..
And I have sent dynaink an email, but I've already done that two months ago and was ignored so..
thanks

And for those thinking "why would you paint on a mobile?"
well it's a popular(?) activity for many commercial artist, ie. concept artists and illustrators, to go out and painting for studies and recreational purpose. Also the reason iphone & NDS lite is popular among digital artists.
And yes I also own a toshiba r400 tablet, which is great but it's also heavy and not as portable and convenient as a smaller hand held device.
So..yeah... it's not really a special request, just ranting I guess at the lack of painting app on winmo.

Try this
I am using this, and love it!
Also, pocket artist

Thanks, I've tried VSpainter..
it's no go.. the colour palette doesn't have "saturation" same with dynaink. and I think VSpainter is one of the worst finger friendly app there is.. and I just downloaded and tried again but doesn't seem to support 480x800.. and it crashes my HD2.. really not a big fan of vspainter, with all the crazy palettes everywhere..

Dosbox Turbo - Xplay update

Dosbox Turbo was just updated to allow Xperia Play button mapping / screenshot of the new mapping page attached

FTAiii said:
Dosbox Turbo was just updated to allow Xperia Play button mapping / screenshot of the new mapping page attached
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
SWEET....... now... time to fire up WING COMMANDER...... HAHAHAHAHA

...If this works as it should there are some amazing possibilities here.

It doesn't seem to allow for different mapping profiles for different games, just 1 generic mapping, but agree - lots of possibilities !
I'm gonna go work up some mappings for Ultima IV !

Ahh i tried to search for people discussing this and i didn't find anything and posted a topic lmao... some1 shared the link to here.

$2.99 tempting. Now while Wing Commander was already said.. Ill say another that I could see myself playing..
Shufflepuck Cafe and Bar Games!
Hrm.. Install Win95.. yes this could have some options..

Just bought it myself
been playing
commander keen
jill of the jungle
sim city 2000
monster bash
castle of the winds
daggerfell

Does this mean you could play Daytona USA on the xplay?
I remember playing Daytone USA in DOS mode back in the day.

Ok with the on screen mouse, I just got done playing Nukewar (Fun fun game)
Playing Bargames right now. Need to map the X to be the enter button.
Also learned the option use the dpad as an input toggle is worth using. Easier for those up down left rights in the game.
Profile mapping WOULD be nice.
Edit: Ok one flaw in this program.. How on earth can I map the space bar or the enter key to a button...? So many games play like this.

Could someone check Sensbile World Of Soccer 98, Manchester United The Double and Lous 1,2,3 ? How does it works ? I thinking about buying this emulator.

TheVicious said:
Could someone check Sensbile World Of Soccer 98, Manchester United The Double and Lous 1,2,3 ? How does it works ? I thinking about buying this emulator.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So far, every game I have tried worked without config. Also Any GoG game that uses dosbox works. (Oooo I forgot.. I can play Dungeon Keeper on android now)
ONLY issue I have seen be meh, is that I cant map enter or spacebar to a gamepad key. Also has sometimes an issue with screen rotation. (Gets stuck in landscape mode sometimes when I NEED it vertical while I type on keyboard) Minor gripe, but so far its solid.

Just contacted the dev of dosbox turbo with the comments from this thread. He said the ability to map enter and spacebar will be in the next release. Also I asked about the possible profile loading for those who needs "x" mapping for "x" game.

Oh god, if this thing can actually run daggerfall fullspeed I'm gonna cry. Did anyone try that? How does it run? And what about the controls? On andosbox it ran really slow, and I couldn't get some of the controls to even work.

Interesting, Managed to get a Windows 95 image booted, it crashed the explorer.exe but still started up.. http://vogons.zetafleet.com/viewtopic.php?t=24936 to make your own win 95 image (if you dont just download a predone one)
This really is starting to look good. =D

Hello Everybody,
I'm the author of DosBox Turbo. One of the members here kindly pointed out this thread to me today and suggested I drop by.
Wanted to let you know that I'm sorry for leaving out the "Enter" and "Space" mappings, it just slipped my mind! But, the good news is, I'm finishing up a quick bugfix release (v1.2.1) and some of the new Xperia Play specific features I already have completed include:
Ability to map Enter & Space to an Xperia Button
Ability to see what current button mappings are w/o having to select each one.
Once I'm finished testing this release, I'll push it out to the Android Market (sometime on Mon or Tue).
I'd be very interested to hear your feedback/suggestions for new features, as I do not have an Xperia Play, so I'm just coding this stuff up without really having a chance to test it. Some of the new features I have planned for the very near future include being able to use the Analog touchpad on the Xperia Play as a true analog joystick, as well as supporting saving button/configuration profiles.
Cheers,
Gene

Thanks for taking the time to drop in and let us know what you have in the pipeline, i actually just bought your app earlier today and have been playing raptor call of shadows, im also looking around for other dos classics i missed when i was younger, the games i would never probably bother with on a pc haha.
the suggested improvements are pretty much everything i could ask for off the top of my head, keep up the good work.

Gene.. Question, Can one do a Ctrl+Alt+Del? Also later down the road, a "windows" key could be good.
Been fiddling with this booting of Windows 95 lol. Another thing that could be nice is a "reset dosbox" option in menu vs "exit" and reloading.

Mysticales said:
Gene.. Question, Can one do a Ctrl+Alt+Del? Also later down the road, a "windows" key could be good.
Been fiddling with this booting of Windows 95 lol. Another thing that could be nice is a "reset dosbox" option in menu vs "exit" and reloading.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
As far as I'm aware, DosBox proper doesn't support a reset function or CTRL-ALT-DEL (correct me if I'm wrong). I did a bit of research on this, and it seems to be somewhat difficult to implement (reference this thread over in the DosBox forums) for various reasons. On Android, it would be possible to kill the app and restart it via a button, but it wouldn't be much different than hitting exit and starting over. I'll look into a way of cleanly implementing such a feature in a future version if you guys feel it would be beneficial.
By the way, there is a thread over on the ASUS transformer forums with some people having success running Windows 95/98. I also recorded a video of an old version of DosBox Turbo running Windows 95. I apologize in advance for the poor video quality and lack of sound (I was using an old camera phone to record it).
Edit: I forgot to answer your Q. about the windows key. I'll add the windows key for you extreme users running Windows. =)

[post deleted]

Mael5trom said:
Thanks for taking the time to drop in and let us know what you have in the pipeline, i actually just bought your app earlier today and have been playing raptor call of shadows, im also looking around for other dos classics i missed when i was younger, the games i would never probably bother with on a pc haha.
the suggested improvements are pretty much everything i could ask for off the top of my head, keep up the good work.
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Sure! Happy to drop in an answer some questions. I'm a big RTS Fan (Warcraft II, etc). In case there are any other RTS fans here, I can certainly recommend playing Warcraft II and set the Mouse Tracking mode to "absolute" and in the Gesture Configuration map the Double-Click to "right click". This will allow you to tap once for left click, and double-tap for rightclicks to move units. Long Press and drag your finger to highlight units. Makes playing RTS games very comfortable on the Touchscreen alone.

Do you think Metro UI in Windows 8 Phone intuitive?

I never had chance to try windows phone.
The metro UI seemed messy, unorganized, and not intuitive to me in pictures.
However, I am seeing several comploments about it in the web... -> quite making me wonder what are the merits of metro UI.
Do you think Metro UI in Windows 8 Phone intuitive compared to that of Android?
Please share your thoughts
Sent from my Nexus 7 using xda app-developers app

very intuitive at all messy, look for the fifth leg cat to a specific feature

I've always really dug the WP8 UI but I'm also one of the bizarre few who enjoy Windows 8.
I only really have dealt with the Lumia 521, so it's a cheap low-spec phone, but the interface works amazingly well and the features that you get are pretty intuitive. I never stuck with it because Windows Phone wasn't as "tweakable" as I'd like, but I think it could be the perfect interface for the general public. Not to mention WP having less market share means less app development.

I dislike the GUI. Its strange and lacks the ability to tweak it.

csm121295 said:
I never had chance to try windows phone.
The metro UI seemed messy, unorganized, and not intuitive to me in pictures.
However, I am seeing several comploments about it in the web... -> quite making me wonder what are the merits of metro UI.
Do you think Metro UI in Windows 8 Phone intuitive compared to that of Android?
Please share your thoughts
Sent from my Nexus 7 using xda app-developers app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It looks weirder in pictures than it actually is, I think once you get it in your hands and are able to move things around - but that may just be me. (I had a Windows Phone for a while - Androids to Windows to Androids) ... It's really easy to use - the big problem with it, IMO is what it *lacks* - no desktop support AT ALL - no real security (no fake security, either) - no OPTIONS - the assumption that (for example: because you're in the Bluetooth menu - it's scanning for devices and you're okay with that ~ and you don't need to scan for a device manually. Ever. And you only want to re-name all your crap via Windows. (of course it *is* a Windows Phone, but still) ... Or that you don't ever need to save - God forbid - a-n-y-t-h-i-n-g ... not a voicemail - not a text - not a document (okay you could save a doc - but man, it was pita if you had to save a .pdf to read later) ... little things like that that Android users *really* take for granted ... No smart dialing (no, seriously) ... Dude - I could keep going - but it's getting late, man ...
The interface by itself was ridiculously fast and I mean that. And I could get that stupid battery to last forever. And the camera!!! *sigh* If Motorola could build a camera like that! My word! Even half a camera like that! ... and I liked the gallery setup - it was nice ... Being able to customize the tiles made a big difference from what you see of the --- stuff -- they ad. on television ... and it comes with A LOT of social media stuff built in - and almost NO bloatware - I mean there are a few games from MS - but almost NO bloatware from the carrier (not kidding! - at least not from VZW) ... and from my understanding you can get a pretty decent deal on a used one on eBay (no, not mine LOL mine's already gone) ...
So - I don't know if that helped or hurt ) ... It ran really well ... very smooth - no problems with it at all ... those little tiles you see? You could almost put what you wanted there and as far as that went - extremely easy to use ... Reading the menu / settings, etc? No problems there, either - there's no learning curve with that phone ~ it really is fairly intuitive ... as far as making a transition from Android? Depends on what kind of user you are - if you are a remote user? (connect remotely) if you like customization? Forget it, man ... ) If you don't care? Have fun with it )

csm121295 said:
I never had chance to try windows phone.
The metro UI seemed messy, unorganized, and not intuitive to me in pictures.
However, I am seeing several comploments about it in the web... -> quite making me wonder what are the merits of metro UI.
Do you think Metro UI in Windows 8 Phone intuitive compared to that of Android?
Please share your thoughts
Sent from my Nexus 7 using xda app-developers app
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Click to collapse
no. i use lumia 520. the ui is just a bit too bloated and lack of a drop down menu giving access to the most basic features like accessing wifi and stuff. android is much much better. but windows phone 8 is having no bloatware. really..