HTC Touch Cruise

I just recently got a new phone: The HTC Touch Cruise (aka Polaris P3650). I’ve had Windows Mobile PDA before (Dell Axim X5), but never a phone and I was exited to see that Microsoft has gotten out of touch screen and the new Windows Mobile 6 series.

And I must say I’m impressed. The craving for an iPhone is not nearly completely gone. I’ve had the opportunity to test the iPhone and even though it might have an OS that is better suited for finger and touch use I far prefer the open OS that Windows Mobile is.

There is no need to hack the phone in order to add your own applications, and there are literally thousands of applications to choose from. Actually trying them and deciding which is best suited is quite a lot of work.

HTC has added their TouchFLO and Cube applications that lets you access the most common features with your fingers (music, photos, contacts etc). But as soon as you open an application like Pocket Outlook you probably need to find your stylus.

Luckily there are lots of finger-friendly apps you can install and use instead. Check out PointUI at http://www.pointui.com for a start. This is a replacment home screen with all your needed information and functions available at a finger press or a sweep.

Also check the S2U2 locking application that has an iPhone style slide-to-unlock and dial pad. In the same series there are the S2P (Slide-2-Play) and S2V (Slide-2-View) media player and image viewer. These and more applications you can find and install for free. As an iPod owner there is only one thing I miss on my new phone and that’s a way to play all those protected AAC files from iTunes. Now I have to burn and rip them all into mp3. Apple should create a media player and port iTunes to Windows Mobile