Came across this post by Amir on his Mobile Space blog. Immediately saw how similar the app he described, T9 Nav by Nuance, is to SkyeQuiKey by Skyestream, which incidentally I've been using more or less since it came out.
What SkyeQuiKey does
What SkyeQuiKey does
Using a T9-like mechanism
Just press a few keys like you'd be typing on T9, SkyeQuiKey then shows you a list of contacts, applications and bookmarks that contain those characters and possible character combinations. "7593" in the screenshot above stands for "Skye".
It's an addictive app, the sort that you can't imagine living without after having it for a few minutes. It has, however, caused occasional issues, as in randomly deciding not to autostart (obviously in spite of it being set to), and from time to time freezing and thus causing a semi-freeze of my standby screen.
So after reading about T9 Nav, a very similar solution from Nuance (currently available as a free beta on their site, BUT there's no word on whether or not it will still be free after the beta phase has concluded), I decided to install it and do a quick comparison to SkyeQuiKey.
T9 Nav
It scans through a lot more 'stuff' than SkyeQuiKey, namely everything (think Nokia Search everything - Contacts, Settings, Media, which means audio, video and pictures, Bookmarks, Applications and Calendar) except messages, from what I could gather. Now at first sight this might seem to be a great advantage, however, unlike Nokia's Search, you can't turn anything off. It only searches for everything it can search for, and that may be unnecessary at times. Basically the only option you can change in the app right now is whether or not it should start automatically each time your phone is turned on.
Beta, granted. But sadly, beta in the way that the word was used before Google (with Gmail) came and rather redefined it.
First of all, SkyeQuiKey has a "Sort by" option. T9 Nav doesn't and therefore always uses a Last name, First name order which is rather annoying for me.
Oh, and I've experienced some general speed issues with my N95 while it's running. I can assume that this is due to it having to constantly scan and/or monitor pretty much everything that goes on on the phone, and does this in the background. Which brings me back to the fact that you should be able to manually select the categories you're interested in having indexed. Perhaps I'd turn 'Music' off, as I have thousands of songs on my memory card. I don't know, but I know I don't consider the speed compromise worthy.
Because aside from some general decrease in responsiveness that I've seen on my phone, the app itself is rather slow.
It's a good concept, though.
When you press whatever keys you press, you're presented with an initial screen that lists everything it found. But you can filter results by categories (Contacts, Media, Calendar, and so on) via the right and left D-pad keys. Quite resembling Nokia's Search, which however shows categories in a vertical list at its initial screen.
Since you use the left and right D-pad keys to navigate between the initial screen and each category, you sadly can't map these two keys to perform a set action for the contacts it shows, like in SkyeQuiKey. I have 'left' set to Send SMS and 'right' set to view. In T9 Nav, you can naturally press the green key to initiate a call, but for anything else, you have to press Options and then select.
Nice effort, Nuance. Yet sadly quite sluggish at this point.
Anyway, if for some reason you don't like SkyeQuiKey or don't want to pay for it, T9 Nav is an interesting beta alternative.
Fair warning, though: the link below is not direct. You have to enter your details to be able to download. Apparently, you should expect to get a few emails from Nuance requesting feedback on T9 Nav.
AND: the version currently available is set to expire on July 31st. However, should common sense prevail, by that time either another beta version should be available, or perhaps even the final version. You will undoubtedly be notified of such by email.
I for one will go back to using SkyeQuiKey but I sure will keep an eye on future T9 Nav versions. Should it get new customization options, I'll definitely give it another try and post my findings.
DOWNLOAD
Just press a few keys like you'd be typing on T9, SkyeQuiKey then shows you a list of contacts, applications and bookmarks that contain those characters and possible character combinations. "7593" in the screenshot above stands for "Skye".
It's an addictive app, the sort that you can't imagine living without after having it for a few minutes. It has, however, caused occasional issues, as in randomly deciding not to autostart (obviously in spite of it being set to), and from time to time freezing and thus causing a semi-freeze of my standby screen.
So after reading about T9 Nav, a very similar solution from Nuance (currently available as a free beta on their site, BUT there's no word on whether or not it will still be free after the beta phase has concluded), I decided to install it and do a quick comparison to SkyeQuiKey.
T9 Nav
It scans through a lot more 'stuff' than SkyeQuiKey, namely everything (think Nokia Search everything - Contacts, Settings, Media, which means audio, video and pictures, Bookmarks, Applications and Calendar) except messages, from what I could gather. Now at first sight this might seem to be a great advantage, however, unlike Nokia's Search, you can't turn anything off. It only searches for everything it can search for, and that may be unnecessary at times. Basically the only option you can change in the app right now is whether or not it should start automatically each time your phone is turned on.
Beta, granted. But sadly, beta in the way that the word was used before Google (with Gmail) came and rather redefined it.
First of all, SkyeQuiKey has a "Sort by" option. T9 Nav doesn't and therefore always uses a Last name, First name order which is rather annoying for me.
Oh, and I've experienced some general speed issues with my N95 while it's running. I can assume that this is due to it having to constantly scan and/or monitor pretty much everything that goes on on the phone, and does this in the background. Which brings me back to the fact that you should be able to manually select the categories you're interested in having indexed. Perhaps I'd turn 'Music' off, as I have thousands of songs on my memory card. I don't know, but I know I don't consider the speed compromise worthy.
Because aside from some general decrease in responsiveness that I've seen on my phone, the app itself is rather slow.
It's a good concept, though.
When you press whatever keys you press, you're presented with an initial screen that lists everything it found. But you can filter results by categories (Contacts, Media, Calendar, and so on) via the right and left D-pad keys. Quite resembling Nokia's Search, which however shows categories in a vertical list at its initial screen.
Since you use the left and right D-pad keys to navigate between the initial screen and each category, you sadly can't map these two keys to perform a set action for the contacts it shows, like in SkyeQuiKey. I have 'left' set to Send SMS and 'right' set to view. In T9 Nav, you can naturally press the green key to initiate a call, but for anything else, you have to press Options and then select.
Nice effort, Nuance. Yet sadly quite sluggish at this point.
Anyway, if for some reason you don't like SkyeQuiKey or don't want to pay for it, T9 Nav is an interesting beta alternative.
Fair warning, though: the link below is not direct. You have to enter your details to be able to download. Apparently, you should expect to get a few emails from Nuance requesting feedback on T9 Nav.
AND: the version currently available is set to expire on July 31st. However, should common sense prevail, by that time either another beta version should be available, or perhaps even the final version. You will undoubtedly be notified of such by email.
I for one will go back to using SkyeQuiKey but I sure will keep an eye on future T9 Nav versions. Should it get new customization options, I'll definitely give it another try and post my findings.
DOWNLOAD
