Symbian Review

Recently Mobisophy Technologies company has released the Phone Alone (S60 3rd) software. Yet this is the only software of such kind for Symbian 60.3 mobile phones. That is why we decided to make a review of this application, not a comparison in this case.

Phone Alone has been designed to help you to remotely get control of the mobile in case you forget it. It gives you the ability to remotely direct the mobile to divert calls, record voicemails, check voicemails, lock the mobile phone. Remote control options are presented by ‘voice menus’, all you need is to call to your mobile phone using ordinary telephones!

Here is brief information about the application to be analyzed:

App name	Vendor	Price	Size, Kb
Phone Alone	Mobisophy Technologies	Buy $19.95	640

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We analyzed the following list of aspects and application details:
• Installation
• Trial period
• Interface
• Settings
• Help and Support
• Application in action
• Special features

• Conclusion

Installation

The application is quickly and easily installed if you follow the instructions on the screen of the mobile phone.

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Trial period

The trial period of the Phone Alone application lasts 7 days. You have a nice chance first to try it before making the decision to purchase it.

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Interface

The main screen of the Phone Alone application has the following view:
 

To activate the application you have to click left soft key Options of the main screen and choose the Activate remote code button and enter the remote control code:
 

After entering the code, the main screen will look as follows:
 

Clicking left soft key Options user will see the following buttons:
• Activate remote mode
• Play locally
• Message box
• Lock phone
• Settings
• Hide
• Help
• Register
• About
• Exit

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Settings

Phone Alone application suggests the following list of settings:
 

• Remote Control Code – it is set to start the remote control mode and lock the phone
• Managing phone numbers – calling your phone from these phones can remotely activate “Phone Alone” and control your mobile phone according to the prompts of the voice menu
• Volume – control the play voice volume of the local or remote voice menus
 

• Auto run – this can make the application run in unactive mode at the same time of powering up the phone
• Prompt for billable event – if you set this option to “No” you will disable billable event prompts

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Help and Support

Phone Alone (S60 3rd) application has the Help file, which is convenient for being available for separate application items; it has an e-mail (support@mobisophy.com) to contact a developer in case of any questions or suggestions.

Having waited for about two business days, we didn’t receive the answer to our e-mail.

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Application in action

First of all it is necessary to set the remote control code for the first run. Remote control code is the password of starting the remote control mode and locking the phone.

To start using the Phone Alone application you have to activate it. This can be done by choosing left soft key Options of the main screen → Activate remote mode.

 

Left soft key Options of the main screen offers the following list of buttons:

 

• Activate remote code – to activate the Phone Alone application
• Play locally – the functionality of “Voice Manage Menu” and “Answering Machine” can be operated locally:
     o Answering machine – you can finish various operations according to the voice prompts
     o Managing voice menu – in this mode callers can leave voice messages or enter managing voice menu by entering remote control code
• Message box – to open the message box
• Lock phone – to lock the mobile phone
• Settings
• Hide – to make the Phone Alone application to run at the background
• Help – application online help
• Register
• About – to display information about the Phone Alone version, software vender etc.
• Exit – exits the application

In the process of application testing it turned out that it malfunctions.

When entering the correct remote mode code from the phone registered as the Managing phone number, the voice prompts announce that the code is wrong.

After the phone restart the code was accepted, but one more problem is that when going further the voice prompts repeated themselves, even when the right input was done.  

Because of such imperfection we could not finish our analysis.

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Special features

If application contains interesting features which others don’t have, it attracts users’ attention. Maybe because it is the first application of such kind, it doesn’t contain really interesting features.

Phone Alone application has the following special features:

• Remote Control Code – it is set to start the remote control mode and lock the phone
• Managing phone numbers – calling your phone from these phones can remotely activate “Phone Alone” and control your mobile phone according to the prompts of the voice menu

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Conclusion

Unfortunately the software has been released not being completely finished and tested. The idea of such application is interesting and being really perfect in all senses it will be popular among wide range of users.

One more remark, which concerns many applications offering voice menu, is that mostly it is really difficult to make out what it is said about because of bad sound quality. Developers, please make it more distinct.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 29th, 2007 at 15:55 and is filed under Software Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.