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If you’re new to the world of Treos you might be wondering what a launcher is and do you need one? A launcher is a graphical interface that allows you to run programs without having to use a DOS or Linux style command line text based interface. All Treos come with a default launcher pre-installed. It’s the screen that pops up when you press the home key and lets you choose to start a program by clicking the icon.

The Palm OS launcher is a pretty good basic launcher, it allows you to view your installed programs and navigation is fairly straightforward. But it is limited in its capabilities and there are few options to customize its appearance. This is where 3rd party launchers are useful: they all offer the ability to alter their appearance through the use of skins and/or through manipulation of various program settings. Most also offer additional features like an improved ability to run programs from the SD card or the ability to manage files as well as programs.

In the past I’ve used several 3rd party launchers including Zlauncher, Facer and an early version Initiate. Each launcher had its pros and cons but none of them had convinced me that they were indispensable. In fact, in the 6 months I’ve had my Treo 680 I have been using the default Palm OS launcher.

I recently saw Hobbyist’s offer to try Initiate III and if you don’t like it they will give you 20 % off any other launcher. It’s probably one of the most generous offers I’ve seen a developer try to tempt new users. Basically, if you download the trial version of the program and try it out for a few weeks then decide you don’t like it they will give you a 20% discount off any of the other Palm OS launchers.

One of the first things you’ll notice about Initiate is that it’s available in two version; standard and Pro. The trial version lets you use the full features of either version with occasional nag screens that ask you to register. If you register the cheaper standard edition and want to use the Pro version features you’ll also get the nag screens. The differences between the editions will become apparent as we look at Initiate’s various features.

The main difference I found between Initiate and other launchers is that Initiate tries to get you to forget about categorizing your programs. This isn’t to say you can’t still navigate between your categories of programs if you want to, but if you can abandon this idea you’ll find the real power behind initiate. Imagine you are using the default Palm OS launcher and you have the all category tab selected to display all your installed software. If you type the first letter or first couple of letters of the program you’re looking for the launcher will jump down the list of programs to display the applications starting with those letters. This is helpful but you are often still left having to scroll down a screen or two to find the program you’re looking for.

Initiate has a smart search function which acts in a similar but much more advanced way to sort through your programs. You start smart search by pressing any letter on the keyboard and Initiate will display all programs starting with this letter, from here on it gets clever, you then type any other letter contained in the application name. You could type in the second letter or the last letter or any in between, Initiate uses these extra letters to further refine your search displaying only those applications containing the selected letters in the selected order; for example the security program can easily be selected by typing SCR.

Initiate has another feature you can combine with smart search called autolaunch, with autolaunch activated as soon as smart search has narrowed down to just one application it will launch it. This means you could launch most of the programs on your Treo with 2-3 key presses.

Another difference with Initiate comes from the different views you can select (see left).

You can limit your screen to just display applications, like the default Palm OS launcher does, or you can select to just see the files on the SD card, just contacts, just music, etc (see right).

If you select the power user view you get everything displayed at once; music, contacts, files, programs, etc (see lower right).

To be honest I quickly stopped using the Power user view, as I have a lot of contacts and music. I had to press a lot more keys before I narrowed down any search to find an application I was looking for. I found that by just displaying the applications view, files on SD card view and contacts views I was able to quickly access everything I needed. You can use the switch views icon on the screen or assign a hard key to use to switch views and you can limit the views to be displayed.

If you have the Pro version of Initiate you can directly launch files without having to start a programs first. So if you click on a MP3 file pocket tunes will start playing it, click on a spreadsheet and docs2go starts up and opens the file. This works really well but it is reliant on the programs that you use to view the files supporting this feature, in my case neither of the two media players I have (MMplayer and TCPMP) could use this feature to start playing an avi movie, but Kinoma could. You can also use this method to directly launch into interaction with a contact by email, SMS or phone call.

Another benefit of having the Pro version of Initiate is that you get voice launching of applications and voice dialing included. The voice control features are one of those features that you’ll either use a lot or not at all. I fall into the latter group. The voice recognition works fine in a quiet office, but as soon as you throw in some serious background noise it can become unreliable. It may work better if used in collaboration with a headset but I often found myself having to repeat command 2-3 times completely negating any time saving benefits.

As with most third party launchers Initiate offers you the chance to quickly alter its appearance with skins.

Skins offer you a quick way to change the color scheme and icons and you can alter the appearance even more by changing the various colors, fonts and icons you want displayed. If you have the Pro version you also have the option of displaying plugins. These offer you the chance to display various 2day or datebook6 plugins on the launcher screen; such as the large clock and weather information displayed at the top of the screen in the bottom right image.

Just about every launcher supports using images as wallpaper, so it’s not surprising that Initiate also does. If you’re lazy like me you can head over to the Hobbyist software website and download some of their free background images or you can use any other jpeg image you have on your Treo or SD card.

The speed at which updates are released for Initiate is surprising, every week there seems to be a new version to download. Some of these include bug fixes, others add new features or improve old features. It’s reassuring to come across a developer who is so willing to bug fix and listen to user’s feedback. Mytreo.net members have an additional benefit: Hobbyistsoftware uses our forum as their official forum, so if you need help or have any suggestions you can quickly and easily communicate using their dedicated forum.

Overall I think Initiate III is my favorite Palm OS launcher. The smart search function makes finding applications ultra easy. Initiate offers all the display customization options you could want as well as useful extras like the ability to directly launcher files from within Initiate and voice dialing.

Treo users should buy Initiate Pro edition; the ability to search your contacts and quickly email, phone or send them an SMS really adds to the power of the program. These features are missing from the standard edition, along with some other useful features, such as opening files, voice launching and using plugins.

If you have never used a 3rd party launcher or are considering changing launchers, you should absolutely give Initiate a go. Considering the generous 20% discount on the Pro version in mytreo.net/store, and the current offer of 20% off any other launcher if you don’t like Initiate, you simply can’t go wrong.

Related Links

Download Initiate

Buy Initiate III Standard edition from mytreo.net store for $9.95

Buy Initiate III Pro edition from mytreo.net store for $19.95 ($5 less than retail price)

Discuss this software in the Treo Discussion Forum

Filed under: Software reviews