HipLogic is a new real-time, web-based platform intended as an alternative user interface for some mobile phones. Launching today, this free download currently delivers applications like Facebook, news, and Twitter to both Windows Mobile and Symbian devices with plans to offer an Android version of their software sometime in the future. Although both Microsoft and Nokia have their own mobile application stores, Hiplogic claims to provide a better, “more iPhone-like” experience than what’s currently available.
Mobile phone owners can download the HipLogic software from the company’s website or by visiting the mobile site from their phone’s web browser, m.hiplogic.com. The software works on Windows Mobile 6.0-6.5 platforms and Symbian S60 3rd and 5th editions, the software that powers a large number of Nokia handsets.
Once installed, HipLogic users can access the included free applications like Facebook, Twitter, CBS News and Sports, Entertainment Tonight, Disney, and WeatherBug as well as other various apps for monitoring news, finance information, and RSS feeds. As expected, the Facebook and Twitter applications allow for status updates, however they don’t appear to be as robust as the applications found in either the Windows Mobile or Nokia Ovi stores. Take the Facebook application, for example. The Windows Mobile version integrates with the phone’s camera for uploading of photos and videos. Nokia’s app does the same. HipLogic’s version, on the other hand, appears much more basic.
HipLogic, Before & After
In addition to the included applications, there’s also a HipLogic app store where even more applications are found, both free and paid. The software also works as an alternative web browser of sorts as users can pull up a search box with a click and perform Google searches without ever having to launch the phone’s browser.
Another App Store?
Given that some of the platforms HipLogic aims to support already offer their own application stores – and both Nokia and Windows Mobile allow background applications, too – it’s somewhat confusing as to what problem HipLogic is trying to solve here. While it’s true that HipLogic’s software is designed to provide real-time notifications, those notifications will only appear when the alternative HipLogic UI is running.
On the plus side, however, HipLogic does provide one single access point for all your apps. When you launch HipLogic, you can get to everything that’s been downloaded and when it’s closed, you return to your phone’s regular UI. And if the software, a JavaScript virtual machine platform, can be installed on more low-end “feature phones” in the future, it could indeed bring an iPhone-like app store to those who wouldn’t otherwise have access to mobile applications.
