Although our recent application launcher reviews series is over, one program, which is definitely worth your attention, seems to have been left out in the cold. Today the situation will be improved. Meet Arrow Launcher by Hobbyist Software.

Arrow Launcher is a comparatively fresh application launcher for Palm OS. Although it can’t rival functionality of such monsters as ZLauncher, YiShow Explorer, etc, it sports a brand new approach to the very method of launching programs. Moreover, Arrow Launcher is more than just an application launcher. In addition to its main purpose the program can easily handle all your contacts, Web bookmarks and even play audio files. Let’s take a look at all these features one after another.

On the first run you will need to setup Arrow Launcher a little bit. The procedure is not difficult at all and should be done just once so don’t be afraid.

The first thing to do is to customize List Contents, or what you will see later in the main screen.

The launcher supports four types of objects:

• Applications - Arrow Launcher distinguishes between programs stored in the main memory and on the expansion card, you can have either any of them or both.
• Contacts - can appear as first then last name, last then first name, company then first and last names, but you can select all of them. You can also switch use of spaces in contact listings.
• Audio files - it is required that your music files are in the default /Audio/ folder, files stored in its subfolders won’t be listed.
• Bookmarks - they should be stored in simple HTML in a separate memo entitled Bookmark.

Once you have set up List Contents, head to the Launch Triggers screen.

Launch triggers are special commands that will launch Arrow Launcher while in another program. You can use any of the four hard buttons or any of the objects in the Graffiti area (silk-screen buttons or supplementary icons) as a trigger. Once you tap the trigger, Arrow Launcher will be launched, another tap will execute the trigger’s main command. You can also set Arrow Launcher not to re-launch from the main launcher, if the silk-screen Home button is used as a trigger. On handhelds with a hardware keypad the program can be launched by pressing and holding any alphanumeric key. The triggers work only on Palm OS 5 and higher devices. Owners of older ones can use third-party software, such as Teal Launch, to launch Arrow Launcher.

Now you are ready to use your new application launcher. Arrow Launcher’s main screen is pretty different from what you might have expected to see.

It consists of a launch list, which contains all your programs, contacts, audio files, and bookmarks, a couple of buttons and a clock display (if you have a Treo600 the launcher will also display signal status). In order to launch a program, contact, etc simply select it from the list or start writing its name and watch the list shrinking until there are enough letters to make a unique match (typically 2-4 letters) and Arrow Launcher launches the item.

The launcher supports two ways of searching for valid items. The first one requires that you write the name of an item the very way it appears on the screen, while the second one, dubbed Smart Search, will list all the items that have the same first letter and also all the other letters in the right order. For example I write “B” and see the list shrink to BatteryGraph, Bejeweled, Book Worm and BubblesOS5 (the last three programs are stored on the memory card and thus have an “-SD” postfix).

Now if I write “G” Arrow Launcher will launch BatteryGraph, as it is the only item, which starts with “B” and has “G” in the middle. By the way, on Palm OS 5 devices with Graffiti 2 onboard the launcher can ignore the letter “L” as some other letters (e.g. “I”, “T”) appear first as “L” and only then as themselves.

I must mention a probable problem with third-party localization software. Personally I use Paragon Software’s PiLoc for reading and writing in two languages on my handheld. When the input language is set to English, everything is quite fine. But if I switch the language and start writing nothing will happen. Moreover it is impossible to switch the input language while in Arrow Launcher and thus one has to launch, say MemoPad, switch the language and only then come back to the launcher. At the moment there is no remedy for this issue, but I really hope the developer will look into it as soon as possible.

As regards Arrow Launcher’s features it is about time I pointed out auto-launch. As you may have already noticed, programs are launched automatically when a unique match of letters is made. This is due to the aforementioned auto-launch feature. However, there are situations when you need just to select an item, not to launch it. Say, you want to beam a program. To do this, turn off auto-launch by “disarming” the arrow-man in the top right-hand corner of the screen. Then start writing the name of the program, and when it is selected, choose the Beam command from the main menu.

Now let’s see how the launcher can handle contacts. Basically, Arrow Launcher makes no difference between programs and contacts. However, when you “launch” a contact, you’re not transferred to your address book but to the Contacts Page instead.

It shows any known e-mail addresses or phone numbers for the selected contact. As you can see, every entry has a unique letter so that you can initiate a call, begin writing a new e-mail message, etc by simply writing a corresponding letter.

When I said you could initiate a call or begin writing a new e-mail message with the help of the launcher it wasn’t a mistake. Yes, Arrow Launcher allows you to seamlessly get in touch with the people in your contacts list. However, it won’t be true to say it can do that alone. In fact, Arrow Launcher requires help of third-party software, or the so-called helpers. When you want to dial a number the launcher sends a special command to your dialer application, which is actually in charge of getting you in touch. The same applies for sending SMS and e-mail messages. However, at the moment not all the applications available on the market are supported. The point is they need to be compatible with the standard Palm OS Helper API to receive external commands. On the other hand, the most popular ones, like Snapper Mail, Versa mail or TakePhone, already support the API, and their number is constantly growing. If you happen to lack a helper application for some type of a contact, the launcher will open it in your address book.

Launching audio files or bookmarks is quite similar to launching programs as well. Just tap on the required item and your audio player will start playing in the background or your browser will open the selected bookmark. Again this is possible via the Helper API. Naturally, Arrow Launcher will allow you to choose the preferred helper applications from the number of compatible ones.

Nearly forgot to mention the launcher supports confirmation before playing audio files but unfortunately lacks the ability to stop playback. Thus you will have to go to the helper application and do it manually or call up your music player’s external console.

Well, we have two big buttons in the main screen left unexplained. The one to the left, right below the clock display, refreshes the launch list. This can be useful if you have added new contacts or applications or if you have edited a contact’s name. The other button switches the launcher to the VIP mode.

Although the Arrow Launcher doesn’t have categories in the usual meaning of this word, it allows you to have a group of favorite items, or VIPs. Besides you can hide unwanted items by marking them as ignores. The filtering can be done by the means of the main menu or in a special window.

Arrow Launcher’s additional features include support for visual themes and the ability to soft-reset the device. Unfortunately, at the moment there are only two extra skins available, but I hope the situation will improve in future.

Now let’s think what the Arrow Launcher lacks. Frankly speaking I can’t see it as a real replacement to the built-in Palm OS launcher. At least at the moment. Well, I can connive at the fact it is not able to copy/move programs or provide detailed information about them (let’s leave that to file managers), but a program that is not able to delete programs can’t be called an application launcher. However, I will let the cat out of the bag. While talking to the developer of Arrow Launcher he mentioned the next version would, among other new features, finally allow the user to delete applications. When this is done, Arrow Launcher will be a real application launcher, although an immensely odd one. But as of this writing it is just an excellent companion to the native one, especially for devices with built-in cell phone functionality.

The launcher comes in a single, 145 KB large, PRC file suitable for all Palm OS devices. In the download package you will also find a user manual and an extra skin.

Summary (out of 10 stars)
Functionality
Usability
User Interface
Additional Specifications

All in all Arrow Launcher is more of a first-rate shell, which pulls the main programs on your handheld together, but not a full-fledged application launcher. Whether it is good or bad is up to you to decide, but personally I dare say Hobbyist Software has created what is a must have application for every smartphone user. Other handheld owners should at least give it a try.