It’s been 4 months since Spb first showed off Mobile Shell 5.0 for Google Android, but now it looks like the company is getting ready to launch the software. Spb has been offering Mobile Shell home screen replacement software for Windows Mobile and Symbian devices for a couple of years, but Mobile Shell 5.0 is the first version that will run on Android.
PocketNow has posted a hands-on preview of Spb Mobile Shell 5.0 for Android. At first glance, it looks like a lot of other home screen replacements for Android. It allows you to have multiple virtual home screens which you can swipe through from left to right, and you can populate your home screens with a combination of widgets and application shortcuts.
But Spb Mobile Shell has a few special tricks up its sleeve. The most impressive (and the most useless) is a 3D user interface that lets you flip through home screens in a carousel view. Honestly, it’d be much faster to use the standard 2D view and just flick your finger left or right a few times. But the 3D view adds some nice eye candy in case you just want to show off to your friends.
Spb Mobile Shell 5.0 also has some very nice looking widgets including a full screen weather widget and a Flickr widget that grabs images from the online picture site. You can also set Flickr images as your desktop background with just a few taps.
You can also customize many apps by tapping and holding and then cycling through different views.
You can check out PocketNow’s hands-on video after the break.
Unfortunately Spb still hasn’t announced an official release date or price for Mobile Shell 5.0. The Windows Mobile and Symbian versions of Mobile Shell 3.x run about $30 though, so I wouldn’t expect the new version to be dirt cheap.
