MobiFun Soft has just released a  new version of Smart Settings, Smart Settings has been out on s60v3 for a while now and now its now available for s60v5, The main function of this software is to extend your existing shortcuts with something they call the “Smart Menu”, this smart menu will list your favorite apps and your favourite contacts all in one place.

The first time you open this app you will be asked to replace your right softkey shortcut on the home screen with the Smart Menu, if you do so, you will have the Smart Menu just one tap away. When opening the app you will find the app list, here you may choose what app to launch, on the other tab you will see the contact list, just like in the agenda, but with a smaller list, just to be sure that you have the most important ones in one place. You may edit everything here, by pressing the ‘edit key’ you may choose

1) Start menu- Which key will lauch the smart menu

2) Applications – Choose what apps will be listed, you may choose any app on your find and make a long list, but Im  sure you will only choose the most important ones.

3) Contacts – Select your best friends at a convenient place.

4) Show Tabs – If you enable this, you will show apps and contacts in different tabs, disabling it will make just one list with both apps and contacts together.

5) Content Manager – Here you may select the order of the apps.

6) Application icons – will let you remove of show the icons, a minor adjustment

These functions may not be very helpful on a phone with lots of widgets that may work as app shortcuts and contact shortcuts like the N97. But I consider that it might be a must have on other phones that lack all these shortcuts, the 5800 comes to my mind right now. Also might be a great tool for other models using s60 3rd edition.

But, smart settings doesnt only owe its name because of the smart menu, it includes a lot other settings that let you be more productive while on the phone. To find these settings you have to go to the app folder in your phone and run the Smart Settings app there.

The first one of them is the auto lock; just like the native phone auto lock, maybe not very useful at its own, but here you will find the option to lock the phone just when idle on home screen, or lock it always at a preset time, but you may include exceptions, like, imagine you are listening at music at your car and you want to keep your phone unlocked for a prolonged time so you can see the album art or imagine you are reading something at the browser and would like to keep the screen lit on a bit longer, while locking  phone faster when sending sms to a friend. This is a great idea but needs to be worked further. The phone native locker will turn the screen light off at 60 minutes of idling, and will lock the phone at maximum 5 minutes. Maybe add an override and let the smart settings to keep the light on indefinitely and same for the autolock, sometimes I find annoying that if I take more than 60 seconds to read a website, the lights will turn off before I’m done.

Another setting is the Easy Unlock, here you may choose how to unlock the phone instead of the regular sliding key (in the N97), you tap on options and choose “new” then the phone will give you 3 seconds to choose what keys should be used as unlock. You may choose any key or more than one key in an order. In example you may select the menu key plus the red key in order to unlock it. A great customization option.

The next one is the Smart Menu which I have already talked about in the first part. So I will skip it . The next and last one is the “Smart Settings” Settings (I know, it sounds weird). Here you may edit how the app will look like. The first option is the name, you may change the name displayed on the Smart Menu, so instead of it saying “Smart Menu” you may make it to say “Favourites” or “Shortcuts” or any crazy stuff you want, you are free to edit. The next setting is the App icon, there are 7 cute icons to choose from,  we have form a turtle to a zebra, a small customization, just to make a bit friendlier. And the last one is the master switch called “Smart Settings” (again, :p) you may enable the whole app or disable at wish.

So at the end this app adds a whole deeper level of customization to your device, even if you dont find useful another shortcut of apps and contacts, you may like the auto lock and unlock settings. As I said before, the autolock can be worked a little more to make it override the native autolock, that will make it a lot more useful. Give it a try at MobiFun Soft.

David Castro