RNS::’s HiLauncher for Palm OS can be considered the staple food of Palmary launcherness – it remains the most commonly used “start menu” for the operating system. Microsoft’s decision to abandon the classic start menu on WM 6.5 motivated RNS:: to port…can HiLauncher stack up in the new environment?
After setting up HiLauncher, the product immediately displays a “basic configuration wizard”. It allows you to configure the most essential things immediately:
Once this is done, the program takes over the start menu immediately. Customization happens via a control panel which is displayed in the Programs view:
Unlike the traditional start menu, HiLauncher supports a variety of special items. Things like status indicators and toggles are a non-issue:
As are multi-level folder hierarchies:
Customization can be done in an extremely flexible fashion – the shots below show a few of the available font settings:
Unfortunately, replacing a core system component never is easy. For example, the default programs view still omits all programs on the start menu – if they aren’t on the RNS menu, you can’t access them anymore.
This review looked at version 1.0.1 of HiLauncher on an XPERIA X1 running its stock distribution of Windows Mobile 6.1. As the program needs but 500k of memory, it should definitely go into RAM to reduce latencies.
In the end, RNS’s HiLauncher is a must-have for all who dislike the WM 6.5 start menu. All others have to evaluate the benefits against the somewhat high cost (15$ without rebate) and the speed penalty of replacing a core Windows component – I personally feel that the added possibilities are worth the minimal extra delay…
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