After being completely bowled over by qik the other day, I was hunting for a suitable app to follow up for reviewing on my 5800. Qik may be in the top of the list of coolest applications available on symbian platform today but not to be left far behind is this another cool application from  the benches of eyeSight. Lets see how cool this application really is and how well it fares on our 5800s.

Installation

eyeCall is available as a paid application on the ovi store but as you guys must have realised by now, the payment option in ovi store is not working ever since it opened its floodgates to the whole world. I mean it was perfectly functional when I reviewed ovi client on 5800 when it was soft launched in a selected few countries. A few hours later when it was launched worldwide, payment option seized to work, blame it on the traffic surge! I came across this application while browsing through the ovi store and was totally drawn by its features after going through the item description. I didnt let the payment faux in ovi store deter me and found a beta version of the app on mobicreed. As you may guess, a beta application will probably be unsigned and it was indeed, prompting me to sign the app using the method described in my earlier post.Ovi payment is working now! Well, now I was all set to get a feel of eyeCall on my 5800.

We are almost midway into the post, and I still haven't mentioned what this amazing application can do. I better let this video do all the talking for this is the video you will see once you install this app on your 5800s:

This is one of the best features of this app, a walkthrough of all its features on installing the application on your phone. Can it get any easier than that? It doesnt stop here, after the video, it auto-runs the configuration wizard, so you can customize the features to suit your needs. i.e- You can chose what all features you wish to use: like silencing by a wave of hand, sending a message, animation and vibration. By default everything is selected as can be seen in the screenshot to the right. So basically you dont have to do much other than changing the Auto text message to your liking, the default one being, "I am in a meeting. Will call you later". There seems to be a character limit for this SMS as I was not allowed to compose a proper two sentence text message. Having completed this step, you are all set to use this application on your 5800. Hitting on the exit button will inform you that the application will still be running in the background for you to be able to use the features of this application. It has to be noted that, the application wont be listed in the list of open applications in this mode. In order to close this application one has to set it OFF in the main menu. Why will you need to turn it off, well I will dwell on it in a little while. Lets see if this application lives up to its claim as shown in the video above.

This is what the screen looks like when you silence the incoming call with a wave of your hand. The wave cannot be a swift wave but a normal one as in you would wave a hand at your friend or a better example would be a hand shake. A swift wave failed to silence the call. I dont know whether this is due to the beta version but overall the wave did silence a call. The texting option also works fine for which you need to cover the front camera with your hand till the phone vibrates. This feature worked fine initially but later, I wasn't able to activate sms by covering the front camera. This may be a bug in the beta version or may be I just didnt cover the front camera completely (highly unlikely but hey, lets give them a benefit of doubt).

Now coming to the practicality of this application: no doubt its a very cool application which will let you silence a call without even touching your phone (kinda app which you can flaunt among the non symbian crowd and show them how cool  symbian really is) but you cannot always leave this application running in the background. Why? Lets say you are driving to work and your 5800 is in your pockets/pouch, eyeCall will just silence the call even before the first ring, for the front camera is covered. This may lead to missing calls with you without even noticing the ring even in general or outdoor profiles. So you have to make it a point to turn on/off this application accordingly. I can think of only a few occassions when you would like to turn on this application: like at work, when you keep your phone on the desk and especially during meetings. Lets move to the customary pros and cons now.

Pros

1. Totally non-touch interaction on touch screen phone! Can you beat that?
2. Very easy to operate and configure
3. Introductory video and wizard make configuring the basic settings a childplay

Cons

1. Doesn't recognise a swift wave
2. Sending SMS doesnt work all the time

Verdict

First of all I would like to highlight that this is the review for the beta version of eyecall and not the final version available in ovi store. So I assume some of the cons would already have been fixed in the final version available today in ovi stores. Now moving on its definitely a very cool application with non-touch interaction on a touch screen device but after playing around it for a while, I realised that I dont really need this application for all the feature it provides are already present in my 5800, except the hand wave silencing (which definitely is the coolest feature of this application). As you may know, you can silence a call just by turning your 5800 upside down during an incoming ring. Besides that there is always a send a message soft button on incoming calls in 5800 which will silence the call, send a default message ofcourse requiring a couple of clicks for the same. eyeCall can only save you a couple of clicks and the trouble of manually turning the phone upside down to silence the call. So basically you pay for the cool features of non-touch interaction on a touch screen device. If you find this reason, compelling enough, go ahead and buy this application on Ovi store when its back fully functional (hopefully soon)

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