It’s no mystery that SkyeQuiKey is one of my favorite S60 apps – I’ve mentioned it plenty of times here on SiMo. Long story short, it’s a contact / application / game / bookmark / new message launcher that allows you to type directly from your Active Standby screen to pull up and launch your desired item. Thanks to a post from Stefan on Jaiku I’ve learned of a new SQK competitor that is currently available as a free beta. The following are my thoughts on T9nav as found in Stefan’s thread.

It’s a nice attempt at a competitor IMO but it has some big flaws… Here’s how they match up in my eyes:

T9nav Wins…

1. Less RAM consumption: ~265KB (T9nav) vs. ~965KB (SQK) [of course in modern S60 phones the impact is minuscule]
2. Ability to save a number to contacts: This is important and it’s basic functionality that SQK should have had from day 1.

T9nav Loses…

1. No history: SkyeQuiKey maintains a history. For example, because I visit my ESPN bookmark often, when I press 3 for “E” SQK places ESPN at the top of the list.
2. Slooooow to launch: Indexing media files was a horrible idea. Who launches a track but clicking on it in a menu? The first time I launch T9nav it takes over 2 minutes before my search results are shown. Fail. They should add settings to choose which categories should be indexed.
3. Slooooow to use: While keying in digits and navigating around, there are a lot of pauses and jumps.
4. Tabs: In one respect, separating categories into tabs is nice because the app indexes so many things. On the other hand, it eliminates the possibility of dpad shortcuts. I prefer shortcuts – ie: with SQK I can press left with a contact highlighted to open a new SMS to the contact or right to open a new email.

In my eyes, SQK wins by a long shot. It’s infinitely faster and much smarter. T9nav is five times better than digging through menus and apps, but SQK is 10 times better. The app is still in beta though so it is likely being actively developed. Looking forward to future versions…

To check out T9nav for yourself click here