Feature of the Day is back! As promised from two or three weeks ago, I’ll continue with the HTC Album software found on the Touch Diamond, though it is the same as the Touch Pro. HTC Album is a very nice improvement to the mundane and boring Pictures and Videos app supplied with Windows Mobile 6/6.1. If you access it from TouchFLO 3D, you get the elegant 3D photo and video viewer that for some reason reminds me of the Microsoft Surface table computer. With simple up or down gestures, you can move quickly from one photo or video to another.
In the actual HTC Album software, you have the TouchFlo 3D influenced interfaces and menus that are just more aethetically pleasing to the eye than the Windows Mobile app. With HTC Album, photos and videos are viewed in the same app, unlike its WM counterpart that needs Windows Media Player to play videos. This is much more convenient.
When viewing a photo in HTC Album, the picture adjusts itself to the orientation of the phone much faster than other apps that use the accelerometer. For zooming in, you spin your finger clockwise. Likewise, to zoom out, you spin you finger counter-clockwise. It’s pretty neat seeing that actually work. Another option for zooming in and out is by using the touch scroll wheel built into the hardware panel. You can pan between different photos or videos by swiping you finger from side to side on the screen. While you are viewing a picture, a single tap on the screen gets you the most convenient options with a simple TouchFLO 3D style menu for more options.
You get the same nice experience with the slideshow part of HTC Album. The default has a nice and subtle fading transition between each picture, making it very elegant. You can also change the animations and delays for the slideshow
On the whole, the HTC Album stands out as one of the most heavily worked on apps by HTC. It’s a good thing they did, as it turned out to be such a great addition to both the Touch Diamond and Pro.
