Let's face it, the built-in Calendar in Windows Mobile for Pocket PC isn't up to much. It's clunky and fiddly to operate and makes it difficult to quickly check the date and make appointments.

ThumbCal is designed to replace the default calendar on your handset with one that's easier to use. It's certainly a lot clearer, with big buttons as the dates that can be easily touched with a finger. If you run the app with its bundled skin you'll get a slick black interface with white numbers and grey highlights.

By clicking a date or tapping it with your fingers you can access a menu where you can select 'Today' to return to the current day on the calendar. You can choose 'New' to make an appointment for a particular date. Or at least, that's the theory. In practice, I couldn't get the feature to do anything, probably because this is an early alpha version.

Nevertheless it's good for checking dates in the future and goes up beyond the year 2100, so you can literally plan the rest of your life on it. As you flip through the years, the calendar scrolls upwards, which looks pretty cool. Again though, it's hit and miss as to whether this feature will work.

ThumbCal is a great looking, easy-access Pocket PC calendar app which is unfortunately let down by bugs and glitches.

Download ThumbCal 1.0.7 in Softonic

Pocket Player 3.2 is a rockin' way to enjoy music and video on your Pocket PC or Smartphone. Through multiple media and playlist formats, Internet connectivity, plugin extensions, and an intuitive interface, Pocket Player means less taps, more music!

What makes pocket player different?:

• Full music and video support: MP3, WMA, WMV1 2, Ogg Vorbis, FLAC, and WAV!
• Protected WMA support, u-Law, A-Law, AU, and ADPCM WAV (used in Voicemail attachments) playback
• 10-band Equalizer and Preamp, with presets!
• Universal Plug-and-Play (UPnP): browse and play content from your desktop!
• Web radio guide and podcast streaming, with pause, auto-resume and seek functionality!
• Voicemail playback (WAV attachments), integrates to your Inbox!
• Visualizations and downloadable Album Art support
• Media Browser, handles 1000+ tracks with ease!
• Full Pocket PC and Smartphone support, including version 2002, 2003, WM5 and Windows Mobile 6 compatibility!
• Skinnable (Pocket Player, WMP, and WSZ skins)
• Skin hue adjustment: change skin colors
• Themed and skinned Today plugin
• HTTP, Windows Network, Shoutcast, Icecast streaming
• ID3 v1/v1.1/v2 reading; scans device in background
• Gapless playback with variable crossfading
• Automatic Microdrive buffering support
• "Local Content" playlist auto-detects all tracks on device
• Playlist manager, auto-generating smart playlists!
• Pocket PC Notification Icon playback controls
• DSP Plugin support, including Bass Boost
• User-managed Bookmarks support; jump to a file and time
• For Podcasts and audio books: "Seek to last position", Auto-resume
• Hardware button mapping, button locking, one-handed navigation, including support for the Smartphone scroll wheels
• Bluetooth Remote control and headphones support
• Optional sleep timer
• Automatic screen shutoff

Download Pocket Player 3.7 in Softonic

phoneAlarm is a Today screen plugin - giving you total control over your Pocket PC Phone. Never miss an important call, SMS or Email again. Automatically switch profiles and quickly access Inbox, call history and control the state of bluetooth directly from the Today screen. Optimised for one-handed and in-car use.

phoneAlarm key features:

• Provides repeating alarms on new SMS, Email, missed calls & voice messages
• 7 Custom Phone profiles with manual / time-based automatic switching.
• Alarm notification on weak battery and phone signal (WM 5.0 only)
• Customise sound, volume and options for each alarm type in each profile
• Mute device and phone volume
• Skinnable user interface (How to create skins)
• Bluetooth and Flight mode control via profiles (also for Widcomm/Broadcomm stack)
• Auto-profile change on <'ActiveSync'> (Work) and <'Power - no ActiveSync'> (Car), also based on time or Appointment category
• 1-hand skin navigation and quick-dialer for last 10 numbers (only for WM 5.0 & WM 2003 SE)
• Icons provide direct access to Inbox, missed call history etc.
• Task-switcher pop-up to close running applications
• Option to cycle radio (off/on) to change user on dual SIM
• English, German, French, Italian, Spanish, Danish, Norwegian, Dutch, Czech, Hungarian, Russian and Chinese user interface
• Supports VGA display
• Optimised for fast performance and maximum platform support
• Simple installation

Download phoneAlarm 2.06 in Softonic

Ringtone creation tools have come a long way since the days when you had to enter notes on your Nokia keypad, before playing them back as a tinny melody. Mixx Mobile offers an advanced set of features for making sophisticated ringtones.

As soon as you start using the program you realize that Mixx Mobile is actually quite a powerful piece of kit. The best way to start is to launch the Mixx Mobile demo project, which demonstrates how each tune is broken down into up to six tracks, represented by waveforms displayed in timelines.

Once you start playing around with the tools in Mixx Mobile the capabilities of what you can do with the app become clear. You can zoom into each track's waveform for precision audio editing, apply a series of customizable effects, record voice or music and use this in your creations and load MP3, Ogg and Wav files into Mixx Mobile.

Once you've finished editing your mix in Mixx Mobile, it's easy to export it as a ringtone through the program's rendering function. The audio quality in Mixx Mobile is fantastic, especially in terms of the bass output, which is far more genuine than you'll find in many similar apps.

Perhaps the only thing letting Mixx Mobile down is it's rather clunky user interface. True, it looks OK and you can apply your own skins to the editor. But, without the inclusion of a toolbar or a back button, tweaking audio and applying changes becomes quite a fiddly process.

However, with a bit of patience it's possible to produce some truly classic compositions using Mixx Mobile.

Download Mixx Mobile 1.5 in Softonic

SKMenu is a powerful menu tool, file manager and explorer and desktop organization solution for your Pokcet PC. With a huge range of features and functions, SKMenu allows you to personalize every single aspect of your Pocket PC user experience and puts other 'launch' type applications to shame.

Some key features include:

• Freely positionable SKMenu symbol on Today screen/Task /Tray bar
• Freely positionable SKMenu symbol as indicator with status display
• Indicator modes: digital, graphic
• Freely selectable SKMenu symbol size
• Freely selectable fonts (name, size, type)
• Freely selectable color for menu text
• Freely selectable color for menu highlighted text
• Screenshot option
• Freely selectable sound (.wav) for Screenshot option
• Clear Type On/Off
• Freely definable colors for SKMenu window like symbol background, fonts, separators, window background, highlight background)
• Freely selectable color for menu font
• Freely selectable color for separator line
• Freely selectable size for separator line
• Freely selectable color for highlight background
• Skinnable Menu window background (picture support .jpg, .png, .gif, .bmp)
• Assumption of actual theme for Menu window background
• Wallpaper effects: Tile/Stretch
• Import/Export function for skins
• Direct access to system settings

...and much more besides! Install SKMenu for a trial run today and you'll never look back!

Download SKMenu 1.7.5 in Softonic

Since the introduction of the iPhone into popular culture, it seems today that if you haven't got a decent music player on your mobile, you're a bit of a dork.

That's bad news for anyone with a Windows Mobile device, because the built-in version of Windows Media Player is looking a bit long-in-the-tooth now. Fear not though, because with the PocketMusic Player Bundle, you can replace the default audio player with something altogether cooler.

The software provides an amazing environment in which to enjoy digital music. Once installed via the PC set-up, it lodges itself in its own section on the Today screen, giving you instant access to basic playback controls, plus options such as Load, Shuffle, Repeat and an alarm clock.

That's not even half the story though, because by tapping on this section you'll open the full PocketMusic Player, where a bounty of treasures awaits you. The default interface boasts large, shiny buttons that facilitate touchscreen control of your music. Alternatively, you can apply a Winamp skin to the player, giving you a raft a cool features within a familiar GUI. Features such as a graphic equalizer, playlists, file information, sorting, preamp, and more.

Delve into the menu system and you'll find even more treats. You can create bookmarks, toggle fullscreen mode, map shortcut keys, alter the fast forward/rewind step interval and organise playlists. All this, my friends, before you've even opened the 'Player Options' menu. Once you've done so, you can tinker with settings from crossfading effects to sleep timers.

For me this is, without question, the most fully-featured audio player for Windows Mobile. I would have given it five stars were it not for the fact it lacks an adequate Help section, something, I think is needed in an app of this magnitude.

Nevertheless, if you want to turn your Pocket PC into a all-singing, all-dancing MP3 player, I can't recommend PocketMusic highly enough.

Download PocketMusic Player Bundle 5.1 in Softonic

For the best view of the Earth you really need to go up into space - or install this theme onto your Pocket PC.

This skin adds a picture of the planet as the background image to your Today screen. It's a decent quality shot taken from above the United States, and if you look closely you can pick out details of the terrain.

Earth Theme also transforms some of the Windows Mobile OS elements such as the Start menu, navigation bars and menu backgrounds. Generally, the Earth-colored scheme works well, although some of the black text changes are quite unreadable.

This PDA theme is designed for VGA screens at 480x640, so only users with this kind of display on their device can really appreciate its beauty.

However, fans of Earth (and let's face it, that's most of us) will enjoy the view that this Pocket PC theme offers you.

Download Earth Theme VGA in Softonic

It's quite incredible how quickly Sudoku has become one of the most popular puzzle games on the planet. It seems that whenever you get on a bus, train or plane, you're guaranteed to see at least one person gazing at a block of numbers looking quizzical with a pen in their mouth.

The problem I have with Sudoku is that I find it gets very repetitive very quickly and I often end up putting down my puzzle book after just a couple of games. Skinz Sudoku breathes new life into the format of the game, with innovative gameplay that will keep you glued to your Pocket PC screen.

Like a normal game of Sudoku, you must fill the board with numbers from one to nine without repeating them in the same row, column or square. However, Skinz Sudoku offers four different ways of playing to add a little diversity to the proceedings.

The first is 'Wheel', where you pick a number from a number wheel that appears around the tile you selected. Then there's 'Square' which is essentially the same thing only with a simpler layout. 'Bar' is particularly interesting, as you first select the number you want to plot before touching the grid to put it anywhere. The final one is 'Writing' where you simply type in the number you want to include.

The game allows for the creation of new boards, the ability to change the appearance of the environment, save and load games, all without using the pointer. Though the game offers some fun ways of inputting numbers, the puzzle itself is essentially still the same, so if you're not into Sudoku then don't bother.

However, if you're an affectionado then Skinz Sudoku will add a more more variety to the way you play the game.

Download Skinz Sudoku 1.30 in Softonic

WisBar Advance 2 expands upon the successful task management features found in the original WisBar Advance. Now more tightly integrated with the PocketPC operating system, WisBar Advance provides greater responsiveness and a richer user experience.

WisBar Advance 2 brings new life to your PocketPC with the ability to change the appearance of your system to a degree not matched in other software.

Main features include:

• Close, minimize or ignore any application
• Switch between any application currently running on your device
• Provides a cascading start menu (like in the picture above)
• Never miss a system notification again with the new dynamic notification icon
• Tap and hold the OK button to cancel a dialog
• Add or remove functions to the taskbar
• Each button on the taskbar can be assigned a tap and a tap-and-hold action
• Change the appearance of the taskbar, menubar, buttons and start menu in any program
• Supports high-resolution and landscape mode skins
• Customize the clock's appearance on the taskbar
• Hear sounds for system events, just like on your desktop
• Download and install themes created by other people
• Available in many languages

Download WisBar Advance 3.2.1.1 in Softonic

However smart mobile devices are these days they will always have their limitations, namely in the form of battery life, RAM size and storage space. As a result it's important to keep an eye on all of these factors in order to ensure that you don't exceed your system's capabilities.

Fizz Monitor is designed to help you manage the resources on your system more effectively, by placing a series of gauges for various system elements on one screen. The program's main window is split into three sections: Battery Power, which indicates the percentage of main and backup power left; Memory, which measures both the running program memory and system storage space; and Device Storage, which tells you how much external card space you have at your disposal.

All of the information is very clearly presented in each of these sections, and by clicking on one of the resources you can view more information about it at the foot of the screen. The interface can also be skinned by choosing one of the four available themes.

Fizz Monitor also includes a fairly primitive task manager, which displays a list of all items that you're running at present, giving you the option to 'kill' or 'activate' a task at the click of a button. It's a welcome addition to the software, although fairly primitive in its operation compared to the likes of the native Windows task manager utility.

On the whole though, Fizz Monitor provides an easy way to keep track of your system resources.

Download Fizz Monitor 3.2 in Softonic

I don't know about you but I find typing on my Pocket PC a real chore. I don't have particularly fat fingers and yet I still have trouble hitting the right keys on the keys. Even when I'm using the stylus I find it difficult to type more than about 10 words a minute.

Step forward ZoomBoard, an application designed to make entering text on the Windows Mobile touchscreen a pleasure rather than a hassle. The software provides you with a choice of two new keyboard skins designed to facilitate quicker, more accurate typing.

It does this by offering three different types of keyboard zooms that enlarge the part of the keyboard that you're moving over. The zooms on offer are: Full, which simply zooms the whole part of the keyboard as you move over it; Glass, which pops up a semi-transparent window in the center of the screen displaying a close-up of the area of the keyboard you're over; and Float, which is like Glass only it floats just over the keyboard area. Of the three, I found Full the easiest to use because it doesn't intrude on other areas of the screen you may wish to see, and it make it easier to hit the keys immediately around the one you're currently hovering over.

There are plenty of settings and options you can tinker with in ZoomBoard including support for 'Smart Zooming', along with support for a huge range of different keyboard layouts, which can be selected using a scrollable menu interface (annoyingly though you have to scroll right to the bottom to exit this menu).

If you regularly have difficulty typing on your Pocket PC, ZoomBoard provides a genuinely more intuitive way of entering text.

Download ZoomBoard 2.02 in Softonic

Don't get me wrong, I think the Pocket PC platform is awesome but, like many people, I find it a little cumbersome sometimes and the fact that I have to tap tiny icons with pixel precision can sometimes end up getting me down.

Pointui Home is designed to change all that, skinning the Windows Mobile interface to make it easy to control the basic functions of your device without having to so much as look at your stylus. i.e. by clicking directly with your fingers.

In order to achieve this Pointui uses a kind of 'shuffle' system as adopted by the HTC device, and not too dissimilar to the iPhone. It means that you can navigate your operating system using finger swipes, making the whole process of using your handheld much more intuitive and more enjoyable, to boot.

From the main program window you can make calls, access email and text messaging, and manage and control the functions of the media player. Certain elements of Windows Mobile have been completely reskinned, including the phone app, which gives a more of an iPhone feel to the call log. Other tools such as calendar and tasks haven't been reskinned but they are now easier to access.

What's more, the system settings are now right at your fingertips, rather than buried below a series of menus on your Pocket PC.

If you're fed up of the somewhat cumbersome Windows Mobile environment and stylus-based interface, Pointui offers a very interesting alternative that lets your fingers do the talking.

Download Pointui Home 1.51a in Softonic

The game of Sudoku seems to have replaced the humble crossword as the king of bus travel pursuits.

What's more, the way people are playing the game is changing too, and more and more people are using their mobile devices to crunch numbers on the move. Impossible Sudoku bills itself as 'the most powerful mobile Sudoku game', and while I've not tested all of its rivals, it's certainly up there with the best of the ones I've tried.

When you first load Impossible Sudoku you'll probably fall out of your chair when you see the game board. Unlike the games you get in puzzle books this one has loads and loads of little numbers as well as bigger numbers filled in every square on the grid. It's a little daunting at first but don't worry because these are here to help you. They are actually 'auto marks' that indicate the numbers that are available to enter in a particular square based on the current state of the grid. Don't worry if it's too confusing for you because you can switch the feature off (you can't toggle auto marks, unfortunately and the change will come into effect in the next game).

There are lots of other things you can customize in Impossible Sudoku, and it's actually one of the most impressive number games I've seen in terms of its options. You can undo, redo, mark, check moves, solve the puzzle, and access all manner of statistics. There are five levels of difficulty, and you can even create your own puzzles from scratch.

The presentation of the game is pretty impressive - there's a choice of nine bright, colorful skins and the sound effects that play when you enter numbers are quite cool without being annoying.

In fact, the only thing that really lets the game down is its feeble help system. All you get is a one-paragraph description of the rules and there's nothing in the way of tips and tactics that might help beginners.

Overall though, this is a wonderful simulation of Sudoku for mobile devices.

Download Impossible Sudoku 1.05 in Softonic

Spb Weather is a very powerful weather forecast Today plug-in. You can customize weather views, skins and even the weather forecast data source. Spb Pocket Plus users can save space on their Today screen running Spb Weather as a tab.

Features include:

• Five different view modes
• 10 professional skins
• Several weather sources
• Easy configuration from context menu
• Optimized traffic (400 bytes for 5 day forecast)
• Custom weather source support
• Custom city support
• Integration with Spb Mobile Shell
• Integration with Spb Diary
• Integration with Spb Pocket Plus

Download Spb Weather 1.7.4 in Softonic

Spb Diary is a feature-rich Today plug-in for your Calendar, Tasks, Contacts, Notes and Messages. It enhances Pocket Outlook by gathering all of your PIM information in one place. With Spb Diary, the Today screen will soon become your favorite since you will need to leave it less and less.

Spb Time's features include:

• Today plug-in
• Slideshow in screensaver
• Skins
• Analog clock
• Digital clock with calendar
• World clock with zoom
• Stopwatch with lap times export
• Multiple timers and stopwatches
• Fullscreen view for clocks
• Toolbar designed for finger taps
• Tap-and-drag to set an alarm

Download Spb Time 2.2.2 in Softonic

Award winning Today plug-in with tabs that replaces your built-in Calendar, Tasks and Mail on your Today screen, offering a much more powerful solution.

• View up to 30 days of appointments and tasks on your Today screen
• Choose your own layout, fonts & colors - even your category and status icons
• Integrates seamlessly with Agenda Fusion, Pocket Informant, and the default PIM
• Manage your tasks with virtually unlimited grouping and sorting capabilities
• Define smart filters to filter your display by many categories together
• Download many free skins from our skins pageto give your Pocket PC a great new look
• Edit tasks and appointments with one tap
• View your task and appointment notes with scrolling pop-up windows
• Jump ahead to any day or week with the calendar pop-up window
• Install additional plug-ins to add new tabs with new capabilities to PocketBreeze
• Enable/disable and re-order your PocketBreeze tabs as you wish
• A year’s worth of your contacts’ birthdays and anniversaries with flashing reminders...and more

The Calendar Tab

• View your appointments and tasks in a single, tabbed display
• Include up to 30 days of your upcoming agenda
• View category, status, and note icons with each item
• View appointment and task notes in a scrolling pop-up window
• Complete tasks from the Today screen
• Pop-up calendar window let’s you jump ahead to any day or week
• Filter the Calendar display by category
• Define special fonts and colors to items according to their status
• Choose layouts, fonts, and colors for appointments & tasks
• Optionally display icons on the left of appointments/tasks
• View daily snap overview using large popup timelines

The Tasks Tab

• Manage your tasks from the Today screen
• Sort tasks by: Category, Due Date, Start Date, Importance, Completion status, Sensitivity, Subject
• Filter tasks by Category
• View task counter for each category grouping
• Define different text colors according to task status
• Mark your tasks complete from the Today screen

The Special Events Tab

• View your contact's birthdays and anniversaries - automatically loaded from your contacts database
• Define up to two additional categories to include in this tab
• Choose the the text color for those additional categories
• Special Events tab icon flashes as a reminder when a special event is near - you define how many days

General Features

• Switch and scroll PocketBreeze tabs using your Pocket PC D-Pad
• PocketBreeze include enhanced integration with the default PIM, Pocket Informant and Agenda Fusion. Allowing you to open appointments/tasks with your favorite PIM
• Fully skinable display, can easily be customized
• PocketBreeze is using a special half-transparency level skinning mechanism which results great look with your Today themes

PocketBreeze tabs

• Enable/disable PocketBreeze tabs to add more power or enjoy faster performance
• Re-order the tabs order to create the look you wish
• Install additional tabs for PocketBreeze
• ContactBreeze - the first tab released for PocketBreeze bring your contacts to your today screen with special searching capabilities and thumbs interface to find your contacts without your stylus.

Download PocketBreeze 5.4.1 in Softonic

I like the Windows Mobile OS, but sometimes its design baffles me a bit and I find it takes a lot longer to do things than I would like. Accessing important information or applications can sometimes mean navigating lots of menus and being the busy man that I am, this is simply not good enough. After installing Spb Pocket Plus, though, these problems soon ease off and you'll find you've got the operating system you always dreamed of.

The first thing you'll notice is that the program adds some useful information and resources to the Today Screen, such as battery life, memory and contacts. The add-on also makes accessing stuff from the Today Screen much quicker thanks to a series of customisable shortcuts. Using these you can tap into functions with just a single sylus click.

Pocket Plus also empowers you with tools for improving your Web surfing, such as the ability to work with multiple windows in Internet Explorer, and view pages at full-screen. When it comes to removing applications and data, this software excels, wiping apps quickly and effectively from your device to free up valuable space.

If you're looking to enhance the Windows Mobile OS with a slick new interface, Spb Pocket Plus allows you to use your handheld quicker and more easily than ever before.

Download Spb Pocket Plus 4.0.2 in Softonic

The Pocket PC makes for the perfect way to tell the time when you're out on the road with it.

But why settle for looking at the rather bland default date and time display? Today's Time offers a neat alternative, providing a skin-based analog and digital clock for your Pocket PC. After a simple installation, you can access the program options through the Today screen settings menu.

There are a bevy of options here to tweak virtually every aspect of the clock. The Analog clock menu gives you the ability to change the view and the clock face style, and customize the colors of the hands on the clock. Likewise, with the Digital clock settings menu you can choose from a range of clock face styles, change the color and add a blink time separator.

Today's Time also comes with a date display and a battery indicator, which are neatly displayed next to or above the clock on your Today screen. The inclusion of a calendar mode somewhere would've been a nice touch, but I guess you can't have everything.

As a means of adding a clearer, more attractive clock to your PPC, Today's Time makes for a pretty decent solution.

Download Today's Time 1.3 in Softonic

MXCalc SE is a very clever calculator indeed. In fact I'd go so far as saying it's one of the best available for mobiles. Firstly the display is very clear, the numbers are big and the changeable mathematical equation bar is easy to manipulate. Plus you can use this with your fingers rather than a stylus. However, it's when you get into the more complex functions that the calculator comes to life - if calculators can come to life, which I very much doubt.

MXCalc SE is packed with financial expertise, statistical and matrices functions. Plus the MXSolver facility allows you to enter and solve quadratic and cubic equations in a very clear display. There are also loan and amortization tables as well as a unit converter. And whenever the viewing area needs to be enlarged the calculator automatically shuffles the screen to give you a better view of your answers. It's a specialist tool that will benefit anyone in need of a good calculator.

Download MxCalc SE 3.1.2 in Softonic

Since the introduction of the iPhone into popular culture, it seems today that if you haven't got a decent music player on your mobile, you're a bit of a dork.

That's bad news for anyone with a Windows Mobile device, because the built-in version of Windows Media Player is looking a bit long-in-the-tooth now. Fear not though, because with the PocketMusic Player Bundle, you can replace the default audio player with something altogether cooler.

The software provides an amazing environment in which to enjoy digital music. Once installed via the PC set-up, it lodges itself in its own section on the Today screen, giving you instant access to basic playback controls, plus options such as Load, Shuffle, Repeat and an alarm clock.

That's not even half the story though, because by tapping on this section you'll open the full PocketMusic Player, where a bounty of treasures awaits you. The default interface boasts large, shiny buttons that facilitate touchscreen control of your music. Alternatively, you can apply a Winamp skin to the player, giving you a raft a cool features within a familiar GUI. Features such as a graphic equalizer, playlists, file information, sorting, preamp, and more.

This free version of PocketMusic lacks the powerful features of its bigger brother, PocketMusic Player Bundle, which boasts added goodies such as support for Ogg and WMA formats, extra bass, bookmarks, playlist organiser and alarm and sleep timer functions.

However it's still a decent version of the app which I reckon is one of the best audio player for Windows Mobile. If it had a decent help system, the program would score even higher.

Nevertheless, if you want to turn your Pocket PC into a all-singing, all-dancing MP3 player, I can't recommend PocketMusic highly enough.

Download PocketMusic 5.0.6 in Softonic