Thumb navigation and Pointui

It's funny to see the evolution in user interfaces for mobile devices. The evolution from static simples screens to touch screens was a huge step. Allowing a user to write with a plastic pen on a screen was incredible. That evolution allowed the user to do more with his mobile device, at the cost of complexity. There's no doubt that the introduction of the touch-screen and the pen increased the complexity of the user interface. And that's because it allowed the user to do more. It almost mimics the desktop computer nowdays. So, that's a good thing...or not ? In that time it was a great thing....now, we want to be able to the same things but with a simplified interface. That's the most recent evolution: thumb navigation aka "getting rid of the pen and allowing us to use our fingers" :)
I think what drove this evolution was the merge between the phone and the pda. We don't mind using a pen with a PDA. We are used to it. But we are not used to need a pen to use a phone. That's just to much work. I need to access my phone fast and hassle-free. Sometimes I only have one free hand to answer the phone or make a call, it must be able to do it.
Besides all the eye-candy, I think that was the great evolution that iPhone popularized. For me, I don't own an iPhone, but I own a windows mobile 5 device. And this platform hasn't seen any user interface improvements in years. It's almost the same I used several years ago, when I first saw a Pocket PC. So, I have to resort to third-party applications to make my user experience more pleasant.
Pointui is a free application that substitutes wm5 desktop with a thumb-navigation interface with a lot of eye candy, resembling iPhone in many aspects (like scrolling a list). It's not completely finished yet (it's a beta) but for me it's better than using wm5 desktop. You can see a video of what it feels like.

The veredict is: I haven't found many bugs, but there are some things lacking to completely substitute wm 5 interface in day-to-day tasks. Besides that, it's great and fun to use. Did I mention it's free ? :) Go ahead and try it.