Mobile – Page 21 – rgbFilter

Windows Mobile Marketplace Info Updated

March 31, 2009April 17, 2009 Doug Groves marketplace, Windows Mobile0 comment

After recent announcements regarding Microsoft entering the mobile app shopping fray with their Marketplace, some details are starting to come out, including: buy via phone or full web site 24 hours full refund on returns. carrier specific sub stores certified compatibility with particular devices On the developer side, Microsoft is still touting full transparency in the approval process. Probably the best bit of news for developers is that the company is dropping application updates to the 5 app limit per $99 registration. Of course, this remains largely moot. As of…

iPhone OS 3.0 Preview: Not-So-Smartphone Get a Long Overdue Feature Boost

March 17, 2009July 25, 2009 Danny X iPhone22 Comments

Microsoft’s MyPhone Beta And Windows Live

March 12, 2009April 17, 2009 Doug Groves live.com, Myphone, Windows Mobile1 Comment

For the past few weeks, I’ve been testing the beta version of Microsoft’s Myphone service, which allows for wireless backup to the web. Although it delivers exactly what it promises, and does work as a backup, it’s missing the boat in certain areas. The free service will back contacts, calendar, tasks, photos, music, videos and documents to the cloud, so that even if you lose your phone, you can easily recover the data by running the Myphone service on a new device. On that account it works fine, as I…

Twitter Back On Bell… For A Price

February 26, 2009July 28, 2009 Doug Groves Bell, twitter2 Comments

Some months ago, Twitter removed its SMS based service in Canada, citing high costs. Now the service is back on Bell, but will cost users 15 cents per message, sent or recieved, regardless of whether one has an unlimited SMS package with Bell. A spokesperson for Bell Canada said Twitter is considered a “premium” third-party service, so it’s not covered under its plans. Twitter is an online service that lets people communicate in 140-character status updates and subscribe to the “tweets” of other members. Many people subscribe to hundreds of…

Mobile Interface Demos

February 21, 2009April 17, 2009 Doug Groves Android, google, multitouch, resistive, tat, tegra, Windows Mobile3 Comments

Beyond all the new phones at Mobile World Congress this year, there were some really interesting demos of technology that may change the way we interact with mobile devices in general in the future. We’ve already mentioned the graphics power of Nvidia’s long awaited Tegra platform that should appear on both Google’s Android and Windows Mobile in the not to distant future. Beyond processing power, there were some new interfaces demoed at Mobile World Congress in 2009 worth highlighting. Stantum demonstrated their new multi-touch technology, but what makes it different…

Climatology of a Cultural Ice Age, core sample #2

February 17, 2009February 23, 2009 Paul L Apple, canada, MPAA, RIAA1 Comment

A trial is convened in Sweden, in which the co-founders of filesharing directory The Pirate Bay face two years in jail and a €100,000 fine for “assisting copyright infringement”. YouTube begins crippling the audio on all of its content, whenever it auto-pattern-matches with any audio pattern claimed by a record company, sparking fears of the ‘End of Mashup Culture‘ and reports of the first massacres of teenage digital dreams. Then, just weeks later, as if to reassure any who might be in doubt as to whether there is room in…

Apple allowing 3rd party web browsers into App Store. All in all, it’s another brick out of the wall.

January 14, 2009January 25, 2009 Danny X 15 Comments

It seems Apple’s policy of not allowing any application that replicates the functionality of an Apple iPod Touch/iPhone application into the App Store is relenting. Back in November, Apple quietly allowed admission of an app called BdEmailer, an alternative to Apple’s “MAIL” app that supports client SMTP, apparently duplicating (and improving upon) Apple’s client…or so the blogosphere would believe. A quick visit to the app dev’s site shows that BdEmailer is designed for outgoing mail only. Reading incoming mail is not part of its functionality. Now, Apple has opened up…

Palm Pre will have its own online catalogue of Apps, cleverly named the “App Catalogue”.

January 12, 2009January 12, 2009 Danny X 57 Comments

Is the Pre the Smartphone for the Rest Of Us?…wait…that’s not right… As if there was ever any doubt, Palm has announced that they will in fact be providing an online application retail outlet for the new WebOS-powered Palm Pre, which they have dubbed the “App Catalogue.” The fact that this was coming was essentially a no-brainer, but the big question is, does Palm intend the Catalogue to be a walled-garden-type store from which all Pre owners must purchase software, or will it be simply an available option, leaving users…

Palm Pre Announced And Sized Up

January 8, 2009April 17, 2009 Doug Groves 44 Comments

Sometimes, a Hail Mary pass works. Palm once ruled the mobile digital roost during the era of the PDA, and remained there for a long time, even in the early days of the smart phone with their Treo devices. Part of the popularity had to do with the “Zen of Palm”, which is a philosophy for user friendliness which the company has held onto since day one. Over the past 3 years or so, they fell off that perch, first with corporate customers when their aging OS couldn’t keep up…

Quick Shot: Skyfire vs. Opera Mobile

December 3, 2008July 25, 2009 Doug Groves Microsoft, Opera Mobile, review, Skyfire, video, Windows Mobile3 Comments

Skyfire is a relative newcomer to the Windows Mobile browser scene. After lingering in a US only beta for what seems like over a year, the folks at skyfire.com have finally spread their wings, at least to Canada and the UK. What Skyfire promises (and delivers on) is a browser with Flash support built in, for both video and Flash animations. This is a quick speed test comparing Skyfire with the excellent Opera Mobile 9.5, with some sample in-browser Flash playback, using an HTC Touch 400MHz phone. Rendering speeds between…

Palm Slashing Staff… And The Slow Bleed Continues

November 27, 2008July 25, 2009 Doug Groves palm1 Comment

Caught this at ITNerd: It actually made me sad when the news that Palm is laying off up to ten per cent of its staff and cutting some product offerings hit Valleywag. Palm used to have a rather nice handheld OS and I have owned several Palm products over the years. But increased competition and increased focus in terms of churning out Windows Mobile OS devices has put Palm OS into the position of being a distant also ran. To be fair, there are rumblings of a new OS coming….