Posts in Handhelds
Xperia gets more panels
John Chan | Nov 26, 2008
This writer's Facebook page. Faces have been mangled for privacy.
Sony Ericsson has announced new panels for its Xperia X1 Windows Mobile phone, and this time, they are from Facebook and Windows Live.
In a nutshell, the panel interface in the X1 allows the user to choose from a number of Home screens to replace the original. It's a feature Sony Ericsson has used quite a bit to market its X1 as being different from other Windows Mobile PDA-phones. Currently, most of the panels are provided by Sony Ericsson with only a handful of third-party ones.
We downloaded the panels for a test run
Read more »
Opera Mini 4.2 beta now surfing Google Android
Jessica Dolcourt | Nov 25, 2008
Opera Mini 4.2 is the first browsing alternative for Google's Android mobile operating system.
(Credit: Opera Software)
Opera Mini 4.2 beta, a test version released for Java phones just two weeks ago, on Monday became the first third-party browser available for Google Android.
Opera Mini for Android, which was previewed in April, includes most of the familiar Mini 4.2 features: Zooming, saving, bookmarking, and searching for in-line text has stayed intact, as has syncing via Opera Link and swapping skins.
We couldn't make the video playback workaround that debuted on other Java phones work in this build, though T-Mobile's USA's G1 phone does support video playback (see our review on TuneWiki). We hear that Opera will address this issue when the mobile browser comes out of beta.
What's distinctive and commendable of the Android-optimized build: Fast speeds over T-Mobile's 3G network, a very crisp display, and quality that approaches the iPhone when it comes to viewing a zoomed-out Web page, thanks to both screen size and image clarity. The G1's two menu keys also enhance the experience, making Opera Mini's controls easy to access and navigate.
Google Android was low-hanging fruit for Opera. It would have been better, of course, if the browser had been available when the G1 began selling, but of all third-party developers, Opera still managed to bring its free browser first to Android's market--and a very able version at that.
We're hoping that Opera will port its more robust Mobile version to Android next, and as always, that Opera will release a version that lets users type directly into a text field without pulling up an intermediary screen.
Via CNET Download
Palm losing out as iPhone gains corporate fans
Tom Krazit | Nov 21, 2008
On Thursday, ChangeWave released the results of an otherwise dismal survey predicting a tough time ahead for anyone who relies on corporate IT spending for their livelihood. But the news was good for those in the smart phone business not named Palm; smart phone shipments to U.S. corporations are expected to grow even as overall IT spending falls.
And Apple's iPhone is seeing the bulk of the growth, according to ChangeWave. Companies still love Research in Motion's BlackBerry, as we covered earlier this month, but the iPhone is picking up ground. Seventy-eight percent of respondents said they planned to buy BlackBerrys for their employees in the next quarter, compared with 22 percent who plan on buying iPhones and just 5 percent planning on buying a Palm product. That compares August results that had RIM at 79 percent, Apple at 17 percent, and Palm at 6 percent. The results indicate that some companies are buying smart phones from more than one vendor, as last week's report on the iPhone in business noted as a growing trend.
The survey fails to break out results by operating system, which shafts Windows Mobile to some degree. Microsoft has been losing share to the iPhone overall, but smart phones that use Windows Mobile are still the second-most widely used phones inside corporations, according to J.Gold Associates. However, since that operating system is spread across so many different handset makers, no one handset maker is outpacing the three mentioned in the survey.
Palm has been trying to make a comeback with products like the Centro and Treo Pro, but Centro is a consumer-oriented product and the Treo Pro doesn't seem to have set the world afire.
In February 2007, Palm was on the shopping lists of 22 percent of companies surveyed by ChangeWave. Times have changed.
Via CNET News
The triple-flip iCEphone
John Chan | Nov 20, 2008
(Credit: The Medical Phone)
We are filing this under concept for now, but it's an interesting one nonetheless. Thought up by UK-based firm The Medical Phone, the iCEphone is a Windows Mobile handset that flips out--twice. Instead of the common two-panel design, this device has three. The first is the WQVGA touchscreen, the second a QWERTY keypad, and the third featuring even more buttons. The company Web site touts this to be a fully specced-out "micro-notebook" and also a game machine with multiple input methods.
From the name of the company, you would probably have guessed that there's a medical slant to it. This device has software that instructs the user in emergency cases and also gives access to a 24/7 emergency international helpline. According to the product Web site, the iCEphone will be available in Q2 2009. We'll wait and see if that really comes to fruition.
Mobile messaging grows globally
Marguerite Reardon | Nov 19, 2008
The company reported Tuesday that VeriSign enabled more than 58.3 billion messages per day during the third quarter of 2008. This was up from about 52 billion messages sent during the second quarter of 2008.
On average, this means that VeriSign facilitated the delivery of about 634 million messages per day during the third quarter, compared to 572 million messages a day in the second quarter. In the third quarter of 2007, the company helped move 280 million messages per day across its systems. VeriSign said it expects to enable nearly 200 billion messages during 2008.
The company attributed a lot of this growth in mobile messaging to new uses of the technology, which include messaging for social and political change and marketing. One of the most notable examples of this is how U.S. President-elect Barack Obama used SMS text messaging to send messages to supporters during the campaign, even using the medium to distribute some of the campaign's biggest news like the selection of his vice presidential runningmate Joe Biden.
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