It seems everyone in business has a smartphone today to keep connected to the office and enjoy their time away from the office. Matthew Miller provides you with news, commentary and in-depth reviews of the latest in mobile phones sporting iOS, Android, Wi
Matthew Miller started using a Pilot 1000 in 1997 and has been writing news, reviews, and opinion pieces ever since.
I am a big fan of the Evernote clients and service and cast my vote for them in the recent Crunchie contest they won so I was particularly pleased to see that they keep improving the Windows Mobile client right along with the iPhone client. The latest release for Windows Mobile brings a host of new features that I can't wait to try out on my Palm Treo Pro and HTC Fuze.
The last we heard from a Microsoft source was that you would need to buy a new Windows Mobile device to get the Internet Explorer Mobile 6.1 web browser. WMExperts posted on the rumored Sprint Diamond ROM update that shows MSIE 6.0 in the list of new/different features. If the Sprint Touch Diamond can support IE Mobile 6 then there are a host of even more powerful devices (Touch Pro, XPERIA X1, etc.) that should be able to support it too with an update.
Years ago I tried using the ThunderHawk web browser on my Pocket PC to get a better browsing experience. ThunderHawk was developed by Bitstream and is a server-side browser like the new Skyfire browser that is under development. I just read over on CrackBerry.com that Bitstream is working on a new browser called Bolt for Java-enabled handsets. The Bolt browser is in beta right now and CrackBerry.com has 1,000 invites so get on over and sign up for the beta to test on your device.
For the most part I enjoy using my T-Mobile G1, but am looking forward to future hardware. When I saw the Agora Pro, I went ahead and ordered one in December. Many people doubted it would ever come to be, but I held out hope and it was actually shown off a bit at CES last week. A reader just emailed me this news that confirms the Agora and Agora Pro are delayed indefinitely and in all likelihood will never see the light of day.
Larry mentioned a list of Google services that are shutting down, but one he did not mention that is also being let go by Google is Jaiku. From what I understand Google will release the Jaiku code under the open source Apache license, so that somebody else can take it where they want to. I think Nokia should pick it up and carry it since it is highly focused on S60 users and would fit perfectly into their focus on providing services.
After Palm announced the Pre at CES you just knew the comparisons with existing devices was going to come out. Gizmodo posted a comparison between the Pre, iPhone, and G1 which is a pretty fair comparison given that these all run fairly new operating systems, use touch capacitive displays, and are the hottest devices in the mobile space at the moment. Gizmodo's bottom line is that the Pre gets the advantage in most all categories with the G1 only getting a partial kudos for copy and paste.
I was pleased at first to see the headline from Jason about web browsers on the Apple iPhone, but then after a bit more reading I found out that hell did not freeze over and it just cooled down a couple of degrees. As Steve O'Hear pointed out on last100.com these "browsers" are basically different skins for the Webkit browser engine on the iPhone. So if you were like me and hoping to see Opera Mobile, Skyfire, Chrome, or Firefox on the iPhone I think we really will have to wait until hell freezes over before we see a real browser battle on the iPhone.
I don't have a huge music collection so I tend to use the online streaming music services quite a bit. Slacker Mobile for BlackBerry devices was announced last week at CES and now you can pick up Slacker Mobile for the iPhone for free on the App Store. Slacker Mobile lets you listen to over 100 Slacker stations, over 10,000 artist stations, and a ton more custom-created stations.
I was reading through my feeds and stumbled upon the NokiaAddict.com site that stated there was a firmware update for the Nokia E71 available. I have the NAM (North American version) of the E71 and wasn't sure if the update was actually available since the European versions usually get the updates far earlier than the US version. I started and upgraded the Nokia Software Updater on my PC and was pleased to see there was an update available for my E71. The current firmware was shown as 100.07.76 and the new update is labeled as 200.21.118.
Many of the online mobile enthusiasts, myself included, said that Palm needed to make a big announcement at CES to stay relevant in the mobile space and thankfully they did. So while the Pre and Palm WebOS gets Palm back in the game for now, it is way too early to say they are back for good. Robert Scoble posted a rather rather limited view of the mobile space yesterday and stated that Nokia and Microsoft are out of the mobile game in the US. He wrongly assumed that each of the four major US carriers only select one mobile OS as their dominant smartphone platform. Michael Gartenberg posted a response that I think much more accurately portrays the US mobile market.