Weekly Windows Mobile Roundup On April 5 2008
What’s New With Windows Mobile 6.1?
It was announced recently but I bet not many of you know what it offers besides threaded messaging and a quick start guide/application right? Well thanks to the people over at pocketnow.com, they’ covered the new features of Windows Mobile 6.1. That includes both Standard and Professional versions so you know what to expect when your carrier/manufacturer rolls out the update. (via pocketnow.com)
New Company Enters Windows Mobile
What’s your favorite device manufacturer? HTC, Quanta, Eten, imate or something else? Well there will soon be a new entry added to that list and it’s name is Velocity Mobile. It’s first 2 offerings look really sleek and packed with awesome features like 3.5G, GPS and TV/VGA out among the usual like Bluetooth 2.0 and WiFi B/G. Check out their press release here. All I can say is I can’t wait for it to launch. Can you? (via IntoMobile)
AOL Gets busy With Games And Apps
It seems that AOL has been busy lately. First, they finally updated AIM for Pocket PC and it’s now called AOL MyMobile. Along with this name change are the inclusions of many features including MapQuest, email reading and weather. The other thing that’s kept them busy is the launch of a web based portal where users can play free games on their device. Some of the award-winning games include Call to Pharaoh and Space Wars. Be sure to check them out here. (via pocketnow.com and IntoMobile)
Fancy TV Guide On Your Pocket PC?
No I am not talking about the one where you can access from your Pocket PC’s browser although that is free too. I am talking about an application that you can download to your device and access it via WiFi to see what’s on TV today. If you answered yes, then head over here to download your free copy. What’s great about it is that you can also set reminders so you’ll never miss your favorite show again. (via geek.com)
Get Twitter On Windows Mobile
I am not a Twitter user. Maybe it’s because I don’t have an unlimited messaging account to fully enjoy it. But if you are one, be sure to check out the new ceTwit. Then you can stop those Twitter text messages from coming in and just view them using this application instead. (via GottaBeMobile)
Palm Treo 800w Set For July?
When Doug mentioned in his first post on My Today Screen that the Treo 800w was delayed again, I bet he didn’t expect this piece of news to come so quickly. Now it seems that the long-awaited device is slated to be released in July, based on a leaked Sprint Roadmap. Whether or not it’s for real, I guess we’ll just have to keep doing what we have been for a while now: waiting. (via IntoMobile)
Sling Media Gets An Upgrade
And not just for Windows Mobile devices, although that is in the pipes, though it’s not ready for distribution. However, they’ve recently announced that they will soon be supporting the Symbian UIQ as well which is slated to launch this summer. But why stop there? They also plan to add BlackBerry support later in 2008 as well. (via the::unwired)
Astraware Enters The Symbian World
We know how great Astraware’s games are. And for those who are unaware, just read any of Doug’s game reviews and you’ll see why. But that’s not the reason for this news article. Instead, it’s to let you know what Astraware has entered the Symbian world, creating the Astraware Boardgames for both the S60 and UIQ editions. So if anyone you know has such a device, be sure to introduce them to this great company. (via Astraware Press Release)
Proporta’s New Dual Power Car Kit
It used to be that you a single car charger was enough but now with more and more mobile device, that single socket just does not seem to cut it anymore. In comes Proporta with their Dual Power Car Kit that is to debut next week. With this, you could charge up to 2 USB powered devices from one socket. So that could mean your Pocket PC gets juiced up while at the same time, providing power to your GPS navigation. Or keeping your iPod alive on that long road trip as you charge camcorder’s battery along the way. It has a wide range of connector heads as well so finding one for your device should not be a problem. The possibilities are endless so be sure to check it out if you are in the market for one. (via proporta.com)
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Love the news round-up. Bit of a news junkie and spend an hour or two a day scouerring the net for news and tit-bits. So this saves me a bit more time. Cheers Tariq!
Mr E
Glad you are enjoying it Mr E
I tried the TV Guide program on my Q9m and have to say that I’m not impressed. The default view (maybe the only one) only shows four channels and two half-hour segments per screen.
Part of the reason is that they have a show information box at the top of the screen that doesn’t give much more information than you see in the grid (you get the show ratings and the channel logo), Page Up/Page Down bars and an ad. If you got rid of those and used normal scrolling to page up and down, you’d probably see six extra channels per page.
Also, it’s an online application, so lots of things you do bring up a little “Processing” window. It would be nice if you could configure the program to download a specific number of channels and hours when you start the program to avoid slow downs using the program. A scheduled download (like at 3 AM) would be even better.
I gotta agree that the offline option would be really awesome. And I do agree that the processing part can get on your nerves at time.
However, I can’t agree with you on the part that only 4 channels are shown at one time because I am getting 10 channels on my Glofiish X500.
One option is for you to set your favorite channels, as I have done, so that when you look at the listings, you can just view your Favorites and be shown only the programs that are coming up.
I gotta admit, there’s definitely room for improvement. What I like about it now is that I can set up reminders for new episodes which is really useful in this period of time where reruns are mixed with new episodes.
I’m not sure what you can’t agree with. My Q9m is a landscape QVGA device and gets four lines of programs on the grid. Your device has a portrait QVGA screen, so I would expect you to get more lines in the grid, but how many shows do you get in landscape mode? And how many time segments do you get in portrait mode?
If you have the VGA X500+, I might also expect more shows and time segments to be displayed.
As for using Favorites, I had already done that. As an experienced user, I always check out options screens. That doesn’t display more shows, though; it only saves you from additional scrolling. And it appears you always have to select Favorites again when you restart the program; it defaults back to All Shows.
I didn’t realize that yours was in default landscape mode and yeah, I do get 4 of them too in landscape. I get 2 time segments, be it in portrait or landscape mode.
And the Favorites does default back to All Shows.
But I guess the reason I am thrilled to have it is because I have been looking for something like this for the longest of time and finally something is developed and it’s free was as well so to me, those drawbacks did not impact my user experience. Maybe after a while when I become seasoned like you, I too would be complaining.
Thanks for bringing up these drawbacks though. Users of similar devices would find them useful for the different perspective.
With regard to the TV Guide, Whether you see 4 lines or 10, I have to envy both of you. This app doesn´t work if, like me, you don´t live in the USA. Sadly, no one has deemed it a good enough iIdea to port it for the European market. Or rather, there is no European counterpart supplying the script to fit the app.
It´s the same with the AOLMyMobile. Been an AOL user for the last 8 years (to lazy to change!) but that doesn´t help the fact that MyMobile is only (so far) for the American market. Come on AOL, there are 14 million users in Europe, don´t forget us!!
Agreed! I’ve been looking for a Dutch program of this kind a bit and never found anything. So a version for non-US countries would be appreciated, although I understand that all countries have different channels, which introduces significant complexity, I can imagine.
I guess it’s because they want your mobile number to send you ads later or use it for research or both which is why it’s limited to American markets. But I do agree that if someone could port the idea over to other markets, it would be awesome.
I did see something similar but I think it was made only for the Dutch market and I was really hoping someone would port it over for the American market and now I am glad someone did. Who knows, maybe someone will for the European market in the future?
If only each country had a TVGuide that put the progammes into the right format it´d be a start. But then, you get the complexities of pan-european tv with satellite and…. and…. Oh my head!!
Hmmm, my post didn’t appear as a reply, so let me try again. If this doesn’t show up, I’ll assume the post is being moderated to check the links for spam.
Keep this one, not the other one in that case….
The Motorola Q series (like the Samsung BlackJacks, T-Mobile Dashes, etc.) are landscape Smartphones. We can’t rotate their screens. (I tried once with a registry hack and was lucky that I didn’t have to hard reset my device. Some things displayed rotated, others didn’t, and it was very difficult to navigate the device.)
I suppose that I could try the program on my iPAQ hx2795, but as it’s not a phone, I could only use it if I was tethered or had WiFi access.
Regard other TV listing programs, I know of at least two:
* DoubleBit’s Pocket TV Browser
* Thumbs Up’s Pocket TV Listings
Both looked like very cool programs (allowing you to download 7-14 days of data), and I tried them on my Pocket PCs years ago. Unfortunately, I ended up deleting them both. I remember at least one of them had difficult downloading data.
International readers might want to check them out and see if they can find data for their countries.
Yeah it was moderated which is why it did not show up immediately. Thanks for the heads up on these 2 applications. I will be sure to check them out.
I just checked them and they are both commercial, be directly or indirectly.
Pocket TV Browser seems to run for 21 days after which you will need to pay to register.
Pocket TV Listings is free but it requires the paid membership of another service.
So I guess at the moment, TV Guide seems to be the only free version for US TV Listings.