Windows Mobile Pocket PC & Symbian Smartphone software and freeware, reviews, tips & tricks

Jun 19 The power of WeatherBug, on your Today Screen
Published by root in:Freeware, Pocket PC,

Take the power of WeatherBug, on your Today Screen for FREE with this tool called WeatherBug Direct. Live, local forecasts on your home screen with easy access to WeatherBug's mobile website for detailed weather conditions. It's easy accessible and the icons are well designed and almost match on any theme which makes WeatherBug Direct a good freeware alternative for your weather service.
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Nov 23 The Really Big Apple - Wal-Mart To Sell iPhone 3G
Published by icjackson in:Wal-Mart, iPhone, Apple, G1,

By the time Wal-Mart starts selling something, there has been complete market saturation and it is probably no longer cool. Although the iPhone is still very cool, it will officially be NOT exclusive as of December 28, 2008.

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Nov 13 The Road To The Windows Mobile Powered Treo 700w
Published by Vesselin Nerdeff in:Mobile News,

Rumors have been flying for months about the possibility of a Treo powered by Windows Mobile instead of the Palm OS. For the past few weeks, it has been almost certain it was real and today, it will be confirmed at 9am Pacific time in an event in San Francisco, including Bill Gates, the Chairman of Microsoft, Ed Colligan, Palm CEO, and Denny Strigl, Verizon CEO.

For a look back though here are some of the highlights over the last few years at the sequence of events that have either directly or indirectly delivered us to where we are today.
• April 19, 2000: Microsoft launches the Pocket PC, the long awaited and much needed replacement to its Palm-sized PC predecessor. Many considered this Microsoft's final attempt at some measure of success in the mobile operating system space, its earlier attempts never making much of a dent in the market. PalmOS market share is above 80% and Microsoft is barely hitting double digits. Microsoft got the user interface right and Compaq delivered the iPAQ 3600 series shortly thereafter, producing a wildly successful combination of hardware and software that had it selling for over $900 on ebay, nearly double the suggest retail price. The Pocket PC is born.

• October 15, 2001: Handspring announces the Treo, releasing the first batch during 2002. The lowest end model, the Treo 90 didn't even have a phone, it was just a square screen with a keyboard rather than the fixed Graffiti area. That model didn't last long though as sales of the cellular enabled devices took off. It was clear even then that the standalone PDA's life was limited and wireless was the future. Microsoft had no serious competition to offer at this point. Pocket PC 2002 had just been announced and it would be months before the "Phone Edition" software was ready to go, and longer still before you could buy it. The Treo is born.

• October 28, 2003: PalmSource is split off from Palm, Handspring is reabsorbed into Palm which becomes PalmOne. PalmSource was to be the operating system and software maker and license product to all manner of OEMs, including PalmOne, Sony, Garmin, Samsung and many others. At one time, Palm thought it was really a serious contender with Microsoft in the arena of platforms and server software. How many of you recall the Tungsten Mobile Information Management Server? We posted on this in September of 2002. Virtually none of the links in that post work anymore as Palm has erased all vestiges of that product from its publicly available website. I'd kill to get my hands on that PDF again. The product pitted itself squarely against Microsoft Exchange 2000 and Microsoft's own Mobile Information Server, which seamlessly (to the user at least - not for the IT department Wink) allowed users to synchronize their PDAs with their email accounts at work. Microsoft consolidated all of that into one product, Exchange 2003 while Palm quietly abandoned the project. Anyway, my point is, PalmSource had big visions for the future. Palm and Handspring would merge, bringing the successful Treo line back into the fold. Newly renamed, PalmOne would focus on hardware and great devices, PalmSource would focus on the next generation of PalmOS and would be able to more easily work with outside OEMs like Sony without having a Chinese Wall between the hardware and software sides. The split is crucial to PalmOne and a Windows Mobile Treo though as it allows for the first time for PalmOne to be platform agnostic and just build the best devices possible.

• January 6, 2004: PalmSource releases Cobalt, or PalmOS 6 to its OEM partners. Cobalt is the ultimate Palm operating system. It will finally have real multitasking, or so we were told. Garnet, or PalmOS 5, is still largely PalmOS 4 sitting on top of new underpinnings that allow it to run on the widely accepted ARM processor. Applications run in PACE, or the Palm Application Compatibility Environment. Most PalmOS 4 applications run in it, except for hacks, and development changes little. Target your application for OS4 and write it well and it will work on OS5. There is no point compiling directly for the ARM processor as, for the most part, it won't work. That is what OS6 takes care of. Multitasking is achieved by rewriting all applications to save the state to the user is given the illusion of multitasking. There is a way to write some threads to run in the background, like a thread to monitor chat conversations or download email, but again, the app must be rewritten to do this and your place in the UI can be lost. For example, open an email and read three screens down of one message while other messages are downloading. Switch back to your calendar then back to email. Emails are still downloading, but you are back to the message list, not the email message, thus losing your place. It is possible for developers to overcome this by saving the state properly, but many don't. Multitasking is the domain of an operating system, not applications, and OS6 is the fix. No devices are ever released with Palm OS6.

• January 27, 2004: PalmOne admits it is looking at other platforms.. No names are given, but it is obvious PalmOne, just three months after the split, is eager to increase sales and market presence with great hardware, using whatever OS makes sense.

• February 4, 2004: PalmSource revamps their OS strategy again. OS 5, or Garnet, would still survive for low end devices while OS 6 would be targeted at more robust devices with its superior multitasking (whoops - see March 1 events) capabilities, multimedia features, better security, etc. Looking back, this announcement was simply to say that they were struggling with OS6, no one was buying it and if they didn't resurrect the OS5 development life cycle, PalmSource would quickly have nothing to sell.

• March 1, 2004: PalmSource releases the OS 6 emulator to allow developers to get their applications ready. According to a PalmInfoCenter member, you must still write applications to save the state, so it still doesn't do true multitasking. Untold hours are spent by developers playing with the emulator and reworking their applications to make the most of OS6, all to no avail. They might as well have been writing applications for Taligent.

• March 4, 2004: Pocket PC Thoughts breaks story on the press conference held by PalmOne that week where Todd Bradley, the palmOne CEO and Chairman, answered a question by an analyst about the possibility of a Microsoft based Treo. You can still hear the audio in the original post.

• May 6, 2004: Rumors of a Windows Mobile powered Treo surface in mainstream media sites.

• June 18, 2004: Frustration continues with writing device drivers for PalmOS devices. Unlike Windows Mobile devices, where as long as the developer targets the right year of the platform, it should work on every single device made with the platform, writing device drivers for PalmOS devices is maddening by comparison. Regardless of who's fault this is, PalmOne takes the hit because it is their devices people are complaining about. The introduction of SDIO WiFi cards heightens the tension as a plethora of SDIO equipped Palm devices can't use them while Windows Mobile drivers flow like hot syrup at your local IHOP. This has to factor to some extent in PalmOne's decision to license Windows Mobile.

• September 28, 2004: PalmSource releases Cobalt 6.1 to its licensees. No devices have been released to date with this operating system on it.

• October 5, 2004: PalmOne signs a deal with Microsoft to incorporate Exchange ActiveSync component into its devices. The Tungsten Mobile Information Management Server project is long since dead and if PalmOne doesn't get its hooks into the enterprise, RIM's Blackberry and Microsoft's Windows Mobile devices will clean Palm's clock. I think the Treo 650 is the first device to ship with this in ROM, allowing it to seamlessly connect to Exchange 2003. DataViz creates a client for other PalmOS devices to give them the same functionality. Still no PalmOS Cobalt devices.

• November 1, 2004: Bad news for PalmSource. "Shares of PalmSource, the handheld operating system developer, dipped Monday on an investment bank's report that said key licensee PalmOne will use Microsoft's OS in its Treo line of devices. The research note from Needham & Co. said PalmOne "tacitly admitted" it was working to make Microsoft's handheld OS available on the popular Treo line of phones." PalmSource was trading above $20/share back then, at least 15% above the $17/share they are worth to Access, the Japanese company buying them.


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Jun 30 The Samsung Soul Comes in Pink in the UK
Published by Chris in:Samsung, Smartphone, Orange, Devices ,

Samsung Soul is one of their best selling phones in 2008. They have surpassed the one million mark and they surely will sell even more. Not to mention that the Instinct and Omnia are coming from behind and they will most likely turn out to be very successful as well.


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Nov 23 The Secret Is Out - How the Blackberry Touchscreen Works
Published by icjackson in:Blackberry, Storm, Tech,

If you haven't already purchased the Blackberry Storm, chances are that you have seen the commercials and the reviews highlighting the clickable touchscreen. It has everyone wondering, 'How'd they do that?'

The answer is actually simpler than you think.

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Jan 21 The Smartphone Size Conundrum
Published by Vesselin Nerdeff in:Mobile News,

How should my smartphone look like ? Thats a typical question lately but the Palm's official unveiling of its Windows Mobile Treo smartphone, the Treo 700w, at the beginning of this month made me contemplate the current status of smartphones and their likely evolution. Overall, I'm enthusiastic about this platform, but I have to confess that from a productivity point of view, it's easy to invest just as much time working with these devices as any time you will save from using them. That's the conundrum.

First, let's look at the some of the recent smartphone developments. The first Windows Mobile 5 devices have now appeared. These include the Treo 700w, available from Verizon Wireless and the PPC-6700 from Sprint, both with stylus support and small keyboards. Meanwhile, Cingular started selling its Cingular 2125, which is based on Windows Mobile 5 but more compact -- it uses a regular telephone keypad instead of a stylus and keyboard. There are more Windows Mobile 5 PDAs without phone functionality than there are with phones for the simple reason that adding wireless to these devices is complicated, and wireless operators have rigorous acceptance procedures. Windows Mobile 5 will have a big impact as it addresses some of the serious shortcomings of the prior version, including volatile memory and the need for two-handed operation with a stylus. Anyone who has spent much time with a RIM Blackberry of Palm Treo understands the importance of one-handed operation. The Treo 700w even shows the battery level, a reading that required multiple steps with the Pocket PC 2003 platform. Meanwhile, connectivity speeds are increasing with RIM Blackberrys, which now support EDGE and EV-DO. RIM also recently released its attractive 8700 line. And PalmSource has decided to use Linux for future platform development. Finally, the Symbian platform gets its best shot for visibility in the United States with the Nokia 9300 being sold through Cingular.
Smartphones are intriguing, as they represent efforts to concentrate the greatest amount of computing and networking power possible in a small form factor that is comfortable to carry. The result is tremendous capability, with a good range of productivity or entertainment applications, such as e-mail, Web browsing, Web applications, file access, portable documents, database access, music, video and hundreds more (just search the online catalogs). For most workers, smartphones can't replace a laptop, but the multitude of features present makes it increasingly possible for many workers to use their smartphone for short trips or other periods away from the office.

However, this level of capability also means complex computer systems and all the associated maintenance and reliability issues. Although I'm reasonably happy using an EDGE-capable Treo 650, I have now updated the system software twice to newer versions as they became available. I was glad each time, because the updates addressed various problems. Although Palm documented the update steps clearly, these were still complex operations that likely defeated many users. I also spent a considerable number of hours getting Bluetooth to work for various usage models, such as using the phone as a modem, for HotSync and with my wireless headset. And still, on a regular basis, the phone will lose awareness of the headset, and I have to pair the two devices again. I've searched various support forums and have found other users with the same problem, so I don't think it's just me. As for stability, it's not bad, but not perfect. My device runs for about a week before I have to reset it. These are just examples of my usage. If you want to see the scope of support issues for these devices in general, just read the thousands of entries in the various support forums for the different platforms.

When I add up my support time, I have to question how much further ahead I am from a productivity point of view. From an IT perspective, these devices must be managed; their software must be kept up-to-date for potentially large numbers of devices, preferably through some centralized system; and remote-access security architectures must be updated to support smartphones, all adding up to considerable time investments. And if you don't make these infrastructure investments, you'll pay even more in compromised security and supporting devices on a case-by-case basis.

Still, I see the ascendancy of the smartphone platform as inevitable. One reason, after functionality, is that prices are dropping, with good smartphones now available in the $200 to $300 range, putting them in reach of a lot of people. Gartner in a July 2005 report predicted global sales of 200 million smartphones by 2008, over 20% of all mobile phones sold. However, unless smartphone vendors want to see an IT backlash against these devices for wasting too much support time, they should make sure their platforms and included applications are as stable as possible. It took quite a few releases of Microsoft Windows before it finally became reasonably stable with Windows 2000 and Windows XP. After this long painful experience, IT and user tolerance for system instability has gone down, so let's make sure we don't have to repeat this process with smartphones.

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Oct 13 The so sweet Pocket Breeze :-)
Published by root in:Software,

It’s extremely customizable and pretty helpful too. Read on to see why…
Too Much Information!
PocketBreeze displays information from your calendar, tasks and a bit from your contacts and presents it in a way much different from the default Windows Mobile Today screen. There are three default tabs that display your schedule, tasks and upcoming special events. When my wife picked up my iPaq and saw PocketBreeze’s display I think she got a bit of information overload. And I’ll admit, it takes some getting used to, but it’s much more informative than the built in Today displays.

The Calendar:


This view is the heart of PocketBreeze. It shows each day for the coming week complete with appointments and the tasks that are due that day. This view, although busy, just makes sense to me. Why not see the things I have to accomplish today as well as the meetings I have scheduled? Seeing tasks right on the Today screen makes it very easy to see if I’ve got certain days overbooked or not. At the top of each day is a small graph of your time that helps you see what appointments you have. Tap it to enlarge it and get a better view. You can also add appointments to your day from this graph view.

Each appointment shows up with a colored bar next to it denoting that the time is free, occupied or conflicts another appointment. The appointment’s time and location are also visible next to its subject. Tasks have their subject displayed along with a completion check box. The user can configure whether the task is deleted after it’s completed or not. A calendar in the upper left hand corner allows the user to display a different day’s agenda. A button in the top center lets you filter the appointments and tasks by category. Because most of us have enough meetings and tasks each day to fill the screen, there’s a small scroll bar on the right (or left if you configure it) to allow you to scroll down through the whole week.


Tasks and Upcoming Events:



The Tasks tab allows the user to see tasks due today and upcoming tasks grouped and sorted by about any method you could dream up. This includes, by priority, due date, alphabetical and so on. You can collapse and expand groups and check off tasks right from your Today screen.

The Upcoming Events tab is unique. It pulls all the birthdays and anniversaries out of your contact database and displays them. For example, one entry on this tab told me that my own wedding anniversary is coming up in a mere 307 days. (I hope I won’t forget.) This tab would be more useful if I were more diligent in entering my contact’s birthdays and anniversaries. If you’ve got that data in your contacts, this will save many a forgotten important day!

How it Looks and Acts:

The folks at SBSH Mobile Software have made PocketBreeze amazingly flexible. Don’t like what happens when you tap an appointment? Open Settings and change it to something you like more. You can do this for tap, double tap and tap and hold. All of the colors and fonts are customizable. You can configure how tall the plug-in is in both portrait and landscape modes. You can set sounds effects, tooltips, categories and skins. You can even create additional tabs based on your own criteria from the data in your Windows Mobile device.

I will say that there is so much customization that it gets a bit confusing. I swear there are at least two places I stumbled across that had font and color configuration. But, once you set PocketBreeze up to look the way you want, you won’t have to fish through the settings pages very often anyway.

The last time I tried a today screen plug-in like this (I won’t name names), it slowed my system down noticeably. That’s why I’ve just been using the built-in stuff for so long. PocketBreeze refreshes almost instantly when I switch to the Today screen. Even on my 300 Mhz iPaq it didn’t bog my handheld down or require any resets. Speed and stability simply won’t be a concern with this plug-in.

Conclusions:

Once you get PocketBreeze customized the way you want, it’s a great way to see more useful data on your Today screen. It’s flexible, informative, good looking and speedy. It’s also compatible with Pocket Informant, Agenda Fusion and custom personal information manager databases, in addition to the default Windows PIM apps.


Many thanks to www.pdabuzz.com

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Jan 21 The Sudoku Collection by Pocket Adventures Review
Published by Vesselin Nerdeff in:Games, Reviews,

The rules to Sudoku are very simple. You must have one of every number in each row and each column of the playing grid. No number can repeat in any row or column and you cannot have a duplicate number in any region. Just reading the rules may confuse you like they did me, so check out this flash presentation on how to play Sudoku. It helped me out a lot!

http://www.puzzle.jp/letsplay/sudokuruleflash-e.html

Herein you will find our review of a handful of Sudoku games from different developers. We will compare and contrast and give our thoughts.

The Sudoku Collection

This was the first piece of software I tried.

Installation: As with most software for the Pocket PC, installation was a snap. I was up and running very quickly. Registration was easy with just a one line serial code. The requirements are pretty lean. They are: Pocket PC 2002 or newer device (including Windows Mobile 5), QVGA (240x320) or VGA (480x640) resolution screen, and 2.5MB Storage and 8MB RAM.

Presentation: The game is fairly nicely presented. The first thing you notice is the music which is produced by Jaybot7. The name Jaybot7 goes hand and hand with quality. They have created the music for some of the finest handheld games out there like Arvale Journey of Illusion and arvale II: Ocean of Time, the lovable Snails, Argentum, and Anthelion. The game comes with ‘Rules’ in the options menu. However, for someone who has never played the game before, these rules will just confuse you more. I had to go find an outside source to figure out how to play (see link above). I would have liked to see a better set of rules or a tutorial.

The interface is simple and easy to use. When you click a specific square, it will highlight the row and column that square corresponds to. This makes things easier to spot duplicate numbers. At the bottom of the screen are big icons for the different number that are available in the puzzle. There are also a check mark to check your puzzle and a cancel icon to delete a number from a square. The checkmark is a useful utility to check your puzzle quickly. However, I would have liked to see the icon, when activated, a different color or somehow better represented that this feature was on. Since the game goes in full screen mode, you cannot see your normal battery meter. However, Pocket Adventures has added a small one to the top for your convenience. I thought this was a nice touch. The interface is also sinkable and comes with 8 preinstalled. However, I only found 2 that I liked to use for actual game play. The other ones made it to hard to distinguish between the numbers on the board by default and the ones you filled in yourself, which in turn makes the game much more difficult to play.



Game play: The game is easy to play with such a nice interface. When I loaded the game for the first time and was *trying* to learn how to play, I was super confused. The reason is because the game defaulted, for me at least, in pencil mode. I kept getting frustrated why the numbers didn’t take up the whole square like the others and why I could put multiple numbers in each square. After some frantic clicking on the screen, I took the pencil feature off and was able to learn how to play. After figuring out that pencil mode was on, I have found it is easy to take on and off.

There is a hint feature which will highlight the row and column you should try to solve at that point in the game. This can be very helpful at times and at other times kind of pointless.

There is a timer that runs the whole time you are trying to solve the puzzle. I play this game at work (shhh, don’t tell) and sometimes I have to put it down to answer the phone. It would be nice to have a pause feature. I can see how this could cause some cheating, but maybe if when the game was paused the whole screen was blacked out except an un-pause button. That would be a nice feature. There is a save and load feature, so I guess you could just save the game then load it when you want to pick up again, but a pause feature would be much appreciated.

There is also an edit mode that allows you to take Sudoku puzzles from other sources and manually import them in; one number at a time. While just an added feature, I am not sure how useful or used this feature would be. With the amount of random puzzles the game can create, it may not be needed. Also, I would rather buy add-on packs for a few dollars than trying to import by hand my own puzzles.



When you win a game, it shows the words ‘Sudoku’ in the likes of the Hollywood sign that sits on the side of the hills in California. Fireworks show up on the screen and then a bunch of words like ‘Excellent’ and ‘Good Job’. This happens after every win. Having a few other endings and having them display at random would have broken up the monotony.



Conclusion: With all that said, Sudoku is addicting and fun. This presentation of the game is well done, despites the few minor squabbles I have with the game. If you’re new to Sudoku and want a solid, affordable game, then this could be fore you. With just a few additions and tweaks, this could be a top notch game that beats all the competition.

Pros: Easy to use interface, great music, the price is right, nice additional features

Cons: No pause, an ending that gets old quick, poor rules explanation

Final Score 4 out of 5

Availability
The Sudoku Collection at MobileTopSoft
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Oct 21 The Symbian Foundation Grows Bigger
Published by Chris in:Symbian, Foundation, Open Source,

With Apple selling more and more iPhones, with Google making its official debut on the market these days and with RIM releasing better smartphones, it’s no wonder that the Symbian lovers of the known cell phone universe are gathering together under the Symbian Foundation. More and more interested companies are joining up so we should expect the future open-source Symbian OS to offer us lots of changes.


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Oct 22 The Symbian Foundation Has an Executive Directorship: Lee Williams
Published by Chris in:Symbian, Symbian Foundation,

News about the Symbian Foundation keeps coming in. I can’t wait to see what the future Symbian OS will look like. In the mean time I can report on current Symbian applications and on the development of the Symbian Foundation.


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