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(May 11 2008) It's Not the Hardware, It's the User Experience That's Broken
In his latest editorial, Antoine Wright takes the stand that what mobile devices need isn't better hardware, it's better software.
Source: bargainPDA.com
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(May 11 2008) Leaked Version of Nokia Internet Tablet OS Shows Minor Updates
An early build of an operating system update for Nokia's N800 and N810 Internet Tablets has been leaked on the Web.
Source: bargainPDA.com
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(May 11 2008) Mobile Tech News -- Snails Reloaded, OtterBox for Charity, Samsung Instinct Comparison
- Snails Reloaded Hits the Web
- OtterBox Offering Cases to Support Breast Cancer Treatment
- Samsung Instinct Goes Head-to-Head with the iPhone in Navigation
Source: bargainPDA.com
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(May 11 2008) Is the SMT 5700 Ever Making it to AT&T?
"We've seen this smartphone kicking around on AT&T rebate sheets for about a year now and yet the SMT 5700 has yet to launch with the wireless provider. Well, word is that they are finally getting around to releasing this budget-minded QWERTY phone to the public and it couldn't come any sooner. The trouble is that because it's been delayed so much, the SMT 5700 isn't all that desirable anymore." 
If they really want to get this one off the ground the right way they should launch it with WM 2.0 instead of 5.0. I mean really, if you are going to release a new device with a vintage OS, you might as well go all the way don't you think?
Source: Smartphone Thoughts
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(May 11 2008) New, Improved SMS-Chat
"SMS-Chat is a Windows Mobile SMS messenger that organizes your SMS correspondence into threaded SMS conversations. This way you have a separate chat for every contact with whom you exchange short text messages. You can easily follow a conversation scrolling thru chats with a finger: all messages are grouped by date. Manage your mobile texting with a flick of a finger!" 
It is a good thing third party developers come up with applications that should be built into our devices to begin with. Oh I forgot, WM 6.1 will have threaded SMS when it arrives in 2025. The good news is you don't have to wait that long because Vito has come up with an interim solution. This one looks pretty good.
Source: Pocket PC Thoughts
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(May 11 2008) Guardian Angel Monitors, Regulates and Advises User In Decision Making Process
"An intelligent personalized agent monitors, regulates, and advises a user in decision-making processes for efficiency or safety concerns. The agent monitors an environment and present characteristics of a user and analyzes such information in view of stored preferences specific to one of multiple profiles of the user. Based on the analysis, the agent can suggest or automatically implement a solution to a given issue or problem. In addition, the agent can identify another potential issue that requires attention and suggests or implements action accordingly. Furthermore, the agent can communicate with other users or devices by providing and acquiring information to assist in future decisions. All aspects of environment observation, decision assistance, and external communication can be flexibly limited or allowed as desired by the user."
This sounds interesting at first glance, but also a little creepy. Look at a few other examples of what this service would be capable of doing:
- Not only does the guardian angel 140 monitor an environment, but also a user (e.g., heartbeat, body temperature, mood, etc.). In other words, as the guardian angel 140 is focusing on its main goal of, for instance, detecting users with a disease (e.g., as evidenced by, among other symptoms, a high body temperature) and precluding those users from entering a restricted area, the guardian angel may be informed of other supplemental issues that may or may not be directly related to the main task.
- In another example, while monitoring a user's environment for weather and traffic, the guardian angel 140 can suddenly notice that the user's heartbeat has stopped and therefore takes automatic action to call for help.
- The user can initially load and return to update his/her schedule and list of preferred dry cleaning services, restaurants, stores, etc. as well as corresponding contact phone numbers, addresses, menus, and ratings. As the user travels through a new environment, the user-attribute store 130 is continually updated with data relating to the new environment that will likely apply to his/her preferences. The information in the user-attribute store 130 may be supplemented, deleted, and modified at any time by multiple parties, but the owner (user) of the user-attribute store 130 can limit access to certain areas or times (e.g., modification by another source is authorized to update a restaurant phone number, but not authorized to change the user's schedule).
I'm not so sure I'd be terribly keen on having my device capable of some of those functions. Why am I posting this here? Because Bill Gates and Ray Ozzie are among the patent holders. The patent was filed April 3, 2008. I'm sure it will have a catchy name like Windows Live OneCare Life Guardian.NET.
Source: Pocket PC Thoughts
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(May 10 2008) MOTO Q 9c Available At Verizon Wireless
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(May 10 2008) Next-Generation BlackBerry Gets a Possible Name, Release Date
Rumors of a new BlackBerry model are coming this and fast. The most recent of these supposedly reveals the official name for this upcoming smartphone, and that it could be introduced early next week.
Source: bargainPDA.com
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(May 10 2008) Samsung Ace Set to be Released on Bell Canada
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(May 10 2008) Our Dragon Contest is Coming Soon...
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(May 10 2008) MS Following RIM's Drummer: Right for Windows Mobile?
Recently while at the MVP Summit, I attended a session on Microsoft's new System Center Mobile Device Manager (SCMDM) product. This piece of software, when set up and running, allows IT administrators to lock down many of the functions in Windows Mobile as well as deploy applications similar to the way admins do it on the desktop. I downloaded a version of the software, and while my test environment caused me more headaches than joyous occassions, the product does look like it has substantial promise. But that's not the point of this piece - I'm more interested in the strategy of mobile device administration that it allows corporations to utilize, and concerned that it may tempt companies to adopt a rollout strategy that may not be appropriate for Windows Mobile.
If you're the IT Executive of a company and you wake up one morning thinking "I want all my users to be able to use a Windows Mobile device", you have two options. First, you could get budget approval for training, implementation, and deployment of company-purchased devices (perhaps eventually shifting the cost to the user, but most likely the company will spend a considerable chunk of change on the actual devices). This would also require your IT department to receive devices in bulk, and configure them in bulk (This is where many other company's managment suites come into play, as installed agents put on devices before users ever receive them from IT).
Of course you could go another route - the route popularized by RIM. In this route, your users learn about a great new device they can use to get their work e-mail and such at home, called a Blackberry. They go to their cell phone company see Blackberries displayed in the store. User buys device, user contacts their IT department and receives enrollment instructions. User plugs in enrollment values, device downloads settings from IT's servers, and device is configured.
Obviously the second model shifts much of the physical handling of the device to the end user, and this is the model SCMDM fits: Give the user an enrollment password and let them set it up. This model shifts the IT department from an active role in deployment to a passive one - a good thing as far as enterprise adoption is concerned, right? Well maybe not quite - because the model also depends on users taking the first step: namely knowing about and buying the device.
Since Windows Mobile 5, Microsoft has focused many resources (Some say too many) on enterprise functionality, with SCMDM being the latest offering. But if you want your device to be successful in the enterprise, is it a good idea to shift responsibility for buying the device to the user? Especially since Windows Mobile has yet to reach the name recognition of Blackberry. It just concerns me that while SCMDM is a great tool for enterprises, it may cause them to put the responsibility of buying a device on their users, which may in turn actually hurt Windows Mobile adoption in enterprise environments. This is really bad for Windows Mobile as a platform, as it prides itself on its budding enterprise support. But if users never buy the devices, they can't be used in the enterprise!
What do you think - is the model of "user buys device" going to help or hurt Windows Mobile, with special attention to enterprise adoption of the platform (and perhaps enterprise conversion from Blackberry to WM).
Source: Pocket PC Thoughts
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(May 10 2008) Nokia Makes Java-based Game Development Easier
Nokia has released an updated SNAP Mobile software development kit that should make it allow developers to create richer Java-based games.
Source: bargainPDA.com
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(May 10 2008) The Snails are Back and Reloaded
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(May 9 2008) Verizon Launches Motorola Q9c
Verizon Wireless has introduced its second smartphone of the week. The Motorola Q9c is a more business-oriented version of a Windows Mobile device this telecom introduced last year.
Source: bargainPDA.com
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(May 9 2008) Brighthand FAQ: What Are the Wireless Networking Options Going to Be in the Future?
Some of the frequently asked questions in the Brighthand forums are from people who are unfamiliar with WiMax and other emerging wireless networking standards. To help these people out, Adama Brown has prepared a beginners' guide.
Source: bargainPDA.com
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(May 9 2008) Nokia N71 May Come to AT&T
AT&T is in the process of prepping the Nokia N71 for release, according to an unconfirmed report.
Source: bargainPDA.com
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(May 9 2008) Sprint Now Offering BlackBerry Curve 8330
The BlackBerry Curve 8330 has debuted on a second wireless carrier this week. Sprint has just begun offering this smartphone, close on the heels on Verizon's launch.
Source: bargainPDA.com
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(May 9 2008) We're Moving Servers, Expect Some Down-Time Tonight
What's that? Another server move? Yes. The long and the short of it is that when we moved to our new server back in December, I was focused on the CPU and RAM capabilities of the new server – and didn’t think at all about the hard drives because, hey, we were going from five-year-old SCSI hard drives to modern SATA drives, so they should have been at least as fast, it not faster right? Nope.
Some blame for that can be shared around, especially with The Planet (who's advising sales person didn't bother to point out that issue to me), but it doesn’t change one fact: the SATA hard drives we have on our current server are incapable of the throughput needed to run full site backups whilst still keeping the sites themselves running. Ultimately the blame for this falls squarely on my shoulder since I'm the one with the credit card renting the server. We’ve had sporadic down-time over the past month for exactly this reason: anything that’s disk intensive has the ugly side-effect of bringing down the sites.
You’d think the solution would be to simply upgrade the hard drives, right? Well, The Planet is unfortunately completely inflexible in this regard, and they say the only solution is to order a new server with the hardware we need, and move everything to that. So that’s what we're doing: our new server is an Intel Kentsfield 2.13 Ghz quad-core machine, the same as our current server, and it also has the same 8 GB of RAM, but we’ve gone from two 500 GB 7200 RPM SATA drives in RAID1 to two 300 GB 15,000 RPM SCSI drives in RAID1 – the fastest and biggest they have. If we run into disk throughput issues after this upgrade...then we have a different kind of problem.
Sometime this evening (Eastern Standard Time), we'll be initiating the move. You can expect all our sites to be down, but we’re hoping this will be a relatively quick process. By Saturday AM everything should be back to normal. And I swear by Thor’s Hammer this will be our last server move for quite a while…I hope. ;-)
Source: Pocket PC Thoughts
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(May 9 2008) HTC Touch Diamond Briefing With HTC Chief Innovation Officer Horace Luke
Horace Luke used to work for Microsoft's Windows Mobile team before moving to HTC, and I have great admiration for him - he's a man with great vision for how mobile devices should work, and every time I was in the room when he was presenting I felt inspired. After he left Microsoft and went to HTC I knew he was going to do some impressive things - and this video is proof of that.
We've been discussing the Touch Diamond, and while I'd love to ask Horace in person why they didn't put a memory card slot or a 3.5mm headphone jack in it, I can't deny the cool little features like being able to ignore a call by simply flipping over the phone onto it's front when it's ringing. Sometimes innovation comes in small, subtle ways, and it seems like the Touch Diamond has some serious innovation packed under the hood. I can't imagine how crisp the screen must be having a 2.8" VGA screen, but I'm also curious to see how usable the Windows Mobile UI is at that resolution. I'm heading to a Mobius event in Seattle next week, and I'll be getting some hands-on time with the HTC Diamond.
Source: Pocket PC Thoughts
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(May 9 2008) Palm Zeppelin and Skywriter Devices
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