The Mobile Spoon

Windows Mobile 6.5 - Here I Come!

gil.bouhnick@gmail.com (Gil Bouhnick) — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 22:12:00 +0000

It's popular to hate Windows Mobile these days, and I must admit 2009 was not a great year for my relationship with WinMo as well.
I actually switched to the dark side of the Apple and had enough time to downgrade it in favor of the BlackBerry Bold.

But all of that was changed today. I just performed a comeback and inserted my secondary SIM card inside a Touch Pro 2 device running Windows Mobile 6.5!

How

Cool

That?

Ha???

I wrote a short review about the Touch Pro 2 few months ago, but I must admit having Windows Mobile 6.5 included adds a lot into it.

I won't say I'm too excited, after all we all saw the new stuff many months ago, but still, I like it. Feels like home sweet home in a way. You know all the flaws, but you get along, find your way around...

Will write about my renewed Windows Mobile experience in a few days/weeks, hopefully positive things.

Windows Mobile 6.5 - Come here you b<beep>ch I'm coming to get you!

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Make Your HTC Screen More Sensitive

gil.bouhnick@gmail.com (Gil Bouhnick) — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 21:27:00 +0000

One of the readers of the MobileSpoon posted a question regarding the screen sensitivity in HTC Touch Pro 2 - the answer can be found in here: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=469865. The tweak used to work in older HTC devices but according to WMPowerUser it also works on the Touch Pro 2.

Is RIM going to be eaten by the sharks?

gil.bouhnick@gmail.com (Gil Bouhnick) — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 13:19:00 +0000

Found an interesting article claiming that RIM should hurry and sell now before it's too late. It made me think what would be of RIM, in 1-2 years from now, when it's obvious that they already got to the point of no return. They should find a way to beat the sharks or be eaten...

The main points are that RIM, dominating the enterprise market simply is now stuck, as the consumer side clearly prefers the iPhone and the Android new phones.

It's interesting because I personally saw many young teenagers walking and typing massively with their BlackBerry (maybe they are working for their dads?).

The key reasons for RIM's slowness (quote from the original post):

The growth in the smartphone market is now shifting toward consumers, not corporations. (Even 80% of RIM's new subscriber accounts were "non-enterprise" last quarter.)

RIM's strength is the enterprise, not the consumer. RIM is not a technology or design leader for consumer-focused smartphone hardware or software.

RIM's competitors are coming up fast. Apple is gaining market share and Google's Android is stealing favor from carriers, which are RIM's most important customers.

Even corporate customers are starting to jettison BlackBerries for iPhones.

Smartphones are becoming a platform business in which third-party developers rule the day. RIM is way behind Apple and, soon, Google in app development

Since I allow myself to switch devices and keep few of them in parallel (not because I can but just because I really want to...) - I actually find myself using BlackBerry more than I'm using iPhone.

I actually love my Bold! Seriously, it's great!

True, the Bold can barely compete with the iPhone in terms of fun, apps etc. but bottom line is that I'm using it more often as it simply serves me better in most cases.

Com'on Microsoft. It's time to get dirty in the mobile world. Take over RIM, add some nice visual stuff on top of the basic OS and use it to make a comeback into the mobile universe...

(Source)

(Older: What would happen of RIM in few years-?)

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Smartphones trends in... 2005

gil.bouhnick@gmail.com (Gil Bouhnick) — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 12:27:00 +0000

While Googling for some images I accidentally ran across this lovely chart...

2005... 5 years ago. RIM was already there, Symbian was not as popular as today, and of course Microsoft and Palm, and most of the devices used Nokia's S60...

Of course, back then things were completely different...

More historical info can be found in the History of PDA's Guide!
History of PDAs - Part #1
History of PDAs - Part #2
History of PDAs - Part #3

iPhone is closing in on BlackBerry

gil.bouhnick@gmail.com (Gil Bouhnick) — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 10:52:00 +0000

Found this nice Chart of the Day showing that the iPhone 3GS is taking share, while Research In Motion is stalling

ChangeWave Research who performed the survey - surveyed 4,255 consumers in September, and found 39% of them now have a smartphone, which is up from 37% from July and almost double from a year ago.

Oh... and I'm not going to say anything about Palm... :-(

(Source)

100,000 Apps - I have 1,000

gil.bouhnick@gmail.com (Gil Bouhnick) — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 21:34:00 +0000

Last week Apple announced that over 100,000 apps were available on the App Store.

I personally have over a thousand now, and of course most of them were loaded once, tried for a few minutes and immediately thrown away... (number of pages is limited so I must keep only the good ones...)

Nevertheless, impressive.

Exclusive pictures of the new xPhone!

gil.bouhnick@gmail.com (Gil Bouhnick) — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 22:01:00 +0000

Mobile Spoon is delighted to be the first site to bring those exclusive pictures of the new xPhone.

In a world where all phones look alike, that is, screen only (a-la-iPhone) with no hardware buttons, the xPhone is innovative and unique.

The xPhone is all about buttons and keyboard. In fact it has no screen whatsoever - at least from the first images we've managed to put our hands on...

Other specs: 3G, GPS, 256MB of both RAM and ROM, a 993MHz processor (not bad!), 2.0 megapixel camera (which is somewhat disappointing from such an advanced phone), compatible with both Windows Mobile 6.5 and Android 1.5.

More updates on this cool smartphone very soon...

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The Mobile Spoon Reaches 1,000 Posts!

gil.bouhnick@gmail.com (Gil Bouhnick) — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 10:47:00 +0000

Things were a bit quiet lately over here at the MobileSpoon, mainly because of some personal commitments and heavy work load.

Still, I just found that without noticing this site has passed the number of 1,000 posts! YEARRRRRRR!!! (WE CAN'T HEAR YOU!!!)

So.

Thank you all for reading the MobileSpoon, and an extra thanks to all the people who commented and contributed to our discussions. Some of the comments are really helpful and interesting - so thanks!

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The war of the Droids!

gil.bouhnick@gmail.com (Gil Bouhnick) — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 10:27:00 +0000

The blogsphere is overloaded with Android / Droid news these days. It seems like the hype around this interesting OS is growing and humanity may have finally found the real iPhone killer;

It's not the Palm Pre, it's not Windows Mobile 6.5, it's the Android. More specifically, the Droid.

I had a feeling few months ago that the Triandroids attack is just a matter of time, but it seems like the Droids are the spearhead...

Here are some of the interesting stuff I found last weekend.

Gizmodo wrote a great post about the war of the smartphones.
According to Gizmodo, Android 2.0 will create a revolution in the mobile world, since it's the first version of the OS that can really fit everyone. Still, it will not "kill" the iPhone which is way to strong for that, instead it will hurt the weak ones. Mostly Palm with the new webOS.

What do you think? Does it make sense? Read more in here

MobileCrunch made a very interesting comparison between iPhone and Motorola's bran new Droid. Who wins? I will not ruin it for you, but it's a great interesting post. More details in here.

The New York Times had a very interesting article about the reasons why Android is the next big thing - check it out in here.

And finally, our very own favorite site PocketNow.com made a great review of the Droid - Read on for the Droid Review by PocketNow.

Are we experiencing the beginning of the mobile second revolution? (assuming the first one was done by Apple...) Is it the beginning of the real mobile war between one iPhone and an army of Droids?

We shall wait and see...

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State of the Mobile Web - by Opera

gil.bouhnick@gmail.com (Gil Bouhnick) — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 21:21:00 +0000

Last month, Opera released a report called State of the Mobile Web.

the report is really comprehensive, and some of the numbers may be interesting to learn about trends in mobile web.

Highlights

In addition to the usual increases in all three categories of growth (users, pages viewed and data consumed), Opera Mini achieved a major milestone in September 2009: passing the 2PB barrier of uncompressed data processed by Opera Mini in a month (based on a compression rate of up to 90%).
In September 2009, Nigeria fell off of the top 10 countries list, while Vietnam made its debut (as we predicted last month).
In this month’s report, we added two new categories of data for each of the highlighted countries: data transferred per user and data transferred per page-view.
In this month’s report, we looked at countries in the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). The top 11 countries using Opera Mini in the CIS are: Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Armenia, Uzbekistan, Moldova, Kyrgyzstan, Azerbaijan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan.
Some numbers regarding the CIS: From September 2008 to September 2009, overall page views in the top 11 countries listed increased 133%. From September 2008 to September 2009, overall unique users in the top 11 countries listed increased 55%. From September 2008 to September 2009, overall data transferred in the top 11 countries listed increased 174%.
Growth rates in the CIS: Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan lead the top 11 countries in growth of unique users.
Nokia and Sony Ericsson are by far the most popular handset brands chosen by Opera Mini users in the CIS.
Users in the top 10 countries save up to 672 million USD per month, or over 8.1 billion USD per year.
On a monthly basis, users in the United States and the United Kingdom save the most money using Opera Mini, based on their usage and the average cost of browsing (per MB).

We can really learn some interesting facts from the following details:

- BlackBerry is not yet doing so great in the UK?
- Facebook is the most popular page in the UK? Before Google???
- CNN vs. BBC... OK that one was obvious...

You can read the full Opera Mobile Web Report In here.

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Motorola Droid software tour by PocketNow

gil.bouhnick@gmail.com (Gil Bouhnick) — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 19:24:00 +0000

PocketNow.com has recently published this long and detailed software tour of the Motorola Droid.

As always, a great review.

I have to say I'm beginning to like Android. Version 2.0, which is presented here seems to be much smoother than the first one which I tested a long while ago. The performance of this one looks impressive and I also like the overall design.

And not to mention the fact it's a Droid... I think it's time to put my hands on one of the newer Android devices out there...

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inPulse - a BlackBerry Wristwatch?

gil.bouhnick@gmail.com (Gil Bouhnick) — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 11:18:00 +0000

We all know the drill; addicted BlackBerry users, rudely reading mails in the middle of important meetings, nodding their heads as if they are listening to the discussion, asking dumb questions whenever the topic becomes relevant to them, and giving high level answers that can easily be given by the secretary's children...

Well, the next generation in BlackBerry addiction is close; the inPulse - a BlackBerry watch! think about it: why hold your BlackBerry in your hands when the BlackBerry can almost hold you!

The quite lovely-looking inPulse connects to a Blackberry via Bluetooth and can either alert you to the full barrage of your very important email or can be set to filter it. These alerts are then displayed on the 1.3-inch OLED screen, and you are notified of their presence by the vibrator inside, and the whole watch, when fully charged (via microUSB), should last for around four days.

Pretty much anything that can be pushed to the Blackberry can be pushed those few inches further to your wrist. This includes RSS feeds, weather reports, SMS messages and the Twitter, guaranteeing that you can remain blissfully distracted during your next trial-by-PowerPoint. You’ll still have to pull out your crackberry to reply, but at least now you’ll know which messages to respond to.

I have a better suggestion for the BlackBerry users - a special chip that can be planted inside your body, creating special electrical pulses that can almost kill you if for any reasons you haven't replied to an email...

Think about it... bzzzzzzzz...

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Motorola VC6096 - in-vehicle fixed mount with Telematics

gil.bouhnick@gmail.com (Gil Bouhnick) — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 10:40:00 +0000

Motorola has recently announced that it will be dumping Windows Mobile completely and switching to Google's Android, but in the rugged division there are still plenty of PDAs running Windows Mobile.

One of those PDAs is the VC6096 .

Motorola VC6096 is an in-vehicle/fixed mount mobile computer, optimized for work force on the roads. Designed for transportation and logistics providers Motorola VC6096 promises to maximize driver productivity, improve safety and vehicle utilization.

The form factor is unique, comparing to the other rugged PDAs out there. Seems like Motorola tried to make it more user friendly this time by including a quite big screen and full QWERTY keyboard.

Connectivity looks promising with 3.5G GSM HSDPA WWAN as well as 802.11a/b/g WiFi… For transportation the Motorola VC6096 also has a SiRF Star III GPS receiver and of course Bluetooth.

Other hardware specs include SD card slot, five programmable soft keys, mic and speakers; all running on 128MB of RAM, 256MB flash, 624Mhz processor and Windows Mobile 6.1 Pro.

Here's a short video demonstration:

Check out Motorola VC6096 homepage

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What's new in Android 2.0?

gil.bouhnick@gmail.com (Gil Bouhnick) — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 09:55:00 +0000

Developers!

What's new in Android 2.0 you ask?

Watch this video and learn. Seems promising:

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DUB - Easy Way To Exchange Mobile Business Cards

gil.bouhnick@gmail.com (Gil Bouhnick) — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 13:24:00 +0000

I received an interesting story today about DUB.

DUB is an easy way to (and software) to exchange business cards using mobile phones.

It is currently available only in the US and Canada, running on iPhones and BlackBerry devices.

Here's some more details copied from the official web-site followed by a demonstration video:

"When you and another person open the DUB app on an iPhone or BlackBerry and click the locate button, DUB will find both and prompt you to exchange info. The contact information is saved directly to your mobile address book.

If the other person doesn’t have DUB or is in the next state instead of next to you, just type their email address or mobile number and push send. They’ll get a message with your contact info and a link to create their card. Once they do, your info is saved to their mobile address book and theirs to yours."

DUB Website

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What can you do 1000 mobile phones?

gil.bouhnick@gmail.com (Gil Bouhnick) — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 22:18:00 +0000

Vodafone people were bored enough to create a symphony out of a collection of mobile phones with TXT alerts that – when received in the sequence – created the music.

Visit Vodafone symphony page of View the sequences here.

The story of the rejected Windows Marketplace Applications

gil.bouhnick@gmail.com (Gil Bouhnick) — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 10:17:00 +0000

Enjoy!

(Thanks for sending that one out, Amir)

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What is MOTOBLUR and what will it do to Android?

gil.bouhnick@gmail.com (Gil Bouhnick) — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 08:17:00 +0000

Though I do not consider myself to be a Motorola fan, it’s interesting to see the MOTOBLUR, a new customized version of Android OS, developed by Motorola, and probably its' biggest hope to revive some of the company's lost fortunes...

Visually, MOTOBLUR is a nice looking OS, with a clear focus on social networks. The home screen is holding all the popular social network feeds at screen (MySpace, Facebook, Twitter and of course emails) allowing easy reading and simple status posting.

It looks nice, but I guess it’s nothing more than another widgets styled fancy UI.

Motorola took Palm’s synergy vision and improved it a little bit: MOTOBLUR continuously (and automatically) syncs your phone and email contacts with your friends from Facebook™, MySpace and Twitter.

Beyond the homepage gimmick, all the feeds are listed in one unified inbox screen, which may become helpful.

Like Ping.fm, you can quickly update your status across all of these sites in one move. Other social networking features – like wall posts, photo sharing, and quick posting of videos to YouTube are also supported.

In addition, MOTOBLUR continuously updates and backs up the information into a secure environment. Again, not a real innovation, but a cool feature.

What’s going on behind the scenes?

Technically speaking, Motorola took the Android 1.5 source and customized it. Yes, that means that once you use Motorola’s MOTOBLUR, you are not running the version that was released by Google’s developers…

Is it a good thing to do?

I’m not sure.

Based on my previous experiences with Motorola user interface, I think that it’s better to stick with the original… maybe a customized shell (a-la Sense UI) is better, as it keeps the original source of the OS.

In any event, the first 2 devices to run MOTOBLUR will be: CLIQ (North America) and DEXT (International).

To see it in action (movies and some trials) check out the Motorola web site.

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Off-topic: Useful Code Sample

gil.bouhnick@gmail.com (Gil Bouhnick) — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 07:43:00 +0000

Useful code snippet in case you need some extra hand...

(Thanks for sending that one, Yechiel...)

Windows Mobile 6.5 Themes Creator

gil.bouhnick@gmail.com (Gil Bouhnick) — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 11:40:00 +0000

Microsoft has included a cool themes creator for their new version of Windows Mobile.

You can head over to Microsoft Themes Creator and create your own Windows Mobile 6.5 theme by selecting the colors, gradient mode, background image and more.

Not the fanciest one, but good enough for creating basic themes.

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Linux Mobile Phones by Samsung

gil.bouhnick@gmail.com (Gil Bouhnick) — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 21:47:00 +0000

Here at the MobileSpoon we love new mobile OS. The following story is not about a new OS, but could be the beginning of something.

Samsung, which is now releasing new smartphones running Symbian, Windows Mobile and Android, has added another OS - Linux Mobile.

According to MobileTopSoft: "Samsung is on the verge of releasing two spanking brand new LiMo handsets later in the year, these handsets are called the Samsung H1 and Samsung M1, both feature LiMo OS R2 (Release 2) which is expected to boots recognition of the OS and its hardwares. The Samsung H1 has a 3.5 inch OLED touch display, GPS, Wi-Fi, HSDPA, Bluetooth 2.0, 16GB on board memory, and a nice 5MP auto-focus camera for taking memorable photos.

Next up we have the Samsung M1, now this is not as kick ass as the H1 but still worthy to be mentioned, it has a 3.2 inch TFT touchscreen, Bluetooth 2.0, HSDPA, 1GB onboard memory, GPS, and a 3MP camera, that would do for the folks who just want to take casual photos of family, friends and their dog...or cat...or whatever."

Does it mean Samsung is doubting the popularity of Android? I don't think so... will LiMo compete with WinMo? Not sure... but it is going to be interesting to see how those 3 platforms will compete...

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The History of Windows Mobile

gil.bouhnick@gmail.com (Gil Bouhnick) — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 21:30:00 +0000

Our friends over at 1800PocketPC created a cool video presenting the long history of Windows Mobile.

This one really brings up some memories...

This reminds me of our 3 posts series about The History of PDA's. Check out how it all started, before Microsoft even thought about PocketPC...

History of PDAs - Part #1

History of PDAs - Part #2

History of PDAs - Part #3

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iPhone Grabs Top Rank in Smartphone Satisfaction Survey

gil.bouhnick@gmail.com (Gil Bouhnick) — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 22:45:00 +0000

We all know many iPhone users which are Apple fanatics (you know, those annoying geeks that always brag about how great is their mac and how smart is the iPhone).

Apperantly not all the iPhone users are like this, according to JD Power, the survey polled customers worldwide on satisfaction with their smartphones between January and June 2009 shows that customers rated the iPhone as the most satisfying phone.

Motorola, by the way, came last.

3,221 owners rated their smartphones based on factors including ease of operation, operating system, features, physical design and battery life.

Apple scored 811. LG scored 776 for second place, and RIM BlackBerry scored 759 for third.

In the survey for business users: Apple nabbed the no.-1 spot for smartphones in business, with a score of 803, followed by RIM BlackBerry with a score of 724. This portion of the survey polled 1,148 enterprise smartphone users.

Click here for the complete customers satisfaction survey results

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Great Looking TouchFlo 3D Themes

gil.bouhnick@gmail.com (Gil Bouhnick) — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 22:26:00 +0000

Following some popular posts about TouchFlo3D Skins and Themes, I decided to sniff around and look for some more great looking themes.

Here's some links:

[TF3D 2.1][WVGA] TouchFluo 3D Line by Eagledig

[TF3D 2.1][WVGA] Blue Eye

And this one is a collection of nice looking TouchFlo Themes:

(click on the image to enlarge)

1st row
Black skin by TWolf
Red by bombzhome
White by bombzhome
Green by Anolnx
Purple by Anolnx
Blue Void by kulet78
Diamond clock by mbarvian (updated)
Pink her by TWolf

2nd row
Teal Manilla by .HaVoC.
Feng Shui by Dredd 67:
MobileMatt TF2D Connection by mchapman007
KnobiSkin by Knobibrot
AZUL-T2D bu GODZSON
TF2D Alabaster Skin by MobileMatt | M2DC Theme
White on black skin by eboelzner
T2D-WIDGETZ THEME by GODZSON

3rd row
Type-R skin by kidnamedAlbert
yellow theme by .HaVoC.
HTC-TOUCH/VOUGE transformation package by PROBEX (external direct link)
Black Vista skin by TWolf
Black ICE by MobileMatt
TOXIC theme by txema_py
Creaton by GODZSON (2 backgrounds)
MobileMatt Black ICE V2.0 by mchapman007

1st row
MobileMatt MM&L Skin by MobileMatt & Lepsyfou
Cowboys and UT Themes by ldostang
Touch Fantasy by bornotty
Oklahoma Sooner theme by stutzmason
harley Davidson by kron2
Néon Theme + transparent Manila by utopykzebulon
TypeR v3 by kidnamedAlbert

Click here for more great themes and skins

Or click here for the XDA-Dev TouchFlo themes thread

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Details About LG GM750

gil.bouhnick@gmail.com (Gil Bouhnick) — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 13:35:00 +0000

Looking for useful information and videos about LG GM750? Came to the right place!

I was looking for some useful information about this fascinating device, the LG GM750, LG's first Windows phone (running Windows Mobile 6.5 of course), and one which is also wearing the S-Class user interface which is considered to be an innovative one.

The handset also includes 5 MP, 2592х1944 pixels, autofocus camera and one of my favorites D-Pad substitutes - an optical mouse (a-la Samsung Omnia!).

Here are some useful links with specs details and hands-on reviews of the LG GM750 Windows Phone:

Introduction to LG S-Class User Interface:

LG GM750 gets reviewed by WMExperts

LG GM750 - Full phone specifications

S-Class award winning UI

LG GM750 Videos by LG Training Squad including:
- weather theme,
- multi-tasking capabilities,
- optical mouse,
- homescreen,
- thumbnails in camera mode

Enjoy the links! We will definitely keep a close eye on this one!

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