The Mobile Spoon

Small modifications to the site

gil.bouhnick@gmail.com (Gil Bouhnick) — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 23:00:00 +0000

This weekend I decided to invest in my blog's header and created a mixture of all the mobile super heroes I created so far.

It even has some new ones that I didn't publish yet (like the Bold which will be coming this week). Hope you find it better than the previous header.

Also, I modified the colors of the side bar to be more... blue and less... green. (not that there's nothing wrong with green...)

Easy Contacts for Windows Mobile

gil.bouhnick@gmail.com (Gil Bouhnick) — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 22:25:00 +0000

Easy Contact is a finger-friendly Contact, SIM and Calls manager for Windows Mobile PocketPC phones.

It sure looks nice, worth a try.

Main Features:
- Contact Manager
- SIM manager
- Calls manager
- Favorites manager
- Language customizable
- Skinnable
- Finger-friendly
- Intuitive

Download Page

(Source: 1800PocketPC)

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LG's S-CLASS User Interface: What do you think about it?

gil.bouhnick@gmail.com (Gil Bouhnick) — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 15:43:00 +0000

I recently criticise the LG S-Class user interface for being too inconsistent, having too many screens, flows, icons, mess.

Some people agreed with me while other seemed to like the award winning UI. I thought the entire thing is bad!

Well, I was wrong!

Or right?

Or both???

Check for yourself - there's a complete emulator of the S-Class UI in LG's website and you can see it all in action: link to emulator.

After you finish - come back and vote in the poll I've created below - let us know what your thoughts are about the user interface:

Now that you've voted, here are my thoughts about it: I think it's much better than previously seen in the first few vidoes. I think that the videos gave a very bad impression, but playing with the shell seems to be nice and smooth.

Of course, the emulator can deceive a little bit as this is not running on Windows Mobile, and I still think that some of the screens are just too messy and could have been more simple, (and I still don't like the copied iPhone icons in the widgets section), but overall, I have better opinion now than I originally had.

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Winners Winners Winners - Comic Reader Mobi!

gil.bouhnick@gmail.com (Gil Bouhnick) — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 13:05:00 +0000

I'm happy to announce the winners who just won a free copy of Comic Reader Mobi - everyone's favorite comic reader for Windows Mobile and iPhone!

We've got 32 comments which I think is a nice number.

It's fun to see that people are interested in both gadgets and comic books, I personally find the two a nice way to pass time and waste a lot of money.

But, since we must select only 10 winners - here they are:

Windows Mobile version:
RW (Palm Treo Pro, Dark Knight [isn't that Batman?])
Seth (Omnia, River Tam)
Donald Matlock (Fuze, Iron Man)
XenSA (Tytn 2, Starblazer)
Jerry Barnes (HTC Touch Pro, Rogue)

iPhone version*:
dreamcastdc (iPhone, Wolverine)
daddyRobot (iPhone, Batman)
BranBrow (iPhone, Witchblade)
Kevin Sanders (iPhone, Batman)
Kuno (iPhone, Spider-man)

*Please note that as we stated in the original post, we can only send iPhone coupons to US users, so if one of the winners cannot get it - we will pick another reader instead.

So congratulations to all the winners! You won a free copy of Comic Reader Mobi! Please contact us through my email address (gil.bouhnick@gmail.com) so we can send you your prize!

And to all the others - thanks for participating, we will continue with our efforts to arrange more great giveaways and hopefully the next one will be yours. More updates about that in just a few days.

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How Tough is Panasonic ToughBook?

gil.bouhnick@gmail.com (Gil Bouhnick) — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 20:17:00 +0000

How tough is Panasonic ToughBook?

Well, if you think that surviving a tiger's teeth and carrying a real elephant's weight is considered to be tough - then it's tough!

Here's a great video demonstration. Enjoy!

Coming up next: sticking a chewing gum on an iPhone. Would it last?

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Last chance to win Comic Reader Mobi!

gil.bouhnick@gmail.com (Gil Bouhnick) — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 07:01:00 +0000

Today is the last day you can enter the contest and win Comic Reader Mobi.

All you need to do is leave a comment in this thread, and you will take part of the draw.

We are giving away 10 copies!!! 5 for Windows Mobile and 5 for the iPhone!

So go ahead! tell us who is your favorite Super Hero and win Comic Reader Mobi!

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Palm Pre - is it really that good?

gil.bouhnick@gmail.com (Gil Bouhnick) — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 22:55:00 +0000

I'm on the mood for some more Pre stuff, so here are 2:

1. In case you are interested, there's a nice collection of Palm Pre's icons in PPCGeeks. I downloaded them and they are very nice:

Download Palm Pre Icons

2. In case you are disappointed that you still don't own a Pre, here something to chill you out a little bit, 10 things which annoys Kevin from JKOnTheRun.

I went over those 10 items, and I must say they don't seem so drastic to me, maybe the only really important ones are the missing scroll bar and the quick jump to the top of the page.

Going over the comments, I found another list of missing features, and this time it seems more annoying:

1. Alarms on Tasks.
2. Categories on Contacts
3. GCal integration is slow. Often my calendar appears blank. Almost as if the calendar is being downloaded every time.
4. Navigating text using the keyboard. The only way to move the text cursor (to correct a typo, for example) is to tap the screen in EXACTLY the right spot. Needs something like arrow keys or the Treo rocker key.
5. Better/more calendar views. The week and month views are pretty useless. Need better ways to view more than one day at a time.
6. Landscape mode for more apps. Especially for Calendar, which would fix #5.

So, do you think it means the device has some serious issues? or will you hurry and get one as soon as you'll have the chance?

I know I'm still excited about it and intend to get me one soon.

(source)

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What would happen of RIM in few years?

gil.bouhnick@gmail.com (Gil Bouhnick) — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 22:34:00 +0000

I would like to recommend on a very interesting read by Boy Genius Report, talking about RIM, and how far it can go with the brilliant BlackBerry, which is, and I believe many will agree - an amazing smartphone, but has some limitations.

The biggest problem, as described by BGR is the software, and I have to admit, that's exactly my biggest problem with BlackBerry too.

You have a great looking device, comfortable, with the perfect for factor, simple to operate, not too slim, not too delicate, good performance, stable, real push of course, and everything is working perfectly.

But what about some decent software (or better: freeware) to spice things up? That is something that seems to be missing.

On the other hand, many people thought RIM will not win the battle against bigger OS and it seems like BlackBerry phones are just becoming more successful every quarter.

If you are using a BlackBerry, or thinking of getting one - I recommend reading this one, it's a very interesting opinion.

I will publish my own thoughts of BlackBerry Bold, a device I recently started using. So far it looks like an amazing smartphone with one problem... software... hmm...

link to original post

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Palm Pre App Catalog Reaches 1 Million Downloads

gil.bouhnick@gmail.com (Gil Bouhnick) — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 22:18:00 +0000

If you are wondering how is the Palm Pre doing, it seems that it is doing not bad at all!

I recently saw this post mentioning the following:

Palm Pre App Catalog Reaches 1 Million Downloads!

Pretty impressive, don't you think? considering that the device is still new, and that the SDK did not go public yet, meaning that there are just a few applications available to download (around 30).

Congratulations Palm, finally you manage to create a winner.

On launch day, Palm sold 50k devices and their App Catalog experienced 100k downloads - that’s an average of 2 apps downloaded per device and 5,500 downloads per app (with a low of 600 and a high of 20k). 18 days later and they’ve tripled the user base to 150k units, averaging 6+ apps downloaded per device and 33.3k downloads per app (with a low of 2.4k and a high of 114k).

(Source)

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Blue Thunder Theme

gil.bouhnick@gmail.com (Gil Bouhnick) — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 22:04:00 +0000

Here's a nice theme for TouchFlo 3D version 2, enjoy!

Download link

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Owner of an older iPhone? Not all the new features will work for you...

gil.bouhnick@gmail.com (Gil Bouhnick) — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 21:30:00 +0000

Although Apple claimed that the 3rd edition of the iPhone OS comes with over 100 new features, there are some limitations if you are using iPhone 2G or iPhone 3G.

Here's a nice summary of the differences between the versions:

No reason for me to switch to iPhone 3GS. I'm so impressed with my current iPhone (3G) that I find it enough, for now, especially after I'll upgrade to the newer OS and have all the newer games working...

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Find the cheapest gas stations with iGasUp

gil.bouhnick@gmail.com (Gil Bouhnick) — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 21:06:00 +0000

Here's something that might interest some of you.

iGasUp is an iPhone app that finds the closest gas stations with the lowest price.

Using some form of technology that I am apparently ignorant to, iGasUp by Oil Price Information Services (OPIS) collects price data from credit card transactions at thousands of stations across the US and gives time stamped price updates throughout the day.

iGasUp uses the device's current location using GPS, and brings the 10 closest stations, the 10 cheapest stations, and the approximate distance to each.

iGasUp can be found in the AppStore at $2.99.

You can read more about it in here.

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Finger Friendly Task Manager for Windows Mobile

gil.bouhnick@gmail.com (Gil Bouhnick) — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 20:33:00 +0000

Here's something I found in MobilityDigest.

This is a cool task manager which is finger friendly and nice looking.

It's now supporting all resolutions, and can be downloaded for free using the links below:

ShowCase - finger Friendly Task Manager

E-Native Showcase - home blog

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Some nice UI designs

gil.bouhnick@gmail.com (Gil Bouhnick) — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 20:19:00 +0000

At first there was a rumor that those designs were targeted to be part of Windows Mobile, but after further checking, they are not.

Still, since we like user interface, and good looking stuff, here are some nice designs by Robin (more designs in here):

Looks hot. Where do I sign?

(Source: IStartedSomething)

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It's Bold (and Beautiful...)

gil.bouhnick@gmail.com (Gil Bouhnick) — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 20:49:00 +0000

I recently switched from BlackBerry 8800 to BlackBerry Bold.

I will, of course, publish a detailed review soon, because the Bold is really a great phone, it has a very nice design, very comfortable keyboard, the usual BlackBerry hard buttons, and an improved user interface.

The interesting point is that my older BlackBerry, the one that never had any lag, crash, or any special problem, started to constantly present a wait cursor, and there was nothing I could do to fix the problem(including drastic trials...).

Never happened to me in a Windows Mobile device...

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Introducing HTC TouchFlo 3D 2.5

gil.bouhnick@gmail.com (Gil Bouhnick) — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 20:24:00 +0000

You have probably already seen the news about the new HTC device called the FireStone (what a cool name!)

So apparently this device will come with a new version of TouchFlo 3D, newer than the one installed on Diamond II and Touch Pro II.

There are some improvements, in the main tab, in the calendar tab, widgets capabilities, and a new footprint tab which will now become standard.

There are more details in WMPowerUsers, including a cool video demonstration:

It's nice, even though I must say the Android version of TouchFlo looks more impressive...

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Zune HD Hands On Video

gil.bouhnick@gmail.com (Gil Bouhnick) — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 20:09:00 +0000

Found this video which shows some of the Zune HD user interface.

Interesting, don't you think?

There are rumors that the official launch will be in September.
More details in Gizmodo.

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Transformers - Revenge of the fallen

gil.bouhnick@gmail.com (Gil Bouhnick) — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 19:50:00 +0000

Saw the movie yesterday, enjoyed it a lot, although, as usual, as a Transformers fan, I have some problems with it...

The good things:

- SoundWave! At last! Thank you Michael Bay for listening to the fans
- More robots, and some great looking ones as well.
- Good jokes (not in the middle of the fight, but in-between scenes)

In addition, there were some cool reminders of the original comics like Devastator, Ravage, the usual argues between Megatron and StarScream, and more.

Here's the new version of Ravage, one of my favorite characters:

And here's the earth mode of SoundWave (which had a different mode in the movie):

The bad things:

- SoundWave! Why so little!? It's the fans' favorite!
- Again, the fighting scenes were too detailed and hard to digest
- In the middle, there are 30 minutes of "find the treasure" crap
- What about other Autobots? All we saw was Optimus and Bumblebee
- Why on earth did they make Megatron and StarScream so ugly?

I heard someone saying that too many robots looked like paintings of Giuseppe Arcimboldo, what do you think?

In general the film is very enjoying, good entertainment with nice action, but my two main problems are that the evil Decepticons were not presented as "evil" enough, and the biggest problem I have with the film is the annoying fighting effects which are too zoomed in.
All you get to see is tons of steel, moving too fast for a human eye to understand, too loaded with details, making it impossible to enjoy the fight.

Here's an art image of Devastator, too bad it didn't look so good in the movie itself...

Fun action movie, but just like the first one - not the AMAZING thing I expected to see as a fan of the original series.

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Controls Library for Windows Mobile

gil.bouhnick@gmail.com (Gil Bouhnick) — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 18:42:00 +0000

I found this controls library over at the WMPowerUser, a great place for Windows Mobile resources.

This controls library will save a lot of development time when trying to develop lists with kinetic scroll.

The set of controls, which cost $49.99 runs on .net CF 2.0, but brings an experience of an iPhone.

"Aimed at providing stylus-free user interfaces, the core component of Touch Controls is TochList is a flexible multipurpose list control that can be used for any kind of menus, lists or item viewers. The component also provides modern animation and transition effects which are powered by the kinetic scrolling engine that creates a realistic behaviour of the UI. Apart form the TochList control, the suite also consists of additional panel controls that can be used to create multi-button menus or status indicators. All components are fully customizable concerning the look and feel and support alpha bitmaps for full skinning capabilities. The component suite is continually being enhanced with further components."

Mirabyte Homepage

Here's a video demonstration:

I think $50 is a decent price if you want your app to be stylish. Don't you?

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More Twitter Jokes

gil.bouhnick@gmail.com (Gil Bouhnick) — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 21:50:00 +0000

Hey, I love the Twitter Jokes, and MakeUseOf is full of them, here are 2 examples:

Packman joins twitter:

On-line journalism using twitter

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Reminder: Comic Reader Mobi - For Free!

gil.bouhnick@gmail.com (Gil Bouhnick) — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 08:10:00 +0000

Just to remind you all that our Giveaway of the week is still running and this time we are giving away 10 free copies of Comic Reader Mobi - the best comic reader for Windows Mobile (and iPhone)!

For more details click here.

Nokia fails to give the iPhone a decent fight

gil.bouhnick@gmail.com (Gil Bouhnick) — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 07:54:00 +0000

I found a very interesting read over at Bloomberg.com talking about Nokia's failure to beat the iPhone.

Personally I never liked the Nokia phones, even in the times we all used simple cell-phones. When it comes to smartphones, I really don't think Nokia is an interesting alternative.

Even though the report doesn't mention technology as a main reason for the decline, I do believe Symbian is one of the reasons - it's an old OS, it has a lot of limitations and problems, and many people I to to often complain about it.

Read the original article

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Is that iPhone inside LG's new Shell?

gil.bouhnick@gmail.com (Gil Bouhnick) — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 07:33:00 +0000

Oh my... the following video is not recommended for people with weak hearts.

The video demonstrates LG's flagship shell UI which will soon become the standard UI for all of their WinMo based phones.

It's called S-Class UI, but I would call it: S-Mess UI.

It is inconsistent, confusing, it has all types of animations and shortcuts included, without any consistent design or guide.

I don't like it on bit (in case you haven't noticed). One of the most important things in UI is being consistent, even in the cost of losing some functionality or effects.

To me the design looks like the biggest reason why I wouldn't buy such device.

Here's a video demonstration:

Oh no...

Is this what we are going to see from LG and Microsoft in the near future? I certainly hope not.

HTC! Come back! I won't say bad things about TouchFlo ever again! I swear!

And, something else I've noticed which looks even worse: at as you can see from the picture above, some of the icons look like they were taken form... iPhone?!... is it a scam???

What do you think?

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Thoughts about the new Start Menu of Windows Mobile 6.5

gil.bouhnick@gmail.com (Gil Bouhnick) — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 10:06:00 +0000

There's an interesting post I found in one of my favorites, FuzeMobility site.

The post was written by by Dr. Jim Taylor, and it actually moans about the new start menu of Windows Mobile 6.5 (you know the honeycomb story etc.).

I recommend reading it, as it's definitely something many people will face when starting to use version 6.5.

There's also a nice tip at the end, recommending on a freeware called re/START (yes, that's the name, no typo) that allows easy editing of the new start menu:

"There is a happy ending though. Farmer Ted turned me on to Showaco’s re/START app which allows you to arrange your icons in every folder in your start menu. It’s quick and easy, and it offers alternative icons as a bonus."

Original post

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Freeware: Paper Toss for iPhone

gil.bouhnick@gmail.com (Gil Bouhnick) — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 08:54:00 +0000

This game is really silly, but it's so addictive! (and free!)

Paper Toss is a free game in which you need to hit the basket. I'm not sure for how long it will remain free, so hurry up and get your free copy before it's too late (I may have been over dramatic here but whatever...)

What's the challenge you ask? Well, there's a changing wind that will change the track of the ball... brrr, sorry... the crumpled paper...

The result is a very simple but fun game:

AppStore Link

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