Introducing HTC TouchFlo 3D 2.5

  

You have probably already seen the news about the new HTC device called the FireStone.

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 (the Sense…) looks more impressive…

 

           

18 Android Phones This Year!?

I heard there will be another ‘Terminator’ movie this year but I definitely wasn’t expecting that:

According to Andy Rubin, speaking at Google I/O there 18 Android based handsets are about to be released this year (in other words - 18 different models in 7 months…)

They will come from 8-9 different manufacturers (we already know of HTC, Samsung and Lenovo), which is a huge number. That is being added to the StrategyAnalytics forecast that Android sales will grow an impressive 900% annually during 2009.

Acording to EngadgetMobile, Rubin clarified the three flavors of Android which break down as follows:

• Google-free: Free to download version of Android without Google applications like Gmail or Google Calendar. Access to Android applications is at the whimsical fancy of the manufacturer.
• Strings attached: Same as above but manufacturers sign a distribution agreement with Google and pre-install the Google applications. Of Rubin’s possible 20 phones, 12 to 14 fall into this category
• The Google Experience: Phones featuring the Google logo with all Google apps installed and includes unrestricted access (neither the carrier nor handset maker can block applications they find objectionable) to the Android market. 5 or 6 of the 20, Android phone mentioned by Rubin will deliver the full Google Experience as god and Sergey designed it.

I warn you this will happen, but you didn’t listen.

I’m telling you: it’s not long before androids will be everywhere, controlling our lives, taking away our freedom!

Run while you can! Save yourselves from those evil machines!

(Or get one…)

           

iPhone App: Google Analytics Client

      

We often talk about the huge number of useless iPhone applications like the iFart etc. But lately I managed to find a decent number of real productivity applications.

The one I like the most is Analytics. It’s an iPhone client for Google Analytics, the service that gives every young  blogger or site manager a nice overview about how his site is doing.

Statistics about popular posts, number of page-views, unique readers, location of the readers, keywords, a lot of hot stuff, especially if you want to analyze how your site is doing.

[Read more]

           

AppStore: 1 Billion Downloads in 9 Months

Following the previous post with the 1 million figure, here’s something with 1 billion!

Few days ago the 1 billionth download from the Apple App Store was done, which means this number was achieved in just nine months.

The total number of applications is 35,000 at the moment (and bare in mind that there are other apps outside the app store), which is definitely an amazing number.

(I tried to see how many of those icons actually exist on my iPhone and found quite a few…)
 

What about Windows Mobile?

The OS which exists for more than 9 years and had the title of having the largest number of applications has, according to a report that was published few months ago, around 20,000 applications.

If those numbers are true, than the iPhone knocked off nine years of Windows Mobile applications in just nine months. How symbolic.

On the other hand, since there’s no centralized store for Windows Mobile, it may be that there are far more applications and mainly freewares which probably were not counted in the report.

           

Looking for a nice theme? Came to the right place!

Over the past few weeks I’ve been collecting some nice themes for Windows Mobile. Well, mainly for TouchFlo and SPB Mobile Shell, but I believe that for most of us - those are the real WinMo shell alternatives.

I thought it would be a good idea to place some of them in one single post:

We will start with a great looking TF3D themes collection by JAMILU007.

If you like it, head over to this thread or this one and refresh your phone look & feel a little bit.
If you cannot access the site, here are some links to the English version:
Neon Blue Skin Action Screen HERE.
Neon Red Skin Action Screen HERE.
Neon Green Skin Action Screen HERE.
Neon Orange Skin Action Screen HERE.

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ChangeSkin is a totally cool themes switcher for SPB Mobile Shell. I’m addicted to Mobile Shell and I usually disable anything else, and now, with ChangeSkin - there’s even a way to completely change the look of it. (author’s site).

  

[Read more]

           

One night stand with BlackBerry Storm

A friend of mine was kind enough to loan me his brand new BlackBerry Storm for the night, which of course, turned it into a long night…

Here’s my impression of it:

The Storm is a beautiful device. I like most of the recent phone designs by RIM, but this one reminded me of the great Touch HD and has a full touch screen which makes it more sexy. This is RIM’s first touch screen device and I assume it was not easy for them to turn their OS UI into a completely finger friendly UI - but the results are quite good.

The Storm offers dual-mode functionality for world-roaming capabilities as well as EV-DO Rev, combined with GPS, a 3.2-megapixel camera, pretty responsive accelerometer and a long list of pre-installed applications, but the real highlight of this phone is the innovative touch screen.

Touch screen:
I love it. It’s different from anything I’ve ever tried so far. Here’s how it feels like:

With a normal capacitive screen, a touch means activation, even if it’s a short touch or a touch by accident. When you touch a button - it’s as if you clicked it.

RIM took the capacitive capabilities, and turned it into tactile feedback, meaning that the touched area gets highlighted (see keyboard image below), but not yet activated (you see where you are but nothing really happens).

[Read more]

           

Great art work done by using an iPhone drawing app called Brushes.

I came across Jorge Colombo’s website where he published some of his art work. Amazingly, he has a large collection of drawings he made using an iPhone application called Brushes. You heard it right. The drawings you see below are made with a finger!

Brushes is an iPhone drawing app created by Steve Sprang. I just downloaded it and it seems great indeed, but my best drawing so far was a stupid smiley…

 

Now back to Jorge Colombo’s work; of course I cannot place all of his amazing work here, so I allowed myself to copy just 3 of them, but believe me, there are more…

So head over to this website to see more of those amazing iPhone finger drawings.

  

(all images were made by Jorge Colombo)

I had to see if such application exists for Windows Mobile, and managed to find it!

The application is called Vspainter LE v1.75 and it can be downloaded from here (freeware!).

As you can see, the capabilities are not bad as well (that is, assuming you know how to paint)

           

Tower Defense games, gymnastics, and one bad addiction

Today at the gym, while others were doing this:

I was doing this:

(playing…)

I know, it’s not exactly what you are supposed to do in a gym, but I’m addicted.

I’m addicted to tower defense games. Especially Field Runner.

If (like me few weeks ago) you never heard the term Tower Defense before, here’s some Wiki stuff:

“The goal is to try to stop enemies from crossing the map by building towers which shoot at them as they pass. Enemies and towers usually have varied abilities and costs. When an enemy is defeated the player earns money or points, which are used to buy or upgrade towers”.

I see it as a combination of a strategy game (but a very basic one) with some elements of luck and gambling.

The result is a great way to pass the time but also a horrible way to waste important time.

In any event, here’s some of the games I like under this genre:

[Read more]

           

iContact 0.92 released - improved VGA and sensor support

 

Doug Melton, the gifted developers of the famous iContact just dropped me an email about a new version of iContact.

The new version (0.92) adds true VGA skins and Diamond touch sensor support, as well as some bug fixes.

Find out more in the official website: http://supware.net/iContact

In case you are not familiar with it, here’s the description of iContact which is my favorite contacts manager for Windows Mobile:

iContact is an all-inclusive finger-friendly contact manager for Windows Mobile. It’s easily skinnable, intuitive, and replaces the standard Windows Mobile contact chooser. Translations are available for over 25 languages. iContact supports true VGA skins but also will support any screen size! The default skin has a diamond-like look and feel; other skins are available on the skins page. iContact settings can be found in the Windows Mobile system settings menu.

Please note: iContact 0.92 will work with all WM5.0 and above devices, even non-phone devices. But it will not work with WM2003 devices. For those, iContact 0.6 should work.

Download iContact

           

What do you really think of Windows Mobile 6.5?

Mobile World Congress is over and one of the biggest news (other than the disappointing Symbian based OmniaHD and Diamond2 robbery)  was the announcement of Windows Mobile 6.5.

Windows Mobile 6.5 includes a lot of improvements, from the obvious (now standard) features like finger friendly scrolling and an improved Internet browsing, to some interesting new concepts such as the new Today screen, honeycomb shortcuts layout and semi transparent soft menus.

It also includes an innovative lock screen which enables useful activities that looks really impressive.

Watch it in action!

WinMo 6.5 announcement was combined with the new services MyPhone and Marketplace (see Chris’s first impression of MyPhone) which look promising as well.

Nice!

I personally like it a lot although I believe that many of the improvements should have been here months ago, before 3rd party apps did it on their own.

I’m interested to see how do you WinMo fans out there feel about it: are you excited or indifferent?

Do you think WinMo 6.5 will be a big hit or do you find the TouchFlo 3D II or SPBMobile Shell 3 more interesting at the moment?

I would like to invite you all to vote in a poll I’m running in the MobileSpoon.
You are all welcome to vote: What do you really think of Windows Mobile 6.5?!
As always, I will publish the results in a couple of days.

So jump over and vote!

           

iPhone’s Fring vs.WinMo’s Fring. Fight!

Well well well, if it ain’t that rumble again: iPhone vs. WinMo.

So far, every time I make a comparison between phones or OS I get spanked by one of the sides; furious Android fans, fanatic Apple freaks, etc.

I decided to stop doing that, but after a while (10 seconds), I got bored again, so the hell with it! I’m continuing my clashes between different devices and different OS - you are all invited to spank!

Today I would like to compare between Fring for the iPhone and Fring on Windows Mobile. Both, are great free applications which I use.

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First parameter will be the user interface!

I believe you will have to agree that the iPhone version looks much better than the WinMo one. The UI is designed better, it has those finger friendly iPhone’s scrollable lists and some nice tabs images in the bottom, switching between subjects.

The WinMo version, on the other doesn’t look that bad, but those ‘not-so-good-looking-saying-the-least’ tabs in the bottom makes it a bit pale comparing to the fancy iPhone UI…

iPhone 1:0 WinMo [Read more]

           

World’s Smallest Tip Ever: How to switch between email accounts in Windows Mobile

OK, this is going to be my shortest post ever:

To switch between different email accounts, click on the right / left D-Pad button!

           

Windows Mobile 6.5 - more screenshots revealed

Windows Mobile 6.5 will probably be announced next week but until that time - let’s have fun with some more screenshots:

Let’s start with the famous honeycomb: I told you it will have scrolling capabilities!

[Read more]

           

Windows Mobile to become Windows Phone?

Well well well, the MS friends are doing it again; renaming stuff…

Many of us are still using the name Pocket PC even though it’s Windows Mobile for quite a while, but now there are rumors that Microsoft will drop the mobile part and change it to Windows Phone.

[Rumors source]

I just hate it when they do it; SQL Compact was renamed to SQL Mobile, MS SMS was renamed to MSSCMDM [Microsoft System Center Mobile Device Manager] - the longest name in the history of software, but, I must say I like the sound of the new name: Windows Phone…

Windows Phone….

Windows Phone….

(oh, you can stop reading the post here, I’m just trying to practice the name…)

Windows Phone…

Windows Phone…

Windows Phone…

(Still here? I told you there’s nothing to read over here… it’s self practicing)

Windows Phone…

Windows Phone…

           

HTC Touch HD Thoughts - Part #1

“Today, for a few hours, I held perfection in my hands… “

G. Bouhnick, Feb 02, 2009

(OK, that’s actually me quoting myself…)

It happened when a colleague of mine was kind enough to let me play with his bran new toy: the HTC Touch HD! (Thanks again Dean!)

HTC Touch HD. Even the name sounds impressive…

(I think HD Stands for: “Huge Device!”, or “Ho my god I must have this Device!” or maybe: “Hey Dean! Can I borrow your phone for a year?”)

I will start my review by saying:

This is the best Windows Mobile device I have ever tried.

True, I didn’t had a chance to check battery life or GPS, so I’m not sure I can even call it a “review”, but I did manage to learn a few things about the quality of the manliest gadget for 2008, and I have some thoughts about it (I will split them into 2 parts)

Design:

When they invented the term “cutting edge” – Touch HD was in front of their eyes, I’m sure!

Black colored, slim, elegant, the edges are a bit cut (I told you this is cutting edge), huge display – perfection.

The device feels great in the hand too. It’s not so rounded and thin as the slippery iPhone – so it actually feels much better in the hand.

The back cover of it is nice, and feels classy. High end.

It is without a doubt, the best looking device I’ve ever seen. (well, maybe second best after the Palm Pre…) [Read more]