Mobility Watch

Intel isn’t just showing off its new Atom hotness at IDF Beijing, they also pulled out a previously unseen MID from previous non-player BYD. Codenamed Mars, the MID runs an Atom processor in a clamshell form factor, with a full Windows XP install and QWERTY keyboard. On the back of the lid there’s a regular phone keypad and secondary screen.

Video of the Intel MID presentation held at IDF Beijing this week has been released, complete with prototypes of some of the devices to be powered by the latest - and future - Atom processors. Intel’s press release [PDF link] from the event covers the new devices, which include a Menlow-based clamshell smartphone.

From the Press Release: Support for Windows* 7 and Moblin v2.0 on Intel Atom Processor based MIDs and Netbooks — Intel Atom processor-based MIDs and Netbooks will support Windows* 7 Starter and Basic editions in the second half of this year in addition to support for Windows* XP Home and Windows* Vista Basic. For Linux, Chandrasekher mentioned that both MIDs and netbooks will be moving to Moblin v2.0 from Moblin v1 today.
 Intel Showcases Next-Generation “Moorestown” Platform — Chandrasekher discussed the progress of Intel’s next-generation MID platform, codenamed “Moorestown,” scheduled to launch by 2010. He indicated that the platform is hitting all the milestones and demonstrated greater than 10x platform idle power reduction.
o Moorestown consists of a System on Chip (codenamed “Lincroft”) that integrates a 45nm Intel® Atom™ processor core, graphics, video and memory controller. The MID platform also includes an input/output (I/O) hub, codenamed “Langwell,” that includes a range of I/O blocks and supports various wireless solutions.
o The Moorestown platform will be accompanied by a newer Moblin software version, Moblin v2.0, that is based on the Linux operating system. This software is designed specifically to deliver a great PC-like Internet experience while also supporting cellular voice capabilities.

LG GM730

Mobile World Congress 2009, Microsoft Corp. CEO Steve Ballmer along with key mobile partners, HTC, LG and Orange, unveiled new Windows® phones featuring new user-friendly software and services. The next generation of Windows® phones will be based on Windows Mobile 6.5 and feature a new user interface and a richer browsing experience. In addition, Windows® phones will feature two new services: My Phone, to sync text messages, photos, video, contacts and more to the Web; and Windows® Marketplace for Mobile, a new marketplace that will provide direct-to-phone mobile applications and can be accessed from both the phone and the Web.

Contacts are backed up with My Phone so users don’t have to worry about losing contacts.
Click for larger version.

“Windows® phones bring together the best of the Web, the PC and the phone so you can connect instantly to the experiences you care about, no matter where you are,” Ballmer said. “We’re working with partners across the industry to deliver a new generation of Windows® phones that break down the barriers between people, information and applications and provide great end-to-end experiences that span your entire life, at work and at home.”

Windows Mobile 6.5 Delivers New User Experience

The new Windows Mobile 6.5 home screen keeps people up-to-date on important information by providing a dashboard-like experience to items such as new e-mails, texts, missed calls and calendar appointments. It also includes an improved touch-screen interface, making it easy to take action with a finger, and an updated version of the latest Internet Explorer Mobile browser, which in a third-party research study sponsored by Microsoft supported execution of up to 48 percent more assigned tasks than the other browsers and phones studied.

LG GM730 Video

Microsoft Smartphone

This will be interesting, to see what developes in t e coming weeks.

The Microsoft-branded phone may include Nvidia’s Tegra processor and a telecommunications baseband chip from Qualcomm, wrote Doug Freedman of Broadpoint AmTech in a report Thursday.

Microsoft already sells the Zune portable media player, among other devices, so it isn’t a stranger to the hardware business. And it has its Windows Mobile OS, which it licenses to other phone makers. But it doesn’t yet have a smartphone of its own.

Rumors surfaced last year that Microsoft would launch a smartphone at the Consumer Electronics Show in January, but none materialized. Freedman now believes it will happen at MWC, which takes place Feb. 16-19 in Barcelona.

The company may be thinking of adding cellular capabilities to the Zune, he said, but such a move could backfire on them, said Jack Gold, principal analyst at J. Gold Associates.

“They haven’t set the world on fire with Zune. Why do they think they are going to do any better if they put a phone on it?” he said.

Windows Mobile has a stronger following among businesses, with its support for applications like Microsoft Exchange and extensions for business productivity applications, Gold said.

Windows Mobile is already licensed by top smartphone makers like Samsung, Motorola and HTC, so there’s no reason for Microsoft to enter the consumer market, he said. Making a smartphone of its own could also antagonize Microsoft’s licensees, who could easily switch to one of several free, Linux-based platforms such as LiMo or Android, analysts said.

Owners of the new, relatively-slinky and streamlined Palm Treo 680 (marketed in the U.S. by Cingular/AT&T) have had a problem.  A software bug caused the phone’s camera circuitry to remain on, even after you finished using the camera.  And that caused a big-time battery drain.

Palm is supplying owners with a downloadable fix.  This camera update is really just a patch, not an update to the camera’s firmware.  What that means is, if you have to do a hard reset (reboot) of the phone, you’ll need to reinstall the camera update.

Palm’s responsive attitude toward 680 owners is leading to some gripes, from owners of the Palm Treo 700p.  The complaints include screen freezes, difficulties using Bluetooth devices, digital skips and stuttering.  These 700p owners ask:  We’ve been waiting months for Palm to address our complaints, how come the Model 680 owners get immediate attention?

This doesn’t even reach the bigger question looming out there for Palm and several gazillion users of wireless devices running on the Palm OS:  When, if ever, will we have an update to Palm OS 5.4.9 (known as Garnet)?  It’s been in limbo for three years now, and there’s no new version in sight.  Palm-watchers wonder whether the OS, devices running on it and all the third-party software that’s been developed for it will be allowed to fade away.

That fear is magnified as Palm has introduced devices running on Windows Mobile instead of Palm’s own OS.  The Treo 700w, 700wx and now Treo 750 seem to be taking the “high end” positions in Palm’s lineup, with the Palm OS 680 in an “entry level” position.

As Apple gets ready to jump into the wireless handset business in a big way, we’re guessing Palm is doing some serious soul-searching about the future of its Treo handhelds.  A lot of sharpening will be needed to get Palm’s device line back on the cutting edge, where it had been for so long.

Palm, Treo 680, AT&T, Cingular Wireless, Apple, Palm OS 5.4.9

It was a cute, fun idea.

Fool your friends!  Get a jump on iPhone mania with iPhony 0.2!  Designed by a guy (I assume it’s a guy) named Mo, from SimToGo, iPhony 0.2 is freeware - a program launcher screen made to look just like one of the iPhone screens we’ve seen plastered all over the place, including here.

All it is, is an opening screen that takes you to different destinations within your Palm OS handheld.  Just for fun.

I should say “All it was“, because the link to it from the Palm Infocenter had to be disabled.   “Due to possible legal implications”, we’re told.

It appears O’Melveny & Myers LLP, the uber-gigantic law firm representing Apple, is not amused by this piece of freeware made to look like an iPhone interface.  And I guess we shouldn’t expect it to be.  The firm is cracking down on this Palm “launcher” and a similar screen (or “skin”) for Windows Mobile devices.  

But the law firm went a step further and complained to the bloggers who run the MoDaCo website, and Paul O’Brien’s blog, that putting up a screenshot of that freeware was a copyright violation!

Now hold the phone.  These guys are reporting a story and publishing a link, and reproducing the screenshot is really the only way for readers to understand what’s happening.  Even copyrighted material is subject to “fair use” for reporting.  Which is why I’ve reproduced the screenshot here.

Which is why Apple’s lawyers will be beating my door down, any minute.

Apple, lawyers,  Windows Mobile, iPhone, SimToGo, iPHony 0.2, MoDaCo

[via Sydney Morning Herald] 

Hardly mentioned in all the whoop-de-doo this week over the iPhone is how Apple’s move into the wireless handset market affects Microsoft.

Windows Mobile, the operating system behind many of the hottest new-generation smartphones (Cingular’s Samsung Blackjack, T-Mobile’s Dash, Verizon/Sprint’s Motorola Q and Treo 700wx) is, according to Phone News editor Chris Price, a victim of groupthink.  Price says Microsoft allows the phone carriers to dictate what happens, instead of Microsoft taking the lead.

iPhone, Price suggests, is an opportunity for Microsoft to do what Apple is doing with iPhone - take control of the Windows Mobile operating system.  And he makes another radical, or radically brilliant, suggestion:  Lift the source code for Zune and transplant it into Windows Mobile.

In one fell swoop, it would take out a lot of the “wow factor” (Price’s term) from the iPhone.  At the same time, it would enormously broaden the Zune brand’s reach in the marketplace.

The iPhone we see right now is high on user interface (the fabulous screen, the multitouch capability) and not so high on smartphone-type capabilities, particularly the ability to sync with the Microsoft Outlook and Office world that business lives in.  Microsoft’s world.

Microsoft has the power not only to enhance the Windows Mobile devices already out there, but to help create new devices with a user interface that rivals or exceeds the iPhone.  Something tells me Microsoft is already working on it. 

After all, Microsoft is still waaaay bigger than Apple.

Apple, iPhone, Microsoft, Cingular Wireless, AT&T, T-Mobile, Dash, Samsung, Blackjack, Treo 700wx, Zune

 [via Phone News]