• pro,  windows mobile

    Palm Treo Pro Comes to Brazil on Claro Network

    February 13, 2009 /

    Palm has launched the Palm Pro smartphone on the Claro Network for our friends in Brazil.

    “Everything about Treo Pro — from the hardware design to the packaging and accessories – embodies the elegant and simplified end-to-end experience that our customers expect from Palm,” said Mark Halliden, managing director, Brazil, for Palm, Inc. “Businesses want the control and savings that Windows Mobile affords, in an innovative and elegant package that keeps their users happy. Treo Pro balances both.”

    The Treo Pro smartphone, based on the popular Windows Mobile platform, helps optimize business processes by effortlessly mobilizing users with enhancements to the Windows Mobile 6.1 platform, including:

    • One-touch Wi-Fi button – Easy, fast Wi-Fi connection experience (802.11b/g).
    • Ringer switch – Silences the device immediately.
    • Screen saver – Lets users know at a glance – without turning on the device – what time it is and whether they have missed a call or have a new SMS/MMS message.
    • New voicemail indicator – The center button flashes to let users know that a voicemail is waiting.
    • Dedicated email and calendar buttons — Fast one-button access.

    For more details, visit the Palm website…

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  • astraware,  iphone,  palm,  windows mobile

    Astraware Launches Bubble Shuffle

    February 6, 2009 /

    Astraware has released what appears to be another great word puzzle game for Palm OS, Windows Mobile Professional, and iPhone/iPod touch.

    “Astraware(R) – the Handmark(R) Games StudioTM has today released a fun new word game featuring ever-friendly, fishy host, Wordsworth Smartygills. Bubble ShuffleTM follows on from Bubble Babble in the ‘Bubble’ word game series.

    Bubble Shuffle is a simple undersea-themed word-building game that challenges players to create words from a given set of bubble letters. Perfect for adults and children, the game begins with 4 letters to work from and increases over multiple levels to 7 letters. To progress from level to level players must create at least one word from all of the letters. Players can shuffle the bubbles as many times as they want, to help them find more words.

    The game features 4 fun game modes – 2 timed, and 2 more relaxing untimed games, each with a variation on the basic gameplay. Wordsworth Smartygills guides you through how to play, and can provide hints and clues throughout the game just by tapping him. Bubble Shuffle includes 4 levels of difficulty, and advanced anagram-anglers are rewarded for finding more unusual and esoteric words, with the option of requiring rare words from the inbuilt extended dictionary!

    Players can earn a collection of colorful seahorse pets for Wordsworth by various achievements, from reaching new difficulty levels to the challenge of finding all of the possible words within the time limit.

    Bubble Shuffle is available for Palm OS(R), Windows Mobile(R), iPhoneTM and iPod(R) touch. For more information, visit http://www.astraware.com/bubbleshuffle.”

    Fans of Astraware’s games will recall that game host “Wordsworth Smartygills” first appeared in Bubble Babble, another undersea word game which is currently available for Palm OS, Windows Mobile Professional, and Windows Mobile Smartphone.

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  • windows mobile

    HTC Announces the New Touch Cruise

    January 26, 2009 /

    HTC, the company best known for their stylish smartphone design kung-fu, has announced their latest smartphone, the HTC Touch Cruise.

    The Touch Cruise is a Windows Mobile Professional 6.1 powered smartphone that features another stunning industrial design. The Touch Cruise just looks great!

    Included in HTC’s latest smartphone is a built-in GPS that not only integrates with an optional vehicle cradle to provide turn-by-turn navigation, but also integrates with HTC’s new Footprints software. With the GPS enabled Touch Cruise and Footprints, customers are able to take photos and an audio recording while tagging the photo with co-ordinates provided by from the GPS receiver.

    “The new HTC Touch Cruise is the first mobile phone to offer HTC Footprints, an application experience that enables people to permanently chronicle their special moments by capturing a digital postcard on their phone. Once captured, Footprints provides the ability to take notes and an audio clip of that favourite restaurant or special place while identifying its specific geographical location. In addition to identifying each postcard with its specific GPS co-ordinates, Footprints also auto-names each postcard with its general location or area.

    Flipping back through their photos, HTC Touch Cruise users will be able to retrace their steps to that exact location in just a few touches. Unlike other devices with geo-tagging functionality, HTC Footprints works effectively outdoors and indoors, offering a more accurate record of location for future reference and navigation.

    “Just as we have seen GPS technology transform how people navigate to new places, we are now seeing location-based applications like HTC Footprints changing how we interact and carry our memories,” said Peter Chou, President and CEO, HTC Corporation.”

    The published specifications for the HTC Touch Cruise are:

    • Size: 102 x 53.5 x 14.5mm
    • Weight: 103 grams
    • WCDMA/HSPA: 900/2100MHz. HSDPA 7.2 Mbps
    • Windows Mobile® 6.1 Professional
    • 2.8-inch TFT-LCD touch-sensitive screen with QVGA resolution
    • HTC TouchFLO™, 4-Way navigation wheel with Enter and HTC Footprints™ buttons
    • 3.2 MP camera, with fixed focus
    • Internal memory: 512 MB flash ROM, 256 MB RAM
    • microSD™ memory card (SD 2.0 compatible)
    • Bluetooth 2.0 with EDR
    • Wi-Fi 802.11b/g wireless
    • GPS/A-GPS
    • Interface: HTC ExtUSB (mini-USB 2.0 and audio jack in one)
    • Battery: 1100 mAh
    • Talk time: GSM: up to 400 minutes
    • Standby time: GSM: up to two weeks
    • Chipset: Qualcomm® MSM7225™, 528 MHz

    HTC is expected to begin shipping the Touch Cruise later this spring. For more details, check out the HTC Touch Cruise website.

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  • dataviz,  treo,  windows mobile

    Upgrading Docs To Go on WM Professional

    December 1, 2008 /

    I finally got around to upgrading DataViz Documents To Go 3.0 Premium on my Palm Treo 750 smartphone. The Documents To Go 3.0032 is a minor upgrade that was released back on September 23, 2008. The update addresses the following issues:

    • Added support for devices with high resolution screens (VGA 480×640)
    • Fixed a bug which caused “Error after creating the .lnk – file : 3” when installing on non-English devices
    • Minor bug fixes

    The complete Document To Go for Windows Mobile Professional version history can be found in the DataViz knowledge base.

    During the upgrade, I did run into some trouble. At about 98% done, the following error message popped up:

    Edition Not Found
    \Windows\gb-nrv-s.dat

    Error setting up the registry. Please reinstall to try and fix the problem.

    DataViz’s solution for the error can also be found in the DataViz knowlege base. I checked that I had enough space on my Treo by going to the Memory control panel and taking a look at the Storage Free value. The upgrade should have worked. To get around this problem, I ended up uninstalling Documents To Go 3.0031 and eReader (which I never really used on my Windows Mobile Treo anyway), soft reset my Palm, and then re-ran the Documents To Go installer. To do this, I used the Windows Mobile Device Center in Windows Vista and pointed to:

    Programs and Services > More… > Add/Remove Programs

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  • astraware,  blackberry,  iphone,  windows mobile

    Astraware My Little Tank for iPhone/iPod Touch, Updates

    November 18, 2008 /

    Astraware has announced that My Little Tank, a casual-style arcade game, has been updated and enhanced for Palm OS and Windows Mobile and has released a three new versions of the game for iPhone/iPod touch, BlackBerry, and Symbian S60-based phones.

    My Little Tank is a fun arcade blaster in which players can navigate through the original 60, and now 20 additional, action-packed, increasingly challenging levels as they shoot enemy tanks, defend their base, and destroy enemy radar stations and bases. Lovingly crafted miniature terrains include snow, swamp, plains, and deserts. The game also includes a range of power-ups to aid players in winning each mission.

    The new edition of My Little Tank for iPhone/iPod touch, includes a choice of control options including an onscreen virtual d-pad, swipe to move the tank, and accelerometer-based directional tilt.

    A demo video of My Little Tank for the Apple iPhone and iPod touch can be found here. My Little Tank can be purchased from the Apple App Store for $4.99.

    In addition to the new iPhone/iPod touch edition, Astraware has also released new versions of My Little Tank for BlackBerry and Symbian S60 phones similar to the versions for Palm OS and Windows Mobile devices.

    For more details about My Little Tank, check out the Astraware website.

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  • treo,  windows mobile

    Palm Treo Pro Bluetooth Update

    November 11, 2008 /


    Palm has released a Bluetooth update for unlocked Treo Pro customers. The brief description of the patch on Palm’s website reads:

    “If you are in an active call using bluetooth car kit or bluetooth headset and you receive a second incoming call and you let it ring or you ignore the incoming call, the call will be diverted to Voicemail. The first call remains active but you can no longer hear the caller (the caller can still hear you). The audio has been lost. If you answer the call and swap between calls or reject the call, the issue is not seen.”

    The update can be downloaded and installed from a microSD card or installed over-the-air at:

    www.palm.com/850u-bluetooth-ota

    Since this update is a patch, and not a full ROM software upgrade, the patch will need to be reapplied if the Treo Pro is hard reset.

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  • microsoft,  rumors,  windows mobile

    Rumor: Pocket IE 6 Update

    November 11, 2008 /

    WMExperts has an interesting little article posted today about the next version of Pocket IE 6 for devices powered by Microsoft’s Windows Mobile Professional.

    “An anonymous tipster has sent in some screen shots and impressions of the upcoming Internet Explorer 6 browser that’s coming to Windows Mobile in the very near future, the vaunted ‘6 on 6.’ The bad news — it’s not at all clear that Microsoft will make this an independently-available download. We do know for sure that it will be baked-into the ROMs of many future smartphones. That leads us to the good news — the screenshots we have here are from an upcoming WinMo device. Square Screen, 320×320 resolution, and the black theme are your clues as to what we’re looking at.”

    While I’d like to see Microsoft release the next version of Pocket IE 6 as a stand-alone update to existing Windows Mobile 6.0 devices, I’m not at all sure they will. Palm has had a “no-upgrades” policy for a long time. On the desktop side, Microsoft would release a new version of the browser outside of a major OS release, so I’m still hopeful that Microsoft will release the upgrade as a free download from their Windows Mobile software site.

    [Via WMExperts…]

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  • microsoft,  windows mobile

    Microsoft Confirms Windows Mobile 6.5

    November 9, 2008 /

    WMExperts via TechRadar.com is reporting that Microsoft’s skipper, Steve Ballmer, has confirmed that the company will be releasing Windows Mobile 6.5 to fill the void between here and Windows Mobile 7.0.

    “Ballmer said “With releases we’ll make this year – releases we’ll make with 6.5 next year, Windows Mobile 7, I think we have a pretty interesting roadmap.”

    [Via TechRadar.com…]

    Related Articles:

    Rumor: Microsoft Working on Windows Mobile 6.5
    Microsoft Delays Windows Mobile 7

    Read More
  • att,  centro,  sprint,  verizon,  windows mobile

    Briefly Noted: Palm Smartphone Changes

    November 4, 2008 /

    Kris Keilhack over at PalmInfoCenter.com is reporting two Palm product chances.

    Treo 750 Nearing End of Life?

    The first is that it appears that Palm and AT&T are moving to end-of-life (EOL) the Palm Treo 750. Of the Treo 750, Mr. Keilhack writes:

    “Aside from the evergreen Treo 700wx on Verizon, the 750 remains Palm’s oldest current smartphone. Replacing the 750 with the new Treo Pro would appear to be a logical move but to date nothing more than rumors have indicated that Palm’s flagship device will be appearing in subsidized form on any domestic GSM carrier.

    Originally launched in September 2006 with Windows Mobile 5.2, the Treo 750 is now well over two years old. So despite the presence of the WM6 update released last fall, it is beginning to look a bit long in the tooth relative to not only competing handsets but even its newer Windows Mobile-powered Treo sister devices, the Treo 800w and Treo Pro.”

    Verizon Centro ROM Upgrade

    Palm and Verizon have made a free ROM maintenace upgrade available to customers using Verizon-branded Centro smartphones. Writing for PalmInfoCenter, Mr. Keilhack writes:

    “Palm is being rather vague on the specific improvements in this update, claiming only: “This software update is a minor tune-up that may improve device usability in certain situations.”

    Palm customers who are using Verizon branded Centros can learn more about and download the latest ROM update here. Sprint customers received a similar update back in July.

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  • celio,  redfly,  windows mobile

    Celio Extends Redfly Promotion

    November 3, 2008 /

    Celio, makers of the Redfly, have extended their special 50% discount promotion until Monday, November 17, 2008.

    “We’re extending our $199 promotional pricing for REDFLY until Monday, November 17th, 2008.

    The promotion has been so successful at introducing REDFLY to new markets, users and applications that we decided to keep it up for a few more weeks.

    In addition to the many casual and power Windows Mobile users out there who are buying REDFLY for themselves, the reception has been tremendous into vertical markets like healthcare, government, sales force, and service force applications.

    REDFLY is just the beginning of a series of planned products based around the enablement of the smartphone as both a mobile computer or netbook and access point to remote virtual systems and cloud computing.”

    More information about the Redfly can be found here, and if you are ready to buy one for $199 (50% off), you can do so here.

    What I find interesting about the Redfly is that unlike the ill-fated Palm Foleo or the Asus Eee PC netbook, the Redfly is not a stand-alone computer. It is, simply put, a dumb terminal for your Windows Mobile smartphone. All of your data is on your phone and there is not need to sync your phone to another device.

    After November 17, the Redfly will return to it’s regular price, $399.

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