• pre,  web os

    PreCentral: It’s Time To Fix Calendar

    October 20, 2009 /

    Derek Kessler, over at PreCentral.net, has a good article posted about the improvements he would like to see Palm add to the webOS Calendar application.

    The first issue that should be addressed, according to the article, should be the performance of the Calendar application. Mr. Kessler writes:

    “What do I mean by too slow? When I swipe to a new day, it can take seconds for the gray loading overlay to disappear. That wouldn’t be so bad if I could still swipe to another day, but I have to wait for that day to load before I can move to the next. When I move to a day that has several events scheduled it takes even longer to load, which leads me to suspect that the calendar is checking for changes of for each event before letting me interact with or move on from that day.”

    Another issue that is tabled in the article is that the Palm webOS Calendar should have feature parity with Palm OS 5 that is still used today in millions of Palm handheld devices as well as in Treo and Centro smartphones. The Palm OS 5 Calendar application has features such as pop-up description windows when you tap an event in week view and the agenda view. Summerizing the missing features between the Calendar application in Palm OS 5 and webOS 1.2.1, Mr. Kessler writes: “There is little reason for the webOS calendar to lose functionality from the aged Palm OS calendar.”

    I agree. I was surprised that once I got home from my local Sprint store, after having waited in line for hours to be the first one to get a Pre, to learn that Palm’s flagship smartphone, in certain applications, had less features than my Treo 755p! Now I’m a little bit more tolerant of the missing features since the Pre is running a version 1.x operating system. The good news is that Palm has been repsonsive, much more so than in the past, to correcting bugs and adding new features. Buy the time we get to webOS 1.5, and certainly by 2.0, I would expect that Palm would have added many of the PIM application refinements to webOS.

    You can read the full article on PreCentral.net…

    [Via PreCentral.net]

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  • app catalog,  web os

    Acceleroto Air Hockey – My First App Catalog Purchase

    October 20, 2009 /

    I just purchased a copy of Acceleroto’s Air Hockey for Palm webOS, which includes the Palm Pre and the upcoming Palm Pixi.

    Before I tried to purchase anything from Palm’s App Catalog, I chose to enter my credit card information by linking App Catalog with my Palm profile and then entering the card information. Once that was set up, I was ready to purchase my first application. You will be happy to learn that your credit card information is not actually stored on your webOS smartphone. It is stored on a secure server; just like your account information is stored in your Apple iTunes Store account. If you regularly purchase application on your iPhone or iPod touch, you will be at home with purchases from App Catalog on your Pre.

    The purchase process was quick and easy and the game was installed on my phone without any trouble. Acceleroto Air Hockey can be purchased from the Palm App Catalog for $1.99. For more information, visit the Acceleroto blog.

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  • blackberry,  blackberry os,  sprint

    Sprint BlackBerry OS 4.5.0.175 for Curve Released

    October 19, 2009 /

    Over the weekend, I activated a second smartphone on my Sprint account, a BlackBerry Curve 8330. (For those keeping score, I was using a Curve 8330 as my primary phone between December, 2008 – June 6, 2009; the day that the Palm Pre was released.) While configuring BlackBerry Device Manager 5.0 on my PC, I noticed that there was an OS upgrade for my new Sprint BlackBerry.

    Sprint customers who use the BlackBerry Curve 8330 can upgrade from BlackBerry OS 4.5.0.131 to BlackBerry 4.5.0.175. As far as I can tell, the .175 build of BlackBerry OS 4.5 is largely a maintenance release as all of the BlackBerry applications in the package build are still listed as version 4.5.

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  • blackberry

    Facebook for BlackBerry Updated

    October 18, 2009 /

    In case you missed it, the native Facebook client for BlackBerry smartphones was upgraded to version 1.7 over the weekend. Facebook v1.7 is now available for download as a download from BlackBerry App World or via the Check for Upgrade option found in the Facebook application (BlackBerry key > Options).

    Facebook v1.7 for BlackBerry introduces the following new features:

    • News Feed Support – The ability to set the News Feed as the landing page
    • News Feed Filters – The ability to toggle between ‘News Feed, Status Updates, Photos & Links’
    • Caching Improvements – The application uses the device memory more efficiently.
    • Feed Pre-fetching – The user will not be required to wait while their Facebook Feeds are updated
    • View Profile Menu Option – Clients may easily view their own profile by selecting ‘View my Profile’ from the menu. “

    [Via Crackberry.com…]

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  • notifylink,  pre,  web os

    NotifyLink Client for Palm webOS Released

    October 15, 2009 /

    Earlier this week, NotifyCorp released a Palm webOS client for their onsite and hosted NotifyLink wireless email server.

    “Notify Technology is proud to announce support for the Palm PreTM using either the NotifyLink On-Premise or On-Demand solutions. Corporate IT wants an effective way to provide their increasingly mobile workforce secure wireless access and management of their email, calendar, contacts and tasks. Most organizations and businesses are seeking a mobility solution that will offer them support for their Palm Pre wireless device on cellular and voice data networks (at this time only on the Sprint and Bell Canada networks) and any 802.11x wireless network.

    The NotifyLink On-Premise and On-Demand mobility solution provides secure, real-time synchronization of email, calendar, contacts and tasks to and from the Palm Pre wireless device. With NotifyLink, users have the ability to compose, reply, forward, or delete their email while mobile, as well as open a variety of email attachment formats. Support for accepting or declining meeting invitations and remote access to their Global Address Book is also provided.”

    NotifyLink is a perfect solution for small and medium sized businesses that want to bring wireless email support to their employees. I have been managing a 30 person onsite NotifyLink server for just about two years now and I have been really happy with NotifyLink. The software runs itself and NotifyLink has become a “set it and forget it” application.

    If you are looking to add webOS support to your NotifyLink solution, be ready to upgrade to the latest release of the NotifyLink Enterprise Server as you will need to be on release 4.6 or later to be able to the Palm Pre into the mix.

    For more details about the NotifyLink solution, visit the NotifyCorp website. NotifyCorp has also posted a NotfiyLink for Palm webOS datasheet on their site.

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  • microsoft,  t-mobile

    Microsoft/Danger Data Loss: The Plot Thickens

    October 13, 2009 /

    Following up on the weekend’s revelation that Microsoft/Danger had lost T-Mobile SideKick user’s data, new sources have surfaced ready to talk and the good folks at AppleInsider where all to willing to listen.

    “Additional insiders have stepped forward to shed more light into Microsoft’s troubled acquisition of Danger, its beleaguered Pink Project, and what has become one of the most high profile Information Technology disasters in recent memory.

    The sources point to longstanding management issues, a culture of “dogfooding” (to eradicate any vestiges of competitor’s technologies after an acquisition), and evidence that could suggest the failure was the result of a deliberate act of sabotage.”

    What is the real reason for the server outage and data loss? We may never really know. Regardless of how you slice it, this situation is a PR nightmare for both T-Mobile and Microsoft. If you enjoy reading a good drug store paperback murder/mystery novel, you will want to read the this article. Who knows, maybe this will be turned into a movie some day.

    Read the full AppleInsider article…

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  • blackberry,  google

    Toffa Discontinues Goosync Free Edition

    October 12, 2009 /

    Toffa International, the company behind the popular GooSync service, has announced that they are discontinuing their free service. Replacing the free service will be a $10USD per year service called GooSync Lite. The free GooSync service will be disabled on October 19, 2009.

    “It has always been our goal to provide a professional service to all Free and Premium users. Given the exponential demand for GooSync over the last 12 months, it has become increasingly more difficult to continue this high level of service to both Premium and Free users.

    It is therefore, with regret, that we are now discontinuing our Free service. For all of you that have come to love and rely on our free offering, we will be migrating the Free GooSync service into a new product “GooSync Lite”. This new lite version of GooSync will have all the same features as the existing free version.

    The Free version will become unavailable and synchronization will be suspended on Monday 19th October. To continue benefiting from all the great features of GooSync you will be able to purchase GooSync Lite for a yearly fee of just £5.99 (approx $10). We are confident that this is priced very competitively and will allow us to continue to offer the professional level of service and support you have come to expect.”

    If you are a GooSync junkie, and I was while I was carrying a BlackBerry Curve 8330, you can also upgrade the GooSync Premium service which includes more features than the free service or GooSync Lite. The GooSync Premium service has a tiered pricing structure of £19.95 per year, £29.95 for a two year subscription or a lifetime option for £39.95.

    GooSync is an over-the-air (OTA) service that allows many popular handheld devices, such as a BlackBerry, iPhone, or Windows Mobile smartphone, to sync with your Google account’s calendar, tasks, and contacts. You can learn more about the GooSync service, on the GooSync website.

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  • microsoft,  t-mobile

    T-Mobile, Microsoft, Lose Customer Data

    October 12, 2009 /

    T-Mobile and Microsoft are in some hot water with their customers. It seems that during a “service disruption” last week, Microsoft’s Danger unit, in partnership with US cellular partner, T-Mobile, have lost customer’s data. I’m willing to bet that someone inside Microsoft is in a lot of trouble.

    “Dear valued T-Mobile Sidekick customers:

    T-Mobile and the Sidekick data services provider, Danger, a subsidiary of Microsoft, are reaching out to express our apologies regarding the recent Sidekick data service disruption.

    We appreciate your patience as Microsoft/Danger continues to work on maintaining platform stability, and restoring all services for our Sidekick customers.

    Regrettably, based on Microsoft/Danger’s latest recovery assessment of their systems, we must now inform you that personal information stored on your device – such as contacts, calendar entries, to-do lists or photos – that is no longer on your Sidekick almost certainly has been lost as a result of a server failure at Microsoft/Danger. That said, our teams continue to work around-the-clock in hopes of discovering some way to recover this information. However, the likelihood of a successful outcome is extremely low. As such, we wanted to share this news with you and offer some tips and suggestions to help you rebuild your personal content. You can find these tips in our Sidekick Contacts FAQ. We encourage you to visit the Forums on a regular basis to access the latest updates as well as FAQs regarding this service disruption.”

    “With yesterday’s news of T-Mobile letting Sidekick customers know that all of their data has been lost due to a server failure on Microsoft’s/Danger’s servers (Microsoft bought Danger, makers of the Sidekick back in February of 2008 for $500 million ). T-Mobile has suspended sales of all Sidekicks listing every model as “temporarily out of stock”.”

    [Via GadgetsOnTheGo.net…]

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  • apple,  iphone,  itunes

    Apple Releases iPhone OS 3.1.2 for iPhone, iPod touch

    October 10, 2009 /

    On Thursday afternoon, Apple released iPhone OS 3.1.2 for all editions of the iPhone and iPod touch handsets. This free update addresses the following three issues:

    • Resolves sporadic issue that may cause iPhone to not wake from sleep
    • Resolves intermittent issue that may interrupt cellular network services until restart
    • Fixes bug that could cause occasional crash during video streaming

    The update is available now and must be downloaded and installed via iTunes.

    [Via AppleInsider…]

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