Smartphone really meant a cellphone with OS, a few applications and a keyboard. Remember the days of Palm Treo 270 and being happy about having one? Then Windows Mobile came, but the game totally changed when Apple jumped into the fray. iPhone almost instantly re-defined how ’smart’ phones could be. Smartphones of today have bigger screens, powerful CPUs, lots of RAM and storage. They come in all shapes and sizes, and one really has to review all the smartphone specs to find out whats the best match for them.  There are tonnes of applications running on different operating systems. All the different platforms (Blackberry, Windows, Palm, Android….) have their own pluses and minuses. The form factor, keyboard, hardware shortcuts…. the list goes on and on. ......continue reading

Last week Microsoft announced release of Windows Mobile 6.5 that included Flash Lite 3 plug-in for Internet Explorer. At the same time, several new WinMo based phones were announced such as HTC Tilt2, Imagio and Pure.  With the addition of Flash, users can now view several web sites that are Flash enabled. (Of course the CPU/RAM limitation still comes in the picture, but all these are high end phones and hopefully will have a powerful CPU and should come with some sort of video acceleration. ......continue reading

When RIM acquired Torch Mobile, it got access to Torch Mobiles IRIS browser technology that ran on Win CE. While it is left to our imagination what Blackberry plans on doing with IRIS, speculation is that they’ll use the technolog to develop their own Webkit based browser for Blackberry. I don’t know how Blackberry OS compares to Linux or WinCE, and how much effort is required to port Webkit engine to Blackberry but RIM certainly had eyes on Webkit browser (and possible Flash port that Torch Mobile offered). ......continue reading

Here’s a cool application for digital home.  Boxee is designed to be used on a TV screen and remote. Boxee runs on your laptop and via specialized UI, allows one to bring up applications, games, photos etc. on the TV.  It is still running on your laptop and is only available for Mac OS, Windows, Ubuntu and Apple TV. There is a remote control application available for iPhone. (Without spending time reading specs, my guess is that to be able to extend this to use general purpose remotes, you’d need some kind of special hardware/receiver on your laptop.) It requires a CPU running at 1 GHz or faster. Boxee is also using Twitter like ‘follow me’ model in which you can follow other users and recommend them shows. ......continue reading

A new smartphone released by Gigabyte Communications, S1200 uses Flash Lite for user interface. The phone uses windows mobile OS. The UI is named ‘SmartZone’. S1200 uses Qualcomm’s MSM7200A chip at 528MHz with 128MB of RAM, 256 MB of hard disk. This is the first phone in my recollection that entirely uses Flash Lite UI. The other popular devices are iRiver’s PMPs and Chumby. ......continue reading

Microsoft is working on a new engine that allows users to create a rich user interface and thus allows them to hide the underlying OS. Its codenamed as ‘Alchemy’. Alchemy is what will bringer richer UI scenarios such as smooth transitions, 3D animations, etc. that Silverlight enables. Alchemy also will allow developers to use Silverlight technologies on devices without requiring them to run in a browser- in other words it will provide users with a standalone Silverlight version. ......continue reading

Microsoft’s new device called Zune HD will have multi touchscreen and a web browser.The device will also have HD receiver.If the device is based on Windows Mobile, even Flash Lite may be there. ......continue reading

Skyfire, a mobile browser that allows PC like browsing on smartphones, has finally released 1.0 version. The version is available on Windows Mobile and Symbian and the company is in talks with Blackberry. The technology is perhaps the most comprehensive of all the technologies out there that allow a real PC like browsing and has support for Flash among other things. ......continue reading

Company called Torch Mobile based in Canada is offering a Iria browser for Windows Mobile and CE platform. The browser is based on Webkit technology and the company management describes themselves as ‘acknowledged experts in Webkit community’. The browser does sport a list of impressive feature on their product page. ......continue reading

Despite the reports and rumors that link Microsoft and Verizon in creating a competing phone with iPhone, Microsoft is saying that it will not enter the cellphone market. Microsoft purchased Danger, the company behing TMobile Sidekick a while ago and so it definitely has the expertise in being able to build a phone product. The question is: are they just being secretive or is Danger’s technolgy being used for something else? ......continue reading

I came accross TG01 mobile phone from Toshiba while investigating the Qualcomm Snapdragon. The TG01 boasts 1 GHz Snapdragon CPU from Qualcomm.  The phone is based on Windows Mobile and has 480X800 pixel touchscreen. The phone will support DivX and Flash for media playback. ......continue reading

According to a report in Wall Street Journal, Microsoft and Verizon are working on creating a phone that’ll compete with iPhone. The phone will be based on Windows Mobile and is scheduled to be released in early 2010. ......continue reading

CNN Money published an article a while ago on how Adobe is lagging behind in mobile market and how it is becoming ‘irrelevent’ in mobile market. I’d like to argue is that the race has just begun and it remains to be seen who emerges winner. The reasons are as follows. ......continue reading

I came accross this article on Softpedia that talks about Treo Pro being offered by Sprint. The smartphone will use Windows Mobile and therefore will support Flash Lite. The article is old (Jan 25) so I went to Sprint web site to chek it out. It is available from Sprint now, but there is no mention of availability of Flash lite. So I did some research, and sure enough, I found this video on youtube that shows Flash Lite running on Treo pro. Very Kool. You can play youtube video in Flash, make it full screen and also view Flash based web pages. Check out the youtube video here. ......continue reading

Well- I am sure you’ve seen news of 1 GHz ARM coming to market soon. Freescale is planning on introducing MX51 which will have ARM Cortex A8. TI already has OMAP running at 600 MHz. OMAP Beagleboard already has a Linux distribution that runs XWindows, and one can easily build Netbook around it. ARM Coretex A8, which has ARMv7 instruction set is a powerful CPU capable of running XWindows at performance comparable to Atom. It is widely believed that ARM will be biggest competition to Intel in Netbook market, and having seen a few demo I believe that is very much possible. ......continue reading