Betanews - Wireless

Third-party mobile browsers Skyfire and Bolt give Opera a run for its money

Tim Conneally — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 12:48:41 -0500

Mobile browsers have come a long way in a relatively short time. In a way, webOS, iPhone OS, and Android users have been kind of spoiled by the fast and easy-to-use browsers installed on their devices by default. For these sorts of users -- the ones who pull out their mobile phones to run a search every time someone has an unanswered question -- it's easy to forget that much of the mobile world would rather avoid opening its default mobile browser at all.

Opera may be the most prominent third-party solution to poor mobile browsing experience, but free browsers such as Bolt and Skyfire are quickly making a name as well. They too seek to improve the mobile Web experience for everyone, even those on resource-constrained devices with less-than-lovable browsers built in.

This week, both of these cross-platform browsers received significant updates.

Bolt from Bitstream (which made its name in software as a retail seller of fonts) is not even one year old yet, but has already shown promise as an alternative browser for devices that support the MIDP 2.0 and CLDC 1.0+ profiles. Along with its desktop-style browsing functions, Bolt supports streaming video, copy and paste, and the ability to upload photo or video content to the Web.

This week, Bitsream rolled out Bolt 1.6, which the company said adds full socket-based connectivity, a new password manager, and the ability to be set as the default browser on BlackBerry devices. This means when links are embedded in e-mails and text or instant messages, they can be clicked upon and opened in Bolt now instead of having to be copied and pasted or otherwise opened in BlackBerry's default browser. Mobile users can point their default Web browser to Bitstream's Bolt download site to install the new version of Bolt.

Skyfire has gained considerable attention in the third party mobile browser scene thanks to its support for Flash 10, Silverlight 2, AJAX, and JavaScript, and its snappy server-side compression techniques. These factors combined bring users an experience that is comparable to, if not actually better than, the webOS, iPhone, and Android browsers. Unfortunately, device support for Skyfire is not as vast as Bolt, and the most recent update will only affect Windows Mobile users.

Skyfire 1.5 for Windows Mobile (both PPC and SMP) adds full VGA support, a new UI more tailored to touchscreen "flick" browsing, and full-screen mode with no UI layers. Flash and Silverlight have been updated to the latest versions with this release, and Skyfire claims the browser has been upgraded on both client and server side for and overall faster browsing experience.

Though this update is only for Windows Mobile 5, 6, and 6.X devices, Skyfire says S60 5th edition will get the fully updated browser some time in January.

iPhone brings back the DOS dilemma

Joe Wilcox — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 23:56:30 -0500

By Joe Wilcox, Betanews

Apple's iPhone is supposed to be about the cool, new mobile Internet future. But using the smartphone reminds me too much of the past. The beautiful, ergonomically-designed iPhone has two related flaws: Fixed battery and prohibited background applications. Apple wrongly chose to put form before function in designing iPhone hardware and software.

The device's related flaws remind me of MS-DOS PCs' 640k memory limit. Microsoft used digital steroids -- extended and expanded memory -- to bulk up MS-DOS. But it was never enough to make up for what memory limitations took away from DOS' performance or stability.

MS-DOS of the 1980s and iPhone of the 2000s share an important similarity: They're emerging application platforms. Apple's App Store arguably offers the best mobile applications available anywhere; hey, 100,000 apps are nothing to snicker at. MS-DOS and later Windows succeeded largely because of the breadth of available applications. But number of apps isn't the measure of a successful platform.

The IBM PC and later clone memory architecture brought great pain to developers, end users and IT organizations. So many early problems running MS-DOS go back to hardware memory limitations and which device drivers loaded when and where in the 640K memory space (which technically was much less). Meanwhile, a huge aftermarket of memory enhancements developed. Microsoft sought to fix memory problems first with Windows 2.0 and later Windows 95, but never really satisfactorily; backward compatibility made the 640K limit an ever-present handicap. Windows NT, particularly v4, brought much better memory architecture, but the masses didn't see the benefits until Windows XP (and v2000 for many businesses).

The iPhone inflicts developer and end user pain, too, just with a different ceiling. Most of iPhone's problems start with the battery, which simply isn't good enough as designed. Battery life is too short for the device's use as phone and pocket computer. If the battery life were adequate within the fixed design, Apple would allow background applications to run freely. But they would too quickly sap battery life. Like early PCs, a hardware limitation undermines the operating system and applications.

Most every iPhone user I know plans daily activities around the device's battery life, even 3GS users. Some people keep the smartphone constantly cradled. Others use daily commutes to recharge the battery. Still others defile iPhone's beautiful form by attaching extended batteries. But none of these people squeeze much more than a full day's phone and application use from a single charge of iPhone's internal battery. These people modify their lifestyles because they so love iPhone and App Store.

If you do get enough from a single charge, I'd like to read about it, as probably would many other iPhone users. Please comment. Everyone else, feel free to gripe and offer your iPhone battery coping techniques. People who modify behavior because of alcoholic or dysfunctional family or friends seek counseling. You, iPhone users, I share your pain. Let's open up a mass counseling session in the comments.

Apple doesn't just inflict coping behavior on iPhone users. There is the aforementioned technological compromise, too. All modern mobile operating systems multitask -- even iPhone OS is capable. But Apple largely hobbles background applications.The company is on record admitting that background apps sap battery life. Apple's push notification solution, which released more than a year late, by the way, reminds me of Microsoft tricks to get around MS-DOS PCs' 640k memory limitations.

It's a case of Apple putting form over function, which is a longstanding -- and perhaps flawed -- practice. Some examples, since Apple cofounder Steve Jobs' return:

Power Mac G4 Cube, which couldn't easily be upgraded, cost too much for the form and suffered from beauty marring mold lines.
Mac OS X 10 1.0, which released without support for optical drives that Apple shipped on several generations of Macs.
First generation iPod nano, which scratched way, way too easily.
iPhone/iPhone 3G, which when released lacked basic and expected features, like MMS and video recording, that are standard on even the cheapest of handsets.
MacBook Air, which is light and beautiful but costs too much for the hardware features (look how many are available refurbished from Apple Store).

There are plenty of other examples, but the list is long enough to make the point. Apple chose a fixed battery for purposes of form. Additionally, there is no removable cover that could be lost or broken and would mar the phone's svelte form.

The iPhone could be so much more if not for physical limitations created by the battery and arbitrary limitations of background applications to cope with the fixed battery. Now it's your turn, so I ask: Do you really get enough oomph from your iPhone battery? Do you have confidence that background apps could run without sapping battery life to quickly? Please answer in comments.

[Editor's Note: A different version of this post appeared on Joe Wilcox's personal Website in June 2009. That version is no longer available-- only its revised replacement here exclusive to Betanews.]

First impressions of Droid: Easy, breezy, friendly, if a little fat

Wed, 09 Dec 2009 13:00:04 -0500

By John P. Mello, Jr., TechNewsWorld

Up to now, if you wanted a smartphone with power and without complexity, the only orchard you could go to was Apple's. With the arrival of the Motorola Droid, though, that's changed.

The Droid uses Google's Android operating system. It's not as slick as the OS in Apple's iPhone, but it's still a breeze to use, and it has some tricks of its own, like voice search. Yes, you can talk to this phone, and it will fill in your search terms. It's accurate, too. As a goof, I asked it to find "chronosynclastic infundibulum," and performed the search without a sneeze.

The unit will also run more than one application at a time. That's useful when you're using it as a GPS navigation device and a phone.

If you like wearing tight jeans and carrying your cellphone in your pocket, the Droid may not be for you. At half an inch thick, it's chunkier than something like the iPhone and at six ounces, noticeably heavier.

It has a gorgeous, expansive display. Measuring 3.7 inches diagonally, the TFT capacitive touchscreen supports 16 million colors and has a resolution of 480 by 854 pixels. Even the smallest fonts on Web pages are legible on the display, and multimedia objects -- photos and videos -- are sharply rendered. It responds snappily when poked.

Items can selected by touching them on the screen. To drag an object on the monitor, you touch it and drag it around. You can rapidly scroll up and down or left and right on pages by flicking your finger on the display. Although the screen doesn't support "pinching," you can increase the size of a Web page or photo on the display by double tapping it.

In the vertical orientation -- the screen content rotates between portrait and landscape depending on the orientation of the phone -- there are four touch controls. They allow you to return to a previous screen, call up application menus, return to the home screen and do a soft search key. What kind of search is activated by the key is determined by what application is running on the phone. So if you're at the home screen, the search key activates a Google Web search, but if you're in the phone app, it will perform a contacts search.

In addition to a virtual keyboard, the Droid has a "thumbboard" that slides out from the side of the unit. The keypad's keys are relatively flat and crowded. I found typing with my thumbs difficult. Finger typing was easier, but then I had to set down the phone on a flat surface to type, which wasn't always convenient.

The keypad has a standard QWERTY layout. The numbers one to zero are located across the top row of keys and can be entered by pressing one of either of two ALT keys found at the bottom of the clavier.

In addition to the QWERTY keys, the keypad has some special keys that add functionality to it. These are located in the same row as the spacebar. There's a dedicated "@" key. That's convenient for pecking in email and Twitter addresses. There's a search key for finding information. There's also a menu key and a Directional Key. The Directional Key allows you to navigate across the screen and select items without moving your fingers from the keypad.

On top of the unit is a button that does triple duty. It turns the device on or off, blanks the display or locks it. Beside the on/off button there's also an earphone jack. On the left side of the phone is a mini USB port that can be used for charging the unit and transferring data. On the right side of the phone is a button for activating its built-in camera. You hold the button in until the camera screen appears. The camera, which has a 4x zoom, will capture images in either portrait or landscape mode at five megapixels, or a maximum resolution of 2,593 by 1,944 pixels. The camera's lens and flash are located at the back of the unit.

The camera also shoots video with a resolution of 720 by 480 pixels at 24 frames per second and playback at 30 fps. Files formats supported are MPEG-4, H.263 and H.264.

As high-powered as the Droid is, making a call with the phone is more intuitive than some less-endowed mobiles. From the home screen, you tap a phone icon. A traditional telephone keypad appears on the screen. You can punch in a number or poke an icon to access your phone log, contacts file or list of favorite numbers. To place the call, you simply touch a green handset icon at the bottom of the screen. What's more, voice mail can be accessed with a single tap of an icon.

Web browsing was very brisk on Verizon's 3G network. What's more, the quality of streaming video from sites like YouTube compared favorably with the experience you'd get on a PC.

Like the iPhone, Google has an app store for its Android OS. Programs packaged with the Droid include Google Maps, Gmail, Calendar and Amazon's MP3 storefront.

Verizon is offering the Droid for USD$199.99 with a two-year service agreement and $100 mail-in rebate.

Google's intuitive operating system coupled with some top-shelf Motorola hardware and Verizon's spritely 3G network make the Droid an attractive package for mobile users who want a smartphone they don't need a degree in geek to use.

This story was originally published on TechNewsWorld

Not the first, not the last, technology predictions for 2010

Carmi Levy — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 20:35:11 -0500

By Carmi Levy, Betanews

December never fails to make me cringe. I know full well that journalists will be filling my inbox all month long with countless requests to guess what next year's hot technologies will be.

I can understand why they would. Trying to predict what comes next in tech has always been an important way for businesses and consumers alike to make the right decisions about what to buy -- and what to avoid -- in the months ahead. Like the groundhogs who have been doing something similar for generations, we all want to know what's coming so we can plan more effectively for the future.

Fine, fine...I'll do it

Being the good little soldier that I am, I'll do my best to give them folks the answers they need. Virtualization? Absolutely. Anything green? Without a doubt. Wireless? That's about as sure as shooting fish in a barrel. Then I'll put my crystal ball away for another year before pulling it out and replaying the process yet again, albeit with slightly updated predictions.

No one ever bothers to...Okay, I take that back. No one except Joe Wilcox ever bothers to measure whether these predictions are on the mark. But I don't see small business owners prowling the aisles of the local big box store with these end-of-year or end-of-decade prediction articles in hand, zeroing in on the stuff the analysts thought would sell.

I realize I'm selling my profession somewhat short, but we're no more clairvoyant than the next guy. Indeed, clairvoyance isn't what being an analyst and making annual projections is all about. Because we spend all day, every day, studying this stuff, we certainly have lots of hard-earned insight. We can certainly speak to the forces that may be driving one particular technology faster than another. We also understand, innately, what all this could mean for the average person or organization using these new tools. But asking us to list them in precise order of priority, or predict where Company A's market share will be at this time next year is about as precise, productive, and effective as choosing the trifecta at a soon-to-be-shuttered racetrack.

Still, my curmudgeonly attitude aside, I realize nothing I do or say will stop the annual ritual. So since I can't beat 'em, I may as well join them. Here's how I see 2010 playing out:

Lots of wireless carriers will claim to have 4G or 4G-ready devices, networks and services. They'll all be lying. They might want to wait until the ITU actually ratifies one or more of the dozen or so proposals in front of it before laying claim to a technology that, as of today, doesn't officially exist.
Apple's App Store will more than double in size to over 200,000 apps. The actual number will matter less to the planet, and to the average user, than it does today. Its competitors will continue their futile efforts to stay in Apple's numbers orbit. They, too, will be wasting their time.
The term "netbook" will officially be banned in my presence. It's a really small notebook, people. Why it merits its own name when other machine sizes don't is beyond me. No one calls 17-plus-inch laptops "heavybooks", so they?
Palm's comeback stalls as developers stay away in droves and carriers move on to the Next Big New Thing. It simply lacks the resources to maintain a consistently full product pipeline, and will be a lovely acquisition target by this time next year.
Google's Android becomes The Next Big New Thing as consumers and businesses alike learn that platforms matter far more than devices. Platforms that advance the state of the mobile Web services art -- which Android will do in spades as developers improve their skills on it -- may even remain The Next Big New Thing well into 2011.
Microsoft's Windows Mobile 7.0 finally ships, but turns out to be too little, too late, and fails to stop the company's mobile slide. Since it hasn't yet converted its Danger acquisition into a strategic driver of future mobile growth, Microsoft will be actively looking for a new acquisition target next year to re-energize its mobile ambitions.
Apple finally kills its iPod Classic. The Shuffle isn't too far behind: Do we know anyone who owns one?
The iPhone won't grow a keyboard. Apple's single-form-factor strategy has worked nicely so far, so it sees no reason to mess with a good thing.
The mythical Tablet won't ship in 2010, but unseen forces at Apple's Cupertino campus will nevertheless continue to enjoy pulling the strings on the most masterfully conceived shadow marketing campaign ever.
Windows 7 will continue to do well in the market. Lots of folks will continue to whine about Vista. Not because there's any point, mind you. Just because.
Office 2010 will ship. The Office 2003 holdouts still complaining about Office 2007's radical new interface will continue to be the ones least likely to actually own legal copies.
Facebookers, Twitterers, and bloggers will continue to post frightening volumes of private information online, and will continue to scream bitterly when their boss (or mother, or spouse, or mistress) finds out about their so-called "private" postings. I predict the Internet in 2010 will be just as private (namely, not at all) as it was in 2009. And every year beforehand, too. The rest of us will continue to be entertained by folks who still don't get it.
Speaking of Facebook, it will introduce more changes to its interface as it zooms through half a billion users and becomes a UN-recognized nation. Users, who all pay nothing for the service, will howl to anyone who will listen that Mark Zuckerberg ruined their lives.
Google's relentless campaign to own every shred of data we've ever created, owned, or touched picks up steam thanks to legions of users who, in the rush to start using the latest doodad from Mountain View, still refuse to read the Terms of Use statement before clicking the "I Agree" button.
I will polish off my crystal ball around this time next year, because maybe this prognostication thing isn't so annoying after all. Just don't hold your breath waiting for any or all of these to come true. Sometimes, technology should just follow its own course.

Carmi Levy is a Canadian-based independent technology analyst and journalist still trying to live down his past life leading help desks and managing projects for large financial services organizations. He comments extensively in a wide range of media, and works closely with clients to help them leverage technology and social media tools and processes to drive their business.

Clever iPhone game returns after being bumped over a name dispute

Mon, 07 Dec 2009 13:07:20 -0500

By Paul Hartsock, MacNewsWorld

The story of "Edgy" sounds like an iPhone developer's worst nightmare. You create a game that includes a lot of intricate puzzles and levels. Lots of time goes into it, so you think it's appropriate to charge a moderate amount, as iPhone games go. There seems to be no reason for the App Store to reject it -- no shaken babies, no naked ladies, no Internet tethering, just clean old puzzle-solving fun. Approval is granted, public reaction is generally positive, and it seems you've caught your little piece of the iPhone dream.

Then it all starts to unravel over a single word: the name of the app.

"Edgy's" orginal title was simply "Edge." It first appeared on the App Store about a year ago, but a few months later it was removed. That action stemmed from a complaint from a company called "Edge Games," according to what Mobigame told FingerGaming last May. Apparently Edge Games is very protective of its name, and it's gone after several titles that use the word "edge," never mind how common the word is in ordinary conversation. Edge Games' lawyers have also reportedly targeted titles like "Mirror's Edge," "Planet's Edge" and "Edge of Extinction." Expect more lawsuits if U2 or W. Somerset Maugham ever make their own games.

In fact, Edge Games' rapid-fire litigation machine has apparently motivated a member of the International Game Developers Association to attempt to remove Edge's CEO, Tim Langdell, from that organization's board. Langdell has since resigned from the IDGA, according to Wikipedia's take on the situation, but the article the Wiki entry cites for that statement is oddly no longer available on the IGDA's own site. Anyway, he's not currently listed as a director.

The Apple App Store abhors this sort of controversy, so "Edge" has disappeared and reappeared on its shelves multiple times over the past year, depending on who's winning the argument at any given moment. This week it came back with a new name -- "Edgy" -- and I hope that one-letter difference is enough to call off Edge Games' attack dogs for good.

Pointless naming feuds aside, what do you actually DO in "Edgy?" The closest comparison I can come up with is an old Atari game called "Marble Madness." In that one, you control a marble as it rolls around platforms arranged with holes, obstacles, moving parts and labyrinth-like pathways in order to get from point A to point B as fast as possible without falling into the void. "Edgy" simply has you moving a cube instead of a marble, which makes you more stable when trying to stand still but makes certain maneuvers a little trickier.

The main goal is to get through each level as fast as possible, but along the way you can collect so-called prisms (little colored cubes) for bonus points. Many of these prisms lie outside the shortest way to get to the finish line, so sometimes you'll find yourself trying to tackle a particularly difficult section of the puzzle just for the hell of it, rather than to score a good grade and get to the next level. There are 46 levels in all, and they get more complex as you move on.

"Edgy's" "Marble Madness" similarities are as much about style as they are about concept. "Edgy" nails "MM" mid-'80s feel with minimalist, blocky, high-contrast graphics and hints of neon lights around the edges. The music -- credited to Romain Gauthier, Simon Perin, Richard Malot and Jeremie Perin -- has this sort of 8-bit techno disco ring to it. I felt like I was playing an old Nintendo with an upgraded sound card. It complements the looks of the game perfectly, and I highly recommend playing this with the sound on.

Control can be a difficult task to approach in designing iPhone games. "Edgy" lets you have it your way. You can control your cube directly with your finger on the touchscreen (not my favorite because it blocks your view), or you can roll it around by tilting the iPhone (which I don't like because it makes me feel like I'm about to drop the thing on the pavement). I preferred the third option, which just gives you a four-directional trackpad at the bottom of the screen.

"Edgy" is an example of an iPhone game done right. It isn't a dumbed-down version of a game that was originally made for a console, and its control options let you handle it however you're most comfortable. Its concept is simple enough to understand and play immediately, though its dozens of well-designed levels and puzzles keep you guessing. And its style is refreshingly retro without trying too hard.

Mobigame could do well to design more levels for "Edgy" and hit up in-game sales, so even though the whole naming controversy may have scored the game a little more notoriety than it otherwise would have received, I hope the fight's finally over and done with.

"Edgy," a game from Mobigame, is available for USD$4.99 at the App Store.

This story was originally published on MacNewsWorld

Playing catch-up in 2010: Windows Mobile, BlackBerry, and Symbian

Jacqueline Emigh — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 23:19:06 -0500

By Jacqueline Emigh, Betanews

With iPhone and Android picking up more popularity every day, it's urgent for rival smartphones to enhance their mobile software environments, some analysts say. But while Microsoft, RIM, and Nokia are working on better user experiences, phones outfitted with new features aren't likely to show up until way after CES 2010.

Microsoft has the longest way to go in playing catch-up in market share, said Matt Rosoff, an analyst at Directions on Microsoft, in an interview with Betanews.

But according to Rob Enderle, principal analyst at the Enderle Group, Microsoft, RIM, and Nokia have all been "trivialized" by iPhone and Android. Moreover, Nokia's Symbian environment has suffered most of all, Enderle contended.

Numbers released by Gartner in mid-November show that Nokia's Symbian hung on to the smartphone market lead in the third quarter of 2009, but slipped from its share of 49.7% in Q3 of 2008 to 44.6% a year later. Meanwhile, Apple's iPhone climbed from 12.9% to 17.1% over the same time frame. RIM's BlackBerry also did well, rising from 16% to 20.8%, although analysts concur that RIM's strength is still in the business space as opposed to the growing smartphone consumer market.

During the same timeframe, Microsoft's Windows Mobile fell from an 11% share in Q3 2008 to a dismal 7.9% share a year later.

Rosoff noted that, following the rollout in October of new phones based on the interim Windows Mobile 6.5 release, Microsoft is now working on Windows Mobile 7, along with an updated Sidekick environment codenamed "Pink."

Microsoft's plans for Windows Mobile 7 remain mysterious. But at its recent PDC Conference, Microsoft promised an announcement at MIX in March of Windows Mobile Office 10. Rosoff anticipates that Microsoft will spill more details about WinMo 7 at MIX, and possibly even before that at CES in January.

"You can count on Silverlight support in Windows Mobile 7, although I'm not sure why Microsoft hasn't introduced that even earlier," according to Rosoff. "Also, Microsoft is definitely focusing on finger touch as an option to be supported throughout the phone. There'll probably be a new digital audio and video player that will be much better than the Windows Media Player that's in there now. When combined with Zune, this could make Windows Mobile an even better playback platform than iPhone."

Other possible additions in WinMo 7 might include new portable games and new search and "enhanced reality mapping" features, he speculated. But new phones outfitted with Windows Mobile 7 won't emerge until the second half of next year, according to the analyst.

In contrast, Nokia and RIM have been more forthcoming about their mobile environment plans, even if the timelines remain sketchy.

Last August, RIM acquired Torch Mobile -- a move that should enable its BlackBerry phones to offer the same kind of faster, WebKit-based browsing experiences as Google's Chrome and Apple's Safari, for instance.

Then, at the 2009 BlackBerry Developer Conference in November, RIM and Adobe announced intentions to let developers use Adobe's Flash platform and Creative Suite tools to produce "rich content and application experiences for BlackBerry smartphones."

At its Capital Markets day earlier this week, Nokia presented plans for new phone hardware and software in 2010 that will include larger displays, multitouch support, and the removal of some 350 annoying user prompts from the Symbian OS.

"Apple really shook up the market with the iPhone, because the iPhone showed people what a smartphone is able to do," observed Michael Cherry, another analyst at Directions on Microsoft.

It might not be enough for Microsoft and other rivals to simply "replicate the functionality of where the iPhone is today, in as nice a package," Cherry said, in another interview. "The market is moving fast. Apple is not standing still, and neither is Android."

Nokia, in particular, needs to produce a mobile platform that does more than just match that of the iPhone, according to Enderle. "Nokia is being widely perceived as no longer relevant," he maintained.

The actions taken by Nokia, RIM and Microsoft could also help to spur development of more mobile applications for their smartphone platforms. Beyond usability and feature sets, these three mobile environments lag behind iPhone and Android in this area, too, analysts agree.

In a blog post in October, Thomas Husson, a Forrester analyst, forecast that platform-specific software apps will become less important as a selling point with the impending creation of more mobile Web sites that are accessible by all smartphones. Rosoff told Betanews that while he agrees with this point, he expects that the widespread availability of these kinds of sites could take a decade to unfold.

The gist of that point was later echoed by Microsoft Chief Software Architect Ray Ozzie, in a lunch briefing at PDC with reporters, including Betanews. There, Ozzie said he believed that as time goes on, popular smartphone apps would be ported between platforms, thus reducing their usefulness as differentiating factors.

Meanwhile, it seems that Microsoft and Nokia could continue to lose market share to the iPhone and Android, at least until the second half of next year. But Rosoff suggested that the smartphone segment is still so young that none of the leading mobile vendors should be considered down for the count just now.

Only about 15% of mobile phone users have stepped to smartphones yet, Rosoff estimated. "So there are still lots of people out there who will become brand new smartphone users in the future."

Will Nokia's plans further alienate American consumers?

Tim Conneally — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 16:00:43 -0500

By Tim Conneally, Betanews

The world of mobile communications has changed considerably since Nokia reached market dominance in the late '90s, and the Finnish telecommunications leader is shifting its strategies to keep ahead as mobile behavior continues to change. This week, the company revealed some of its plans for the next couple of years, which could amount to something of a spring cleaning for the cluttered Nokia house, or could simply keep the company on the same path.

Most interestingly, Nokia said it is going to release fewer smartphones. The company is going to follow the lead taken by Research In Motion, Apple, and Palm, and offer a smaller, more concentrated portfolio of these devices and hopefully attract more consumers with their mid-range prices. This does not necessarily mean Nokia is looking to eliminate any of its product lines, but rather perform an overall cutback, reducing its roster of smartphones by more than half, and offering cheaper models. Nokia expects 33% of its 2010 smartphone lineup to have both touchscreens and QWERTY keypads, another 33% to have QWERTY only, 25% to have all touch, and the remaining 9% to have an ITU-T keypad.

However, Nokia yesterday said it is sticking with three different mobile platforms: Series 40, Symbian, and Maemo.

Symbian's user interface is going to get an overhaul, which will eliminate some of the clutter there too. Nokia's presentation at Capital Markets Day this week gave an early look at the 2010 Symbian update, which promises to increase the efficiency of use, the speed of Web browsing, and the overall speed of animation to 60 frames per second. In the long run, Nokia is shifting the open source Symbian operating system to the majority role (where Series 40 is now) and introducing Maemo into the mix.

But the trouble that many have pointed out today is that Nokia has to attract both developers and users to each of these platforms as it continues to lose global market share. Julien Fourgeaud, Senior Design Engineer at Nokia, explained the strategy in a gdgt thread this afternoon.

As Forgeaud listed: "iPhone is a vertical platform, controlled by Steve Jobs. Android is a vertical platform, controlled by Google, 'replicated' by HTC and other copy-artists. Their definition of Open Source is not clear, and the market is slowly realizing it. Maemo is a vertical platform, controlled by Nokia. Symbian is an horizontal platform, controlled by the community and adopted by a wide range of product designers. Looking at platforms where Nokia has an active participatory role, it is easy to understand the strategy between them. Maemo will enable Nokia to bring solution devices, based on their own services, offering the devices to operators with a 'take it all or leave it' approach, similar to the iPhone proposition. On the other end, Open Sourcing Symbian enables Nokia to benefit from the community, speeding up the platform development, improving hardware portability, engaging consumers in the development of the experience, supporting third-party developer innovation and more. The Symbian strategy is definitely obvious: Enable anyone to have a smartphone."

Following these strategies, it looks like we can expect a lot more Symbian-powered QWERTY sliders from Nokia in the next couple of years, a combination which has done little to attract American consumers thus far.

Microsoft, don't hang up on Windows Mobile, but do call for help

Joe Wilcox — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 23:24:19 -0500

By Joe Wilcox, Betanews

It hasn't been a good day for anyone working on Microsoft's Windows Phone team. This morning, IDC made the ridiculous prediction that the number of iPhone/iPod touch applications would triple to 300,000 by end of 2010. Later, here at Betanews, Carmi Levy slammed Microsoft's Windows mobile strategy.

Yes, Windows Mobile is down -- really low -- but the operating system isn't bad. The mobile OS is good at the core, meaning the kernel, and multitasks pretty well. It's the user interface and partner model that needs a makeover -- and awfully fast. Microsoft is quickly falling behind Apple and Google, but there's hope. Android is a bigger threat than anything Apple has got, because of competing licensing and partner models. Don't give up, Microsoft, but for frak's sake do get a move on.

For Microsoft's benefit I'll respond to IDC's prediction and then to Levy. My question of the hour: Who spiked the eggnog at IDC? Three hundred thousand iPhone apps? What are they drinking at IDC? There's simply no way that the iPhone/iPod touch ecosystem can support that many apps, unless there is huge application separation across geographies, cultures and languages.

Apple shouldn't want that many apps, and IDC had better be wrong. I will say that Apple app bloat would be wonderful for every competitor, including Microsoft. Too much of a good thing is too much of a good thing. Apps are already hard to find or differentiate at 100,000-plus. Triple the number would be beyond way too many.

Switching analysts, Levy writes:

With market share for Windows Mobile OS in freefall, vendors fleeing and its mindshare in meltdown, now is as good a time as any for the company to dive into a full-on re-think of its mobile strategy. Or an exit from the market until it can figure out what makes the most sense.

He strongly emphasized:

After 13 years and countless kicks at the can, it's time for Microsoft to call it a day. Kill Windows Mobile, consolidate resources and skills from the shuttered unit as well as Danger and Zune -- which continues to impress with technically sophisticated offerings that languish on store shelves -- and pick one cohesive strategy.

I won't disagree with Levy about Windows Mobile's dire straights. Microsoft has fallen behind, and there's no sign of any catching up. But I would strongly recommend against Microsoft exiting the mobile phone market. There is simply too much at stake. Smartphones are poised to be the next big computing platform, and the handset replacement market will be huge. The global mobile handset install base is about 4 billion, according to industry statistics, or about four times the PC install base. More than 1 billion new handsets are sold every year.

Most of the handsets in use are not smartphones, which already are beginning to replace so-called dumbphones -- slowly at first but increasing numbers over the next three or four years. Nokia has the sales volume, with nearly 40 percent market share in dumbphones and smartphones, worldwide. Apple has the huge applications lead. Google seemingly picks up new Android licensees by the day. Android went from zero worldwide smartphone marketshare in third quarter 2008 to 3.5 percent share a year later. Meanwhile, Windows Mobile share declined during the same time period, to 7.9 percent from 11.1 percent.

History Repeats

What bugs me about Microsoft and Windows Mobile: It reminds me of Internet Explorer, which Microsoft let languish for years. There's a saying that history repeats. It's my observation this theory applies to organizations as well as people. Microsoft is repeating with Windows Mobile past mistakes made with IE -- and not demonstrating the initiative to do better. Is somebody living in denial up there in Redmond?

Microsoft won the browser wars in the late 1990s only later to abandon the territory. Browser development essentially ended with IE6 in 2001 and didn't pick up again until Mozilla released Firefox five years ago. Now, there is fierce browser competition, driven in part by search revenues; all the while, IE continues to bleed usage share even after two major releases.

According to Net Applications, in November, IE usage share was 63.62 percent, down from 67.88 Percent in July. By comparison, Firefox share was 24.72 percent, up from 22.47 percent, during the same time period. Safari: 4.36 percent and Chrome 3.93 percent. To reiterate, Net Apps data reflects usage and not market share, and many people tend to use multiple browsers.

There's more than corporate history repeating. Browsers are important to the burgeoning smartphone market, where Internet Explorer trails even more than Windows Mobile. Microsoft must change its ways now. Hanging up on the mobile market is a bad idea. Letting Apple or Google woo away developers is even dumber.

Perhaps it's time for Microsoft to call on partners for help. HTC already is nicely skinning Windows Mobile 6.5. The Windows Phone concept, with dedicated "Start" button, is a nice concept, but a Zune-like phone with a Microsoft brand or co-brand would be even better. A Nokia-Microsoft team could greatly benefit both companies. The point: Microsoft has to do something, and tomorrow is already too late.

I tell you this: If Microsoft loses the mobile market, it loses the future. Once again, and I'm exhausted from blogging this, I say that Microsoft must launch a mobile Manhattan Project. If not, it will be buyers of all categories, including enterprises, hanging up on Windows Mobile.

Android team updates 'Donut' and 'Eclair' SDKs

Tim Conneally — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 18:22:01 -0500

By Tim Conneally, Betanews

Part of the allure of Motorola's Droid smartphone is that it's the first, and currently only, device built upon Android 2.0 ("Eclair"). While Droid users are treated to a new Web browser, new personal navigation features, and new contact list structure, the rest of the Android devices on the market run Android 1.6, also known as "Donut," which began to appear last October.

There has been no official word about which existent Android devices will be able to upgrade to 2.0, and today, we begin to see a bit more of that dreaded Android fragmentation as both versions got updates to their SDK components.

Since Donut was released, the Android SDK has supported components which represent each version of the Android platform. In other words, if a developer wants to make an app optimized for Eclair, he can use the 2.0 component for the SDK, which customizes the development environment for Eclair apps.

Android 2.0.1 rev. 1 includes several bug fixes and behavior changes, including updates to Bluetooth control and discovery, and new APIs for sync adaptors, which can create two-way contact syncing with any backend.

Android 1.6 rev. 2 fixes some screen size compatibility issues and updates the Linux Kernel to 2.6.29, to "match kernel on commercially-available Android-powered devices."

The updated Android SDK components can be obtained on the Android developer site.

See ya later, WinMo: Microsoft's mobile strategy needs a reboot

Carmi Levy — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 16:57:33 -0500

By Carmi Levy, Betanews

There are lots of winners in the wireless wars. Microsoft, unfortunately, isn't one of them. Thirteen years after it first introduced Windows CE, its homegrown OS for small devices finds itself perilously close to oblivion. With market share for Windows Mobile OS in freefall, vendors fleeing and its mindshare in meltdown, now is as good a time as any for the company to dive into a full-on re-think of its mobile strategy.

Or an exit from the market until it can figure out what makes the most sense.

While it's unfortunate that the company that dominated the desktop for so long hasn't been able to repeat that success on shrunken-down devices, Microsoft's experience should serve as an example to the players now lining up for their shot of wireless glory.

What's in a name?

Microsoft's first mistake was branding. It never stuck with a name long enough for the public to know what it was buying. Or should buy.

What started life as Windows CE eventually became Pocket PC, and then Windows Mobile. With enough variations and flavors to confuse even the most ardent Microsoft fan (quick, what's the difference between Windows Mobile 2003 SE for Pocket PC Phone Edition and Windows Mobile 2003 SE for Smartphone?) it's no wonder that most consumers long ago dropped Microsoft's mobile products off of their radar. Even now, the company hasn't learned: Its current "Windows phone" branding makes a murky brand identity even murkier.

I admit to having owned two Microsoft-powered devices in my lifetime: a Windows CE 2.0-powered HP 360LX and, later, a Motorola Q smartphone that ran Windows Mobile 5.0. While the old clamshell-style HP was too big to shlep around in my pocket, the Q was lean enough to be my constant companion. Unfortunately, its barely-contained Windows heritage made it something of a dog in day-to-day use. Basic address lookups became tests of patience as I stood on sidewalks and waited for my lithe, almost-sexy-looking phone to churn through my contact list and return the name I asked for.

Not lean. Not mean.

When I traded the Q in for a BlackBerry, I spent an hour in-store scenario-testing updated WinMo machines -- by then, up to the 6.0-standard -- against everything else the store had. And still, I waited for even the most basic of tasks. For all its engineering prowess, Microsoft never integrated the lean-and-mean ethos that has always driven competitors who didn't already own the desktop OS market. Even today, claims on its Web site that, "It's like your PC just grew legs," illustrate the kind of disconnected thinking that continues to fuel the mobile unit's decline. Tech-conservative enterprises may like its security and Windows familiarity, but that's no longer enough.

Which brings us to Microsoft's second mistake: assuming that a great mobile OS was simply a pared down version of its desktop equivalent. Microsoft, which has subscribed to this mantra right down to the Start menu and cascading menus that until recently defined the UI, completely missed the mark on this one. We don't use handsets in the same way that we use laptops. We don't necessarily need to replicate the full-on interface and user experience of the average PC.

First, we don't have the screen real estate. What works on a 23-inch flat screen doesn't simply shrink to the 3-ish-inch panels on most phones today. And if you try to make it shrink (heaven knows, Microsoft has tried), the end result is a jumbled on-screen layout and confusing navigation.

Second, we don't have the time. It may be acceptable to wait a few seconds for our laptops to look up an address. After all, we have dozens of other windows running at the same time, so we're absolutely free to pop into any of them and work on something else until the machine completes the task. We can also heat up our tea, catch up on water cooler gossip, or simply sit back in our seats and relax. When you're in transit, you need that answer now. From an often underpowered, battery-deficient sliver of technology that you're using in the millisecond before an errant taxi mounts the curb and ruins your day.

Others innovate while WinMo stagnates

Apple, which wisely stripped anything remotely desktop-like out of its Mac OS X when adapting it for the iPhone, gets the need for simplicity. Likewise, Research In Motion, whose BlackBerry devices are often pilloried by tech-fashionistas for having an OS whose interface hasn't changed much in a decade, remains a model of stripped down simplicity. My BlackBerry may not incorporate every last feature from the laptop in my office, but when I'm zinging from meeting to meeting, I don't need every last feature. I just need the thing to work. And it does. Fluidly.

The success of Apple's App Store and Google's Android Market illustrate another key Microsoft weakness. Apple's 100,000 apps and Google's 10,000 dwarf Microsoft's Windows Marketplace for Mobile, which launched in October (for 6.5-based machines only) with about 250 titles. Last month, it tacked on a whopping 84 apps to that title, by finally extending the Marketplace back to WinMo 6.0.

While the oft-delayed WinMo 7.0 could have created some much-needed excitement before compelling new alternatives hit the market and shifted vendor attention away from Microsoft, it's becoming increasingly clear that not even a new OS can rescue WinMo.

Microsoft's acquisition last year of Hiptop vendor Danger Inc. shows it's not giving up just yet. Rumors have also swirled that the company's interested in acquiring RIM. Still, the Danger acquisition has already bitten Microsoft after a high-profile data loss in October. A possible RIM buyout would lead to similar grief, as it makes no sense to break the bank before you get your own house in order. On culture alone, a Microsoft-RIM linkup would be an integration nightmare.

After 13 years and countless kicks at the can, it's time for Microsoft to call it a day. Kill Windows Mobile, consolidate resources and skills from the shuttered unit as well as Danger and Zune -- which continues to impress with technically sophisticated offerings that languish on store shelves -- and pick one cohesive strategy. Then stick with it. And whatever the company decides, it has to move fast. By this time next year, the market, dominated by RIM, Apple, and Google, will be even less forgiving than it is now.

Microsoft's Ray Ozzie: 'Nobody's going to be 100% open'

Scott M. Fulton, III — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 14:52:22 -0500

By Scott M. Fulton, III, Betanews

Over the last five years, Microsoft has undergone a gradual, but significant, shift in its public image, a shift toward interoperability and a willingness to play more fairly in competitive markets. At the same time, it remains a commercial software producer committed to the protection of its proprietary intellectual property.

Openness, as CEO Steve Ballmer explained to his company's Worldwide Partner Conference in July 2008, should not imply free. "Open source also implies free -- free is inconsistent with paying for lunches at the partner conference," he told attendees at the time.

The picture Ballmer painted then was more black-and-white, where Microsoft will selectively venture into the black world of openness where necessary, but stay rooted within the white world of business that pays salaries and funds conferences. Last week during a press luncheon at PDC 2009 in Los Angeles, where Betanews and others were invited, Chief Software Architect Ray Ozzie (the company's leading executive spokesperson now, after Ballmer) painted a more scalable picture of "openness" from Microsoft's vantage point, one which is more attainable by degrees.

What's 'open?'

"Well, we're all open and we're all not open," said Ozzie, in response to a statement repeated (at least) four times by TechCrunch reporter Steve Gillmor: "Android's open." Gillmor was pressing Ozzie and colleague Bob Muglia, President of Server and Tools, to be more "open" about when and whether Silverlight will become interoperable among multiple smartphone platforms (the Silverlight video on iPhone announcement had not yet been made). Someone in the company giggled in response to Ozzie's remark like an extra on "Hee Haw"...it was probably me.

"I mean, nobody is going to be a hundred percent open," Ozzie continued. "Android's not 100% open, we won't be. There are things that are illegal that, if you have the ability to shut off, we're going to have to shut off. There are things that get in the way of your partner's business model. I may be wrong on this...but the way Google Voice hooks into the Droid, I think Verizon's still gets billed for calls...So Windows has a brand value of openness, meaning, we don't control what desktop apps people write. It's got a history of data openness; we don't look at the data that's sitting on your desktop. So I think as we move forward, the nature of what we do on phones that carry the Windows brand, will probably be more open than not. It's not like the Xbox, where Xbox, like the iPhone, is more of a managed ecosystem [that] is part of the business model."

Seated next to Ozzie was Moonlight developer Miguel de Icaza, who related his recent problems with Apple in working to port code from Moonlight (a Silverlight-compatible runtime for non-Windows platforms) from Mac OS X to the iPhone. Technically, there were few problems at all; but Apple made the decision (after the fact) that two of the APIs that de Icaza's team ported over, should not have been.

Are apps important on phone platforms?

LiveSide.net blogger Kip Kniskern followed up by asking Ozzie and Muglia why consumers should wrestle with the confusion over phone platforms at all -- specifically, why can't there be an App Store that's a single location that applies to every user? Ozzie interrupted by saying, "This isn't going to be a big deal for consumers anyway. It's not going to be at all.

"Let's just step back: There's a lot of confusion, I think, right now, about what's going on on the phones," he continued, "and I'll just give you a high-level perspective -- this is my perspective, I'm not 'right,' I may be wrong, it's a perspective: These are app phones -- what distinguishes them from everything else. We're now in an era where apps are the higher [element of importance], not just calls. And the apps that are on them, most of them -- I know there are exceptions, but most of them -- aren't deeply complex. A lot of them are apps that somebody paid a reasonable amount of money for some group to go port or implement. A lot of them are front-end companions to a Web service on the back end. I think, my assumption -- and I don't have any reason to believe that this is wrong -- is that once things settle out, and we all have app phones (Apple has an app phone, Google has an app phone, Microsoft has an app phone, BlackBerry/RIM has an app phone)...If there's a market there, all the apps that count will be ported. Every app that matters will be ported to every one of them, because if there's a set of users and it costs $50,000 of consulting time to have somebody port a little app, it's going to get ported. So I just don't think there's going to be significant differentiation at the app level.

"This is a big difference from the PC, Mac ecosystem in the past" Ozzie continued. "You cannot take the lessons that we learned in that era and apply them to the phone. It's a totally different world. If all you saw on the phone was Office -- something of that substance that took that many man-years to implement, and it was very nuanced -- then it would be different." Kniskern reminded Ozzie of the remaining problem with apps not being approved by the proprietors of app stores, especially Apple's. "But once the other app phones have a more lenient approval environment, then they change."

Next: Is Microsoft's cloud bigger than the law?

Is Microsoft's cloud bigger than the law?

As Microsoft and its competitors expand their cloud computing services, for the first time, entire computing platforms will commonly cross country's boundaries. There are laws governing interstate transport, even among members of the EU; and now, those laws will apply to computing systems just as though sovereign boundaries separated the CPU from RAM.

In recent dealings with issues of privacy, interoperability, and fairness as they pertain to certain governments around the world, it often seems -- at least to this reporter -- that it's difficult to know what the new ground rules are until the referee takes the field to declare the first out-of-bounds penalty. This is an observation I raised with Ray Ozzie and Bob Muglia: How does Microsoft plan, going forward, to communicate with governments what its plans are, without tightening the boundaries for itself?

"There's no single answer to that question," Muglia responded. "What we have is, we are engaged in conversations with governments all around the world, and when I talk about the cloud being nascent and emerging, this is an example of emerging characteristics of the cloud: understanding how it will exist in the regulatory environment, in all of the different countries and geographies that it has to work in. So as we begin to bring services out to businesses and users within a given geography, we have to, we have to operate in the legal context that's established by the government agency. There's complexities in some parts of the world where you get into issues about privacy and government control over access to information, and things like that. Those are just things you have to understand how to operate in, and what sort of steps you need to take.

"So we're engaging with them," he continued. "And I think we're all learning a bit together. I don't think the laws will exist the same way today -- ten years from now, I think they'll have changed, they'll have evolved. You had the concern that they will get tighter; that probably will happen, in some cases, and in other cases they will probably get looser. As people see that government restrictions prevent prosperity within their country as organizations and individuals aren't able to do some of the things they might want to do, if some of those restrictions weren't there."

Ray Ozzie picked it up from there: "The best analogy I've been able to come up with is, late '80s, early '90s, there were a lot of crypto export issues. There was a real disconnect between what we were trying to do as a technology industry, and what customers wanted to do, and the regulations. And right now, there are some things that don't make sense to technologists. Like the fact that you cannot have a copy of this kind of data -- whether it's health data, or whatever -- on the other side of a border, for a citizen of a given country. Almost as though encryption doesn't exist, in terms of, where should the keys be versus where should the data be? And there was a big lag in terms of getting the regulations changed over time, and we really don't regard it as much of a problem as an industry any more, for the most part.

"The big difference between cloud computing and crypto -- and the reason I'm optimistic that things will change sooner -- is that governments themselves want to use cloud computing. There are some really significant economic issues related to people within governments building massive data centers where they maybe shouldn't, maybe they don't need to, and so I'm optimistic that some of these things will have a lot more [progress]...The pragmatic need to embrace cloud computing themselves will put them in a situation where they might go, 'Okay, there is this economic benefit; now I understand what these people are talking about.'"

Safari on iPhone gets competition from a $1 browser app

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 12:59:08 -0500

By Paul Hartsock, MacNewsWorld

If you search for "browser" in the App Store, you'll get dozens of applications, each purporting to be an alternative to the iPhone and iPod touch's built-in Safari browser. In a sense, they are alternatives, since they look different and might have a few unique features. But they're really all Safari underneath -- Apple will only approve browsers that are basically built with Safari guts using a reworked user interface.

On the down side, this means we won't be seeing alternative browsers from the likes of Mozilla or Opera any time soon, and there's no official challenger to Safari in terms of speed or compatibility with various Web standards.

On the plus side, since they're all Safari at heart, all these browsers should be just as able to navigate the Web at large as Safari itself, and considering how poorly some other mobile browsers do that, that's not a very painful limitation. Safari tackles most non-Flash pages just fine, and any site specifically optimized to work on mobile Safari should work on these alternate browsers in terms of audio, video, interaction, etc.

So what's in an interface? Some Safari alternatives can be pretty gimmicky, but one called "Full Browser" makes a few simple and sensible improvements that bring more of a desktop feel to the iPhone.

More space, more functions

Full Browser earns its name not just by giving you a few more features common to full desktop browsers, but also by sweeping all its control panels off the screen and giving you a full-framed image of the page you're looking at. With just 3.5 inches of screen to work with, every last bit of surface area counts. If you don't really need to know things like time, network availability and battery life, and you don't need a set of navigation controls at the bottom, FullBrowser will take those away and let you see slightly more of the Web page you're on. Tapping a very small shaded region at the bottom of the screen pulls up the control.

Along the top of the control panel, you get the familiar URL bar, a Google search bar (it stays Google even if your Safari search default is Yahoo), and a menu button. The drop-down menu gives you options like clearing cookies, mailing a link, editing your bookmarks and opening a link in Safari proper. The second row of top control panel buttons contains your tabs. These are arranged much in the same way desktop tabs are laid out -- hit "+" to open a new one, press "x" to get rid of the one you're on, and swipe left and right to move through them if you have a lot open.

Along the bottom, you have controls for searching the page for a word, calling up a grid layout for all the tabs you have open, adding the site you're on as a bookmark, forward/back/reload, and hiding the control panel for a full-screen page view.

Text search found

For me, Full Browser's biggest benefit is its text search capability. This is something I use all the time on a desktop browser, and I miss it when using mobile Safari. The way it works here is similar to the way it works in Firefox.

It's pretty subjective, but I also like the tabbing system in Full Browser better than Safari's sort-of playing-card system of keeping several pages open. FB's just reminds me more of a regular browser, and I seem to be able to navigate it faster.

Another nice feature Full Browser has is Hot Spots. You can assign the corners of the screen to perform a specific function (like scroll to top, show all tabs, text search, etc.) when you tap them as you view a page in full-screen mode. If that sounds like it'd get in the way, you can turn it off.

Finally, there's Speed Dial, a function that will show you a grid of your bookmarked pages when you open the browser. Like Hot Spots, this can be deactivated.

Odd quirks

Despite FB's virtues, some weird behaviors popped up.

When I held the phone in landscape mode and hit the bottom bar to see the control panel, it comes up displayed horizontally across the screen, as expected. But when I touched the URL bar to input an address, the virtual keypad sometimes comes up sideways, in portrait mode. Not exactly hard to fix that yourself, though -- just try again, or, I dunno, turn the thing sideways.

In addition, it seemed as though the bottom bar wouldn't work on a few occasions. It wasn't often, but no bottom bar means no controls, so you're pretty much stuck. The bar's also sort of small, so if you have sausage fingers it's easy to miss it and instead click a link lying near it.

I also get a strange error whenever I accessed online media like video or audio: "Operation could not be completed (WebkitErrorDomain error 204)." After I hit "OK," the media played just fine. This message does not come up when I access the same media through Safari.

Bottom line

When it first arrived in 2007, Safari on iPhone made every other smartphone browser in the world look hideous by comparison, and though it's changed only a little since then, it still easily holds its own.

Safari's features are still very basic compared to a desktop browser's, and that's probably always going to be the case, considering that a phone is just too small to do everything a desktop does. Although Full Browser hits a hiccup now and then, and although it certainly doesn't have all the functions of a real full desktop browser, things like text search and a familiar tab layout make it well worth a buck.

Originally published on MacNewsWorld

Nokia's N900 arrives in U.S., bodes the death of Symbian on N-series phones

Tim Conneally — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 11:56:33 -0500

By Tim Conneally, Betanews

Nokia's intriguing N900 "pocket computer" has officially launched in the United States. The device, a smartphone that evolved out of Nokia's Mobile Internet Device (MID) family, signifies a new era for the Finnish mobile tech leader.

Vice President of Nokia retail sales, Alessandro Lamanna summed it up in a prepared statement today: "Consumers from every segment of the population are looking for more out of their mobile device - more power, more ability, more connectivity." So in order to deliver these results, Nokia paired the 600MHz TI OMAP 3430 chipset with the Linux-based Maemo platform, and locked it up inside a 3G phone with a 3.5" touchscreen and QWERTY keyboard.

According to one report, Nokia said that by 2012, Maemo will have fully replaced Symbian as the operating system powering its top-end N-series devices. The N900, according to this report, marks the beginning of this transition because it is targeted at the enthusiast and developer crowd who will grow the Maemo ecosystem before it starts being marketed to the mainstream consumer. By then, Symbian will then be relegated to the mass market E- and X-Series devices.

We've sent an inquiry to Nokia to find out how true this report actually is, because it could have a significant impact on the smartphone market in the long term as Linux-based platforms are poised to dominate the mobile sector.

And if there was any doubt as to whom the N900 and Maemo appeals to, check out this video:

The Nokia N900 is available for $649 through Nokia's flagship stores in New York and Chicago, and on the Web at nokiausa.com and Amazon.com. It is compatible with AT&T's and T-Mobile's networks in the United States.

Apple's house rules won't be the death of app development

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 03:11:50 -0500

By Chris Maxcer, MacNewsWorld

So Facebook developer Joe Hewitt tweets that he's ditching the super-popular Facebook iPhone app, and TechCrunch, clearly sensing there's more to the story here, reaches out to learn why.

"My decision to stop iPhone development has had everything to do with Apple's policies," Hewitt told TechCrunch. "I respect their right to manage their platform however they want; however, I am philosophically opposed to the existence of their review process. I am very concerned that they are setting a horrible precedent for other software platforms, and soon gatekeepers will start infesting the lives of every software developer."

Hewitt's decision, of course, has sparked a mini firestorm over the so-called tyrannical Apple, with critics asserting it has a terrible App Store approval process, despite the approval of more than 100,000 apps so far. Hundreds of comments later, there's the notion that Android is a better, more open platform, and if key developers move to Android from Apple, then "it's over" -- this last bit from none other than Robert Scoble on the TechCrunch comment board.

Really?

I know a nurse with a jailbroken iPhone that can play a game where a monkey urinates into a moving toilet. I know a grandmother who uses her iPhone to check the price of wheat. Both owners can easily get what they want from their iPhone. I have a hard time imagining any set of applications so compelling and only available on an Android-based phone -- but not on an iPhone -- that would get them to switch over to an Android phone. What if the nurse lost the ability to jailbreak the iPhone and play the monkey bathroom game? Based on what I know about the nurse, I doubt there'd be too many tears shed.

Still, there will be a few million people willing to switch and try new things, no doubt about it. But there'll be millions more quite happy with the 100,000 apps they have available.

Moving on to the real noise

I've run into more than a few developers in my life, and two traits stand out: First, the best have a sort of focused brilliance. They are indubitably intelligent and capable of looking at foreign languages (a.k.a., "code") and understanding how funky characters and spacing relates to hardware, software and user-generated events. Let's not dismiss this lightly. It's one thing to learn to speak a foreign language like Spanish, and it's an entirely other thing to write a novel in Spanish.

Developers are pretty much doing the equivalent of writing novels in foreign languages. It's hard work, takes time, and often enough they become emotionally invested in their efforts. In 2007, TechCrunch, by the way, called Joe Hewitt an "iPhone God," and he seems to be pretty well-respected and talented.

And the second trait?

They tend to like things their way, and they tend to get irritated when people with power over them expect something that's not congruent with what they want. Kind of Like You and Me

So the developers I've run into -- which is an infinitesimally small percentage of all developers in the world, mind you -- are a lot like you and me when it comes to their second trait. We're just not nearly as smart.

Let's break down the two sentences from Hewitt above. He is "philosophically opposed" to the existence of Apple's review process. Sounds like a guy who doesn't like anyone peeking over his shoulder and ultimately deciding what gets to fly. Fair enough. Writers have editors. Sometimes the editors get it wrong. Most often, they get it right, and sometimes their criticism makes the product much better. If they get it wrong too often, writers can walk away. And sometimes they outright reject the work of a writer.

Being opposed to a review process is a personal thing. Let's not confuse this with a so-called "failed" Apple App Store policy.

As reported, Hewitt then added that "gatekeepers will start infesting the lives of every software developer." Ouch. No one on the outside likes a gatekeeper, but "infesting the lives"? Right on -- I don't like it when anyone screws up my brilliance. I once built a fence in my back yard, and before I could even begin building it, I had to go to my city, draft some specs, and get a permit. There's a retaining wall near one portion of the fence. Because there's a tiny possibility that some idiot might trespass through my backyard and climb my fence and leap without looking, I had to build a much shorter-than-planned, see-through fence.

My point? This stuff is part of the cost of living with other people.

Stupid? You bet -- until some guy is chased by police through my backyard, leaps the big fence I originally wanted, and breaks his back on the other side. Lawsuit ensues, and I lose my house. Look, there's money on the table for Apple, but I guarantee that Apple, which lives in the lawsuit-happy state of California, isn't interested in losing its house at 1 Infinite Loop.

Here there be monsters

What about when there is no walled garden? (Sure, Facebook is a walled Web garden, but let's not get petty here.) Anyone with a jailbroken iPhone get Rickrolled recently? I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy. (OK, I'll admit it, I Rickroll myself at least once a year just to remind myself how to jump into a chain link fence and bounce back looking cool. I might need that someday.)

But for jailbroken iPhones, there are real problems for those who haven't changed their default root passwords. A new hacker tool identified as "iPhone/Privacy.A" by Intego can compromise an iPhone by letting a hacker silently copy user data, including e-mail, contacts, SMSes, calendars, photos, music files, videos, as well as any data recorded by any iPhone app.

But that's just for open jailbroken iPhones.

For regular iPhones, how about the class action lawsuit filed by Michael Turner against Storm8 (PDF available here) over the alleged "practice of accessing, collecting and transmitting without notice or consent the wireless telephone numbers of iPhone users who download Storm8's games to their iPhones via Apple's App Store."

If true, well, ouch. This is a fairly benign violation, but an app could easily act as the gateway to identity theft and real monetary damage for consumers. Apple missed this one, but as a consumer, I like the idea of Apple vetting some apps.

Let me say that again: I like that Apple is vetting the apps.

I don't believe that Apple always makes good decisions. I think Apple makes mistakes. But I also think that great, fantastic apps will find a home, if not with Apple, then elsewhere. This is how it is with great novels. If the writer is persistent and the work is truly fantastic, it'll find a publisher. Same goes for some movies. And what about monetary success Download Free eBook - The Edge of Success: 9 Building Blocks to Double Your Sales and acclaim? There's a bit of cosmic luck involved. Sorry -- it's the way the world works, and I don't see it changing any time soon. Cosmic luck.

Meanwhile, Apple is a distributor

If you're a distributor, you get to the make the rules.

Every day around the world, distributors and retail stores -- which are just like the App Store -- are rejecting products. Someone is making choices at the distribution level every single day. Those decisions are made behind closed doors, and they involve money as well as esoteric on-the-spot choices.

Here's an example: A guy creates a new hammer. He takes the hammer to Home Depot because he wants Home Depot to sell the hammer for him. Home Depot looks at the hammer. It's got good balance. They whack a few nails with it, but on the last whack, a shard of metal flies off the hammer and strikes the tester in the eye. Oops. Poor quality metal. Hammer is rejected. Is the process open and clear? Probably not. Am I glad that Home Depot rejected the hammer? You bet. I trust the Home Depot brand to do these sorts of things, and I expect them to sell quality hammers. Just one example.

But the hammer guy doesn't give up. Maybe he upgrades the quality of metal in the hammer, then goes to Lowe's. The gatekeepers at Lowe's look at the hammer, see that it's a nice hammer, but hey, it's essentially the same as an existing hammer that Lowe's already sells. Sure, it has a hole at the end of the handle where a person could string a lanyard, but everything else, the size, weight, ergonomics -- basically the same as the Lowe's signature hammer. Sorry, hammer dude, Lowe's is going to reject your hammer.

You see how this goes in the real world? The Apple App Store isn't any different.

The only difference is that the people working through, avoiding, or using the App Store -- developers, hackers, and consumers -- all live in a Web world where it's easy to complain about it.

Speaking of complaints, I've got one: How come Wal-Mart sells the "low-end" Hanes underwear while Target sells the "high-end" Hanes underwear? Oxymorons aside, the low-end Hanes has a thinner rubbery waistband, while the high-end Hanes underwear has a wider, more cloth-covered waistband with a sharper Hanes logo graphic and better thread density. Same manufacturer, but Wal-Mart only sells the lesser quality version.

What gives?

Obviously, someone at Wal-Mart thinks that all Wal-Mart shoppers want the cheap Hanes underwear. I shop at Wal-mart, but I want the better Hanes underwear -- can't get it at Wal-Nart! So I go to Target to get my underwear. Should I be angry that Wal-Nart is selling the crappy underwear? Am I claiming there's a fundamental problem with the Wal-Mart decision process?

Is Wal-Mart going to fail because their gatekeepers are choosing to sell lower-quality underwear?

Nah. I still spend plenty of money at Wal-Mart. I go to Wal-Mart for what Wal-Mart is good for. I go elsewhere to get what others do well. None of this is going to make or break the iPhone. If anything, a flawed iPhone App Store approval process will ultimately result in more choice and better apps -- for everyone, on the iPhone and on Android or Windows Mobile or RIM, Palm, and even Samsung's new mobile operating system.

Apple is looking to protect itself, and Apple is looking to maximize profit. Those are clear and clean efforts. I might not like them, but I trust them. Steve Jobs wants to sell us quality products at a price. Steve Jobs sells. There's nothing underhanded about this. It's not even evil.

At least it's clear.

There's really only one way it's going to change. Developers need to create astounding applications that don't run on the iPhone. A lot of them. Of course, how many developers with astounding applications really want to avoid the iPhone App Store marketplace? Right. How many successful novelists won't allow their books to be sold by Amazon.com or Barnes & Noble?

Hewitt might be one of these guys who can succeed on his own. He told TechCrunch he wants to focus on open Web applications to "make the Web the best mobile platform available" rather than support a system that requires middlemen. It's a noble cause. I like the idea.

I just think we're a long long way from anything iPhone App Store being "over."

Originally published on MacNewsWorld

Windows Marketplace for Mobile launches on WinMo 6.0 and 6.1

Tim Conneally — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 14:16:23 -0500

By Tim Conneally, Betanews

Windows Marketplace for Mobile launched exclusively with Windows Mobile 6.5 in October, and unified the vast Windows Mobile application ecosystem under a single umbrella.

Prior to launch, Microsoft announced that users running Windows Mobile 6.0 and 6.1 would eventually have access to the new app marketplace, but did not provide a specific date.

That date, it would appear, is today.

Following up on last week's addition of the Web-based Marketplace, the Windows Mobile team has unveiled support for all Windows Mobile 6.0+ devices. To get the Marketplace app, users can point their mobile browser to mp.windowsphone.com to start downloading.

We're in the process of checking it out now, and we'll let you know how it goes. If you've already gotten your hands on it, let us know what you think!

Current Status: Up and running, initial selection for Windows Mobile 6.0 devices is decent (I only count 84 apps), app profile pages port nicely down to the smaller screen.