Articles by Dieter Bohn
Join Dieter, Matthew, Kevin, Rene, and Casey as they discuss Mobile World Congress 2009 — there’s a little bit for everybody in this gigantic cross-platfrom smartphone podcast!
- Download it directly with this link
- Subscribe via iTunes
- Subscribe directly to the Podcast feed with your favorite Podcatcher here
- Listen to it here with the player above
Show notes after the break.
It’s been quite a week for SPE, we wrapped up a bootload of live coverage of the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain. With details on Windows Mobile 6.5, the new HTC Magic Android phone, the new Ovi Application Store at Nokia Experts, and even a sneak preview of a GPS App for the iPhone, we were chock full of breaking mobile news.
This week we’ll be bringing you more of the same, of course. Be sure you are paying special attention to CrackBerry.com, as this will be a HUGE week for CrackBerry Nation. This coming Thursday, February 26th, the site officially turns 2 years old!! And when CrackBerry.com turns another year older, it doesn’t mean a day of celebrating, it means a week birthday festivities! Whether you’re a BlackBerry owner or not you’ll want to stay glued to the site for great contests, deals and giveaways each and every day. If you’re not a daily visitor but want to follow the action, you can always subscribe to the CrackBerry RSS feeds or follow the site on Twitter at @crackberry.
Speaking of giveaways, time is running out for your chances to win a Nokia N85 or E71 at Nokia Experts, so be sure to head over and learn how to enter this week.
There you see it, folks, a real live native iPhone app that provides turn-by-turn GPS directions with voice prompts, points of interest, support for multiple countries, maps stored in-memory instead of streamed from the internet, the whole nine yards.
Working off a tip/reminder from antonioj (thanks!), I scurried off to the TeleAtlas booth at the close day here at MWC to visit Sygic, a company that makes (you guessed it) downloadable GPS apps for smartphones and PDAs. They had promised a demo of their iPhone app at MWC09 and, well, they delivered.
Read on for more!
What’s that? iPhone news at MWC09? It’s true. I just got back from a meeting with DocsToGo and they showed off an early version of their app. So far Word document editing is a go, Spreadsheet editing is definitely in the plan but not quite up and running yet. They’re tossing in document viewing for both plus PDFs as well — which means you can have all of your documents in one spot.
Read on to find out how it all works, where the iPhone kinks are (since Apple limits what developers can do easily), and how we’re loving their implementation of (in-app) Cut and Paste! Read the rest of this entry »
If you haven’t heard, Apple’s a no-show here at Mobile World Congress 2009, this show pretty much belongs to Microsoft, HTC, and Nokia (with a side of Samsung and Sony Ericsson). However, as with other trade shows like CES and CTIA, Apple’s presence is felt in its absence. Rather than join their brethren in the mobile community, Apple sits it out and watches while other companies are forced to make their announcements in a context Apple has created. To wit: Both Microsoft and Nokia announced App Stores this week. Microsoft’s Market is basically a no-show, though, all we have is promises. Nokia’s isn’t ready yet either, but it will be in May.
Actually, we know quite a bit about Nokia’s App Store, called the Ovi Store. It’s an extension (and replacement) of their earlier services and includes everything from apps to ringtones to wallpapers to widgets. Here’s the thing, folks: Nokia may have solved the #1 problem at Apple’s App Store: finding apps that are 1. good and 2. interest you.
What Nokia has done is build a sophisticated relevancy engine that can sort apps based on a variety of factors that are actually relevant to you — like what you friends are using, or what kind of app you like to download, or what music you tend to prefer. It looks to be much better than your standard “top 50″ list and if Apple is smart and shameless (we know they’re both), they’ll steal these features as soon as humanly possible.
The Ovi Store also looks to be a little kinder and gentler on developers too, giving them more power over how (and if!) their app will be distributed.
I’ve written the whole thing up over at sister-site Nokia Experts, go on and take a look.
[How about Apple needs to expand iTunes GENIUS recommendations to the App Store immediately? -- Rene]
Here’s a welcome surprise for you: Google has now created Google Sync for iPhone so that you can sync up your Google Contacts and Google Calendar. They are doing it by making their data look like an Exchange server — meaning that if you’re not already using Exchange on your iPhone for work, you can point it at Google’s servers (see full instructions here) to get your contacts and calendars pushed out to you. Nice? Nice.
Of course, if you’re already using Exchange for work but still want to get your Google data on your iPhone, you’d going to need to get a solution to sync your Google data down to your desktop and then get it from your desktop to your iPhone either via USB tether or via MobileMe. You can learn more about how the two work together in Rene’s excellent article on that very subject.
Now, Google, just get Gmail to look like Exchange and we’ll be happy campers. Actually, you know what, just fix IMAP, that’ll be enough.
Quick Update: As I just noted over at WMExperts, Google licensed Exchange Active Sync (EAS) from Microsoft, which is a shot at RIM but also, maybe, a shot at Apple. Rene just pointed out to me that given all of Google’s recent moves with the CalDAV/iCal system, they might have kept on pushing to make the stuff that Mac uses the industry standard. Instead, Google and Microsoft are suddenly working together on using EAS.
After the completion of the hectic Smartphone Round Robin, your faithful bloggers at Smartphone Experts decided to keep things moving along at a heady clip. In the past week we have published somewhere in the neighborhood of 175 stories, from accessory and software reviews to news to the latest rumors. That’s a lot to keep track of, so we’re bringing back our regular “Around SPE” feature to give you a quick summary of what you may have missed in a format that’s more helpful than just a list of links.
In that vein, our biggest recent news is that our newest sister site, Nokia Experts is starting strong with a launch contest. If you would like to earn some chances at winning a Nokia E71 or Nokia N85, make sure to enter the contest each week. There are two weeks left to go, so check back as each week we’re changing up how you can enter to win!
There’s plenty more smartphone news you may have missed, so read on!
The long-running dispute between Apple and IBM over Apple’s hire of Mark Papermaster has come to a close, according to Apple PR:
Apple® today announced that Mark Papermaster will be coming to Apple as senior vice president of Devices Hardware Engineering, reporting to Apple CEO Steve Jobs, on April 24. Papermaster, who comes to Apple from IBM, will lead Apple’s iPod® and iPhone™ hardware engineering teams. The litigation between IBM and Mark Papermaster has been resolvedThe move comes fully two months after a judge blocked Apple from going through with the Papermaster hire and although exactly how the “litigation [...] has been resolved” isn’t something that Apple is likely to disclose, TechCrunch reports that it was an out-of-course settlement rather than a “California doesn’t allow for non-compete agreements” barfight.
Papermaster will take the helm of iPhone and iPod hardware, replacing Tony Fadell (who was rumored to have pushed for Linux to be the basis for the iPhone). Odd that he’s going to have to wait until April 24th to take charge, but we suspect that won’t slow things down too much on hardware development. Got any advice for Papermaster? Would you like to seem him shephard in that iPhone HD? Think he’ll push for Quad-Core goodness?
We’re incredibly happy to announce that we’re adding another member to the Smartphone Experts family of sites: Nokia Experts! Nokia Experts will be run by the inestimable Matt Miller, also known as The Mobile Gadgeteer, host of ZDNet’s Smartphones and Cellphones blog, palmsolo, and all around mobility guru.
Matt has a ton of knowledge about a subject that the rest of us at Smartphone Experts have historically lacked, namely Nokia, S60, and the Symbian OS in general. He gives himself a brief introduction here, in the unlikely event you’re not familiar.
Nokia has, as yet, not successfully made a big smartphone push in the United States, but that’s quite likely to change as they have a slew of exciting new devices coming out and are also likely to have their E71 messaging smartphone picked up by AT&T very soon. In other words, if, like us, you’re relatively new to Nokia and S60 but want to learn more, Nokia Experts is surely going to be one of your best resources. Heck, Matt’s already published a full review of the Nokia 5800 Tube XpressMusic touch screen S60 device. The ‘Tube’ is already a best-selling device overseas and is more of a worthy contender than you might think, so the review is definitely worth a read.
Go on and head over to Nokia Experts now and give ‘em a big ol’ hello!
