All Articles Tagged The competition

Check out the video over at WMExperts (via PocketNow). Never mind that it’s Windows Mobile 6.5 rather than the still-in-the-desert Windows Mobile 7 — that words like “finger-friendlier” are being used in 2009 sends us into sympathetic collective apoplexy. Yet our ever brave sibling site holds to hope and we wish them well, ’cause we might see iPhone 4.0 sneak-previewed by the time this ships…

What do you think, enough to stem the bleeding, or too little too late?

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According to sibling site WMExperts, Microsoft has released a developers guide for porting iPhone apps to — shock and horror — Windows Mobile.

Can’t blame them, though, 65,000 apps via a unified, on-device store, fart apps and rejected apps aside, is a huge competitive gap to make up, especially when your previous generation was stuck in a Windows 95-style user experience.

Selfishly, we hope the competition helps force out those fart apps and get those rejected apps back into Apple’s iTunes App Store where they belong…

Warning that its profits may decline, Wii and DS manufacturer Nintendo played the “current economic conditions” card but also laid a new one on the gaming table — increased competition thanks to Apple’s iPhone and iPod touch.

The newly launched Nintendo DSi is seen as a partial response to Apple’s new gaming model, according to Electronista, which includes an on-device digital App Store, rather than the cartridge based physical media traditional gaming companies have thus far preferred.

Still, if the next edition of Mario has an Apple or Steve Jobs looking boss level, we’ll know Nintendo is taking it seriously…

Dieter did some digging over at PreCentral.net and goes through how Palm re-hacked the iTunes sync. It looks pretty much like what we figured. Palm is spoofing the Apple USB Vendor ID so as to present as an iPod. This is one step deeper than last time, where they still ID’d themselves as a Pre. In a further display of chutzpah, while violating the prohibition against misuse of USB vendor IDs themselves, Palm has filed a complaint against “another company” (we’re guessing Apple) for improper use of same.

So let’s follow the logic here. Palm is seemingly objecting to Apple using the USB vendor ID to filter out non-Apple devices. Palm doesn’t feel that filtering is in keeping with the openness of the USB standard.

What’s the alternative, however? For Apple to maintain control over their own software by putting an authentication chip in every iPod/iPhone that handshakes with iTunes before syncing? Or to agree to freely license iTunes interoperability to every device maker on the planet?

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While the re-hacking of iTunes sync hogged a lot of attention yesterday, the bigger story is Palm updating the Pre to webOS 1.1.

And what were the major updates?

• IT-initiated remote wipe
• Required PIN with complexity
• Device wipe after a certain number of failed PIN attempts
• Auto-lock
• Improved digital certificates

Our sibling site, PreCentral.net is also keeping an updated list of webOS 1.1: Tons of Undocumented Features

May not sound like much compared to some iPhone updates, but here’s the key thing we’re taking away — Palm is doing the update over the air (OTA). Unlike the iPhone, where 250ish MB firmware files need to be downloaded via iTunes and installed over USB tether, webOS sticks to its cloud-centric focus and calmly sips down 85MB or so during down time then installs when it’s ready to go. If memory serves, Android did this as well with their 1.5 Cupcake release. Sounds like the future to us.

Palm Pre got webOS 1.1 today and the surprise feature was that it re-hacks iTunes sync, once and for all proving Palm’s new management — in this area — cares more about thumbing their nose at Apple and strutting in front of the press than they do about Palm and the Pre user base.

Yeah, this will be an editorial of the scathing variety. You’ve been warned…

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No word yet on whether you get a pocket Hasselhoff to push it for you, but it sounds like Opera Mobile 9.7 is set to bring back the “Turbo” boost in an effort to take it to Mobile Safari (and, we presume, WebKit in general as found on the iPhone, Google Chrome lite for Android, Palm Pre, some Nokia devices, etc. etc…. etc…)

Ganging up on the “real internet” browser are our good friends Matt Miller from NokiaExperts.com and Phil Nickinson from WMExperts.com. Matt explains the concept behind Nokia’s blast from the past via his ZDNet blog:

Turbo mode that supplements the native Opera Mobile browser with the proxy functionality found in Opera Mini. So, with Opera Mobile 9.7 and Turbo mode enabled you get a fully functioning web browser with proxy/server side lifting going on to provide the FASTEST browsing experience currently available on a mobile phone.

TiPb vaguely remembers proxy and cache tricks from those old spamvertisements promising to quadruple our old dial-up modem speeds. Phil tries to pip us to the proxy post, however:

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CrackBerry.com’s Kevin got his hands (and signature green coffee table) on RIM’s next-generation touchscreen BlackBerry, the Storm 2, aka 9550, aka “Odin”. And his early thoughts?

• the hardware is much nicer
• the click screen is more user-friendly
• the operating system is basically the same

Is 2/3 enough? Says Kevin:

In going hands-on with the 9550, it becomes clear that this next-generation Storm is really an evolution of the original Storm. Yes, it’s better in every respect, but I’m getting the impression it’s sort of like when a new model year of a car comes out – it doesn’t make the old one instantly obsolete.

TiPb was pretty tough on the original Storm, though so were many BlackBerry faithful (it was basically cast as the Vista of Smartphones, after all). Any chance the Storm 2 will turn the touchscreen form factor around for RIM? Anyone see it as a threat to the iPhone 3GS and iPhone 3.0? Or is it still about RIM providing that diversity to people who want the BlackBerry experience, and would never consider another device, touchscreen or no touchscreen? And if it disappoints, will RIM still lay the blame on consumer expectations in a post-iPhone world?

Eurogamer spoke to Johnny Two Shoes (The Heist, Banana Dash), Normalware (Bebot) and Firemint (Flight Control) about how Sony’s new PSPgo platform may compete with the iPhone, and the answers were interesting:

• After an 80% price cut to PSP dev tool charges, bring the price down to $1500) it’s still much more expensive than Apple’s $99.
• Developers can’t target the existing PSP install base of 50 million, PSPgo has only just been released, and Apple’s iPhone and iPod touch have an install base of over 40 million devices.

However, Apple growing the download gaming market and PSP games traditionally being bigger and longer (as opposed to casual iPhone gaming) were seen as positives for Sony.

“In the end,” Maxwell Scott-Slade concludes, “the consumer wins for choice and developers win for a more direct access to their audience.”

[via PS3blog.net]