Pocket PC Thoughts - Daily News, Views, Rants and Raves

T-Mobile was expected to release the Touch Pro2 on July 22 in the US, but now there are rumors that it could be delayed until early August. Of course, and this is the device I am waiting on. My old phone died and I've resurrected my HTC Universal for daily duty. I seriously need a new device. My three week wait may have just become five or six weeks. Ugh.

"ZDNet's Mary Jo Foley says her best understanding of "Pink" is now that it's a Microsoft-branded phone running a custom UI on top of Windows Mobile 7, developed by what's left of the Danger team and targeted at the Sidekick market. Yep, Microsoft-branded -- as in, the exact thing Microsoft has been denying for ages now."

The current Windows Mobile ecosystem is similar to the way Microsoft has treated the PC world - an MS based operating system riding on hardware made by others. First Xbox, then Zune, demonstrated Microsoft's willingness to break away from that hugely successful paradigm, because it didn't translate well to other markets. Are we going to see the same thing in the Windows Mobile world? Apple showed one way to build a market based on a closed eco-system - but then Microsoft didn't exactly have a blazing success emulating this model with the Zune. Windows Mobile has in its own understated way been a success because it met the needs of the enterprise market. Now that smartphones for consumers are all the rage, this (along with WM7) looks like the MS response. Good idea? Bad idea? Thoughts wanted!

"If you want to get HD in your handheld, NVIDIA's Tegra processor is the hot way to do it at the moment, and we've got reasonably concrete sounding rumors from disparate sources that a handset containing one of the chips is currently under development by a "top five" smartphone builder (we're guessing it's not Apple)"

What really is a "top 5" manufacturer? Is this sorted alphabetically? If so then I really need to get my "AAAdvantage Manufacturing" subsidary up and running... All kidding aside, NVidia's Tegra may be an interesting addition with Windows Mobile rumors swimming around it.

Product Category: PDA Phone

Manufacturer: HTC

Where to Buy: Expansys [Affiliate]

Price: $469.99 USD

Specifications: From the HTC site

Pros:

• Offers lots of features for a "budget conscious" phone;
• TouchFlo interface is one of the best efforts yet to make WM phones "touch friendly";
• Bundled CoPilot Navigation software adds functionality and value.

Cons:

• Battery life is merely adequate;
• Button layout on front differs from the "standard";
• Back cover feels a bit cheap.

Summary:

Everywhere you look these days, it's "iPhone this" and "iPhone that". For better or worse, the iPhone is a genuine phenomenon and has set the direction for touch enabled phones to come. Windows Mobile 6.5 and 7 will bring a variety of finger friendly touch features, but what do WM phone manufacturers do until then? If you're HTC, you put a flashy touch enabled shell on a variety of phones at a range of price levels. The Touch Cruise is one of the more affordable versions. Does HTC's strategy make it an iPhone contender? Let's take a look... Read more...

"visCrypt is a program for your Pocket PC to encrypt and decrypt any files and documents. You can secure any documents in the internal memory and on memory cards comfortably with visCrypt. Even saving of whole folders and subfolders is done quickly."

visCrypt, an encryption program that lets you select individual files on a device to protect, has been updated, adding in some new features and tweaking a few of the old. If you're paranoid about the files on your device and the built-in protections just won't do, check it out.

"It's better than ever before - the Gold version of Skype 3.0 for Windows Phones is now available for download. It includes two cool new features: SMS and file transfer. Sending SMSs using Skype is a great way to reach friends and family instantly anywhere in the world - Skype's low rates mean that you won't have to break the bank to do it. And file transfer lets you send files quickly when you're on the move. We've ironed out the remaining wrinkles since the Beta release, and it's ready to go."

Skype 3.0 for Windows Mobile has gone gold. Aside from the usual bug fixes, it packs support for SMS and file transfers. Go get it.

"Chinese Microsoft enthusiast blog LiveSino.net today posted a bunch of links to some interesting portfolios by a handful of Chinese designers who works at the Microsoft Advanced Technology Center (ATC) Studios in Beijing. What many people don't know is that the ATC has been largely responsible for the user experience design of Windows Mobile. This however is no longer the case as WM 6.5 was their last project, but up and until now, they've been busy conceptualizing the future of Windows Mobile. Most of those concepts have never surface in public before, until now."

Cool stuff. Shame most of them won't ever hit store shelves (phones or UI), but maybe somebody else might pick up on these design ideas (pace IP rights), and incorporate them into future Windows mobile devices.

This is a bit off topic for some sites in our network, but a good deal is a good deal: our hardware affiliate partner Expansys is selling the Linux-based version of the Acer Aspire One for $199, which is an excellent deal. This version of the Aspire One has an 8.9 inch screen, 1 GB of RAM, a 120 GB hard drive, and uses the 1.6 Ghz Intel Atom CPU. Combine that netbook with a $49 copy of Windows 7, and you've got yourself a nice little piece of mobile computing technology (just be sure to also have an external USB-based optical drive). I haven't installed Windows 7 on an Acer Aspire One, but I suspect it would work just fine - Windows 7 identified all the important hardware on my MSI Wind and HP Mini 1000 netbooks without a problem. At the time of this writing, Expansys only has 58 left in stock, so don't delay.

"Shortly after Samsung announced its four new Omnia phones, a word quickly spread that Verizon had plans to carry the Omnia II. However, information about the release date was missing so it wasn't certain when to expect the successor. Now, thanks to a tipster of ours who claims to have contacted Verizon Wireless"

A bit of rumor here that the next version of the Omnia (CDMA variety) will be released by Verizon in July. Now let's just see if this comes true with July only days away!

Just in case you missed it, AT&T tried to charge MythBusters star Adam Savage $11,000 for a recent trip to Canada for roaming. It had to do with the wording in their contract that says roaming data will be charged at ".015 cents, or a penny and a half, per kb" AT&T seems to have gone to the same school of math that Verizon did a few years ago where in their strange carrier world, .015 cents = a penny and a half.

In other related user ticking-off news, Rogers Communications in Canada is going to start charging users 15 cents for incoming text messages, though if you have a text plan, you probably won't be hit by that charge.