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Around SPE for February 15, 2009

Rene Ritchie — Sun, 15 Feb 2009 15:26:43 +0000

With our editor-in-chief, Dieter Bohn off in Barcelona for Mobile World Congress, the inmates site editors are left running Around SPE this week. So, while he’ll be breaking news and giving us some hands-on observations on all the new software and hardware on display, we’ll be keeping you covered here at home, starting with a quick recap of where we are right now:

CrackBerry.com

In the world of BlackBerry, T-Mobile customers were happy to see the official roll out of the next-generation BlackBerry Curve 8900 this week. With AT&T said to be dropping support for 2G phones, there has been some worry that this new Curve wouldn’t come to AT&T, but with the 8900 SKU now showing up on AT&T systems, it’s likely the device will launch there in the next month.

The BIG new this week comes from the CrackBerry Podcast. Kevin was in NYC on for a RIM Business Solutions Press Preview. While there, him and Craig recorded a podcast and for the first time had an employee from Research in Motion on the show. Joined by Mike Kirkup, Manager of Developer Relations, they tackle a bunch of topics from the upcoming App Store to OS 5.0 and whether or not Flash support will appear in a BlackBerry browser and more! Listen Here.

More after the break!

Android Central

This week Android Central reported that Android Market was leaving beta and finally receiving paid applications. Hopefully we’ll see even more amazing applications such as this recently announced TeleNav turn-by-turn GPS application.

We also wondered why Google would comply with Apple’s request to leave multi-touch out of the G1. Hint: It has something to do with maintaining a great relationship with Apple. Read: Google still wants to play nice with Apple to get iPhone eyes on Google AdSense.

Nokia Experts

News was a bit slow this week as everyone in the mobile space waits for big announcements from Mobile World Congress next week, including some announcements about devices and services from Nokia. We are in our third week of the the launch contest so make sure to get your entry in and look for week four’s entry task. Great input and information is coming in from the contest entries. Also, check out our SBSH Reminders giveaway for a chance to win a free registration code.

Some topics of interest this week on Nokia Experts includes the amazing Nokia Maps 3.0 beta update, Nokia 5800 firmware update, Nokia E63 availability in the US for just $279, and the announcement of the Nokia 5630 with 600 MHz processor.

PreCentral

Over at PreCentral this week, we learned that Bell Canada will be launching the Palm Pre. We heard conflicting launch dates of late Q2 or early Q3 and also the end of Q3-Q4.

We also had more Touchstone details to emerge when Adam Kaufman, a Product Manager at Palm started answering questions on Facebook. Plus, many people are wondering if the Palm Pre made an appearance on the TV show “Knight Rider”.

The iPhone Blog

Is this the first glimpse of the 3rd Gen iPhone? Looks pretty much the same as the iPhone 3G, but then Apple brass re-affirmed that the iPhone market is strong, and they won’t be diluting it with an iPhone nano or keyboard slider any time soon. What with 20,000 Apps in the store, and the iPhone and the iPod touch now owning 51% of the mobile browser space… and growing, who can blame them?

Maybe jailbreakers, as the EFF asking the US government to grant it an exemption from the DMCA has Apple declaring jailbreaking illegal. (Oops, we just jailbroke live for xGPS on the last podcast!). Lastly, Google gave us Spreadsheet editing, but did Apple deny the Android multi-touch and… a 3.5mm headphone jack?!

TreoCentral

This week when Ed Colligan spoke to investors at the Thomas Weisel Partners Technology, Telecom & Internet Conference, he announced that there will be no more PalmOS devices released by Palm (excepting the Centro getting released on other carriers) as they’re focused on WebOS and Windows Mobile. He also said that not only will Palm have an app store when the Pre launches, but Palm isn’t locking down the device so you can only install apps from their app store.

We also learned this week that the Sprint Treo Pro is now targeted for a March 15th launch, and that some Sprint stores are now getting re-stocked with new Treo Pro’s with the new ROM on board. And even though the Sprint Treo Pro is delayed, it was great to hear that Palm’s stock has neared double-digits.

WMExperts

It’s been the calm before the storm over at WMExperts while we wait for Mobile World Congress to get under way, but that doesn’t mean it was a quiet week. We saw more information surface on Windows Mobile 6.5 including a new video, an updated version of Skyfire Beta released while Opera Mobile plans to go turbo. Google offered up contact and calendar sync and brought public-domain books to mobile devices. Mozilla’s Fennec mobile browser hit pre-alpha, and we got a sit-down with developer Brad Lassey. On the hardware side, new Windows Mobile devices were spotted from Garmin-Asus, Gigabyte, as well as the “Hummer” of Windows Mobile Devices from I-Mate.

TreoCentral at CES: Palm Announces Pre, the “iPhone Slider”

Rene Ritchie — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 00:36:02 +0000

Confession: I’m just leaving Macworld and haven’t had a chance to form much of an opinion about the Palm Pre yet (see pics). TreoCentral (and our new baby sibling site, PreCentral.net) absolutely KILLED it on the first impressions, and make sure you check out the live blog (and congrats to Dieter on the trifecta of Schiller, Balmer, and Colligan all in one week! Superstar!).

The Treo 600 was my first smartphone, the 680 my last before the iPhone, so I have great fondness for Palm despite them leaving me “out in the desert” (TM, TreoCentral TreoCast) for years and years. I want them to succeed, I want them to force the entire industry to keep up the innovation and revolution the iPhone started. I want Steve Jobs and Apple to run back to the drawing board and feel compelled to make the iPhone HD 3.0 even better than they intended.

First blush: I love the organics of the device (the egg-shape does throw me, but that’s the only exception and the overall look brings it home) and think cloud-focus and their WebOS platform (which I think is based on Apple’s open-source WebKit, same as Safari on iPhone and Chrome on Android) are gutsy moves. Apple uses a hybrid of rich clients and web connectivity and smashes it out the park with Google Maps-style iPhone apps. Palm is running WebOS apps like native WebApps (which should avoid the outcry Apple faced with the original, pre-App Store and SDK iPhone dev solution). If it works Palm could have brilliantly out-maneuvered the whole “they’ll never get developers”. However, one look at Apple’s focus on gaming shows the power of the rich local client — is AJAX enough to run iPhone caliber gaming and other really hard hitting applications? I guess we’ll see. We’ll also see how they nail multitasking better than any previous OS, according to Dieter, when part 2 of TreoCentral’s first impressions go online later.

On the negative side, for me (the anti-Dieter in some ways), I still think the era of hard keyboards is over, and dislike the moving parts of a slider all the more after the round robin (even portrait ones). That’s just personal taste. The capacitive touch screen with gesture area looks solid, though I have to wonder if Apple’s lawyers will rev up the multitouch patent files?

Apple’s rivalry with the new Palm will be telling for political reasons as well. Those who remember the history know that the new guru behind Palm’s new hotness is the old Guru behind Apple’s old hotness, the iPod. He reportedly really wanted a hard keyboard on the iPhone, and Jobs skidoosh’ed it. (Which is why I jokingly called it the “iPhone Slider”. I guess we’ll see, however, over the next few months if Rubinstein remains but the learner, or if he is now the master.

Enough of my thoughts, iPhone lovers — especially former Palm faithful — what do you think?

Smartphone Experts at CES 2009! WMExperts, TreoCentral, Android Central, and CrackBerry.com Coverage

Rene Ritchie — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 17:45:00 +0000

TiPb isn’t the only Smartphone Experts site working our tails off this week. Our editor-in-chief, Dieter Bohn is pulling the live-blogging trifecta, going straight from Macworld to cover Steve Ballmer’s CES kickoff tonight at 6pm PST for WMExperts AND for the (very much anticipated) debut of Palm’s next generation NOVA hardware and OS for TreoCentral — not to mention everything AndroidCentral. Never to be out done, CrackBerry Kevin (with a full on CrackBerry Crew!) will push any and all BlackBerry news they get their cracky hands on. Check out all our sites throughout the day for the latest, greatest, most Smartphone-geeky coverage.

Today on the Forums: Crackberry Kevin’s iPhone 3G Review, TreoCentral’s Jennifer Needs Your Help, Jailbreak Forums, 2008 TiPb Award Nominations

Jeremy Sikora — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 15:00:44 +0000

Well the forums are still hopping, Round Robin is still going strong, and we have some good threads for you all to check out!

Crackberry Kevin just finished his week with a iPhone 3G and what do you think he had to say about it? Check out Kevin’s review and be sure to share your thoughts about it with us. I tried my best to get through to him, but that is definitely not an easy task. After all, Kevin is the #1 Crackberry addict…

Next up one of our sister sites needs your help. Jennifer of Treocentral is spending the week away from her Treo/Centro and is now using an iPhone 3G. Be sure to drop in her thread and lend her a hand. That thread can be found here: Round Robin: Help Treocentral Jennifer with iPhone 3G.

With all the jailbreak and unlock talk going on lately the iPhone Jailbreak Central is being flooded with all sorts of questions. Jump in there to see if you can help any of our members and if you have a question be sure to post it so someone can help you out!

Last but not least, TiPb would like to remind you all to be sure to check out the 2008 TiPb Award Nominations! Check out these threads after the break!