WMSkins Blog

Its Apple Behind HTC

mushipkw — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 17:57:08 +0000

HTC is the manufacturer of various phone with Google’s Android, Microsoft Windows Mobile & Qualcomm’s Brew operating system. But have you ever wondered what does HTC runs themselves on their computers. A picture posted by msmobiles from Mobile World Congress reveals that HTC runs Apple OS on their computers.

Difference between Opera Mobile and Opera Mini

mushipkw — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 17:36:57 +0000

Unless you have a Windows Mobile or Symbian/S60 phone, Opera Mobile is not available for you to download to your phone. Enjoy Opera Mini!

Many users have a few questions about the difference between Opera Mobile 10 and Opera Mini 5. This post will attempt to clarify.

First, here is what they have in common:

Both are based on the same core technology, the Opera Presto browser engine (just like Opera for desktop).
Both use the same cross-platform user interface, providing similar features and browsing experience.

And the difference:

In Opera Mini, the Opera Presto browser engine is located on a server. In Opera Mobile, it is installed on your phone.

When you enter a Web address in Opera Mobile, the Web page is fetched directly from the Web server to your phone. However, the Opera Mini client sends a request to the Opera Mini server, which downloads the page from the Internet. The server then transcodes the page before it is forwarded to the client in a lightweight mark-up language designed specifically for this purpose.

The advantage is that the Opera Mini client can be much smaller and work on more basic phones than the full Opera Mobile browser.

On the other hand, Opera Mini depends on a server while Opera Mobile does not. (Opera Turbo is an optional service for Opera Mobile that compresses Web pages and makes it cheaper to browse, but it is not required).

In practical terms, here is what that means for you:

Opera Mobile will render Web pages just like a desktop browser. In Opera Mini, there may be slight differences, and very complex Web pages may not work optimally.
Opera Mini will generally be faster. It downloads less content and requires less CPU to render pages.
Opera Mini works on almost any phone. Opera Mobile is only available for Windows Mobile and Symbian/S60 phones.

Which product is best for you depends on your personal preferences and the sites you browse. Many advanced users will have both browsers installed and alternate depending on the situation. For example, they will use Opera Mobile when on Wi-Fi, Opera Mini when on a cellular network.

Opera Mini For iPhone Coming At MWC 2010

mushipkw — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 17:26:46 +0000

Good news, everybody! Opera plan to reveal Opera Mini for iPhone in an exclusive press and partner preview during the 2010 Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona. This means that you now have a working version of Opera Mini for the iPhone.

While Opera Mini for iPhone is not publicly available, visitors without a press pass will not leave Opera’s stand disappointed. Opera will unveil a host of other Opera-powered devices at its exhibit. Check out the following Opera technology, live from MWC:

Opera Mobile 10 beta 3 on Symbian S60 and Windows Mobile handsets
Opera Mobile 10 beta running on Android handsets
Opera Mini 5 beta, running on a variety of handsets and platforms
Opera’s cross-platform Widgets Manager beta, running on Windows Mobile and S60 handsets

To hear more from Opera about the future of the Web, attend one of our speaking engagements during MWC:

Monday, February 15, 2010

15:00 – Jon von Tetzchner: Vodafone panel discussion on “Mobile Web developments, W3C standards, using Web APIs and the live creation of widgets”, in Hall 7, Auditorium 1.

Tuesday, February 16, 2010

14:00 – Håkon Wium Lie: Panel discussion on “Mobile security in an IP world”, Hall 5.

14:00 – Christen Krogh: presentation on “Creating a connected cloud for the perfect mobile storm”, Hall 5.

15:45 – GSMA Awards ceremony: Opera Mini shortlisted for “Best Mobile Internet Service” and “Best Mobile Technology Breakthrough”, Hall 5, Level 3, Auditorium 1.

Want to schedule a meeting with Opera? Contact press10@opera.com for more information.

Opera Mobile 10 Beta 3 For Symbian and Windows Mobile Released

mushipkw — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 17:14:24 +0000

Today Opera Mobile 10 moves one step closer towards final with the release of Opera Mobile 10 Beta 3 for both Symbian/S60 and Windows Mobile. Beta 3 includes a few new features, and a lot of bug fixing and stabilization. Read more on www.opera.com/mobile. Or download it now at www.opera.com/mobile/download/ from a PC or “m.opera.com” from a mobile phone.

New improvements include:

Windows Mobile Keypad Support:
Opera Mobile 10 Beta 3 now supports keypad devices running Windows Mobile 6 standard, and Windows Mobile 5 Smartphone devices.

Experimental Flashlite 3.1 (Windows Mobile):
This beta also brings experimental Flash support to Windows Mobile (touch devices only). However, Flash performance and usability depends greatly on how powerful your device is. On the 1Ghz HTC Touch HD2 the overall experience is quite good. On anything slower it varies from mediocre to poor.

Therefore Flash is disabled by default in the Opera Mobile settings. To enable flash goto Tools -> Settings -> Advanced and set plug-ins to “On”.

Note that Opera Mobile has Click-to-play functionality for plug-ins. So even when plug-ins are enabled you activate individual Flash content by clicking on it. This to minimize the use of bandwith and CPU on content you may not be interested in.

The main improvements from the previous betas are:

S60:
- Complete bookmark sync in Opera Link
- Support for non-latin characters in the UI also when phone is set to latin locale (requires international build)
- A lot of input and keyboard related fixes
- Fixed text selection
- Visual indication of input mode also for non-latin input modes
- General bug fixing (stability, UI)

Windows Mobile
- keypad/smartphone support
- Flash Lite 3.1 support (disabled by default)
- Complete bookmark sync in Opera Link
- BIDI support also for language extensions
- phone numbers in plain text are converted to links
- support for background sound
- general bug fixing (stability, UI)

Known issues include:

Both:
- Opera Link: Bookmarks saved in Beta 2 are lost when upgrading to Beta 3
- Hotmail does not work, please use the mobile version “www.hotmail.com/m”
- Dragonfly – need to do ‘connect’ two times in a row to get a connection working

S60:
- After permanently accepting an untrusted certificate, you get an error when trying to load the https:// page again. Workaround: In the S60 device menu go to the Settings -> General -> Security -> Certificate Management -> Trusted site certificates and delete the certificate for the problematic site

Windows Mobile:
- Flash is only a preview/in alpha state, expect instabilities, performance degradation during use
- Flash is only supported on touch devices
- Need to double-click on Flash content to view it in full-screen, another double-click to return
- right-to-left support is not complete in the UI
- On certain WM5 Smartphone/WM6 Standard devices, the dictionary is not disabled in the password field
- Unable to type special characters on Moto Q9
- Certain HTC devices with TouchFLO will force Opera back to portrait mode if visiting home screen when Opera is in landscape
- Some input method editors are known not to work well with Opera because they do not comply with Microsoft’s SIP and/or IME standard. When such an editor is detected by Opera, Opera will use a known (default) input method instead. An exception is EzInput v1.5, where the phone keypad and compact QWERTY, ABC mode doesn’t work, but the rest of the modes work fine. We recommend upgrading to EzInput v2.0 to avoid this.

Microsoft Mobile Codenames For MWC 2010

mushipkw — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 18:56:58 +0000

In the months leading up to various rumours & event, there’ve been lots of false starts, twists and turns on Microsoft’s mobile roadmap. Mary Jo, who has been covering Microsoft for almost 20 years, have been getting lots of tips.

Here’s a quick guide to Microsoft’s mobile offerings, organized by codename, designed to help demystify what Microsoft demos and details next week at Mobile World Congress:

Cashmere: The latest version of Windows CE (the underlying OS upon which Windows Mobile, Zune and other third-party-developed products is built). This may be the foundation for Windows Mobile 7. If it’s not, perhaps Chelan, the next release of Windows CE (which, last I heard, still had not been released to manufacturing), might be — but I’m thinking Cashmere is more likely, given the typical lag times between when Microsoft rolls out a new version of CE and when it uses it as the base for a new Windows Mobile version.

Dorado: The Zune software for the PC. Microsoft has used the Dorado codename since it introduced the ZuneHDs last year to refer to this platform. But with the next generation of mobile devices, Dorado will get more capabilities, enabling it to become a synchronization/marketplace site for ZuneHD, Windows Mobile 7 phones and Pink devices, tipsters say.

Metro: The user interface for Windows Mobile 7 phones. It will look and feel a lot like the ZuneHD UI, tipsters say.

Pink: The uber-codename for the successors to the Sidekick, aimed at the teen/twenty-something market. Pink also has been used to refer to the premium consumer-focused mobile services for these and other devices.

Pure: One of the Pink phones, possibly manufactured by Sharp. Gizmodo ran an alleged prototype photos from their sources of Pure last fall.

Rouge: This was supposed to be the business/enterprise version of Pink. I recently heard Microsoft has canned the idea of doing Rouge services or phones. (Anyone have any more info on that?)

Skybox: The Microsoft “MyPhone” service, the first version of which Microsoft announced a year ago at MWC. I wouldn’t be surprised to see Microsoft announce some new, premium additions to its mobile backup and restore offering at next week’s event.

Turtle: Another of the Pink phones, possibly manufactured by Sharp, pictured in a leaked photo on Gizmodo late last year.

ZunePhone: Windows Mobile 7 phones running/accessing Zune music, video, synchronization and other services.

It’s unclear the extent to which Microsoft will talk about/show the Pink phones at MWC. While some Microsoft watchers have said they expect the Pink phones could make their debut in Barcelona, Mary Jo have also heard Microsoft may not make MWC the venue for the Pink roll-out, and will instead hold a separate event, possibly in April, as its Pink showcase.

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