WMSkins Blog » News

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.

Read the full article

Combine Various Mobile Apps Into One Snac

mushipkw — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 18:39:03 +0000

Are you tired of all the talk of “apps” (applications) for your mobile device to do everything from tracking ball games to keeping up with Facebook friends? Wish you could get some of that fun stuff on your more conventional, not-so-smart phone?

There’s an alternative to apps called “Snacs.” These are free, instantly accessible programs that run on the phone that’s already in your pocket if you’re a customer of Sprint, T-Mobile or AT&T and have upgraded (but who hasn’t?) in the past couple of years to a so-called “feature phone.”

(Snacs also run on a bunch of smartphones, including BlackBerrys and Androids, but not in closed-system iPhones, unless you “jailbreak” it.)

By definition, a feature phone has a decent amount of memory and a nicer, more readable screen. Some displays are as big and touch-friendly as a fancy smart phone’s. But feature phones cost a whole lot less (some are even free) and only require only a $5- to $10-a-month data plan to bring home the Snacs.

Developed by mobile communications veteran Mark Caron, a New Jersey guy, co-founder and head of marketing of the former Omnipoint Communications (swallowed by T-Mobile) and CEO of MobileSpring/Ztango (a ringtones pioneer now part of Real Networks), Snac is moving out of the beta-test phase and ready for mainstream feasting.

Snac scoops up and presents a bunch of the apps “that people actually use on a regular basis – offering them access to things like news and weather, Twitter and Facebook, Google Calender and MySpace,” Caron told me.

“You hear about the iPhone having 140,000 apps . . . but when push comes to shove, most people only really use three or four regularly,” the developer said. “And Snac serves them to you faster, with fewer clicks and much less taxing of the phone system or your data plan.”

Snac offers up its treats as an array of icons on a home page that looks similar to an iPhone dashboard. But look closer and you’ll see that the Snacs are not static symbols but mini-billboards, regularly updating the local temperature, game scores, stock prices, news headlines and such.

Click or tap (if you have a touch screen) on one and the Snac opens to reveal more info. To read the full story at a news site, tap again at the bottom of the screen.

“The request comes up instantly because our service is always streaming in the background and caching to the phone, storing its updates to the phone’s memory,” said Caron. “Apple won’t let you do that kind of multitasking on the iPhones.” Nor will the iPad, which has been a source of much grieving since its recent introduction.

At the moment, Snac supports about 300 models, including non-smart phones that run Java programming language and smart phones that run Windows Mobile, the BlackBerry OS and Symbian phones, with a version two OS coming out shortly.

BRINGING IN BREW, TOO? If negotiations go as hoped, Snac also will pop up this year on phones that run Qualcomm’s BREW MP cellphone operating system, likewise designed to bring smartphone functionality to lower-priced phones.

And a good thing, too.

Verizon uses a version of BREW on feature phones. AT&T has said it will adopt Brew MP for all its new, quick-messaging phones (those with hard or virtual QWERTY keyboards), with first models coming out this summer. Both Samsung and LG have announced plans to make Brew MP phones.

Go direct and load your phone with just the sites you want (including virtually every RSS feed) by visiting the Mysnacs Web site. Some heavier Snacs like Facebook will also need to be configured on the PC with passwords.

SmartPhone Of The Future Discussed

mushipkw — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 15:25:52 +0000

Recombu got Richard Warmsley, T-Mobile’s head of new proposition into discussing the future of smartphones. He admitted that since he lacks sooth-sayer abilities, he has no idea. But it’ll be quite different to what we’re used to today: “I don’t think it will necessarily be a smart phone or look like [a phone] does now”.

When asked about what they will be called, He says “Even the term ‘phone’ is becoming patronising to the device when it is capable of so much more than just phone calls.” As more devices get their own OS and built-in SIM cards – like the home appliances running Android that were showcased at this year’s CES – Richard thinks we’ll come to rely on a series of screens rather than an individual handset, TV, fridge and so on. So everything throughout the house will be seamlessly integrated – at least that’s the idea and it’s an area T-Mobile is already venturing into with its kitchen-based tablet for family organisation.

Read the Full Article Here

Slacker Radio Ripped From T-Mobile HD2 ROM

mushipkw — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 15:14:58 +0000

PPCGeeks forum user TMartin has ripped & got hold of the cab from the T-Mobile HD2 ROM for Slacker Radio. It should work good on WVGA devices, but please report back how it works on other resolutions (VGA, QVGA, etc).

Slacker is an internet radio service, available in the US and Canada, so we are not sure if users from other regions can use this app. You will of course need a free account at Slacker Radio to use this cab.

Download it here!