Technology News Videos And Resources
So the next generation of Windows Mobile, now Windows Phone, has been unveiled at MWC in Barcelona. Greg has already gotten his mitts all over it, and has posted his in-depth impressions over at MobileCrunch, but we thought it was worthwhile to post our thoughts on Microsoft’s new look and feel. Beautiful? Ugly? Too little, too late? Feel free to add your opinions to the pile.
Read the rest of this post at CrunchGear…
Unlike most other smartphone platforms, Windows Mobile doesn’t come with a mapping application pre-installed by default. While this may very well change with the soon-to-be-announced Windows Mobile 7, it has thus far been up to the handset manufacturer to throw in a map app if they so choose.
Later this week, messaging/location technology providers TCS will announce that Sony Ericsson has chosen their turn-by-turn application, Gokivo, to be pre-loaded onto future Sony Ericsson-made Windows Mobile handsets.
The first Sony Ericsson handset to come with Gokivo out of the box will be the Aspen, which was just announced last week.
This is pretty big news for TCS; they just acquired the company behind Gokivo, Networks In Motion, back in December, and this is the first time any manufacturer has chosen to pre-install the app at the factory.
The flagship features, according to TCS:
- Local Search
- Traffic and Weather
- Location Sharing
While it’s great news for TCS, I have to wonder: with Nokia and Google’s recent moves toward making turn-by-turn navigation a standard feature on S60 and Android, how much longer will smartphone consumers be willing to cough up a subscription fee?
I’ve been a fan of Apple’s Mail.app for quite some time, even though we’ve had our ups and downs, it’s gotten the job done. One of my biggest beefs with Mail.app is searching through past emails. It’s just horrible.
Central Atomics is hoping to fix that problem with Rocketbox. Rocketbox is a new way of searching your e-mail in Apple Mail.app — it’s more advanced than Mail’s search, with the ability to search by person, a search engine that is up to 200x faster than Mail’s, and powerful filters that make it easy to find what you need.
One neat thing about Rocketbox is its search-by-person suggestions. Rocketbox analyzes your e-mail correspondence and provides a list of important contacts when you search, so you know who you’ve emailed the most.
Also, Rocketbox will show you Inline previews, with highlighted snippets telling you why a message was found, making it easier to scan through emails. The highlighted section then helps you improve your queries and takes the guess work out of using search.
Rocketbox is extremely similar to Xobni, which is the Windows alternative, with a few more features like social network information, and contact information, etc.
Overall, Rocketbox is a great addition to Mail.app, and the entire search experience. You can get a 30 day trial, or buy the full version or $14.95, but the first 100 TechCrunch readers to use the code “TECHCRUNCH“ can get Rocketbox for $9.95, instead of the regular $14.95, when checking out.
In case you weren't aware, Mobile-review's Eldar Murtazin is somewhat of a living legend around these parts. The Russian-borne phone guru manages to get his hands on an ample number of then-unreleased devices and juicy scoops -- but this time he might've just outdone himself with some apparent hands-on time with Windows Mobile 7. Here's what he's saying: the OS has been built on scratch, and none of the old WinMo 6.x apps worked. There's "a lot of horizontal movements, a lot of additional info by clicks... for WM users it will be a great step ahead. For market it's a copycat of Android 3.1/3.2 [sic] or iPhone." No direct comparison to Zune HD, except to say that it's a simpler UI than what he was seeing here, and also no clue on the kernel underneath. Still, the lack of legacy compatibility is either a huge bummer to the fan base, or if not that then Microsoft is preparing for a two-platform WinMo world. Then again, this is a purported early build, so who knows what's bound to change before the final release. There's a lot of other details if you're willing to check his feed, or just head over to WMPoweruser for the abridged / "good parts" version. Boy, February just can't come soon enough.
Early Windows Mobile 7 build given some hands-on time, incompatible with previous WinMo apps? originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 17 Jan 2010 03:18:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Permalink 
WMPoweruser | 
Twitter (@eldarmurtazin) | Email this | Comments