Windows Mobile Louisville

We have created a Twitter account for the site, for yet another way to keep up-to-date on the latest posts!  Follow us at http://twitter.com/WMLouisville

I don’t know about you, but lately I’ve been getting mighty sick of seeing entertainment-related applications galore for the iPhone, often without a Windows Mobile version.  Pyxis Mobile apparently agrees, so they’ve developed an application called Smart Flicks that allows you to manage your Netflix queue and browse the entire Netflix library from your Windows Mobile phone:

• Browse the entire Netflix library from your Windows Mobile device
• Add to, remove from, and change position in your regular and Instant Queues
• See the availability of DVDs in real time
• See available formats for each title (DVD, Blu-ray, Instant)
• Movie Synopsis: When looking at recommendations and search results, click to view full synopsis.
• Improved “Recommendations” Support with more targeted recommendations and “Star Ratings”
• Access movie and entertainment news and information, and soon, movie times, GPS directions to theaters and more.
• Send-to-a-Friend: Send SmartFlicks to a friend via quick-click interface
• Instant Feedback: Send the App Lab team your comments and suggestions from within the application

Looking at the main Pyxis Mobile web site, they’ve obviously got a lot of experience in wireless financial services applications.  It’s good to see them branching out and applying some of that expertise into a consumer-grade application.  We need more developers to do the same for Windows Mobile!

You can download the beta of Smart Flicks at Pyxis Mobile.   The app is free.

Source: PocketNow

Do you wish you could receive your Facebook messages along with your regular email on your Windows Mobile phone? Now you can with the new version of the emoze mobile push email service. With emoze’s free application, you can read, reply, and send messages directly from your phone’s interface without having to open up and browse to the Facebook web site itself. It’s completely integrated with your phone, all that’s required is a data connection. 

Installation is fast and simple, so anyone can do it – not just the technically savvy. Once installed, the emoze Mobile Client application communicates with the Emoze Global Service Network (EGSN) to receive the incoming emails and direct them to the inbox on the mobile device. The app works in the background, but doesn’t slow down the operation of the handset or interfere with other functions, says the company.

Emoze can be downloaded from http://www.emoze.com or downloaded directly onto your Window’s Mobile device by navigating to http://emoze.com. 

Source: Sara in Tampa 

Qik just cranked out support for some 20+ additional Windows Mobile devices so that you can Qik all your holiday moments.

Also included in this build:

• Ability to utilize external flash memory so that you can Qik longer in disconnected mode or under very poor network conditions.
• Better experience for touch devices through on-screen functions that come up when you tap the screen on the phone.

DEVICES:

Palm:

• Palm Treo 800w
• Palm Treo Pro (alpha support)

Samsung:

• Samsung SGH-i900/i908/ SCH-i910 (Omnia)
• Samsung SGH-i907 (Epix)
• Samsung SGH-i760
• Samsung SGH-i780 (Blackjack3)

HTC-based:

• HTC Touch Pro
• HTC Touch HD
• HTC XV6800
• HTC TyTN
• O2 XDA Trion
• T-Mobile MDA Vario II
• Vodafone 1605 VPA Compact III
• Orange SPV M3100
• Dopod CHT 9000
• Dopod 838 Pro
• DoCoMo HTC Z
• Qtek 9600
• iMate JasJam
• AT&T 8525
• Swisscom XPA v1605
• SoftBank X01HT
• Vodafone PDA 1605
• Vodafone PDA 9600

Amoi:

• AT&T SMT 5700
• Orange SPV E610

Motorola:

• Motorola Q Music 9m

I just want to add an observation that has become more apparent to me lately:  As compared to the iPhone, look at how many WM devices Qik has to develop the app for!  These 20 are only the tip of the WM device iceberg!   Certainly a headache for developers - how can your app reach mass appeal when there are so darned many devices with variants of the operating system and hardware specs?!!  End of rant…

Omega One has been making some very useful applications for Windows Mobile devices for a long time.  Recently I checked out 1-ToGo, which is pretty cool.  It brings a lot of useful features together into one place.

1-ToGo is a brand new concept in Windows Mobile utilities - an enhanced web service which brings the best of the web right to your mobile device. Other solutions force you to use their view of the web. 1-ToGo allows you to get to the data you want.

Here’s a list of what 1-ToGo features: 

• Front Page - Your own newspaper front page with your favorite news feeds.
• World Time / Weather
• News / RSS
• E-mail - Get e-mail easily on the go from your Yahoo, GMail, Windows Live (Hotmail), AOL Mail, Mail2Web, Inbox.com, BigString or HotPOP account.
• Instant Messenger - 1-ToGo allows you to use Windows Messenger, Yahoo Messenger, AIM, Google Talk or eBuddy simply through your phone.
• Social Networking - Easily check out mobile formatted versions of MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn, Flickr, Windows Live Spaces, Twitter or MocoSpace.
• Stocks
• Unit/Currency Converter
• Movie Times / Reviews
• Games
• Search - At the bottom of every page is a search link for Google, Yahoo, Windows Live, Wikipedia, Ask.com, Answers.com or Bloglines.

There is a 30 day trial of 1-ToGo.  Just point your mobile browser to http://1togo.mobi.  It will auto-detect what device you are using so you can download the correct CAB file to install.

1-ToGo is $29.99 to purchase initially.  Each contiguous 12 month subscription renewal is $19.99.

PocketTwit has been in development for a while now, but I just ran across it. I’ve used several, and can say this one is the coolest so far!

Some noteable features:

Check out this clip of a quick overview of the application in action.

PocketTwit requires Windows Mobile 6 and a .NET Compact Framework 2.0 or better to run. You can get the latest version here.

Discuss it here.

Local mobile guru John Becker posted about a cool (free!) app in the Software section of the forum:

There are times when it’s handy to have a messaging client on your mobile phone. Some people don’t have unlimited text messaging, so we have to find alternatives. That’s when I found PalRingo. It’s a cool application. It even offers a few things that others don’t. The best feature is the push to talk feature. Just hold the talk button and speak. The user on the other end receives a link that will let them hear what you said. It’s great if you’re driving and can’t type or just want to leave a quick message. The application is free is is available for most devices, including the iPhone and Windows PC.

Thanks for the tip, John!    You can download it straight to your WM device by navigating to www.palringo.mobi

Due to the fact that we are due for ice and sleet on Tuesday night, plus the fact that it’s so close to Christmas, we have decided to CANCEL the monthly meeting for the 23rd.

We will see everyone at the January meeting!  Stay safe and have a wonderful holiday!

As any Verizon customer with a Windows Mobile device knows, VZW is notorious for locking down the GPS capability in devices (which is absolutely absurd in my humble opinion).

Instead, the GPS receivers have limited functionality, supporting only Verizon’s navigation software, and not third-party apps such as Google Maps or Live Search.

It looks like Verizon is promising to change that for three new Windows Mobile devices: the Samsung Omnia and Saga and the HTC Touch Pro.  The GPS will be unlocked on these devices only some time in the first half of 2009.

Yippeee Ky Yay.

Pandora Radio is your own FREE personalized radio now available to stream music on (select) Windows Mobile devices. Just start with the name of one of your favorite artists, songs or classical composers and Pandora will create a “station” that plays their music and more music like it.The client can be downloaded by pointing your phone browser to http://www.pandora.com.