Windows Mobile Louisville

Velocity 103 Combines Fresh User Interface and Attractive Design In One Phone

Velocity Mobile announced the retail availability of its first touchscreen phone, the Velocity 103. Built on the belief that the simplest solution is the best solution, the Velocity Mobile 103 combines an easy-to-use Odyssey Interface, Velocity Over The Air updates (Vota) and a sleek and attractive design, to change the way people think about and use smartphones. The unlocked Velocity 103 is available for pre-order online now through Expansys and will ship by the end of September.

Velocity Mobile’s easy-to-use Odyssey Interface, built on top of Microsoft’s Windows Mobile 6.1 smartphone operating system, and the Velocity Over The Air (VOTA) updates, bring immense market value to the mobile industry.

Specifications of the Velocity 103 include:

• Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional
• Qualcomm Mobile Station Modem™ (MSM™) MSM7201™ chipset
• GSM/EDGE 850, 900, 1800, 1900
• UMTS/HSDPA/HSUPA 850, 1900, 2100
• 640×480 VGA touch screen
• Odyssey Interface
• Velocity Over The Air updates (VOTA)
• 256MB ROM, 128MB RAM
• Bluetooth 2.0, 802.11b/g WiFi, GPS
• 2.0 megapixel camera, 0.3 megapixel videoconferencing camera
• TV/VGA out
• MicroSD expansion slot

It’s certainly easier for device manufacturers to get something to market when the phone is GSM vs. CDMA.  Release the thing unlocked and make it available through a major distributor, and viola!

As compared to the HTC Touch Diamond and HTC Touch Pro, the ROM and RAM are a little sparse, but the VGA screen and other features (like that Odyssey interface) are very nice indeed!

After much conjecture and speculation on a release date, Sprint has finally made an official announcement (timed perfectly to take place at the Fall CTIA in San Francisco) for the release of the Sprint Diamond and the Sprint Touch Pro.

The press release states “early September” for the Diamond (likely the 14th) and Oct 19th for the Touch Pro.  People are already placing pre-orders for the Diamond, including some members of Windows Mobile Louisville, so if you’re eager to see one before they are available in stores, mark your calendar for our Sept 23rd meeting!

HTC has been pumping out devices faster than one can keep track of!

Check out the latest device, which is creating quite a buzz today - the HTC HD:

photo courtesy of Modaco

I’ve been wondering for a while when HTC would begin to utilize more real estate on the front of a device with a larger screen, and from the look of it, the HD is doing precisely that. 
We’ll provide an update of device details when available. 

DataViz announced the availability of its flagship mobile office suite, Documents To Go®  Premium Edition 3.0 for devices running Microsoft® Windows Mobile 6.x Professional and 5.0 for Pocket PC Phone Edition.  Already available for Windows Mobile Standard, BlackBerry, Symbian and Palm OS, Documents To Go will now allow users of Windows Mobile Pocket PC devices to view, edit and create Microsoft Word, Excel® and PowerPoint® files (Windows: Office 97 – 2007, Mac: Office 98-2008) as well as view PDF files on their devices and in their native formats.

DataViz has also enhanced the PDF viewer included with their mobile office suite with this release of Documents To Go for Pocket PC.  The improvements provide a clear and crisp viewing experience of all Adobe ® PDF file elements (rendering stays true to desktop file) and makes dramatic speed improvements when opening files so users can be more productive.

Other features include support for password protected Word and Excel files, InTact™ Technology for retaining 100% file formatting when editing files on the device, the ability to view, edit and create Excel charts and decompress, zip and send e-mail attachments.  Documents To Go is available for a wide variety of Windows Mobile Pocket PC devices such as the AT&T Tilt, Palm Treo 750 and Palm Treo 800w to name a few. An optimized version to support high resolution screen devices such the HTC Touch Pro and HTC Touch Diamond will be available in the next several weeks.

“We are pleased to see DataViz bring its highly regarded mobile Office suite, Documents To Go, to the Windows Mobile Pocket PC platform,” said David Schoenbach, Vice President – Business Development, MobiHand, Inc. “As a leading distributor of mobile smartphone content, our customers can now enjoy the benefits of this powerful wireless office solution, enhancing their productivity and work quality when out of the office.”

“We are excited to expand our product line to include Windows Mobile Pocket PC devices,” said Danny Tu, Product Manager, DataViz, Inc. “Our latest release is an answer to our many customer requests to develop for this platform.”

Pricing & Availability
Pricing starts at $29.99 USD per license with volume licenses available for five or more users.  You can get it here.

PhatWare Corporation has announced the release of the CalliGrapher 8.7.  The award-winning handwriting recognition software has been optimized for better performance on the latest Windows Mobile devices and features a reduced memory footprint.

Named the best software for handwriting recognition for Microsoft Windows Mobile-based Pocket PCs by industry experts for six consecutive years, CalliGrapher converts your handwriting into digital text and sends the recognized text to the target application. Employing advanced fuzzy logic and neural net techniques, CalliGrapher recognizes all handwriting styles: cursive, print, and mixed.

To address the customer’s needs in a fast-growing market of phone-enabled Pocket PC devices, the new version of CalliGrapher has been optimized for better performance on latest Windows Mobile devices and includes improved handwriting recognition engine. The new version also addresses several compatibility issues reported since the previous CalliGrapher release.

“PhatWare is constantly listening to its users’ feedback and staying up-to-date with the latest advancements in hardware devices,” said Stan Miasnikov, president of PhatWare. “We are thrilled to keep improving CalliGrapher to benefit the handheld community.”
CalliGrapher 8.7 supports devices running on any Windows Mobile based device equipped with a touch screen. During the Back to School offer though September 15, 2008 CalliGrapher 8.7 can be purchased from the PhatWare Web site with $15 discount for only $24.95. It is also offered free with a purchase of PhatWare’s PhatPad or PhatNotes applications as a part of the same offer. For more information about CalliGrapher or other PhatWare products, visit www.phatware.com/calligrapher.

Windows Mobile 6.1 is finally available for the Verizon XV6800 and the AT&T Tilt. 

The Verizon XV6800 also adds support for the VZNavigator application, EV-DO Rev. A and 16GB microSD cards.  Also updated is the XV6800’s MMS app. Threaded SMS is included as well.  Find out more here.

The AT&T Tilt update adds support for Video Share calling and MS Voice Command.  It also enables you to reassign the functionality of the Tilt’s push-to-talk button.  The Tilt update adds threaded SMS as well.  Find out more here.

Windows Mobile 6.1 provides new timesaving features, easier phone navigation and management, stronger security safeguards, support for Microsoft System Center Mobile Device Manager 2008, and an improved Internet Explorer Mobile application, among other enhancements.

It is with great sadness that we post this news -

After 11 years, Smartphone & Pocket PC magazine has announced that it is going to suspend publication.  They will be publishing a final 2008 issue and are working hard to make it the best Windows Mobile issue ever, a keeper, a reference guide.

You can read the full story at their site.

There are numerous factors which force this decision, and some of them irk me beyond words.  Wireless carriers, hardware manufacturers and Microsoft have given lackluster support to the magazine in recent years.   It is truly a shame and the magazine will be missed.

In case you’re wondering, they DO intend on retaining the website.  A silver lining to this cloud of news… 

Kinoma has launched Kinoma Play to unify media browsing, search and playback, making it the first true mobile media browser. Featuring a user interface inspired by the simplicity and beauty of a digital television, Kinoma Play turns any Windows Mobile smartphone into a digital media powerhouse.

With Kinoma Play, smartphones now have digital media capabilities that meet, and sometimes even exceed, what users can do on their personal computers. Kinoma Play goes beyond organizing and playing a user’s video, audio and picture files, by bringing in media from around the Internet through the built-in Kinoma Guide, the most comprehensive catalog of the freshest, most diverse mobile media available.

Kinoma Play provides on-demand access from your phone to an unparalleled range of content:

• Media files – Play the music, video, pictures, panoramas and audio books on your phone
• Media services – Share your Audible.com, Flickr, iDisk, Live365, and YouTube accounts between your phone and computer
• Internet – Explore a terabyte of constantly updated, free streaming podcasts, music, radio stations, web-cams and audio books from thousands of providers including ClearChannel, CNN, NPR, Reuters, SHOUTcast, TUNED.mobi, and SomaFM
• Home PC – Access the gigabytes of music, video and pictures on your home PC from your phone – both on-demand streaming and download

Kinoma Play is $29.99. You can get it here.  The software is compatible with Windows Mobile 5.0 and higher.

Kinoma is also introducing Kinoma FreePlay as a free download. Kinoma FreePlay shares the same gorgeous user interface and simplicity of use with Kinoma Play. It is a great MP3 player and photo viewer and provides access to much of the Kinoma Guide including Audible.com, Flickr, Live365, Reuters, SHOUTcast, YouTube, and thousands of streaming podcasts.

A few months ago, we told you about Snap2Face, a Facebook app designed just for Windows Mobile users. Now, that app is out of beta and the official 1.0 version has been released.

With Snap2Face version 1.0, you can fully interact with Facebook. That means you can view albums, upload photos, update your status, see the statuses of your friends, view and respond to messages, pokes, wall posts, and friend requests. However, what’s really cool about the newest version is its Outlook integration. Snap2Face allows you to import your friends’ profile photos into your Outlook contacts and then use them for caller ID. 

Snap2Face is available as a free download on all Windows Mobile 5.0/6.0 devices (both Pocket PC and Smartphone). You can download it here.  

Source: Sarah Perez over at on10.net

A reminder that our monthly meeting is this Tuesday, Aug 26 at 6:30pm!

This month, we’re featuring a demo of the REDFLY mobile companion!

We’ll also have a live installation of a “cooked ROM” on a device!  And we’ll have our usual Q&A session and discussion about the latest hardware/software and cool web applications.

For directions and other information, visit the meeting page. See you there!