Archive for March 20th, 2009

Mobinnova ICE hardware and software tour

Brandon over at Pocketnow has got his hands on a Mobinnova ICE and put it through it’s paces and kindly shared some videos of the hardware and software. In case you forgot, this is the Windows Mobile phone with the WQVGA touchscreen and a 96×96 OLED screen that acts as a D-Pad and system indicator. Take a look at the videos after the break and see what Brandon makes of this one.

O2 giving away free iPhones on 24 month contracts

O2 today announces that from April 3rd it will introduce a new 24 month tariff option for iPhone customers looking for added value in return for added commitment. Customers who sign up to the 24 month tariff can get the 8GB iPhone 3G for free at £34.26 per month and the 16GB iPhone 3G for free at £44.05 per month.

Customers who take out a 24 month contract will continue to receive all the benefits of an iPhone tariff, including visual voicemail, unlimited UK data and unlimited access to over 9,500 public Wi-Fi hotspots (provided by The Cloud and BT Openzone)*.

The 24 month iPhone 3G contract is only available at the £34.26 and £44.05 tariff points (see attached chart). The 18 month iPhone 3G tariffs remain unchanged. Visit www.o2.co.uk/iphone for full details of the 18 month tariff options.

“The iPhone has been hugely popular with over one million units sold in the UK,” said Peter Rampling, Marketing Director at Telefónica O2 UK. “This new 24 month tariff option will meet the demand of customers who are looking for added value in exchange for committing to a longer contract.”

The 24 month iPhone 3G tariff will be available through O2, Apple and Carphone Warehouse sales channels from 3rd April.

via Press Release

Windows Mobile 6.5 honeycomb UI dropped

When Windows Mobile 6.5 was officially revealed last month at the Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2009 in Barcelona, it sported the honeycomb Start screen that users couldn’t quite agree on, even when early screenshots began to leak. Apparently, soon after Microsoft started dogfooding Windows Mobile 6.5 and related services internally last week, feedback coming from its employees started coming in, and it wasn’t very positive. This was apparently the final blow, because at MIX09 this week, it has come to light that Microsoft has acted on the negative comments and tweaked the honeycomb interface.

While the layout remains the same and the icons are in the exact same place, they have been enlarged and the actual honeycomb outline (hexagons around each icon) is gone. Furthermore, scrolling up or down no longer means going all the way to the top or all the way to the bottom: the second the finger leaves the screen, scrolling will stop.

The rather blurry screenshot above is actually two screencaps of a video which is filming Loke Uei Tan, Senior Technical Product Manager of the Mobile and Embedded Devices Group in Microsoft, as he uses the new interface during one of the 129 sessions at MIX09. This one was entitled "Windows Mobile 6.5 Overview," and before showing off the changes, Tan says in the video: "The middle screen is what we call the honeycomb interface. Well, this screenshot is a little bit old. We’ve got some feedback from the users that says ‘Hey, wait a minute, this honeycomb UI doesn’t work very well. Let’s change it a little bit.’ So I’ll show you what the new one looks like."

via ars technica