Author Archive: Gareth

iPhone Streaming Bluetooth Audio to a car audio system

One of the biggest features at the iPhone 3.0 software announcement was Bluetooth Audio (A2DP). Now let me put on record now that if you like music and listen to it through a pair of high quality headphones then Bluetooth Audio may leave you feeling a little underwhelmed when it comes to quality. One area that it will come in handy though is in the car. The guys at Kicking Tires have the latest beta firmware and paired an iPhone up with a stereo system in a Toyota Venza and provided a quick video demonstration of how easy it was to set up. Take a look after the beak.

Classic Palm Pre Palm OS Emulator video

When it comes to getting the story first and the video to back it up Dieter Bohn is the man. He broke the story yesterday that the Palm Pre would have an application available to run old Palm OS applications providing a little legacy support for the Palm fans out there. Well now he has captured a video demo of the application and shared it for all to see. We have it after the break, kudos to Dieter and Precentral.

Microsoft keynote from CTIA video

Robbie Bach, President, Entertainment & Devices Division of Microsoft has been talking at CTIA and we have the video after the break. Not too much new to report except some fashion designer home screens, more details on Marketplace, new version of Live Messenger and a demo of 6.5 and the new IE with flash. Take a look for yourself after the break.

Android gets Office editing suite thanks to DataViz

DataViz is now shipping Documents To Go® Standard Edition version 1.0 for Android™.  The highly anticipated office suite leverages DataViz’s experience developing mobile solutions and brings a feature rich, enterprise-grade productivity tool to devices based on the Android platform. The full feature set is after the break and the App is priced at $19.99 for a limited time.

Palm Pre will run old Palm OS apps with Classic

                    So it looks like the rumours were correct, just discovered that Motion Apps are working on an application that will be called “Classic” and they tell us that Classic will run PalmOS apps you’ve grown to love over the years.

Highlights:

– Compared to Treo 700p your PalmOS apps will run approximately twice as fast on Classic.

– There are 30,000+ PalmOS apps. Through Classic, many PalmOS apps will work on the Palm® Pre™. We will have a detailed compatibility list for you closer to the release date so stay tuned!

So there you go, it’s all systems go for all you Palm OS users and now you can relax in the knowledge that the Palm Pre should have a huge back catalogue of applications ready to go.

Quickoffice First full Office Suite for the iPhone coming in April

Quickoffice today announced it will unveil the first complete Office suite to provide native Microsoft Word and Excel editing for the iPhone, Quickoffice for iPhone, at CTIA, April 1-3, 2009, at the Las Vegas Convention Center. Quickoffice is the first iPhone application to include robust document and spreadsheet editors, along with file access and content management functionalities. Quickoffice’s newest suite brings essential high-performance mobile Office productivity to the iPhone with leading-edge innovation and unparalleled ease-of-use.

Enabling quick editing on-the-go with an intuitive user interface, Quickoffice for iPhone offers a comprehensive range of functionality including font formatting, content selection, bullets and cut, copy and paste within Word documents. Users can also modify documents in landscape mode to leverage a wider keyboard. With extensive mathematical and statistical functions, including advanced Excel formulas for spreadsheet processing, consumers can easily revise inputs and recalculate, insert and resize rows and columns within the application.

Palm Pre 3rd party app video walkthrough

Dieter over at Precentral has done a sterling job over at CTIA and posted a video demonstration of some 3rd party applications running on the Palm Pre. He has also unearthed another gem of information regarding Palm OS applications. He has spotted an application on the Pre that lets you emulate Palm OS applications, great news for you Palm fans, still no information on a launch date but there is still time. Video of the applications after the break.

HTC Snap video product tour

After the HTC Snap was announced earlier today, HTC have wasted no time providing us with a video. Its only a short one but quickly explains how the inner circle works and a look at the rather functional front facing QWERTY keyboard. The videos after the break.

SlingPlayer for iPhone will not work with older Slingboxes

So your sitting waiting patiently for the long promised iPhone version of SlingPlayer and you have been a long time user of Sling, looks like you may be out of luck. Original Slingbox, Slingbox AV or Slingbox TUNER owners will not be able to use the iPhone application. Below is the statement form the Sling site.

Sling Media is encouraging customers who own these earlier versions of Slingbox to upgrade to Slingbox SOLO or Slingbox PRO-HD to take advantage of next generation software and services that will only be supported when using the most current Slingbox and SlingLoaded products. Future software includes the highly anticipated SlingPlayer Mobile for iPhone software launching soon. Current Slingbox functionality will not be affected if you choose not to upgrade, but software like SlingPlayer Mobile for iPhone and future services yet to be announced will only be supported for customers using Slingbox SOLO, Slingbox PRO and Slingbox PRO-HD products or forthcoming SlingLoaded products

A little disappointing especially since I just bought a classic on Ebay in anticipation of the iPhone application hitting the App Store. Thanks to Sling Community for the heads up.

HTC Snap specifications and pictures

HTC Corporation today debuted its newest QWERTY smartphone, the HTC Snap™. Designed with a set of features selected to deliver everything customers need without overwhelming them with things they don’t, the HTC Snap makes it easier than ever to stay in contact with life’s most important people.

A recent study conducted by Harris Interactive® and commissioned by HTC* found that 44% of US adults are often overwhelmed by the amount of email they receive, and over half (55%) of US adults prioritize five or fewer people with whom they communicate via email. In response to these issues, HTC’s innovative Inner Circle feature allows HTC Snap users to press a dedicated Inner Circle key to bring emails from a preselected group of people to the top of their inbox, enabling important messages to be acted upon immediately.