Author Archive: Gareth

First turn by turn iPhone GPS application reviewed

This one sneaked out without us even noticing it but you can now get a turn by turn GPS application for the iPhone. Its not a known supplier of GPS software like TomTom or Garmin but XROADS G-Map have got their application in the App Store and Kicking Tires have done a thorough review and it looks like it’s a winner. Only available at this time with USA maps which are split between East and West Coast however there is no subscription and the maps are stored on the iPhone so no data charges to worry about either. Cost of each version is a very reasonable $19.00. Now the downside, there is no voice guidance at all and this we believe is down to Apples restrictions. They also state that a European version with Country by Country maps will be coming first quarter of this year so watch this space.

Link to the review

Link to the Application

Panoramic Software announce the release of Panoramic Phone Genius

Panoramic Software Inc. a software development company, announces the launch of Panoramic Phone Genius. for Windows Mobile. Comprising of three applications, Contacts Genius, Call Genius and Area Code Genius, together with a customizable Today Screen plug-in, Panoramic Phone Genius has been developed to give you all of the calling features a modern Smartphone should have while making the experience intuitive and easy.  More details and a video demo after the break.

Motorola announced the MC55 Windows Mobile EDA

Motorola, Inc . today announced the MC55, the newest, smallest and lightest addition to Motorola’s family of Enterprise Digital Assistants (EDA) offering a 3.5 inch display. Designed for mobile workers inside and outside an organization’s four walls and leveraging Motorola’s mobile computing platform architecture, the MC55 EDA combines the power of a cell phone, two-way radio, bar code scanner, digital camera, and mobile computer into a compact and lightweight design. The new MC55 EDA enables mobile workers to improve productivity, customer response times and customer service levels by bringing business-critical voice, data and applications to the point of business activity.

Nokia takes on Apple in online software war

Nokia is betting a wider and more tailored offering of media and software for its phones will prove attractive when its Ovi online store opens in May and goes head-to-head with Apple Inc’s App Store. The Apple store has proved the market for software supermarkets in the mobile world, with more than 500 million applications downloaded in only half a year. Nokia’s market is potentially bigger — it says the Ovi store will reach some 50 million consumers when it opens, while Apple has so far sold less than 20 million iPhones.

Orange and Barclaycard join forces

Orange and Barclaycard today announced a long term strategic partnership to develop a range of mobile, financial and payment services that will change the way we pay.

Orange and Barclaycard will launch new co-branded products and services to make the buying process more convenient, simpler and faster. With a history of innovation and a combined customer base of more than 28 million, Orange and Barclaycard believe this will be the biggest revolution in payments since plastic cards were introduced over 40 years ago.

Customers will be able to use their mobiles to pay for goods and services at retailers using contactless technology; by simply waving their handset against a reader. Both companies will be looking to expand the partnership to include other contactless services within ticketing, transport and rewards. MasterCard will provide the payment capabilities for the transactions.

Windows Marketplace for Mobile appears

Pocketnow have spotted a coming soon page from Microsoft that appears at first glance could be the new Windows Mobile Marketplace which was mentioned in passing at Mobile World Congress last month. The URL reveals a mobile formatted website which implies that the Marketplace may just be a website of applications and not a fully featured app store application. We really hope that this is not the case as a proper application store should be able to offer much more than a web page with at least intelligent app updates and much more really. It is early days and for now lets give Microsoft the benefit of the doubt. Take a look for yourself at this link. http://client.marketplace.windowsmobile.com/

Interview with Eric Lin from HTC

The latest msmobiles podcast is now available and it is a great listen as we spent over an hour talking with Eric Lin from HTC. We talked about a lot of topics including the 3.5mm headset omissions, universal charging, the Touch Diamond range, the new Diamond2 and Touch Pro2 and his views on Windows Mobile 6.5 and lots more. You can download the episode directly here, subscribe in iTunes or through the RSS feed.

HTC at CeBIT 2009

Msmobiles spent the day yesterday taking a look around the CeBIT exhibition in Germany and have shared a video look around the HTC booth. Some observations, various models of HTC phones were presented, including HTC Touch Diamond, Touch Diamond2, HTC Touch HD, HTC Touch Pro, S740 as well as accessories for them and two phones powered by Google Android. Take a look at the video after the break and visit msmobiles for more information and pictures from the booth.

Cydia to offer App Store competition

So the news in the iPhone world this week has been dominated with the Cydia installer, you know the installer that you get when you Jailbreak your iPhone, they will be offering an alternative to paid applications in the App Store. So what does this all mean for iPhone users and to Apple.

Well personally speaking the App Store offers a fantastic service and developers get a fair share of the sale of an application and it all works well with the exception of a few things mainly the restrictions and rejection procedures of Apple. 

For example, we are still waiting for decent turn by turn GPS software, office suite and hell even a video camera and MMS integration. If Apple released their grip and started allowing us to use our super powerful smartphones to do the things we want to do this wouldn’t even be news worthy.