MobileViews Blog

You wouldn’t think one Microsoft press release that is supposed to be about developers participating in their new app store would be so full of other news…

Microsoft Gains Support for Next Generation of Windows® Phones

But, it is… The same press release also mentioned that the beta version of the Windows Live Hotmail web site (note the return of the Hotmail branding!) is up and running at…

m.mail.live.com

You can see a screenshot of my boring Hotmail inbox above.

It was interesting to read about the return of the theme generator for Windows Mobile buried near the end of the press release about developers involved with the launch of the new Windows Marketplace for Mobile…

Microsoft Gains Support for Next Generation of Windows® Phones

In addition, the new Theme Generator will provide people with yet another way to personalize their Windows® phone. The Theme Generator, available at http://www.windowsmobile.com later this year, will enable Windows® phone users to select pictures from their PC to set as background images, as well as choose colors to personalize their navigation bar, scroll bar and highlighted text. Once finished, their personal theme will be sent to their phone.

Themes were one of the hot items when it first appeared for the Pocket PC years ago. In fact, I found it so much fun, I wrote a little Windows Mobile app to help people calculate how to properly crop or shrink a photo to fit in the Today screen and Start Menu drop-down.

It’s good to see a lot of familiar high quality Windows Mobile app developers signed up for the upcoming Windows Marketplace for Mobile (say that 5 times fast!). The press release…

Microsoft Gains Support for Next Generation of Windows® Phones

…is kind of hard on the eyes (at least mine). So, here’s an easier to read version of the list of initial developers signed up:

AccuWeather.com
The Associated Press
CNBC
Developer One Mobile Software
EA Mobile
Facebook
Gameloft
Glu Mobile
Handmark
Ilium Software Inc.
Jeyo Inc.
Kinoma
LiteScape
Magmic Games
Melodis Corp.
MySpace
Namco Networks
Netflix
Pandora
PhatWare Corp.
Resco s.r.o.
ShoZu Inc.
Sling Media Inc.
SBSH Mobile Software
Spb Software
Web Information Solutions Inc. (aka WebIS)
Zagat Survey

The recently updated free USA TODAY 1.1 for iPhone app has a neat new feature. You can post a news link directly from the app to your Facebook or Twitter account.

You can see the result of posting an item to Twitter in the screenshot above. I have my Facebook account set to automatically read and post my tweets. So, everything I post to Twitter eventually gets posted to my Facebook account too. Now, if USA Today and other news apps would app the ability to save to Delicious, I would be very very happy.

Skype finally released their iPhone app…

Skype 1.0.1 for iPhone

The free app allows free Skype-to-Skype calls like other clients. Note that you can only make voice calls when using it over a WiFi network connection. However, you can use it to IM when on an EDGE or 3G wireless data connection.

I was a little surprised by the sound quality. It seemed to lose almost all the mid and high frequency leaving a very bass heavy sound. I also noted drops in the beginning of the call (right after answering the call).

OK, I actually don’t know if the Windows Mobile Marketplace (or Windows Phone Marketplace or whatever it will be called) will actually be announced at CTIA this week. However, this blog post by Microsoft’s Loke Uei Tan…

Oh and about the Marketplace thing…

…which simply says…

Good news coming soon.
follow @wmdev for updates.

…seems to indicate this is the case.

Image courtesy of Nokia

ZDNet & Nokia Expert’s Matt Miller and I discussed the unavailability of Nokia S60 smartphones by U.S. carriers in MobileViews Podcast 20 last week. Now, Engadget tells us that…

AT&T pulls trigger on Nokia E71x and Samsung Propel Pro

The E71 will be available for $99.99 if you agree to a two year AT&T contract and send in the rebate form. The E71 looks like it has an excellent QWERTY thumb keyboard and should be just the thing for heavy email, texting, and Twitter users.

BTW: I’m @toddogasawara on Twitter.

Matthew Miller is a prolific mobile technology blogger. You’ve probably read his blog/articles on ZDNet in two blogging venues:

ZDNet The Mobile Gadgeteer
ZDNet Smartphones and Cell Phones

More recently, he has been writing a Nokia-focused blog on NokiaExperts.com.

Matt and I focused our discussion on Nokia S60 smartphones in this 35 minute podcast #20.

- You can listen to the podcast right now from your web browser by using the embedded player above.
- You can also subscribe to the podcast in iTunes or this RSS feed.
- You can also point your smartphone’s browser at mobiletoday.podbean.com to listen to or download the MP3 file over the air to your phone.

I discovered that I couldn’t use the wired Ethernet port on my Asus Eee PC 1000HA running Windows 7 Beta while in Seattle visiting Microsoft earlier this month. This was a problem since the Seattle Sheraton Hotel room I was in didn’t provide WiFi access – just wired Ethernet access.

However, when I fired up the Eee PC this evening, Windows 7 Beta had a notification icon telling me that a solution had been found (see screenshot above). So, I downloaded the Atheros AR8131/AR8132 Ethernet Controller driver that was linked in Microsoft’s notification page and installed it. Atheros provides the driver in a RAR archive file. So, I had to download and install 7-Zip to unpack it.

I tested wired Ethernet access after installing the driver on the Eee PC 1000HA and everything worked fine. I wish this driver was available 4 weeks ago!

How often does a father and his teenage daughter agree on anything? So, I find it pretty amusing that my daughter and I actually enjoy the same musical artist named Utada Hikaru (surname – given name order, btw) a lot. I was even more amused when I noticed that Utada’s new English language music video (she’s bilingual, btw) is the iTunes free Music Video of the Week in the U.S. You can find it here…

Utada: Come Back to Me (iTunes music video)

It should be free until the end of next week Monday (Mar. 30).

TechCrunch reports that…

BillShrink Brings Its Cost-Cutting Engine To The Gas Pump

At this point I bet you are saying, “Hey, what does this have to do with mobile technology?” Well, actually, this particular announcement does not. But, it gives me an excuse to point out that I interviewed BillShrink.com’s CEO Peter Pham last month. In that podcast (#17), I asked him how BillShrink.com could help people save money on mobile phone bills.

Skype just released Skype 3.0 Beta for Windows Mobile. I tested it on an HTC TyTn (touch screen) running Windows Mobile 6 to check the sound quality. You can listen to a brief sample I recorded in the podcast embedded here.

- You can listen to the podcast right now from your web browser by using the embedded player above.
- You can also subscribe to the podcast in iTunes or this RSS feed.
- You can also point your smartphone’s browser at mobiletoday.podbean.com to listen to or download the MP3 file over the air to your phone.