MobileViews Blog

Demonstration of using a Windows Mobile 6.1 HTC Touch Pro2 to voice dial with a Bluetooth car speakerphone.

The more I learn about the HTC Touch Pro2 I bought in August, the less I like it. I really dislike that HTC removed much needed hardware features like the navigation pad and various keyboard keys (OK, Start, Tab, etc.) it really reduces the usefulness of the TP2 compared to other Windows Mobile phones I’ve used that provided those features.

But, I mostly dislike the TouchFlo 3D features (which I’ve turned off) and other HTC modifications (which I can’t) to Windows Mobile. I noted this morning, for example, HTC’s message about the changing the clock from Daylight Savings to Standard Time. I suppose this is useful to many people. But, I imagine that people in my part of the world where we don’t observe Daylight Savings or the switch back to Standard Time may have been confused by the message. In fact, I had to make sure it had not “fallen back” and set the TP2’s time to what would be the wrong time for me (it did not, fortunately).

Although I only started podcasting regularly starting late last year (2008), I’ve been testing mobile podcast recording options for about two years now. I’ve tried a bunch of Windows Mobile Pocket PCs and smartphones, a LiveScribe Pulse Smartpen (which actually does a pretty good job of it) and an iPhone 3G. I would say the LiveScribe pen has the best recorded sound quality of all those devices. But, the problem is that because of the pen’s odd design and lack of a pen tip cap and pocket clip, it is not something I carry with me except when I know I am going to use it.

It is a bit early to say for sure, but it looks like the HTC Touch Pro2 may be the right device for mobile podcast recordings. Its recordings have small but noticeable audio compression artifacts. But, I think the overall audio quality is acceptable for podcasts (especially short ones like my infrequent, so far, mini-podcasts). However, I was very impressed by signal-to-noise ratio (me talking vs. everything else) in this podcast which was recorded in busy downtown area next to a busy street.

- 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.

The T-Mobile HTC Touch Pro2 is a Windows Mobile 6.1 touch screen smartphone. It comes bundled with a voice recording app called, reasonably enough, Voice Notes. I used it to record this brief (1 minute 10 seconds) Mini-podcast 11 to give you an idea of its recording sound quality. I think it sounds reasonably good although there is noticeable audio compression that gives it a kind of AM radio sound quality to it.

This mini-podcast was recorded in a reasonably quiet room. I’ll test recording a mini-podcast outdoors to see if the Touch Pro2 might be a useful tool for on-the-spot interviews/conversations for future podcasts.

- 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.

Although I’ve been a vocal critic of the Celio Redfly dumb terminal device for Windows Mobile smartphones (I own the original C8 model), Celio’s Marketing Communications Manager, Colin Kelly Jr., was gracious enough to accept my invitation to talk about Celio’s various Redfly products for this podcast. We discussed a couple of upcoming products too including:

- Redfly Mobile Dock
- Redfly for BlackBerry
- Redfly for Android

The podcast is 40 minutes and 30 seconds long.

- 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 just found out that one of my long time favorite mobile software development firms has a Twitter account. You can follow Ilium Software at…

@IliumSoftware

Ilium’s Ellen Craw and Marc Tassin were one of the very first podcast guests on the MobileViews Podcast (then called the MobileAppsToday Podcast). You can listen to it using the embedded podcast player above.

Anyone who has ever used pretty much any cameraphone has experience the huge delay between bringing the camera app up, pressing the “shutter” button and actually taking the photo. However, based on this brief video demo by Microsoft’s Loke uei Tan, it looks like HTC has solved this issue in the upcoming HTC Snap (Standard Edition – no touch screen).

I giving a lot of thought to replacing my T-Mobile Dash with either the HTC Snap or HTC TouchPro2. Hmm.

Every now and then, I re-push an old-ish podcast that I think people might have missed and be interested in. I just listened to last week’s Net@Nite podcast #98 in which hosts Leo LaPorte and Amber MacArthur speak with Evernote CEO Phil Libin. I’m a huge fan of Evernote. I have Evernote clients installed on Windows, Mac OS X, Windows Mobile and the iPhone. And, its web interface gets used a lot by me too. So, if you missed it the first time around, I’ve embedded my conversation with Evernote CEO Phil Libin from earlier this year (January 30, 2009). You can find MobileViews.com Podcast (then called MobileAppsToday Podcast) #11 embedded above. You can also download it from the iTunes Store.

- 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.

Photo fragment courtesy of TmoNews

If you look at the photo of the T-Mobile product information sheet on TmoNews…

Visual Voicemail Coming!

…you’ll note that the T-Mobile Dash 3G (which presumably replaces my personal favorite Windows Mobile non-touch screen smartphone – the T-Mobile Dash) has a launch date of July 1. I have to admit that I’m torn between buying the Dash 3G and the TouchPro2 (Windows Mobile touchscreen device). I guess I have a month or two before I need to make that decision.

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