And you thought this day would never come. The official release of Opera Mobile 10 is now available for Windows Mobile, marking the end of several long beta periods. If you still need to see what you're getting into, check out our video review of the Opera Mobile 10 beta. Then head on over to Opera and get your download on. [Opera Mobile]
With all the talk about Windows Phone 7 Series and where the whole Windows Phone experience is heading, we started reminiscing. Remember the good old days when Pocket PC was new and innovative? We stumbled upon one of Microsoft's commercial/promotional videos on the mobile operating system that would eventually evolve into Windows Mobile.
The circa 2000 commercial touts innovative technology such as portable email, voice notes, pocket Outlook. State of the art hardware included a blazing fast 130mhz processor, 16-32mb of RAM and 65K color touch screens.
While these specs pale in comparison of the 1ghz Snapdragon processors and on-board memory measured by the gigabytes, this commercial gives you a feel of how far the industry has come in ten years.
Read: windowsphonethoughts.com
One of the hurdles Microsoft faces in making a success out of Windows Phone 7 Series is winning over the software developers.
Microsoft may be able to establish consistency with regards to the WP7S hardware but if you don't have functional software to put on the phone, it won't survive for long. To do so, Microsoft needs to garner the support of developers, large and small. Microsoft's willingness to tackle the fragmentation that Windows phones has historically possessed is a step in the right direction but there's still plenty of work needed to be done.
Follow the link to read more.
We still don't have a clear picture if the new Windows Phone 7 Series operating system (also known as "Metro") will actually be made available on any current hardware (the HTC HD2 is a possibility, but its standing changes day by day). But you might be able to at least make your phone look like it's got what it takes, thanks to some clever skinning. Everything's still in the early stages and is a little janky, but you get the idea. [XDA]
This is sort of out of left field, but evidently Skype has discontinued and pulled the Skype Mobile software for Windows phones.
Why? They sort of answer in their FAQ, but to be honest it is more of a dodge:
Unfortunately, Skype Lite – a version of Skype for your mobile phone – and Skype for Windows Mobile are no longer available for download from our site.
We’ve chosen to withdraw Skype Lite and Skype for Windows Mobile because we want to offer our new customers an improved mobile experience – much like the version that has proved so popular on the iPhone, and which is now available on Symbian phones. Our focus is on providing a rich user experience that allows you to enjoy free Skype-to-Skype and low cost calls as easily on the move as you do at your desktop.
We felt that Skype Lite and Skype for Windows Mobile were not offering the best possible Skype experience.
Fair enough and we actually agree. Skype for Windows Mobile was really a huge program (~10MB) that ate a lot of resources. Granted, it did offer nearly the "full Skype experience" but at processing cost.
For Skype/VOIP, we here at WMExperts have always found Fring a much better alternative.
Still, Skype is obviously begging the question with their response: are they going to, you know, release a new version that is much more awesome and built better? Or are they just pulling it and wiping their hands altogether of Windows phone?
For the time being, you can still download and use Skype here. Or if on your phone, just scan the MS Tag to the right to direct download (11.7MB!)
[WMPhone.de via WMPoweruser]
Windows Phone 7 Series is official, and so ends the Windows Mobile era. You undoubtedly have questions, and we have answers. So here we go.
We'll be live from Microsoft's press event. It starts at 9 Eastern / 3 CET. We're Ready.Set. - no need to refresh the page, just watch the excitement, live after the break!
Update: That's all folks. Feel free to read the liveblog or check out some of the new posts on the front page - plenty is here now and plenty more to come!
For those using custom ROMs, the familiarity with Windows Mobile 6.5.3 should be quite high, as folks have been using builds from this branch since last summer. But for the majority of we assume what has changed in 6.5.3 won't be as clear, so we've thrown together this little overview guide to explain.
While the changes aren't as big as say 6.1 to 6.5, Windows Mobile 6.5.3 is pretty significant, especially in the case of the UI layout, which hasn't been changed in nearly 10 years (we're looking at you Start menu). Capacitive support is also important.
The bigger point is though is this: Windows Mobile 6.5.3 represents one of the fastest Windows Mobile revisions we have seen from Redmond. After just four months from WM6.5's release, an upgrade is available to OEMs which have begun to roll it out on new devices, including the just-announced Sony Aspen. They did this while another team is hard at work on working on their next generation OS, Windows Mobile 7.
Far from abandoning support for this soon-to-be-legacy OS, Microsoft has ramped up development, in fact we believe there will be a Winodws Mobile 6.5.5 at some point.
Sure, for some it's too little, too late. Fair enough. But we're still glad to see Microsoft putting all of their energy into this platform for what seems like the first time.
After the jump, we'll gloss over the change-log for WM6.5.3 ...
And so we've reached the end of the third annual Smartphone Round Robin. Windows Mobile and the HTC Touch Pro 2 and HD2 were given the what-for by the other Smartphone Experts editors over the past couple of months. We laughed. We cried. We saw some pretty damn cool phones.
Let's take a look back at what they had to say ...
We're almost there, folks. It's the penultimate week of the third annual Smartphone Round Robin, and this week Android Central's Casey Chan teaches me a thing or three about the little green robot. I've said it many a time, but Windows Mobile and Android share a lot in common, and we're definitely going to get down to the bottom of it.
In addition, I've started a thread over at AndroidCentral.com to get the help of the Android faithful. Head on over and see what they have to say. And remember than anytime you comment in an official Smartphone Round Robin thread, you're entered to win a free smartphone from that site (up to $1,000). So get to it, boys and girls!
Oh, and check out my Android hands-on with Casey after the break.
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