The Signal » Events

The Signal (Episode 17: Mobile World Congress 2009 Edition)

Simon Sage — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 23:17:04 +0000

Nervous exhaustion, shmervous exhaustion. Here’s the year’s busiest week of mobile news.

Mobile World Congress has come and gone, in case you haven’t noticed our live-from-Barcelona coverage, and it’s time to rein it all in and figure out what actually happened. There’s a ton of new devices that were on display from most major manufacturers (sorry, RIM and Motorola (NYSE: MOT)), and too many solutions providers to keep track of. We have the prolific Dusan Belic joining us this episode, which is a rare treat indeed – before MWC, we’ve never been in the same time zone, let alone room! If you’re wondering where the podcast was last week, I was in New York covering a little RIM to-do, and stuck around for the CrackBerry podcast with RIM VP of Developer Relations, Mike Kirkup – feel free to take a listen if you’re into the BlackBerry (NSDQ: RIMM) stuff.

Our Mobile World Congress Edition of The Signal Podcast is behind the jump – check it out!

Music by The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus, as featured on Tap Tap Revenge for the iPhone.

Filler by Krazy Baldhead.

Download The Signal ( Episode 17 ) – iTunes – RSS – (1:34:50)

Headlines

Acer Announces Tempo Smartphone Lineup

Vodafone Announces Android-Powered HTC Magic

Samsung Launches Slim, Sexy Touchscreen Slider: Ultra Touch

Samsung Launches two Beat Phones For DJs who Can’t Afford Turntables

Samsung Launches T-Mobile Memoir, Endorsed by Pretty Girls

Samsung Launches Omnia HD

Microsoft goes official with Windows Mobile 6.5 at Mobile World Congress!

LG-GM730 Rocks “New” Windows Mobile… 6.5?

LG Officially Outs Arena, Sticks Out Tongue at iPhone

LG Style Rocks Transparent Sliding

Nokia 6710 Navigator and 6720 classic get announced

Nokia unveils two new ESeries devices – E55 and E75

HTC unveils Touch Diamond 2, Touch Pro 2!!!

Sony Ericsson unveils 12MP touchscreen “Idou” at Mobile World Congress!

P.S.: Nevermind Rumours and Releases this week. This is more than enough. Sorry about the quality cutoff at around 0:42, was having some importing issues.

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HTC TouchFLO 3D walkthrough video – New and improved!

Will Park — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 12:36:59 +0000

Let it never be said that HTC rests on their laurels.

With the HTC Touch Pro 2 and HTC Touch Diamond 2’s official announcement earlier this week, HTC is pushing ahead in the Windows Mobile smartphone market that they helped shape over the past several years. But, rather than push out new hardware with the same old (if you can call it that) TouchFLO 3D UI that has proved so successful in HTC’s current WinMo smartphone lineup, HTC has endowed the Touch Pro 2 and Touch Diamond 2 with a tweaked version of TouchFLO 3D that adds more features while speeding up the interface.

On this, the last day of the Mobile World Congress, HTC was good enough to give us a demonstration of the refreshed TouchFLO 3D UI. Right off the bat, we noticed that TouchFLO 3D loaded much more quickly on both the Pro 2 and Diamond 2 than we’re used to seeing on the current HTC Touch Pro and Diamond. Scrolling through TouchFLO 3D reveals a new “Stocks” tab to help you keep track of your investments. The “Mail” pane serves up email previews that make it easier for a user to decide whether or not a new email is worth reading. The new TouchFLO 3D also allows the user to remove and rearrange TouchFLO 3D tabs to their liking – HTC listened when customers complained about not being able to customize TouchFLO 3D’s tabs, and the result is a completely configurable homescreen.

As part of HTC’s new “people-centric” approach to the contacts list, you’ll find that the “People” tab now integrates all the communications from a particular contact – email, text messages and call history are all gathered in one convenient place. And, because it can be a hassle to wait for frequently-visited webpages to load, HTC is backing a new feature they call “Push Internet.” While nothing is really being “pushed” to the handset, the new TouchFLO feature will download (pre-fetch, if you will) data from websites that you specify at customizable intervals. The idea is to have all the web-site data ready and cached so that when you go to visit your favorite page, you don’t have to wait for the browser to load the page. And, as an added bonus, “Push Internet” allows for offline viewing of webpages.

Of course, video and pictures are probably worth a couple thousand times what you’re reading here. So, without further ado…

Click to play

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The Signal (IntoMobile Podcast: Episode 14)

Simon Sage — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 18:18:51 +0000

It has been a long CES hangover week, but this episode should be the final purging…

CES might have been a bit smaller and underwhelming than previous years, but the Palm (NSDQ: PALM) Pre made it worth the trip to Las Vegas this go-around. Will and I talk about the Pre as well as some other key announcements, such as microSD XC pacing the way to 2 TB memory cards, LG’s watch phone, and a few other stories following in the wake of CES. The Mobile World Conference is a scant month away, and should provide us with even more news for the mobile world.

A big shoutout to our guest musicians, The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus, who are featuring You Better Pray on Tap Tap Revenge for the iPhone.

Listen in on the CES roundup podcast after the jump!

Music by The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus, as featured on Tap Tap Revenge for the iPhone.

Filler by Krazy Baldhead.

Download The Signal ( Episode 14 ) – iTunes – RSS – (34:46)

Headlines

Palm Pre, Web OS, and Touchstone – What it means for you

SDXC specification announced; 2TB memory cards with read/write speeds of up to 104 megabytes per second are coming!

LG Announces Watch Phone

Apple Changing ‘Duplicate Functionality’ Policy? New 3rd Party Web Browsers Appearing in App Store

HTC’s 2009 lineup leaked – Familiar form-factors but bumped-up specs

Rumours

T-Mobile BlackBerry 8900 Corporate Pricing Revealed

Best Buy to Sell the Palm Pre Alongside Sprint?

ASUS CEO Confirms EE Phone, to run Android?

Visual Voicemail, Application Center, Coming in BlackBerry OS Patch?

Sprint Palm Treo Pro spotted in the wild!

More Rumours of Dell Making a Smartphone

T-Mobile BlackBerry 8900 to Launch January 19th. for Business

HTC Iolite leaks again; This time we have a bigger picture

Leaked HTC Sapphire 2.0 might just be the Android-powered T-Mobile G2

webOS-Based Palm Centro 2 Coming in Fall 2009?

Lenovo’s Android-Powered ‘OPhone’ Coming to China Mobile in Q1

Nokia E71 coming to AT&T; User’s manual proves it, again!

LG KM900, high-end music phone in works?

Nokia 5710 XpressMusic leaked again; Is it coming or not?

BlackBerry Curve 8900 (Javelin) hitting T-Mobile on February 11?

T-Mobile Shadow II (Shadow 2009) likely lacking 1700Mhz 3G

Releases

Mi Phone says ‘Yes We Can’ with Obama-branded cellphone!

T-Mobile brings HTC Viva to Germany has T-Mobile MDA Basic

First Fujitsu NTT DoCoMo handset crosses Japanese borders!

Nokia N79 Active bundles Polar heart monitor for health-fanatics

Maxis Launches BlackBerry Pearl Flip 8220 in Malaysia

LG has two new entry-level phones GB106 and GB110

Verizon unveils LG VX8360

Sprint goes live with Pink Samsung Instinct!

BlackBerry Storm Lands in India

Samsung R470 TwoStep officially announced for U.S. Cellular

Logic Bolt is the first real projector-equipped mobile phone

Hands-on with the LG Touch Watch Phone (LG-GD910) at CES Las Vegas 2009

Sony Ericsson reveals three new phones: W508, W715 and C510

Nokia announces three phones for the U.S. market (1006, 7510 Supernova, E63 NAM) and a new Bluetooth headset

T-Mobile Announces BlackBerry 8900 for U.S.

Motorola unveils three new phones: Renew W233, Tundra VA76r and SURF A3100

Pharos Traveler 137 Windows Mobile smartphone unveiled

Pantech announces yet another Korea-only handset – Cupid IM-S390

Android-Powered Kogan Agora Pro Spotted in the Wild

Samsung R470 revealed by the FCC; Heading to U.S. Cellular

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The Signal: Talking Mobile Memory with SanDisk

Simon Sage — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 22:45:32 +0000

Our last interview at CES was with Chris Loh and Mike Yurochko from the mammoth of mobile memory, SanDisk. They remained somewhat tightlipped about the 2 terabyte cards announced on the SD Association’s roadmap, but we talked broadly about what bigger memory cards mean for end consumers and developers. Mike and I talked in the second half about how SlotMusic is doing, and apparently one of Rhianna’s latest albums enjoyed 6% of its sales through the new microSD format. It might not be replacing CDs or online distribution any time soon, but options are always good to have. Now, the sound quality wasn’t great for the interview since my voice recorder mysteriously disappeared come showtime, but it did conveniently provide a chance to test out my brand new 16 GB microSD card on the BlackBerry (NSDQ: RIMM). Happily, Voice Notes did the job admirably – run time is just a bit over ten minutes.

– Download – iTunes – RSS

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The Signal: Talking Wi-Fi with Kelly Davis-Felner

Simon Sage — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 20:57:05 +0000

The Wi-Fi Alliance could easily be overlooked in a show ostensibly about the shiny finished products that they’re only tangentially involved with, but one of the big things we wanted to do with our interviews was get in touch with some of the big movers behind the scenes. Wi-Fi is becoming a ubiquitous feature throughout mobile, and with Windows 7 beta touting a wealth of home interconnectivity, it’ll play an even bigger part of our daily lives. Kelly Davis-Felner from the Wi-Fi Alliance talks to us about their work with emerging brands and carrier pressures on manufacturers. Just a little over five minutes, so take a listen.

– Download – iTunes – RSS

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The Signal: Talking Touch with Synaptics

Simon Sage — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 19:54:14 +0000

Synaptics has been in the touch tech game for a good long time now – you might recall seeing their logo in your laptop’s system tray to keep tabs on the touchpad functions. Well, they do lots in the mobile end of things as well. Andrew Hsu talks with us about working with fragmented platforms and touchscreen usability in the latest cellphones. Before you start listening, keep in mind this was right before the Palm (NSDQ: PALM) Pre announcement – we would have been having a slightly different conversation otherwise, considering they shortly after announced the iPhone-style two-finger pinch which we see in the Pre. It’s just under ten minutes, so take a listen. Also, be sure to tune in at the end of the week for our CES wrap-up edition of The Signal.

– Download – iTunes – RSS

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The Signal: Talking Palm Pre with Pam Deziel

Simon Sage — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 19:31:43 +0000

At CES we sat down with Pam Deziel, Palm (NSDQ: PALM)’s VP of Software Product Management, in the swanky Palm Pre lounge to chat about their big announcement. I tried not to gush too much, but we hit topics such as points of inspiration, working with partners like Google (NSDQ: GOOG) and Sprint (NYSE: S), as well as what the announcement means for Palm as a whole. Overall, Pam emphasized their heritage driving the Pre’s design, but I think it’s safe to say they’re doing plenty that’s new. It’s a little under five minutes, so feel free to take a listen.

– Download – iTunes – RSS

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The Signal (Episode 5: BBDC Edition)

Simon Sage — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 16:13:32 +0000

Welcome to Episode 5 of The Signal, right from the BlackBerry (NSDQ: RIMM) Developer Conference!

Sorry for the lateness all, travel arrangements from the BlackBerry Developer Conference in Santa Clara got a little extended, but we’re ready to go with the latest IntoMobile podcast. Even if you’re not into the BlackBerry scene, it might be worth your while to hear about the upcoming BlackBerry Application Storefront due to land in March. It’ll be paired up with a carrier-powered Application Center, following closely in Google (NSDQ: GOOG) and Apple (NSDQ: AAPL)’s footsteps by providing a bundled, unified interface for browsing BlackBerry software. Besides the daily rundown, we go over the show’s announcements with DevelopIQ’s James Shannon and ISEC7’s Matthias Hager and Guido Wilken to see what developers themselves thought of the devcon. Just in case you can’t get enough, be sure to take a read-through of our interview with RIM VP of Global Alliances, Jeff McDowell, on what it was like from an organizer’s standpoint. And of course, if it’s all rubbish to you, we still have the week’s biggest news laid out all fancy-like behind the jump. It looks like some big names are saying “no” to Android…

Music by Krazy Baldhead.

Download The Signal (Episode 5: BBDC Edition) – iTunes – (26:08)