SEVENCLICK
Mobile Technology Evangelists

Today HTC Spain has announced their new device HTC Touch2. Behind the press release, the most important information is that it comes with Windows Mobile 6.5, includes the new software Windows Phone and that the new Internet Explorer Mobile supports Adobe Flash.

According to its design, seems to be really compact, clean, tough and comfortable. It includes a zoom bar really useful when browsing the web. As other HTC smartphones, the user interface is based on TouchFLO, which gives you direct access to weather forecast info and most used applications. It includes Google Maps and YouTube among others.

Windows Mobile 6.5 improves e-mail experience allowing to synchronize with Exchange and manage several e-mail accounts. New Internet Explorer Mobile allows to move the web content and use the zoom bar for a better experience.

About Windows Phone, it allows to download applications via Windows Marketplace service and using My Phone service you can synchronize your pictures, music and messages to the Internet. If you want more info, here you have the technical specifications:

• Processor: Qualcomm ® MSM7225 ®, 528 MHz.
• O.S: Windows Mobile 6.5 Professional.
• Memory: 512MB ROM; 256MB RAM.
• Dimensions: 104 x 55 x 12,9 mm.
• Weight: 110g with battery.
• Display: TFT LCD 2.8′ touch screen with QVGA resolution.
• Networks: HSDPA/WCDMA with 384kbps as maximum upload speed and 7.2Mbps as download speed. Frequences of 850/900/1800/1900 MHz in Europe/Asia depending on the operator.
• Controller: zoom bar.
• GPS: built-in GPS.
• Connectivity: Bluetooth 2.1 with A2DP for wireless stereo headphones; Wi-Fi (IEEE 802.11 b/g); 3.5mm audio jack; HTC USB (11pin mini-USB 2.0).
• Camera: 3.2 megapixels.
• Audio formats: AAC, AAC+, eAAC+, AMR-NB, QCP, MP3, WMA, WAV, MIDI, M4A.
• Video formats: WMV, ASF, MP4, 3GP, 3G2, M4V, AVI.
• Battery: 1100 mAh litium battery; 370/440 minutes in conversation (WCDMA/GSM); 500/370 minutes in stand-by (WCDMA/GSM).
• Expansion slot: microSD card (supports SD 2.0).

A few days ago the Skype application for iPhone/iTouch was launched. You can download it from the App Store for free. This let us make calls to other Skype users for free and to mobile and landline phones using the known Skype credit.

We have tested it making some calls between an iPhone and a computer or a Windows Mobile device. These are the results and the devices we have used:

• Test iPhone – Computer (Windows XP sp2):

We have installed the desktop application on a PC running Windows XP sp2, and the voice has been transmitted really fast between the PC and iPhone, just like in a standard call, what has really surprised us.

• Test iPhone – HTC Touch Cruise 2 (Windows Mobile):

This time we have installed the application Fring on a HTC Touch Cruise 2. This app, as we already posted, allows us to use different accounts (MSN, Google Talk, AIM, SIP, Facebook, Twitter, Skype) from our mobile device. But the voice sound did not run fast, it had a lag between one and two seconds. The sound quality decreased but just in Fring, not on Skype iPhone.

About Skype UI on iPhone:

It is simple but clear, just what we need and how we need it, so it is easy-to-use. It takes our contacts from iPhone contacts in case you want to call them using your Skype credit. And it also allows to use the camera to change your user picture. The BIG drawback is that it only runs when using Wi-fi connection, not 3G. We hope this changes…

About Fring UI on Windows Mobile:

The user interface is too simple, some features are not easy to find. And it has an old-fashion look, so that it uses WM square buttons and other resources.

It is great to see these kind of applications come to our mobile devices, so we just don’t need our computer to call for free! =)

Last week  HTC Spain prepared a meeting to present its new devices for the upcoming months. SevenClick was part of the audience, composed by some of the most important people in Spanish blogosphere, with people from Xataka, PixelyDixel, etc…

Let’s take a look at the novelties.

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Finally, we have on our hands the first beta release of Fennec, the Firefox browser for mobile devices. It’s the milestone number 12 in the development roadmap and its intented for testing purposes, get wider feedback, engage community and encourage add-on developers to port existing add-ons. It’s only available for ‘Maemo’, the Linux OS running on Nokia N810 Internet Tablets.

You can look at all the features in the Release Notes. There’s nothing shocking, but some of them are really inteteresting. I specially like what they call ‘Devices services integration’: click on a phone number to initiate a call and a JavaScript API to get device location.

Anyway, I must confess I’m a bit disappointed by the pace of Mozilla’s advances in its mobile version. Two years ago, Mozilla decided to discontinue the Minimo browser project. It was the first attempt. Some months after, they announced their intention of starting a new project and Fennec development started from the ground up.

From that moment, the release of a stable version has been delayed time over time, and now we have no idea of when we’ll have a version for a mainstream platform (Windows Mobile or Symbian, the only two covered by Fennec).

Let’s hope all the feedback and re-encouraged contributions of the community will help to make Fennec a reality as soon as possible. Otherwise, it could be too late for them, as all WebKit-derived browsers take the market.

Via ObservatorioInternetMovil
Links ReleaseNotes SevenClick SevenClick

In the last Mobile World Congress, Microsoft give us a official word about new features on Windows Mobile 6.5 like MarketPlace, MyPhone or the new look. However, they forgot to tell us an important one: WM 6.5 will feature Widgets!

Last weeks we have read lots of rumours about it, but it was not clear how Microsoft will use these widgets. At last, yesterday, a member of the Windows Mobile Developer Team explained us this new feature in their blog.
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According to several of the most respected on-line sources, including Wall Street Journal, Reuters, Wired and Information Week ( the original source of the information seems to be The Wall Street Journal), Microsoft plans to announce next monday a brand new Windows Mobile Application Store.

Monday 16th February seems to be the chosen day. Well, it looks pretty clever, since Steve Ballmer is making a keynote presentation in Mobile World Congress, taking place in Barcelona.

Along with this new service, Microsoft is also presenting My Phone service, an on-line repository of personal information for mobile devices. This seems to be true, since the official website has been up and running during the last weeks (in fact, it was discovered by fault, with the subsequent confirmation by Microsoft).

Don’t expect details of the new Microsoft Service. Nothing has been disclosed yet. Nevertheless, everything seems to be true.

I believe Microsoft will use this keynote to present more products and services, like Windows Mobile 6.5, My Phone, and so on… Last year’s MWC announcementes were, you know, disappointing. Hope they have learned the lesson. At least, Steve Ballmer will be present this year, and it assures the show. If you don’t what I’m talking about, check this video.

Via Wired, WallStreet Journal, Information Week

As we already knew, Windows Mobile 6.5 (available on the second half of 2009) will have a new and more atractive interface, which is called “honeycomb interface”, as we can see in the below picture. We will see on the screen several joined polygons which form the honeycomb menu and an application will be available on each polygon. This interface gives a new and fresh look to the current Windows Mobile version which seems more like a Windows 3.11 style.

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Microsoft has created a new kind of custom tags. So far we had QR Code and Datamatrix Code. The new system from Microsoft is called Microsoft Tag and main difference is that it does not use square pixels, but triangle shapes and colors to store data.

Read the rest of this entry »

Although the news seem surprising is true, a few days ago Todd Peters, the Vice President of Marketing for the Windows Mobile division announced at current CES.

It seems that Windows Mobile is losing interest not only to users, but also from the viewpoint of manufacturers, because of the new systems that are emerging (Android and WebOS) and also due to iPhone and the different models of BlackBerry.

Microsoft wants to change its business model. Now prefer to have fewer devices and thus focus more on each of them to achieve better integration with the phone.

And who knows, just surprise us this year with the introduction of a mobile phone with Windows Mobile 7 developed by them.

Via XatakaMovil

China maybe is not the best point of reference of handsets, owing to we can find in its market, mobile device brands that sound too much familiar, like Nokla or HiPhone. But this time, China offers a handset with an original feature, a smartphone that runs Windows Mobile or Android. The client chooses. TechFaith Wireless and Qigi Future Technology announced it with the name of QiGi i6.

Unfortunately, instead of offering a dual-boot approach, the i6 comes in separate models: i6-Goal (Android) and i6-Win (WM 6.1). The two models differ only with respect to their operating system ROMS. On the other hand, both models share the following features:

• 2.8” LCD touchscreen display with 320×240 resolution.
• Marxvel PXA310 processor clocked at 624MHZ .
• Bluetooth connectivity.
• 2 megapixel camera.
• Wi-Fi support.
• microSD memory card slot.
• GPS navitation.
• Dimensions: 109 x 58 x 14.9 mm.
• No 3G connectivity

Pricing and availability  for both devices have not been released. However, the i6-Goal (the first Android-powered mobile phone in China) will be “shipping soon,” according to Qigi.

Vía PocketNow, LinuxDevices