What are we expecting from the Worldwide Developers Conference in June? Lots of people are predicting that Palm will launch their much hyped Pre handset on June 7th, just a day before the Apple conference begins. Maybe Palm are hoping to overshadow any Apple announcements, but that looks dangerous to me, as Apple are likely to have some cool stuff up their sleeves.

Here at OnSoftware we’ve been wondering out loud what might happen, so starting with the most likely things, here we go:

1: Snow Leopard. Surely there’ll be an exhibition of the next version of OSX, 10.6, which sounds like it will build on what is already my favourite operating system. The most interesting thing about it for me is that it will have an overall smaller hard drive and RAM footprint (like Windows 7) - efficiency is always a good thing. We know that Windows 7 is lighter so it can work on netbooks…. Probability: 100%

2: The next surest thing, and it’s a pretty sure thing too, is an announcement of a third generation iPhone. What’s it going to be like? I wouldn’t expect much of a visual difference (it won’t be available in pink any time soon), but should do the things people think it should already do, like video capture or maybe a compass (like the HTC Magic). Perhaps you’ll be able to alter the backlight time too? Reading that back, maybe Palm are right to gamble, or maybe Apple have something really cool for the next gen iPhone? Probability: 90%

2.5:  Rumours abound that working with Verizon, there might be an iPhone lite in the works, and some have claimed to have actually seen the device. It’s worth remembering that Apple went as far as creating fake prototypes to keep people from knowing the truth about the original iPhone… I think an iPhone lite is a pretty underwhelming concept too. Probability: 30%

3: Mystery item! With all the stories about Apple ordering 10 inch touchscreens, Snow Leopard being easier on resources and the success of netbooks in general, there are many predicting Apple will announce something between a Macbook and iPhone. Tim Cook, Apple’s COO recently said that netbooks “suck”, but that could be a precursor to “but ours are cool”. Bets are divided between some kind of netbook or keyboard free tablet device. The 10 inch touchscreen tablet sounds like a sweet idea - a device for browsing and watching media. However, in my head that looks like a big iPhone, which shows a lack of imagination on my part! Probability: 50%

We’ve seen numerous alleged photos of Apple netbooks, or Macbook minis, but none of them look convincing (or good!)!

*thanks to our resident Apple insider Tom for the secret Apple iPhonebook image!

The future of browser games is bright. [Gamesindustry.biz/Blurst]

The internet versus the environment! [The Guardian]

Nine Inch Nails versus Apple! [Engadget.com]

Discoveries made with Google Earth. [Google Earth Blog]

Myst released for the iPhone - relive the boredom! [9to5mac]

Palm Pre out on june 7th? [The Boy Genius Report]

Windows 7 RC1 released to MSDN and TechNet [Microsoft]

Apple augments chip team - secret new stuff to come? [WSJ]

Yahoo! layoffs start - Flickr hit first [GigaOm]

Palm Pre Mini to be released this year [TechCrunch]

Panda introduces ‘cloud based’ antivirus app [Cloud Ave]

Microsoft releases Office 2007 Service Pack 2 [Softonic Download]

Palm may release Pre day before Apple’s WWDC keynote [MobileCrunch]

Google launches Public Data Search & Charts [SearchEngineLand]

4chan wags rig Time poll with Marble Cake & moot [Music Machinery]

Microsoft Vine - social networking for emergencies [Mashable]

Making the most of Twitter [Guardian]

[Image from Twitter]

Twitter’s ‘Discovery engine’ is coming [Twitter]

Piracy law ‘cuts Internet traffic’ [BBC]

WebOS SDK is released,  will support Palm OS emulation [Engadget]

GaiKai vs OnLive - game streaming war [gamesindustry.biz]

Online April fools roundup (including Shouttr) [TechCrunch]

I think anyone who’s played with an iPhone will agree that it’s a great toy, and has the “I want one” factor. Unsurprisingly, all the major mobile manufacturers are following suit and churning out touchscreen phones.

There’s no doubt that being able to browse the web wherever you are is useful, and a touchscreen is a good interface for this, but I’m not convinced it makes a good phone. Without a physical keypad of some sort you can no longer SMS by touch, whether they have haptic (vibrating) touch features or not. There is no way that a touchscreen keyboard will be as easy to use as a physical one: it will require human evolution for that to be the case. We shouldn’t have to wait for human evolution to catch up with touchscreens

My other criticism of this current generation of touch phones is size - I still don’t carry a ‘man bag’, so my phone goes in my pocket. Blackberry or iPhone - they’re too big. It’s surprising that the smallest phone I had (a Nokia 6210, if I remember correctly) was in 2003. They have been growing ever since. Do I have to start wearing clown trousers?

Looking through user reviews on Amazon, touch screens seem to get pretty average scores. The iPhone gets 3 or 4/5, and the Samsung Omnia and Blackberry Storm both manage 3 to 3.5/5. Maybe 3/5 isn’t a total disaster, but there are plenty of “old school” phones that get 5/5 reviews.

I’m not against touch screens particularly, but I think there’s some way to go before they are done right. The Android ‘Magic’ phone’s keyboard is OK, but I think a better compromise would be a touchscreen keyboard with a physical traditional keypad. Maybe the Palm Pre will be an improvement - though things are rarely perfect on a first generation machine. Until touchscreen technology can give some tactile responses so your fingers can feel their way around, I’m going to want a physical keypad.

Positive pre-’Pre’ publicity probably provoked Palm profit plummet [Forbes]

Amazon release Kindle software for iPhone [TUAW]

Blush: an attractive and addictive online game [Blurst]

Three key MySpace execs leaving [TechCrunch]

Google CEO: Twitter’s a “Poor man’s email” [Silicon Alley insider]

Successful startups have that ‘oo’ factor [MercuryNews]

StatCounter launches free global stats service [ReadWriteWeb]

Visiting a bar isn’t all about just getting drunk and chewing the fat with the locals. In fact, pubs are often a breeding ground for some of the most successful sportsmen on the planet. Heroes such as snooker star Ronnie O’Sullivan and darts legend Phil ‘The Power’ Taylor honed their skills in the smoky games rooms of their local watering holes.

We all know that pub sports aren’t the most strenuous of activities but if you’re so lazy that you can’t even be bothered to get up and walk to the local bar then stop panicking. You can now enjoy your favorite pub games on your mobile phone. Grab yourself a cold one and install these fun sports on your device.

If you’re into darts then you’re spoiled for choice in terms of titles. One of my personal favorites is the graphically-rich Power Dart for Symbian Series 60 devices. The game allows you to play the popular ‘01′ tournaments (i.e. 301, 401, 501, 601) against the computer, or challenge your friends over Bluetooth. Arrows games for other platforms include Darts for iPhone, Darts (Java), Darts Deluxe (Palm), and Dartz (Windows Mobile).

Pool fans also get a plethora of choices when it comes to mobile games. The king of the genre is Virtual Pool Mobile, which is available for a range of different mobile phone platforms. This impressive 3D simulation sees you start your career in a garage then work you way up by defeating different opponents in a range of locations. Other decent pool games include Vegas Pool Sharks (multi-platform), Pool Rebel (Windows Mobile), and Pool House (Palm).

An alternative ball-blasting game, popular in British boozers, is bar billiards. The object of this one is to accumulate points by strategically potting the eight balls into any of the nine holes, which each have a points value. You also have to contend with three pegs that are placed on the table, each of which affects your points tally in a different way when it. It sounds complicated but it’s quite easy to pick up, as you’ll see if you install Pocket Bar Billiards on your Windows Mobile phone.

My personal favorite barroom sport is table football, mainly because it’s a lot less strenuous than the  real thing (and you actually play better after a couple of lagers). Masterkick is an awesome foosball sim that’s available for a wide range of different mobile operating systems. The game looks and sounds great and offers a realistic handle-twiddling experience. Alternatively, you could try Resco Table Soccer, which supports Windows Mobile devices.

Dominoes is one of the oldest bar games around and has been played in taverns ever since the times when smugglers and pirates would bet with each other for pieces of silver or parrots. Real Dice Dominoes allows you to take on up to four real-life players online, or a strong computer opponent. All players take their turns to lay down their slabs so that the number of dots corresponds to those of the last domino played. Whoever gets rid of all their stones first is declared the winner. The game is available for BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, Palm and Symbian handsets.

The theme of the day at the World Mobile Congress today has been mobile Internet. Accessing the Net from a mobile device has always been rather awkward, if not even a little scary, thanks to slow connections, high data charges and unusable software. Today there was a noticeable sense of optimism from within the mobile industry over the future of mobile Internet. Discussions at the keynotes centred around how to make the Internet easier, faster and cheaper on a mobile, and we saw plenty of Net-enabled apps that are impressive enough to get mobile users connecting. Here are some of the things that we saw today:

Improving mobile Internet: Today’s keynote presentation saw the top minds from Skype, Google and Telstra outline their ideas for how mobile Internet can really take off. Each of the speakers was coming at the issue from a different angle, but all made valid and interesting points. Sol Trujillo, CEO of Australian mobile operator Telstra, explained how the Aussies are now benefitting from 99% mobile Internet coverage at speed of up to 42mbps. He sees the mobile Internet being used on a wider scale than just for Web browsing and entertainment, and pointed out examples of how 3G technology is being used in Oz to improve healthcare, education, farming and the environment.
Vic Gundotra, VP of Engineering of Google, said there were three key drivers for the mobile Internet: cheaper and clearer data plans, improvements in browsers, and software innovation. He went on to give some impressive demos of Google’s new Latitude and voice search apps.
Josh Silverman, CEO of Skype, reiterated the importance of the role software developers play in driving forward the mobile Internet. Buoyed by yesterday’s announcement that Skype will be pre-loaded onto the N97 and other Nokia N-Series phones, Silverman delivered a strong message to mobile operators that cheap data plans are central to increasing mobile Internet use. Read the rest of this entry »

Straight from the GSMA Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, here’s some video of Palm giving us a first look at their new device, the Palm Pre. The first video features the phone’s search feature and web browser. The second highlights the address book and image viewer included with the brand new WebOS operating system.

OnSoftware returned to the World Mobile Congress today to find the mobile industry in more subdued and relaxed mood than yesterday’s frenzied first day. As the excitement from the first look at the Palm Pre and the unveiling of Windows Mobile 6.5 wore off, day two offered us more time to explore some of the most interesting mobile applications unveiled at the event. Here’s a round-up of what caught our eye:

Yahoo! Mobile: Perhaps the biggest-profile launch of the day in terms of apps was the new Yahoo! Mobile service. The new app is basically a front-end for the Web on your mobile. The software includes oneSearch, which facilitates quicker access by second guessing the user to provide the most current and relevant search results. But what really caught our eye was the oneConnect tool in Yahoo! Mobile, which pulls email, social network updates and instant messaging into one place. An added boon is that the smartphone version of application comes bundled with Opera Mini 4.2, arguably the best mobile browser in the World. Yahoo! Mobile will be released later this year in a range of guises, on devices such as the iPhone, Windows Mobile handsets, and smartphones from Nokia, Samsung, BlackBerry and Sony Ericsson.

Skype: Last night we managed to take a sneaky peak at the new Skype 3.0 for Windows Mobile Beta. Chatting with the Skype team at the event, the company seems to be really focused on bringing its mobile product in-line with the desktop version as soon as possible. Version 3.0 goes someway to doing this, adding file transfer support, and offering users the ability to send text messages to each other via the software. The company also announced that version 2.5 of Skype for Windows Mobile is now out of beta and available to download as a Gold release. Today, Skype also revealed that the product will be pre-installed on Nokia N-series devices, starting with the N97, and also released a lite version of Skype for Android.

Flash for mobile: Adobe has announced that a fully-fledged version of Flash will be coming to a whole range of smartphones, including Windows Mobile, Android, Nokia S60, and the new Palm OS. The product managers on the Adobe stand seemed genuinely interested in making it as easy as possible for mobile software developers to get their apps out to as many platforms as possible with the minimum of fuss. That said, they wouldn’t be drawn on if/when Flash will come to the iPhone. There was more good news for developers though, as Adobe announced an SDK for its Reader software, allowing third parties to develop mobile apps supporting the PDF format.

Opening doors: The theme for today’s second keynote was “towards an open mobile ecosystem”, where the top brass from Nokia, Microsoft and AT&T delivered their views on how the industry should work together to improve mobile experiences. The main gist of the talks centred around the idea that by sharing ideas, resources and technology, mobile companies can still move forward in a time of global economic downturn. It sounds all nice and rosy in theory but things are never that simple in the dog-eat-dog world of business.

Today saw the start of the GSMA Mobile World Congress here in OnSoftware’s home town of Barcelona. The first day of the biggest event in the mobile technology calendar has not disappointed. We’ve spent the day checking out the latest innovation in mobile hardware and software as well as listening to eminent speakers from the industry. Here are some of our software highlights from the first day of the event:

Windows Mobile 6.5: Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer paid a visit to the conference to make three announcements: Windows Mobile 6.5, Microsoft My Phone, and Windows Marketplace. The new Windows Mobile 6.5 OS was demoed at the show and it certainly looks like an improvement on the previous release. There is a new log-in screen which gives you an at-a-glance view of your missed calls, chat messages and emails. What’s more, MS has revamped the homescreen with a rather strange-looking, text-based interface where you can select features such as email, calendar, pictures, music and fast access to Internet favorites. The apps menu also gets an overhaul, this time with a series of icons arranged in a kind-of honeycomb structure. The most significant change to the applications is the inclusion of the full current version of Internet Explorer on the device (i.e. with the same browsing engine as IE), along with Flash Player Lite.

Read the rest of this entry »

Palm has shown its gorgeous new device, the Palm Pre, at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. OnSoftware were the first journalists to get a look at the new handset and its WebOS operating system. As you can see from our exclusive pictures, the device combines both a touchscreen interface and a small, curved, slide-out keyboard. We were impressed by the lightweight and compact form of the Palm Pre, which features an on-board 3 megapixel camera.

But it was the user interface and software in the Pre that really blew us away. The touchscreen interface features a dock for quick access to favourite applications, and a separate area beneath the main interface for finger control gestures such as moving back or closing applications. The feature that really put the Palm Pre above the iPhone in my estimation was the easy way it lets you manage applications. Based around the theme of a deck of cards, each app is given its own ‘card’ which can be opened, zoomed into, minimized and closed using the touchscreen. Cycling through applications is a breeze, and it’s just like shuffling a deck of cards.

Another impressive feature of the Palm Pre is its ’synergies’, whereby you can assimilate all of your email accounts into one place, and import contacts from Facebook, GMail and the like, directly onto the device. The Web browser inside the Pre is much like Safari for iPhone, with the ability to rotate the aspect of the screen and quickly zoom into pages using finger gestures. The advantage of the Pre browser is that managing multiple pages is much easier thanks to the deck of cards system, which is extended to the browser.

Expect a video of the Pre in action later, as well as all the latest news and developments from the Mobile World Congress. More pics after the jump.

Read the rest of this entry »

It may only be half way through, but the Consumer Electronics Show 2009 in Las Vegas has already sprung surprises in the software sphere. After a disappointing showing from Apple at MacWorld earlier in the week, CES has injected some much-needed optimism into the tech community. Those worried that these troubling economic times would spark a slowdown in software innovation this year should rest easy thanks to some genuinely eye-opening developments at CES 2009. Here is a collection of some of our favourites so far:

Windows 7 -There couldn’t have been a better time for Microsoft to enlighten the World with details of its new operating system, given Apple’s rather flat performance earlier this week. Releasing the product as a free Beta download was a real stroke of showmanship from Microsoft and from what we’ve seen the developer has plenty to show off about. It may look a lot like Vista but unlike the previous OS, Windows 7 is a different beast altogether. Primed for performance and packed with great new tools such as gadgets, a dock, and significant enhancements to bundled apps like WordPad and Paint, this could be the product to resurrect Microsoft’s failing image.

Palm Pre with WebOS - Once a giant in the world of PDAs and smartphones, Palm was just of couple more failed releases away from being a complete laughing stock. Just like Microsoft though, the company has instantly regained its credibility with the announcement of the Palm Pre. The sleek full touchscreen phone comes with a pop-out keyboard and runs boasts a completely new operating system, WebOS. The new UI looks great, with features such as swipe gestures, an intuitive app switcher, iCal-style calendar app, and a system that avoids task interruption when a call or SMS comes in. Wish you’d released a new iPhone now Apple?

Yahoo! TV Widgets - CES 2009 has highlighted the spread of the Internet beyond computers and onto more and more traditionally offline devices. Nowhere is this better illustrated than Yahoo!’s TV Widgets. These mini software apps allow you to tap into Web content while you’re watching your digital TV. This means you’ll be able to check your Facebook friends’ status while watching Lost, bid on eBay during commercial breaks, or check the weather forecast during Oprah. Although it will only launch with a few widgets on a few TVs to start wit, TV Widgets could represent a major step forward for the connected home.

Limewire 5.0 - As John mentioned earlier this week, the new version of Limewire could revolutionise the way people share files over the Internet. By introducing a more social element to the P2P client, users will surely now have more confidence when sharing their wares over the network. Being able to connect up to your GMail friends and give them access to your files is a real stroke of genius which, again, represents a pioneering step forward from a developer with a flagging reputation.

Skype Lite for Android - Another great step forward for mobile communication, Skype announced it will be releasing a Lite version of its VoIP software for Google’s Android platform. In these bleak economic times, the ability to make cheap calls from a mobile phone is something all of us will welcome. As well as launching for Android, Skype Lite will also support Java and Windows devices. Most mobile carriers have until now, been scared of allowing Skype on their phones for fear of losing revenue so this latest announcement is most welcome.

Many of the new phones that come out these days are equipped with Bluetooth capabilities. So if you’ve bought a mobile within the last year or so chances are you have it on your device (to find out just look for the little blue icon shown here). But how many times have you actually done anything with Bluetooth? Do you even really know what you can do with Bluetooth? Well, it’s high time you started exploring the capabilities of this wireless technology because you can have a lot of fun with it, as well as saving yourself time and money. Here are some of the neat things you can do using Bluetooth on your phone.

Play games

Many mobile games these days allow you to play remotely against your buddies over Bluetooth. It makes for a much faster and cheaper solution than playing over the Internet. It’s particularly suitable for turn-based games such as pool (try Mobile VR Pool or Pool for UIQ); darts (3D Lawn Darts or Power Dart); or racing games like MGS Karting and V-Rally.

Chat

Obviously phones are specifically designed for chatting, but speaking into the receiver or sending an SMS is not always necessarily the best way of doing it. Applications such as BuZZone, SYMBTChat or Bluetooth Chat allow you to communicate via text messaging without paying for it!If you’re interested then have a look at the post I wrote earlier this year explaining how to chat via Bluetooth.

Sharing stuff

One of the most common uses for Bluetooth this one, and you may have even tried it yourself. Bluetooth makes it dead easy to quickly share a photo, ringtone, video or any other kind of file with your pals. Most devices make this a very simply procedure and you’ll normally find an option to ’send via Bluetooth’ with any multimedia you have stored. If you’re having difficulties, try installing a mobile file manager such as Resco Explorer to facilitate more seamless sharing.

Remote control

Another cool thing you can do with a Bluetooth-enabled phone is rig it up to your PC or Mac and use it to control your computer. For instance, Bluetooth Remote Control allows you issue commands to apps such as Winamp, Windows Media Player and Powerpoint, using your Windows Mobile device. Other apps that do something similar include Smart Remote and irRemote Control.

Avoid people

If you’re anything like me then you hate bumping into people you don’t like in the street and being forced to make chit-chat. Thanks to the power of Bluetooth you can detect and avoid anyone you don’t want to come across. Install BlueRadar and you’ll be able to track where people are on a cool, James Bond-style radar display.