1,000,000 iPhones sold in first weekend!

Mr. Jobs must on cloud 9 at the moment. The apple has sold over a million phones in it’s first weekend. This has been a stunning weekend for the Apple.

“iPhone 3G had a stunning opening weekend,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s
CEO. “It took 74 days to sell the first one million original iPhones, so
the new iPhone 3G is clearly off to a great start around the world.”

Opera 9.5 beta Gets Delayed

Well, the greatly anticipated Opera 9.5(beta) has got delayed. But, not for long. Just 48h :)

Our engineering team worked through the weekend to fix the bugs. Even though our release is a beta, we’d rather spend the extra time to fix them, thus giving you a better experience. The fixes are almost complete now, but we need two more days to run the build through our quality assurance testing. The new launch date is now set for the 17th.

What Can Windows Mobile learn from iPhone?

For many of the windows mobile enthusiasts, the iPhone may be a toy. But, is there anything Windows mobile devices can learn from the iPhone? I think a lot can be learnt.

What Can Windows Mobile learn from iPhone

Not allowing the providers to mess up with the device: This is the main cause, why people turn to cooked ROMs. They put in so much of useless stuff. In the end, the user gets a device full of crap. He gets frustrated and has to void his warrenty due to it. Why not put an end over putting so much useless stuff and put in just a theme and their ringtone? I guess that is enough to tell people that it is being sold by cingular, at&at etc.

Not allowing OEMs to put trash in the devices: A totally different problem arises here. I would to repeat what Alex(founder of webIS.net) said. The OEMs should not be allowed to mess with the core code. They should not be allowed to change the libraries; remove the libraries or change something which is normal to all windows mobile devices. This just makes making applications more difficult for the software houses. They need to test their application on every single device in the market. Why? Just because they are not assured that if the application is running fine on one device, it will run fine on other device too. The reason behind this is the companies messed up the core OS code preventing these applications to run fine.

Storage Memory: Come on! It is 2008! All the devices that come in the market follow a similar trend every year. Last year, it was 128MB ROM+64MB RAM. This year, it has been 256MB ROM+128MB RAM. iPhones have come in 4GB and 8GB versions. With iPhone 3G, it has been increased to up to 16GB. Sure, we can increase the capacity via micro-SDs, but, they can never be relied upon. Also, it is a lame excuse to provide such low capacity.

Simplicity: It should have two today screen layouts. One iPhone style: just tap and launch your favorite application. Second choice should be classic windows mobile interface for the professionals. Yes, I know that iPhone-style launchers are still available but these things should be built-in. Microsoft obviously won’t want only the professional/executive class to be the only users.

Make use of that ‘Windows Update’ feature: Microsoft said at many occasions(at launch of WM5, WM6 and  WM6.1) that the ‘windows update’ feature will be used to provide upgrades to the devices. It could include dot ROM enhancements too, say it could introduce the enhancements of WM6.1 in WM6. Unfortunately, this feature has NEVER(!) been used. According to me, it can be put to great use. Through this, the Microsoft can easily introduce features in the existing devices without bothering the OEMs and carriers.

Stability: This has always been an issue with windows mobile. People have been complaining and whining about the stability of the windows mobile platform since it was released. For example: Multi-tasking has been the one of the main features of the windows mobile devices, but, the stability has always been a concern. The more applications you run concurrently, the more are the chances of your device of getting unstable. Also, since the close button actually does not close, this further increases instability.

Firefox is my most used app-I expected that!

Yes, using wakoopa, the Firefox came out to be the most used application. Well, I guess this case would be similar for everybody else. These are my stats from the past one week.

I do most of my work online. From Google Docs, Gmail, Google reader, Pageflakes, lite web designing, CMS, I mean everything I do with the help of Firefox. Thank you mozilla!

Fujitsu jumping into Netbook arena!

Looks like the Fujitsu could not stop itself from entering the prospering playground of Netbooks, where the players like ASUS and HP are controlling the market.

It seems to be an 8.9″ device. In the picture above, it is being compared to a 17″ laptop. Price is rumored to be around €299-€399. Please fujitsu, provide an XP option this time.

*photo courtesy of netbux.de

Windows mobile better than iPhone 3G?

Edward of msmobiles.com mentions not 5, but 12 reasons that windows mobile phones are better than the iPhone 3G.

Here are the reasons:

  1. 3rd party applications in iPhone 3G cannot run in background: only one application can run at any given time in iPhone 3G so no background running of applications possible! In Windows Mobile phone several (many) applications can run at the same time so it is possible for example to simultaneously run in Windows Mobile: a) downloading a 50 MB MP3 file with a podcast, b) IM chatting with somebody including native Skype client for windows Mobile or native Live Messenger from Microsoft, c) edit Office documents, d) browse Internet, e) make a phone call, etc.
  2. iPhone 3G has resolution of only 480×320 what is 2 times less than VGA (640×480) and W-VGA (wide VGA = 800×480) used in several Windows Mobile phones, what practically means: you can read more text on the display at once and everything is sharper
  3. camera in iPhone 3G is inferior to camera in many Windows Mobile phones: it has only 2 megapixels compared to 3 to 5 megapixels in Windows Mobile phones and it does not have auto-focus – also present in many Windows Mobile phones
  4. one cannot record videos with built-in camera of iPhone 3G, what is possible up to resolution of 640×480 pixels and 30 FPS (frames per second) in Windows Mobile phones
  5. iPhone 3G supports HSDPA of maximal speed only 3.6 MB/second, while some Windows Mobile phones (including HTC Touch Diamond) suppport HSDPA of speed 7.2 MB/second
  6. iPhone 3G does not have exchangeable battery that all Windows Mobile phones have, but only built-in battery so if you run out of battery you cannot replace it to prolong battery life – as it is possible with Windows Mobile phones
  7. original (i.e. from Microsoft) Office Mobile is built-in in each Windows Mobile phone and allows not only for viewing but also for editing of Office documents, so there is no need ot buy 3rd party software for it
  8. there is much more 3rd party applications (programs) for Windows Mobile: over 20,000 compared to 500 for iPhone 3G
  9. to make applications for Windows Mobile one needs either PC computer or Mac but to make applications for iPhone 3G one needs to buy a Mac computer – if you don’t have Mac computer then you cannot develop applications for iPhone 3G
  10. most Windows Mobile phones come without SIM lock so they can be used at any operator in given country and with SIM cards from abroad (important when traveling and you want to use local prepaid SIM card to avoid International roaming fees) while iPhone 3G has SIM lock and can work with only this operator at which it has been purchased
  11. iPhone 3G has capacitive touch-screen meaning that it must be used with fingers and that it cannot be used with stylus or fingernails (what women like)
  12. iPhone 3G has no physical keyboard or keypad, so users have no choice but to use virtual keyboards on the display while Windows Mobile offers phones in various form-factors, including such that have both touch-screen and a physical QWERTY keyboard

I don’t know if he is really right. Why? Here are my reasons:

  • not all windows mobile have nice cameras. Not even the phones with 3MP cameras can take better pictures than 2y old SE K750
  • he stresses multi-tasking heavily, but I need not stress how stable the windows mobile is in handling multiple applications. A windows mobile device will most likely crash with running all those applications concurrently :!:
  • I’ve not heard any women complaining that she is unable to use the iPhone.
  • Infact, it is windows mobile that is trying to mimic iPhone these days
  • Third applications have just started to come up. Windows mobile is 8y old already. Obviously, windows mobile will have more applications than iPhone.
  • iPhone already has started enjoying better enterprise support. It now supports MS exchange, Oracle, 3G broadband etc
  • People have achived phenomenal speeds with the onscreen keyboard of the iPhone. So, this proves that if the softkeyboard is properly designed, there is no need for hardware keyboard.
  • Regarding resolution, iPhone makes full use of it’s 320 x 480 display. In case of WM, it merely does the pixel doubling. Very less applications actually make full use of 480 x 640 VGA resolution. Continue reading “Windows mobile better than iPhone 3G?”

Sprint releases Palm Treo 800w

Sprint is now offering a Treo 800w for $249. The Palm Treo 800w is one of the most highly anticipated phones of 2008. The core is the presense of wifi. Now, you guys will say that wifi is not a big deal. Well, folks this the first Palm smartphone having a inbuilt wifi module.

The device looks darn perfect. The keyboard looks sweet and on top of that, it is powered by windows mobile!

So, what are you waiting for? Go to the sprint website and get yourself one!