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REVIEW: INTERNET EXPLORER Mobile 6 for Windows Mobile – VGA screenshots!

Yesterday, we posted about the preview of the Internet Explorer mobile 6 which is based on the desktop version of the Internet Explorer 6. Unfortunately, we could only test it via Device emulator. We managed to test it on the real device. Here is the review of it.

Please note that all the screenshots are in VGA resolution (640 x 480)

The browser has two modes: desktop and mobile. This basically tells the other sites that you are using a mobile device or you can set the browser to Desktop mode, which will tell the other sites that you are using IE 6.

If you type in anything in the above box, it will live search it and display you the results. Odd that it uses the mobile version of it even in the Desktop mode.

Zoom feature

You would say that the zoom feature is also there in the IE mobile included in the Windows Mobile 6.1 devices. But wait, this is a desktop-class IE. Remember? It displays pages accurately. ApoTheTech.com is a fairly complex website and it displayed perfectly!

Sadly, it takes a while to get to page zoomed out. Even on a powerful device like HTC TOUCH DIAMOND

When you have Zoomed out (menu>Zoom out), you can just tap the portion you want to zoom into.

And the youtube works inside the pages as well. It is slow, but it works. I’m sure this will improve in the future builds.

Other nice things I really liked

When you open Gmail, it takes you to the Desktop version of gmail!

But, we didn’t remain happy for a long time. See following screenshot

As soon as I clicked on sent items, it showed me this error
As soon as I clicked on ‘sent items’, it showed me this error

One of the nice touches of new IE is the ability to auto-complete the URL

Quirks:

  • Sometimes, it is not able to identify itself as Desktop browser. For example: going to engadget.com on the device lead me to the mobile version.
  • No tab support: It may be implemented in the future versions
  • Slow! It is way too slow right now to be useful

But still, it is a BIG initiative by the Microsoft to develop a desktop class web browser.

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Internet Explorer Mobile 6 – Preview

Available on new Windows Mobile devices soon, this browser will provide a high-quality browsing experience on your device that more closely resembles a desktop browsing experience.

New/Improved features:

  • Improved fidelity (support for full fidelity desktop rendering)
  • Layout fixes to accommodate a mobile screen (text wrap)
  • Enhanced Script and AJAX support ( Jscript v5.7 from Internet Explorer 8 )
  • Improved multimedia experience (Adobe Flash Lite 3.1 for Adobe Flash content)
  • Deeper integration with search
  • Enhanced cursor navigation model
  • Touch and gesture support – pan support
  • Multiple zoom levels
  • Easy switching between mobile / desktop versions of sites by specifying UA strings

Download Internet Explorer Mobile 6 emulator

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Windows Mobile 6.1 SMTP fix

Experiencing some problems with the SMTP functionality of POP or IMAP accounts on your windows mobile device?

This behavior is associated with a feature that is introduced in Windows Mobile 6.1. The feature allows for mobile operators to specify an alternate SMTP server name that is used if e-mail messages cannot be sent by using the user-specified SMTP server name. If the mobile operator does not specify an alternate SMTP server name and if the Windows Mobile 6.1-based device does not connect, the e-mail account is corrupted and cannot send e-mail messages.

Download the fix

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=d9d71b2e-d2dd-44f2-86e5-1e53aad7fb7a&displaylang=en&tm

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Parallels Desktop 4.0 for Mac Available Now

Do you run PPC-Mac? If yes, then Parallels Desktop 4.0 has something really nice for you to offer.

  • Built-in iPhone access for starting, stopping and managing your virtual machine from your handheld
  • Clips, a new proprietary screenshot sharing tool that lets you share captures between operating systems with a single click
  • Simultaneous device mounting in both Windows and OS X, so that manual switching of things like USB sticks and other removable storage devices
  • Multi-core processors and up to 8GB of RAM are now supported, with up to 256MB of video RAM possible
  • 64-bit computing support
  • Hypervisor adaptive resource management optimizes performance automatically based on your usage
  • PowerSaver improved battery management with battery status monitor in Windows VM
  • An SDK for developing third-party software compatible with Parallels, which could result in some interesting cross-platform applications

It also offers DirectX 9 and OpenGL 2.1 support!. Version 4.0 of Parallel Desktop makes the user experience smoother than ever.

It costs $79.90. Link to the official Parallel Desktop page

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Silverlight for Windows Mobile

“Wouldn’t it be super cool if the Silverlight apps you built for the desktop could run on Millions of Mobile Devices? If you have been building Silverlight applications and are wondering how to extend them to mobile devices, then this webcast is the one to watch. In this webcast you will not only learn how to extend your existing Silverlight 2 applications to work on Windows Mobile, but also learn how to build rich mobile Silverlight apps that play media, handle simple gestures, have cool animations, and enable web services.”

Ever had a dream or wish, if your desktop Silverlight applications could work on the mobile device? If yes, Amit Chopra at Microsoft explains how to do so.

Link