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Just when we were expecting another delay in Sprint's release of the Treo Pro, we run across the phone in Best Buy's Mobile Buyer's Guide for March! The Treo Pro (listed as Palm Pro) will run you $249.99 with a two year contract. Strangely though, if you're upgrading it will run an extra $20 (activation fee?). There's no availability date listed but the Buyer's Guide is dated for February 22, 2009 through March 28. 2009.

Thanks Gabriel for the tip!

HP has issued a news release that Windows Mobile 6.5 will be used with its future devices. Quoting from the release:

"Windows Mobile 6.5 on HP smartphones will offer key enhancements to business productivity, personal messaging and mobile Internet capabilities, making it even easier for mobile customers to communicate and to manage critical business and personal information. With its new visual appeal, enhanced mobile Internet experience and greater personalization capabilities, the new operating system boosts the opportunities for Windows-based smartphones in broader market segments."

With LG pledging to make Windows Mobile its primary operating system for the foreseable future, the news release may be an effort to remind Microsoft (and the rest of us) that HP has been and still is a strong supporter. HP has a long-standing relationship with Microsoft's mobile systems dating back to the Jornada days that ran Windows CE and Pocket PC as well as the current Ipaq models running Windows Mobile.

HP didn't use this as an opportunity to announce any new devices that would be running Windows Mobile 6.5.  Does this mean that the Data and Voice Messengers will be compatible with Windows Mobile 6.5? Or delayed until WinMo 6.5 is released? Will a successor to the Ipaq 910c surface next? 

[Read: Engadget.com]

While we all had our eyes last week on the Touch Pro 2 and Touch Diamond 2, HTC quietly released an update for the original Touch Pro. [via] Here's what's fixed:

• The display of TouchFLO 3D sometimes may appear cracked.
• When taking a picture, the auto focus function may malfunction in some circumstances.
• In some circumstances, the preview screen will become black after taking picture.
• In some circumstances, the device may hang while loading TouchFLO 3D.
• When hanging up a phone call, there may be a delay in the display response.

This is a generic ROM available for the following languages: English (Pan Europe and UK), Italian, Dutch, German, French, Finnish, Portuguese and Spain. That also means if you're using the AT&T Fuze, you likely won't be able to use this update and if you do, your carrier settings likely will be wiped.

Consider yourselves warned. And as always, back up your data before updating anything. Now go get it here.

Mobile World Congress, Windows Mobile 6.5, HTC's new devices, and much much more. Listen in!

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We grabbed some hands-on time with the first Windows Mobile phone of the Garmin-Asus alliance, the nuvifone M20. We gotta say, we're darn impressed. The styling is helped out by a multitude of color options, but in essence think "small," "wee," or "cute" — but in a good way.

The little guy has GPS down in its guts in exactly the way you'd expect from Garmin — maps are included in the 4 gigs of onboard storage, GPS location is added to photos, e-mails, texts, basically anything you'd like to add it, too. There's a special Garmin Car Mount that it ships with that will pass-through charge and holds the device in landscape. Better yet: When you get a call when the device is in the mount, it will automatically turn off your GPS direction audio (visual directions say) and go into speakerphone. Park the car and grab the phone to continue the conversation and the phone switches out of speaker automatically. Garmin-Asus also threw on a custom skin, which does the job but doesn't wow.

We're looking at dual-band 3G and tri-band GSM, so we may not see this thing in the states when it comes out "first half of 2009," and that would be a shame. The stats:

• Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional
• Dual Band HSPA, Tri-Band GSM
• WiFi, Bluetooth, Accelerometer
• GPS (duh)
• 2.8" 640x480 Touchscreen
• 3MP camera
• 4 or 8 GB of internal storage
• 95.3 x 52.5 12.8 mm
• 99g (including battery)
• 528MHz Qualcomm 7200A
• 920 mAh battery (yes, that is small)

More photos and some of the official press stuff after the break.

AppleInsider (of all places) has put two and two together figuring out that HTC makes roughly 80 percent of all Windows Mobile devices out there. How they got to that number is they took Microsoft's report of 50 million WinMo devices sold over the lifetime of the platform, and HTC's claim that its has  sold 40 million WinMo devices worldwide= 80 percent.

That doesn't sound too far off the mark (give or take a little) considering that HTC, while only recently starting marketing its devices independently, still makes a large portion of devices for other companies, e.g. Palm's Treo Pro, T-Mobile Shadow, Xperia X1, etc.

Still this begs the question: Is this a good thing for the industry? Sure, HTC has done wonders for WM as it's one of the few companies who continually release new and innovating devices. But generally speaking, are (near) monopolies good for competition? Unfortunately, other companies (including Palm and Motorola) have been unable to launch widely successful Windows Mobile phones or maintain a consistent, innovative lineup (both can be considered one-hit wonders), so in a way HTC is just filling a gap left open by others as opposed to unfair or predatory competition.

But enough pontificating on our part, what say you? Think that number will change in 2009/2010?

Last we heard about Pandora on WM was from Phil at the begining of  December, who gave a great overview of this popular program.  Back then it was working, but wonky and not many devices were supported.

Today, well there are still only a handful of "officially" supported devices, but by most accounts it is working quite well on many e.g. Moto Q9c, Treo 800w, Treo Pro, Touch, Mogul, 700wx, Diamond, Touch Pro, i760 and Tilt.

Recently I took version 1.1.4 of the program for a spin (1.1.10 is out now) and notwithstanding a few glitches, it's quite the killer program on WM.

Read below for a smattering of screenshots and my experience.

Let the LTE/4G race begin! We've reported that AT&T is planning to have LTE service by 2011, but it looks like Verizon may get there first. Verizon Wireless Chief Technical Officer Dick Lynch, in a presentation at Mobile World Congress, announced that Verizon is committed to equipping two U.S. cities with Long Term Evolution (LTE) data networks by the end of 2009. Characterized as "pre-commercial deployments," the LTE networks would be a precursor to full commercial deployment slated for 2010 that would include 25-30 cities. It's anybody's guess which two U.S. cities will be the test sites, but LTE tests have been performed by Verizon in several cities including Minneapolis, Columbus (Ohio), and New Jersey. 

No word if AT&T has adjusted its projections in response to Verizon's announcement. If Verizon is successful in deploying the 4G service later this year, it may give them an advantage over AT&T. Then again, the timetable for devices capable of handling 4G is a lot more sketchy than the timetable for having the service available. Some projections don't see the 4G devices hitting the market until 2011. If this is the case, AT&T's timeline mirrors device development. Verizon may be leading a race for a data network very few, if any, consumers will be able to use.

[Read: ARS Technica]

SiRF, which designs the popular standalone GPS systems like SiRF III, which found in just about every GPS device, has been bought out by CSR. Who’s CSR, you ask? They’re “…a global leader in the Bluetooth connectivity business with core expertise in multiple connectivity technologies.”

So basically SiRF designs GPS technology and CSR makes multifunction chips. Seems to make sense and an obvious response to such companies as Qualcomm that have been making “all in one” MSM solutions for years now and which also have the very successful GPSOne competitor to SiRF III. (Read up on GPS vs. aGPS here)

The big question of course is what does this mean for standalone GPS systems and mobile phones? SiRFIII has been demonstrated to be a more accurate system than aGPS, yet due to costs and Qualcomm’s near stranglehold on much of the mobile market, they have been mostly sidelined. However, with companies like Palm turning to Texas Instruments for their Pre, the resurgence of Marvel’s XScale chips, and now nVidia entering the scene, this new SiRF/CSR hybrid may stand a better chance of offering an alternative and superior solution to consumers.

We’ll be watching guys to see what you can come up with.

Speaking of Google, its Maps application just got a small update.

Although we have no idea what this update entails, suffice it to say it fixes something as no new features are to be found.  Some are suggesting that Latitude (see review here) is more upfront on program startup, whereas before it wasn't.

Anyways, Google Maps gets bumped from version 3.0.0.2 to 3.0.0.12, which on the face of it seems odd but who are we to question Google's numbering system?

Feel you need the update, then head over to m.google.com/maps to get fresh. 

Google has just released Google App for Windows Mobile, which essentially gives you a quick-search bar on your today screen, and quick-launch icons for Google Maps and the like. If you use Google apps within your own domain, you can do that here, as well.

Check out the video above for more details, and hit up m.google.com/search from your phone to download. 

Update: Um, yeah. Malatesta sends word there's a bit of a UI problem when it comes to his 320x320 screen. (And it's not working too hot with my 6.1 sliding panels, either.) Anyone else seeing any problems?