Recent Articles

  Just a few days after the unannounced CES sighting and a single, unexciting “spy shot” the Palm Treo Pro gets its FCC approval for CDMA. Of course we have a good idea that this is supposed to be hitting Sprint within the next 2 weeks, but with little fanfare as it lies within the wake of the Palm Pre.  The only thing we now know is this: it does have a 1500mah battery, which will be a welcomed improvment over the 1130mah of the Treo 800w.

1. Just weeks after the Treo 800w was released, the CDMA Treo Pro was finished and headed for the FCC
2. Our earlier report (Sept 18^th) where Palm said they had secured a deal with a carrier for the Pro

After seeing this post at jkOnTheRun, I hot-footed it over to Mio's booth to check out their new device -- which is a Mobile Internet Device running Windows Mobile Pro 6.1.  It's still very much a prototype, they're still deciding on final specs, and they're not even sure that they're going to bring it to market.  Price, final RAM, even whether or not it will have a SIM card slot for connectivity are all up in the air.

Nevertheless, it's one sweet piece of kit and the best Windows Mobile device I've seen at CES.  Find out more after the break and check out our hands-on gallery!

The Round Robin Contest ends tomorrow. All you have to do to enter is to post in any of the Round Robin Forum threads. You can find the Round Robin Update page or through our RSS Feed.

Once the Round Robin is "officially" over tomorrow, Dieter will be able to return to Windows Mobile and will share his thoughts on his triumphant return.  Look for it next week and in the meantime, take your chances at winning one of the smartphones involved in the Round Robin and post in one of the discussion forums.

Good Luck!

Seems as if that popular tweaking app Schaps Advanced Configuration program and perhaps other GSM-based "tweak" apps (e.g. Diamond Tweak) might be causing a nasty side effect on CDMA (Sprint & Verizon) phones.

Problem: Ever had an incoming phone call and when you answered it lagged big time?

Turns out that this occurs when you have an active data connection.  In theory, the phone should immediately shut that connection and you should be able to answer the call instantly.  And it does...unless you inadvertently change some registry settings, specifically ones related to "force data disconnect".

Thanks to ppcgeeker snovvman, you can verify if you have the problem. Simply open up your favorite registry editor (see our great guide here) and look under:

--> HKLM/Comm/ConnMgr/Planner/Settings/SuspendResume

If that value reads ~GPRS, you have a problem;  Its should be set to #777 (a least for Sprint users).  While manually editing the registry is probably the best way, Juggalo_X created a .cab file which may work for some.  Remember to wait about 10 seconds and then soft-reset to take effect.

[Read more here]

...well, unless you dismiss the sighting this past week at CES.

What you see to the right may be t he first spy-shot of the ever elusive Sprint Treo Pro which is slated to be released in about 2 weeks time for $549 full-retail.

We keep hearing that this is a pretty basic GSM--> CDMA conversion, with not much different between the two--which is either dissapointing for some or a good thing for others.

Unfortunately still no hard facts on specs for this guy, but hopefully more will be coming forthwith.

thanks gadgetluva!

We'll obviously be swallowing this one with a decent grain of salt, but all-things-Microsoft blog uxevangelist [via] has a roadmap that shows a Windows Mobile 7 beta slated for sometime this year, with the actual release in the "future." We heard a while ago not to expect the final build of WM7 until well into 2009, and none of that's really cleared up with this.

That said, we'll probably be staring at this thing for quite a while, hoping to glean some other tiny morsel from it. Or, if we squint just right, maybe we'll see a sailboat.

RadioTime, Inc., developer of radio applications, and Weather Underground, a popular online weather source, have combined forces to bring WunderRadio to Windows Mobile devices. Previously available only for the iPhone, WunderRadio offers access to 50,000 AM/FM/Internet radio stations.

Programming can be searched by local radio, location and genres. Expected launch of WunderRadio is January 15 and will be priced at $9.99 under a special 30-day promotion. After the promotion the cost will rise to $14.99. Once the application launches, we'll try to get our hands on WunderRadio for review and try to have it available over at the Software Store as well.

[Read:Yahoo Finance]

Microsoft announced this week that the mobile version of Live Search has been updated to include the ability to detect the location of the mobile user even if their handset is not GPS-enabled. The update also includes predictive search query input and more detailed views of maps. Also included in the update is the "bird's-eye-view" that's popular on Microsoft's maps.live.com. It's not quite the same as Google Maps' Street View, but it does do a better job of spying on your neighbors.

Also of note is that latest version still works with Windows Mobile 5.

According to Jeremy Beasley, Live Search Mobile product manager, "if you're not running the latest version of Windows Mobile, don't worry. We've built in support for Windows Mobile 5 phones to make sure that you can use these new features as well."

To download the latest version (4.012158.1) of Windows Live Search mobile, just point your browser to wls.live.com or go here on your desktop for more options.

[Read:Clickthroughmarketing.com]

Well, not exactly. One of the many subjects Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer covered during his keynote address to the 2009 Consumer Electronics Show was the introduction of a new Windows Mobile application that will let people manage and update their Netflix queues from their WM devices. Check out a brief demo of it here at the 2:10 mark.

The application ties into the Netflix-Xbox Live partnership, which was also a highlight of the keynote address. The Xbox gaming system remains the only game system that lets consumers instantly watch movies and television episodes streamed from Netflix. The Windows Mobile application will let you schedule and prompt these streams.

Stay tuned today for more on Ballmer's keynote as well as the rest of the 2009 CES.

Yep, you read that right. Microsoft apparently is planning to scale back the number of devices it puts Windows Mobile on. And this really isn't that surprising and almost definitely is a move in the right direction.

The New York Times reports that Microsoft is planning a "major announcement" next month at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, so we'll likely get more details then. For now, here's what Todd Peters, VP of Marketing for Windows Mobile, told the Gray Lady.

The reason that Microsoft is limiting the number of phones with the operating system is because, he said, the company does not want to have its efforts diluted over too many devices.

“I’d rather have fewer devices and be more focused,” he said. That way “we get better integration” between phone and operating system.

This really makes sense to us. We've ranted talked about how AT&T in particular has too many Windows Mobile phones to pick from, and the NYT story spells it out — there are 140 phones that currently run Windows Mobile. There is, in fact, too much of a good thing. Concentrating on a smaller number of outstanding devices definitely should be better in the long run for the platform, and for Microsoft in general. Sure worked out well for these guys.