Author: PhoneDog.com – Latest videos, reviews, articles, news and posts

Dogfight! Apple vs Google vs Palm! AT&T vs T-Mobile vs Verizon! Noah vs Noah vs … wait, what? Dogfight!

MetroPCS today announced the touchscreen-equipped Samsung Caliber, available today in the carrier’s retail stores.  The Caliber features EVDO Rev. 0, a 3.2-inch touchscreen, full HTML browsing, microSD expansion up to 16GB, and a 3.0-megapixel camera.  It also comes with the manufacturer’s TouchWiz user interface.  Pick it up for $249 at a MetroPCS store.

The full press release can be found below.  Anyone planning on snagging one?

Samsung Caliber (SCH-r860) Available at MetroPCS
Advanced Touchscreen with Widget Support and Full HTML Browser For Easy Access to Applications
 
The advanced touchscreen on the Samsung Caliber™ (SCH-r860) features Samsung’s unique TouchWiz™ interface. The TouchWiz interface incorporates specially-designed widgets that allow users to customize and personalize their phone. Users can access popular social networking applications like Facebook and MySpace by using the phones full HTML web browser and messaging features that include mobile IM and personal email. The 3.0 megapixel camera and camcorder is perfect for capturing images, while the stereo Bluetooth® wireless technology and a speakerphone make hands-free communication effortless. The Samsung Caliber offers MetroPCS applications and services including downloads, along with an array of other features to keep users connected. Additionally, the phone comes equipped with a built-in video and music player, and will support an optional external microSD up to 16GB.
 
PRODUCTIVITY
Samsung’s TouchWiz™ User Interface
Customizable Widgets
Full HTML Web Browser
Bluetooth® Wireless Technology
Advanced Voice Recognition
MetroNavigator® GPS navigation system*
Metro 411 Directory Assistance*
MetroWEB*
 
ENTERTAINMENT
Text Messaging (SMS), Multimedia Messaging (MMS)
E-mail and Mobile IM Applications*
MP3 player and video playback camcorder
3.0 megapixel camera
External memory up to 16GB
 
SPECIFICATIONS
CDMA 1×800 MHz/1900 MHz, EVDO Rev 0, AWS Band 1700/2100 MHz
Dimensions: 2.2” x 4.5” x 0.47” (standard battery)
Weight: 3.74 ounces (standard battery)
Display: 3.2” WQVGA, 262K TFT
Standard Battery: 3.7 Volt Lithium Ion, 1080mAh
Talk Time: Up to 4.5 hours*
Standby Time: up to 300 hours*
 

 

Talk about taking the iPad name a little too far: The new iMaxi tablet sleeve was designed with… um… protection in mind. For any ladies in the reading audience, if this looks familiar to you, then you’ve just gotten the whole point of this accessory. The item was designed by Hip Handmaids and sells through Etsy, an online marketplace for handmade goods. (Am I missing something? When did feminine products become hip?)

It features a vinyl outer, Velcro closure, quilted cotton interior and, yes, wings for a snug fit. The funniest part is this line from the seller’s page: “It shields your iPad from all those unsightly data leaks that would make any motherboard worry!” No wait, let me retract that; this is actually the funniest (grossest?) part: The iMaxi comes in white, or white with red interior. (eww!)

This kooky product might actually stand a chance of being a success, if only as a gag gift to poke fun at iPad lovers. The only thing stopping it is the price. ($40 is a little steep just to crack a joke, no?)

Be warned: If you are (a) getting an iPad, and (b) have any iPhone/Apple bashers in your life with deep pockets, then (c) don’t be surprised if this thing winds up on your doorstep.

Via: iPhoneSavior, Etsy

Ruh roh.  A day after analysts downgraded the company’s stock due to less-than-spectacular sales at Verizon, Palm has released its earnings report – and suffice to say, things aren’t looking good.  In an update to its third quarter financial guidance, Palm said that customer adoption of its devices is “taking longer than expected,” and order volumes are being lowered and pushed back to “future periods.”  In a statement, Palm said the following:

“…Palm expects fiscal year 2010 revenues to be well below its previously forecasted range of $1.6 billion to $1.8 billion. The company will provide more detail on its financial results during Palm’s third-quarter financial results conference call currently scheduled for Thursday, March 18.”

The company remains committed to driving the Palm brand to consumers, with CEO Jon Rubinstein commenting that “our carrier partners remain committed, and we are working closely with them to increase awareness and drive sales of our differentiated Palm products.”  Though a rumor was making its way around the internet yesterday regarding Verizon Wireless dropping the Pre Plus and Pixi Plus from its lineup, it was quickly debunked.  Company spokeswoman Brenda Raney told PreCentral that “Palm devices are an important part of our portfolio as more and more people enjoy both the Palm Pre Plus and the Palm Pixi Plus on the nation’s most reliable network.”

Frustrating news for Palm, and for shareholders, as the company’s stock has dropped 30 percent this week.  For those that own Palm devices, are you concerned about the future of the organization?

Via PreCentral, BusinessWire

Apparently there has been some concern as to the performance of Flash 10.1 on Android devices (specifically the Nexus One).  Two videos have surfaced recently that have raised some questions as to Flash’s ability to handle responsiveness on games, and overall battery performance on both games and streaming video.  One of the videos in question showed a Nexus One, with the leaked HTC Desire ROM, running FarmVille and displaying a lack of sensitivity to touch.  The other video demonstrated the use of several games and streaming video over an eight minute span, noting a 25% decrease in battery power in that short time.

Adobe caught wind of these videos and posted a response on their Flash Mobile blog.  They made mention of the fact that the Nexus One with the leaked HTC Desire ROM was running an alpha version of Flash Lite and not Flash 10.1, thereby explaining the issues with the game.  Additionally, to show that Flash can be utilized without killing your battery, Mark Doherty of Adobe posted a video on Vimeo showing a Nexus One playing a 17 minute streaming video from the YouTube website, and then showing a mere 6% decrease in power over that time.  He also states that the “tests show that video can be played for well over 3Hours over WIFI from youtube”.

For additional technical details, visit the Flash Mobile Blog.  So, what do you think: Flash or HTML5?

Via Engadget, Android and Me
Videos: Battery Performance, FarmVille

Update: Palm has confirmed that webOS 1.4 will be available for download tomorrow.

Though the rumored launch date continues to be pushed back, the gang at PreCentral received a document from a tipster, complete with a changelog for webOS 1.4.  While I can’t say for certain whether it’s official or not, most of the updates look legitimate to me.  Check out the improvements below – and hey, here’s to hoping that webOS 1.4 still launches today!  After all, we only have a few more days left in February…

webOS 1.4 updates

Fixes

• Time Zone bug Fix
• Network time sync bug fix to reflect accuratenetwork time
• BT car-kit transition to device corrected
• No EV-Icon bug fixed (random)
• Random browser formatting bug fixed
• Fixed bug that incorrectly displayed Sprint when actually was Digital Roaming

Enhancements

• Phonebook Transfer
• Supports Video Capture Capability
• Performance enhancement within phone and calendar

Apps

Calendar

• Dial phone # from within a meeting event
• Allow custom Alerts sounds for Calendar event and reminders
• Added AM – PM detail within Calendar events

Email

• Embedded phone $ or email address (embedded inemail) can be easily added to Contacts app
• New email sort options  (date, Sender, Subject)
• Return to inbox view after send – email

Messaging

• Ability to forward SMS to email
• Ability to dial phone # from SMS chat session (No need to open contact any longer
• Press and hold on a phone # to get more options( Call, SMS)

Universal Search now includes EAS (outlook Exchange) GAL corporate address look up.

Application Launcher – Easier user interface providing usermore feedback during an application launch

Pre Button in gesture area blinks when notification pending

Added Adobe Flash 10 Beta – Palm Pre only

Supports Flash 10 Beta – download available in Palm AppCatalog

Via PreCentral

Dell’s Mini 5 is an Android tablet with a phone inside. Go hands-on from Barcelona with a pre-production version of the phone.

T-Mobile today reported a fourth-quarter operating income of $1.38 billion, down from $1.57 billion in the fourth quarter of 2008.  The nation’s fourth largest wireless carrier added 371,000 net subscribers in the fourth quarter, up from 77,000 losses in the third quarter of 2009.  Wireless retail postpaid churn came in at 2.5 percent, while total blended churn (combining postpaid and prepaid) was 3.3 percent.  Total data ARPU (average revenue per user) stood at $10.20 in the fourth quarter, up from $9.30 in the prior year.  At the end of the year, T-Mobile served 33.8 million subscribers, up from 32.8 million at the end of the fourth quarter in 2008.

“T-Mobile USA delivered on two significant objectives in 2009. The first was to achieve national scale with a high-quality 3G network offering. This was realized in the fourth quarter of 2009 with more than 200 million people now covered across the country. The second was to launch our first HSPA+ market. The successful launch of T-Mobile HSPA+ in Philadelphia now serves as the model for a national roll-out of one of the fastest and most pervasive networks in the United States,” said Robert Dotson, President and CEO, T-Mobile USA.

On a rather interesting note, contract customers comprised 79 percent of T-Mobile’s total customer base at the end of 2009, compared to 82 percent at the same time in 2008.  The carrier’s HSPA rollouts, combined with the new price structure of Even More and Even More Plus, will inevitably bring additional subscribers to the carrier as we move into 2010.  With the wireless market nearly saturated, individuals are either picking up a second device or hopping between wireless carriers.

T-Mobile customer?  Potential T-Mobile customer?  Give us a shout in the comments!

 

Amidst the disappointment felt by consumers over the removal of over 5,000 apps deemed inappropriate or offensive, there was a brief glimpse of hope discovered by developers in the form of a new “Explicit” category.  The addition of such a category would suggest that the recently banned apps might have a home to return to by the time all is said and done. 

Unfortunately, this dream was short lived.  Just as quickly as the new category was discovered in the morning, it was found missing later in the day.  Apple confirmed the removal of the Explicit category via phone, but left the caller with a tiny ounce of hope, stating that while they are considering the new category in the future, “it’s not going to happen anytime soon.”

For more information on the whole ordeal, check out Adriana’s article.  Where do you stand with Apple’s banning of apps? Sound off below!

Via Gizmodo

Dogfight! Apple vs Google vs Palm! AT&T vs T-Mobile vs Verizon! Noah vs Noah vs … wait, what? Dogfight!

iPhone users waiting and wondering when vid chat might be possible on their handsets will want to take note: 9to5Mac has some pretty compelling evidence that this might be exactly what’s in store for us. This isn’t just for the iPhones either — looks like iPads may be getting some video love in the future too.

When 9to5Mac picked apart the 3.2 iPhone SDK, it found some interesting things. First, a set of icons, filenames and VideoChat strings have been discovered that have sent the blogs buzzing. (One of the icons look like it’s meant to accept vid calls, the other to end calls.) What do you think? Do these look to you like pretty definitive evidence that the feature is at least in the works for iPhone OS users?

The site also found what looks an interface that the iPad could’ve used for rejecting or accepting vid calls. (Looks like these particular ones were intended for the iPad, since the buttons are clearly too huge for the iPhone.)

Now there’s no way video calling could work without a camera on the front of the device. (Or maybe it could work, but that would be really ridiculously inconvenient.) So if these suggest what I think — and hope — it does, then I also wonder if it could mean some hardware tweaks are on the menu as well. The SDK also contains references to a “hasFrontCamera” variable. Does this mean the iPhone’s get a new front-facing camera? And will the iPad be getting a camera of any kind at all? The possibilities are intriguing.

Enter UK’s The Register, to pop the balloons in my parade: The site posits the theory that even though there may have been software support for it, the hardware design that would’ve made it possible got nixed. So these, it imagines, are just remaining vestiges of an idea that hit the trash can. On the plus side, even if this were true, it looks like the things needed to make this a go are in place, including empty space on the enclosure for a cam and the software. So it seems like it’s just a matter of someone hitting that big “go” button in Cupertino’s headquarters.

MacRumors found some even more tantalizing tidbits in the latest Beta 3 iPad SDK: “We’ve been told that if you go digging into Apple’s private framework which controls the camera, the iPad SDK tests for 3 additional camera characteristics that are not found in the iPhone 3.x SDK. For comparison, Erica Sadun has a code listing of iPhone 3.x PLCameraController.h on her site. The Beta 3 iPad SDK version adds these additional test conditions for the device’s capabilities.”

Whoa, a zoom and flash for the camera? Well, that would certainly be new. (And about time! Honestly, I’m getting a little tired of my Android and BB friends making fun of my phone’s camera 😛 )

Some iPhone/iPad die-hards would get Apple mobile devices, regardless of whatever updates are in the works. But for you fence-sitters out there, if any of these changes actually pan out, would they be enough to tip the scales for you? If not, what changes would you want to see before picking one up? If I were making a wish list, I’d start with multitasking and Flash support, but that’s just me. To see what are on others’ wish lists, click here.

Via: The Register, MacRumors, 9to5Mac, MacDailyNews

Not that this comes as any sort of surprise, given the age of the devices in question, but it’s still interesting that Verizon is dropping several BlackBerry devices all at once.  In a leaked screenshot obtained by a tipster, it appears that Verizon is discontinuing the BlackBerry Pearl Flip 8230, Curve 8330, 8830 World Edition, and the Storm 9530.  Once these are off of the shelves, Verizon will be left with the Tour 9630, Curve 8530, and Storm2 9550, with the Bold 9XXX coming soon.

I was always a big fan of the concept behind the Pearl Flip 8230, but I never felt like (1) Verizon threw enough marketing support behind it, and (2) RIM made it powerful enough.  Perhaps we’ll see another device with a similar form factor.  I also liked the Storm, after improvements in overall build quality and the introduction of OS 5.0.

If you’re an owner of one of the aforementioned devices, how do you feel about the situation?

As it stands, the green “dots” that you see in the picture above represents Sprint’s 4G footprint in the United States.  In other words, it’s not that huge (27 cities, to be exact).  What’s even more interesting is the rollout itself – note that there’s no 4G markets in New York or California.  Though other cities have been rumored for a 2010 rollout, Sprint today announced that WiMAX would be coming to Boston, Denver, Kansas City, Houston, Minneapolis, New York, San Francisco and Washington, D.C. by the end of the year. 

For those in the aforementioned areas, you’ll be able to tote around an Overdrive WiMAX hotspot soon enough.  Anyone going to beat down the doors for one when 4G launches in your market?

Via MobileCrunch

Just one week after the announcement of the new Windows Phone 7 Series, which is slated to replace Windows Mobile later this year, much discussion about potential form factors has surfaced.  It seems the chatter emerged from a podcast involving two Microsoft Australia Developer Evangelists who, among other things, provided some insight into how WinPho7 phones will look in the future.

The first of the three chassis is reported to be that which you’ve already seen via the MWC 2010 reveal.  Chassis 1, which it is affectionately referred to, will sport a full capacitive touchscreen with a 1 GHz processor and no physical keyboard (think iPhone, HTC HD2).  Chassis 2 is said to have a full QWERTY keyboard as well as a touchscreen, and may either be a slide phone (like the Motorola Devour or Droid) or something more closely related to the Palm Treo.  Chassis 3 is described as a candy bar form factor, however, information on Chassis 3 seems to be strictly speculation at this point.

Having three specific form factors is Microsoft’s way of controlling the quality of the products that bear their name.  Requiring vendors to provide specific chassis and hardware specifications, yet providing three styles to choose from enables Microsoft to provide a diverse line of handsets while retaining one intentional user experience. This could be a move in the right direction for Microsoft.

If you could decide what your WinPho7 phone would look like, what form factor would you pick?

Via Engadget, ZDNet, Gizmodo, Arstechnica

Everyone needs some mid-week laughter.  In short, Nestle announced a contest last year for people to make a “Nobody’s going to lay a finger on my Butterfinger” commercial, with the winning entry being aired on television.  What better way to take advantage of Apple’s app campaign then to create an ad circulating around a “Butterfinger App?”

I don’t want to spoil the fun.  Check it out below:

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Via MobileCrunch

Recently, roughly 5,000+ apps got yanked from the Apple App Store. The offense? “Overtly sexual content.” According to SVP Phil Schiller, “It came to the point where we were getting customer complaints from women who found the content getting too degrading and objectionable, as well as parents who were upset with what their kids were able to see,” he said.

On Today’s iPhone, Assistant Editor Cam Bunton made a good point in a post titled “My view on Apple’s booby ban…”:

I’m relieved Apple has taken this step. I write quite a few reviews for apps, which often means scouring through different sections in the store to find the latest stuff. Only a couple of days back I checked out the “entertainment” section and to my great irritation was confronted with “Asian beauties 1-100million” (exaggerating somewhat there)… So the apps were getting out of control, getting everywhere, getting in the way, reducing the overall quality of apps in the store and cluttering it all. All I have to say about the ban is “Thank you Mr. Jobs.” If people want to sulk or look at bikini wearing girls from Thailand, go on to Google Images and type in “Thai girls in bikinis.” (Click the post title to read the full article.)

While I’d never come out in favor of censorship, I do see that there are some valid arguments that could be made for a little judicious pruning of the App Store entries. Logical points, sound reasoning, it all makes perfect sense. But there’s a nagging issue here for some, and it’s this: While thousands of iPhone apps were abruptly kicked out, some were allowed to remain. Sexually suggestive — even kind of explicit — apps like SI Swimsuit from Sports Illustrated, Playboy and FHM are still in the store.

And according to iPhoneSavior.com, the content in the remaining apps — which encompasses images and video — is actually saucier than the stuff in “My Boys,” an app that was booted for showing muscle-bound, computer-generated mockups of men. Shake the app, and they get down to their skivvies and speedos.

Okay, hold on a second: Does the company really think that digital dudes in tight shorts are considered racier than this?

(Okay this image, while not exactly tame, isn’t even the most risqué of the lot. And no, I’m not posting anymore here. C’mon — This is PhoneDog, not HornDog. Sorry, but this is as racy as you’re going to get here.)

This was Schiller’s explanation: Apple weighed various factors, including what the source was and the intention of the app. “The difference is this is a well-known company with previously published material available broadly in a well-accepted format,” he said. Schiller went on to say, “We obviously care about developers, but in the end have to put the needs of the kids and parents first.”

The debate over whether to censor or not seems almost beside the point here. This explanation seems extremely inconsistent. Leaving “well-known companies” alone, even when their apps are racier than others that have been booted, doesn’t seem to be putting “the kids and parents first.” It’s like the company is picking on the little guys, but leaving the big boys — with their potentially big future distribution deals — alone.

Some think this double standard is at least partly (or even completely) due to the iPad, which is launching in a few weeks. Apple’s publishing relationships for “the big iPod Touch” have been pretty well publicized. But does that justify this blatant show of favoritism? If you’re a numbers cruncher, it might.

Media folks are chewing over the success of the app version of Sports Illustrated’s 2010 Swimsuit issue. It’s been topping the charts in the App Store’s sports category for the last week — it even beat out the NBC app covering the Olympics, which is the biggest current sports-related news.

The free SI app has been downloaded 411,648 times since it launched, and has tempted 7.8 percent of users over to the paid $1.99 version. If you do the math, this comes to $64,000 (which doesn’t even include advertising deals). This places the paid SI Swimsuit app as the 33rd highest-grossing mobile app in the App Store right now. And the free version is the 13th most popular app in the whole store. These numbers could go up even more once the iPad debuts. The temptation of seeing all that content on a bigger screen could offer an added boost.

In the end, I never thought I’d be one to speak out in favor of skin purveyors, but this just seems like yet another example of small-time developers being given the short shrift. While I can’t say I’m sad to see tasteless content removed (though it does raise some censorship flags that I’m not 100 percent comfortable with), I do think that if Apple wants to remove overtly sexual content, it should make that consistent across the board. Or at least offer a reasonable explanation that isn’t so transparently subjective and self-serving.

What do you think? Did Apple make the right choice by pulling these apps? And do you agree with its decision to leave the large media groups alone, or do you think they should’ve been pulled too? Weigh in below.

Via: Today’s iPhone, MacRumors, min Online, iPhone Savior

UPDATE: Here’s an interesting twist: It seems Apple has now created a new “Explicit” category in the store. For more on this, click to go to the post on Today’s iPhone.

You may remember the FCC’s inquiry into Verizon Wireless’ $350 ‘advanced device’ early termination fee this past December, followed by inquiries into AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile and Google earlier this year.  The FCC seems concerned that there is no standardized structure for ETFs in the wireless industry, except to say that everyone has them.  So, they created a questionnaire for the industry leaders to respond to with a deadline in late February.

The deadline has since arrived and the responses are in.  Thanks to long-winded lawyers, each company prepared roughly 10 pages of information discussing the reasoning behind their ETFs, with Sprint producing a whopping 60 page response thanks to an abundance of attachments.  In lieu of summarizing each company’s response (follow the links at the bottom if you want the juicy details), suffice it to say that the overwhelming feeling is there’s a lot of justifying going on.  Each company believes that they are the victim, not the consumer. 

What do you have to say to that?  Let Verizon, AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile and Google know how you feel about their ETFs by posting your stories in the comments!

Via Engadget
Specific Responses: Google | Verizon | AT&T | Sprint | T-Mobile

 

Megan Fox had it during the Super Bowl, and now we’ve got the Motorola Devour, too. I met with Moto and Verizon PR Monday in San Francisco and walked away with the latest MotoBlur device in his hands. Like an Aluminum Sidekick that runs Android, Devour is all about Social Networks and messaging with, oh yeah, a full-on smartphone lurking under the skin. It hits Best Buy Mobile February 25 and Verizon retail in mid-March.

A few first impressions after 24 hours of Devour. And please, lend me some credit for avoiding terrible puns on the word “devour.” I’ll need that credit when you get to the end of this post and watch the ridiculous video I made with the phone. In the bathtub. Pretending I know Ms. Fox. Man, I hope my parents aren’t watching this. So embarrassing! (Nah … Actually it’s fun)

– Devour is big. It’s really a big device. Big and angular and also big.

– Performance has been good so far. Granted, I’ve only gotten around to very limited testing of the device. But everything’s been snappy.

– The keyboard is pretty decent. I much prefer it to Droid’s QWERTY board because the keys are: 1) NOT flush mounted, and 2) Separated from one another. I do wish Moto had ditched the dedicated numerical keys row in favor of dedicated punctuation mark keys, however.

– I still get confused as to when I’m triggering “Happenings” or “Social Status” from Motoblur, as opposed to just checking my Twitter app. 

– Devour looks and feels really nice. The aluminum construction is solid, the slider is a million times more satisfying to open and close than Droid’s slider, and the rubber edges of the phone are easy to grip. Also, the brushed silver finish looks cool like Tron.

– Somehow, the phone doesn’t feel quite as heavy as it actually is. Devour’s heavy, don’t get me wrong. It tips the scales at 180 grams. But when I picked it up for the first time I thought, “Oh, it’s lighter than I thought it’d be. Well, no .. Yeah, it is. It’s big and bulky and heavy, but somehow not as heavy as I feared.”

– By way of comparison, that’s almost 50% more than Verizon’s Droid Eris – a thin, touchscreen only Android device – which weighs 126 g. 

– The phone’s battery slot and microUSB and microSD slots are all concealed behind the same rubber panel. It’s a very laptop-style concept and I really like it. Unibody construction will be the in thing in 2010.

– Motorola built Devour with a touchscreen and an optical D-Pad. The touchscreen is great. No multitouch/pinch-and-zoom support, but otherwise very responsive and easy on the eyes. The D-Pad is a little bit of an odd duck – mainly it seems that the Blur UI was in no way meant to be navigated via optical pad. So I’ve had better D-Pad results in apps like Browser and Mail than within Blur.

– Motoblur is Motoblur is Motoblur … Devour ships with the latest version, but it’s the same as what you can get by updating another Motoblur device to the latest install.

– Devour ships with Android 1.6.  Boo. But you can install Google Maps with Navigation Beta for free, and that prompts a free install of voice recognition software … which all adds up to the same voice activated turn-by-turn GPS nav system that Android 2.x devices get. Yay!

More with Devour in the coming days. The phone hits Best Buy Mobile as an exclusive starting Feb 25th for $99 after rebate with a two-year contract. Rumor is BBYM will also be cutting the prices of the Moto Droid and HTC Droid Eris at the same time. If Droid and Devour wind up both priced at $99 – which is what I’m hearing – that’d make for a tough call. Droid is clearly the better-spec’d device, but Devour has better bulid quality and a better QWERTY board. But Droid’s display is so much larger and higher-res, it’d be tough to actually choose Devour instead at the same price.

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The current state of the App Store has Apple at a distinct advantage and competitors struggling to keep up.  With Apple boasting over 150,000 apps in their app store and the ability to store as many apps as the iPhone’s capacity will allow, they truly seem to have the app market cornered.??

Version 1.1 of the BlackBerry App World introduced the ability to archive unused apps to a microSD card with quick access to restoring them as needed.  The purpose of this was to free up memory that was being wasted on minimally used apps that you didn’t have the heart to delete.  In the weeks leading up to the release of v1.1, the rumor mill was rife with chatter of the possibility of storing apps on removable memory cards.  However, archiveable apps is what ultimately came to fruition; a welcome addition, but still not quite there. 

Microsoft, on the other hand, is on the right path.  In a recent update, Microsoft made Windows Marketplace available for customers with Windows Mobile 6.0 and above.  With the update comes something that app lovers are sure to enjoy: the added ability to store apps on a memory card.  If you’re keeping score, it’s a feat only Apple and Microsoft have been able to accomplish.

So, how does this affect you?  Considering WinMo now?  Feeling left behind if you’re a BlackBerry or Android user?  Sound off below!

Via Engadget

PhoneDog just can’t cram every bit of analysis, in-depth coverage, and tip/trick/how-to goodness onto our home page. So we’ve built a few more home pages to hold it all.  Whether it’s Android, BlackBerry, or iPhone that makes you tick, we’ve got the goods.

Here’s what’s going on right now on PhoneDog Media’s network sites: Today’s iPhone, BBerryDog and DroidDog.

My view on Apple’s booby ban…

App Review: Meebo

Vid: App Review – Virtuoso Piano Free 2

Verizon to stop selling the BlackBerry Storm?

BlackBerry Tour 9650 to be branded as Bold 9650?

Review: Foursquare

Rumor: HTC Desire heading to AT&T, and Legend to Sprint

Swype for Nexus One easily accessible

Acer Liquid e heading to Rogers