Author: Surur

We have posted before that, with HTC’s release of WIFI Internet sharing, WMWifiRouter was obsolete. When faced with such a challenge a company can either fold or raise its game to a new level.

Today Morose Media opted for the second option, releasing version 2.00 of its award-winning WMWifiRouter software.

The new version bring many improvements, including:

• All languages have been updated, and we’ve added support for Dutch, French and Spanish
• The multilingual version now loads much faster
• Massive amounts of code were added to ensure Wi-Fi stability on those devices with “sensitive” Wi-Fi drivers
• On most of the devices WMWifiRouter is able to use Bluetooth with, multiple simultaneous Bluetooth clients are now supported
• New Wi-Fi connections now pop up a notification with the details of the device that connected
• Power management has been improved, and an option has been added to allow the screen to turn off without manually using the power (or end call) button, for both PocketPC (professional, touchscreen) and SmartPhone (standard, non-touchscreen) platforms. .
• Command line options have been added for the power users
• Some features that are not supported on your device will be automatically hidden
• Many other features

The software is available for download immediately through the WMWifiRouter.com website, Windows Marketplace for Mobile, and select resellers, and is a a completely FREE upgrade for all registered users.

For everyone else, whether the improvements are worth € 14.99 remains to be seen.

Read more and find the download links at MoroseMedia here.

Via WindowsPhoneThoughts.com

Mobilisomo.ro has compared the performance of the iGo Navigation package, which comes in Windows Mobile, Android and iPhone versions, and while they found the performance on the HTC HD2 more than good enough to replace a dedicated PND,  they complained the Android version (video after the break) had serious framerate issues, and only used 1/3 of the screen.

See the Nexus One version in action after the break.

Read more at Mobilissimo.ro here.

We have posted about this much-desired app before, and the software is now available.  FiOS DRV Manager allows Verizon Windows Mobile users to access their DVR remotely, schedule recordings and much more, all in a very attractive user interface.

See the feature list below:

• Add/Remove Shows to DVR Schedule & view the DVR status
• Browse and search TV programming
• View lists of scheduled and recorded programs
• Update parental controls
• View and bookmark video on demand content

Unfortunately the software is still tied to Verizon phones only, hopefully something that will change in the future.

See a gallery of screen shots after the break.

Via MobilityDigest.com

Microsoft’s Stefan Weitz has recently spoken to WebProNews about Microsoft’s successful challenge to Google’s bread and butter.

He showed off the latest features of the search engine, including Windows Phone 7 integration, which interestingly benefits from improvements on the server side also.

Via Webpronews.com

Klausner Technologies, Inc. announced today that it has filed suit against HTC Corp. for patent infringement under its U.S. Visual Voicemail patents.

The lawsuit is based on the unveiling by HTC of its Android-powered MyTouch 3G mobile phones, which use Klausner Technologies’ Visual Voicemail patented technology. Various other HTC models with the Visual Voicemail feature are already covered under Klausner Technologies Visual Voicemail patent licenses granted to certain mobile operators for their Visual Voicemail services.

Klausner Technologies currently has 27 Visual Voicemail patent licensees under its U.S., European and Asian patents, including major U.S. and European mobile operators, international cell phone manufacturers, cable/VOIP providers as well as other providers of Visual Voicemail services.

The suit has been filed in federal court in the Eastern District of Texas by the California law firm of Dovel & Luner.

HTC is already subject to litigation from Apple for patent infringement related to their other Android-based offerings.

Via PhoneScoop.com

Its been a long wait for LG Expo owners, but the Snapdragon-totting smartphone is now finally able to join in the custom ROM flashing fun, thanks to the efforts of Dark9781.

The ROM runs the latest 23563 build of Windows Mobile, and has been stripped of superfluous AT&T apps.

Read more about the new ROM and any associated issues in this XDA-Developers thread.

Via XDA-Developers.com

SK Telecom's new smartphone additions to counter KT's iPhone

The iPhone has been a quiet success in South Korea, selling around 500,000 units in 4 months on the smaller KT carrier there.  SK Telecom, who dominates the cell phone market there, is however not taking this lying down, and has promised to introduce a slew of attractive devices, including the HTC HD2.

Samsung, Korea’s biggest cell phone company, has taken KT’s adoption of the iPhone rather personally, and has withdrawn the supply of new handsets to the carrier, and even stopped supporting current handsets there, for example not releasing a Windows Mobile 6.5 upgrade for the Samsung T*Omnia, called the Show Omnia on that network, where it only sold 40,000, while doing joint promotions for the same handset on SK Telecom, where the T*Omnia sold 470 000.

“The Show Omnia is an illegitimate son who can’t call his father, father,” said KT’s Chairman Lee Suk-chae, using the old Korean folklore of Hong Gil-dong, the Joseon Kingdom equivalent of Robin Hood, as a metaphor.

Despite iPhone’s popularity, SK Telecom still has a larger number of smartphone customers thanks to its vast line-up of premium handsets, and Samsung seems hell bent on assuring that things stay that way.

Since it released the iPhone in November last year, KT admits it has been experiencing “serious difficulties” trying to add wealth to its smartphone line-up, with Samsung Electronics and other major vendors channelling their products through SK Telecom. SK Telecom is said to have no plans to release the iPhone.

Read more about the growing feud at KoreaTimes here and here.

Remember that old board game your parents would make you sit down and play sometimes when you have relatives round? Well, throw in some style, cartoony graphics and interesting gameplay and you’ve got CLUEDO for Windows Mobile.

Read the rest of the review and see part 2 of the video at BestWindowsMobileApps.com here.

Before the trend for tiny screens started there were some great and also very snappy Windows Mobile 2003 devices.  Not all of them were upgraded to Windows Mobile 5 (and it usually made them slower). 

Windows Mobile 2003 did not have the best browser however, which often meant the Java-based Opera Mini was installed.  Opera has recently released a native version of the same browser, which unfortunately will only install in Windows Mobile 5.0 and up devices.

Fortunately Smartphone Magazine’s Werner Ruotsalainen repackaged the CAB installer so that it works perfectly on devices running Windows Mobile 2003 and 2003SE.

Mobicomputing.com has published this video showing it running perfectly on a Dell Axim X50v PDA.

Get full instructions at Smartphonemag here.

A big problem with for developers deciding whether its worth creating applications for the Windows Mobile Marketplace is the secrecy surrounding the actual performance of applications in the market.

Fortunately Chris Rae, a hobbyist developer, has decided to share his own experience and provide a bit of information and guidance for other developers.

He writes:

Right now, I have two applications on Marketplace.

The first app I wrote was Carlos. This is a pretty simple app intended to help you keep track of where you parked your car, using either your GPS or some sort of text-based tag you write yourself (in case you parked underground or can’t be bothered waiting for a GPS fix).

My second app is Proximity. This is a fairly generic app intended to “do something near a given location”.

He notes that he spent about 270 hours on both apps together, and about $280 to develop the apps.

On the earnings from the apps he says:

To save you doing the math here – Microsoft take a 30% cut of the purchase price, so I’m left with 70%. This means that for Carlos I’ve made a total of around $280 since the end of January, and for Proximity I’ve made about $350 since mid-March. It’s hovering somewhere around the $10/day mark for each app now – around $500/month in total, although it’s obviously somewhat early to start giving out per-month figures.

Obviously more in the range of pocket money that a retirement fund, Chris compares this to similar android applications which make 50 times more in the same period. He notes however that competition is a lot more fierce on the Android and iPhone platforms, and require adaptations and investments such as learning new programming languages or buying new tools which he did not need to do to develop on his existing device.

Clearly it is up to developers to draw their own conclusions from the information provided (and make sure to read the full post here) but it is clear, given his investment in time and money, his apps will still be owning him money for some time, and I cant help but see it as a failure of Marketplace and Microsoft.

In my opinion Microsoft could have done a lot more to promote the service, but is clearly preoccupied with Windows Phone 7 to the detriment of Windows Mobile.

Do any other developers want to take the opportunity to share their Marketplace performance with others? Let us know below.

We know HTC’s Sense UI is pretty attractive, such that HTC even transplanted it onto Android.

Jailbreaking iPhone owners have however not been left out of the game, with quite a few HTC Sense themes for iPhone around. Here is another, which takes the hack even further, to include animated.

Obsessionxyz writes:

To begin, YES i know there is tons of this modded theme here, but none has satisfied me, so I have rewritten the alot of codes and combined various javascripts to make this work. ok the theme now, it has a working animated flipclock, and animated weather, so far the same as others, but, this one you can actually tap on to update. which is the way i want it.

I have recreate all weather elements myself, and compare to the original (Weather Elements v3) the file size was huge, mine is only 5MB big, (the whole theme)

As for the animated flipclock, that also have i recreated the images. if you want to have the theme i will also create AM/PM images.

If you succumbed to the dark side, this hack which gives you a UI which is actually a bit more than a grid of icons may make you feel a bit more at home.

Read more at ModmyI.com here.

Citrix is the granddaddy of remote access, and the company has now released a remote desktop receiver for Windows Mobile 6.5 that supports the gestures on the platform, including swiping and scrolling.

The software allows zooming, unfortunately not via multi-touch, and features an extended keyboard with function keys to improve compatibility with desktop software. The software also features accelerometer support on select devices, and for others allow rotation via the menus.

The full new feature list in 11.5 include:

• Support for WM6.5
• XenDesktop Support
• New In session UI interface
• Touch Gestures support for WM 6.5
• Dynamically change the session resolution
• Extended keyboard
• Accelerometer support for HTC devices
• New improved Zoom control

The software can be downloaded here, and is also now available via Marketplace.

via Dabcc.com

Making data entry screens finger friendly is not easy. Windows Phone 7 includes a new Spinner control which makes it easy to enter bounded items such as date and time.

The control is not at present part of the SDK released by Microsoft, but has been found hiding in the emulator, and will hopefully be made available directly to developers in an updated release.

Via Youtube.com

SkyFire brings the full-featured PC versions of your favourite websites onto your windows mobile device. This modern browser supports a lot of format that other mobile browsers cannot handle. Check out the full review to see if its time to change your browser.

Read more at BestWindowsMobileApps here.

Andre Vrignaud, Director Games Platform Strategy at Microsoft, has made it clear on his blog that only some titles will receive the honour of XBox Live Integration on Windows phone 7. Ostensible a move to maintain quality and provide a differentiator that will prevent the “race to zero” that has seen many quality titles prices at only $1.99 on the iPhone, he said:

To answer, it’s important to understand that we have a managed portfolio for Xbox LIVE titles on Windows Phone 7. As we looked at how the mobile gaming industry was evolving, it was obvious that there’s a significant problem with the “race to zero” – or having too many, mixed quality titles available on a marketplace. Too many offerings makes it very hard for any specific title to stand out (no matter how high-quality), and negatively impacts the overall business ecosystem by making it almost impossible for developers to earn a fair return on their work. Our goal with the Windows Phone 7 games that utilize Xbox LIVE services is to cultivate a portfolio of high-quality titles that are regularly released – this is very similar to the portfolio management we do for Xbox LIVE Arcade titles.

Of course developers are still free to create games without achievements and other Xbox Live paraphernalia, but if you think your idea is Live Worthy you can try your luck by applying at [email protected].

Do our readers think this strategy, which will likely see only tens of games versus thousands featuring the integration, will be successful in the face of Apple’s most likely more democratic and open service? Let us know your thoughts below.