11:59 AM by Bob Russell in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

Consumers are generally frustrated, for good reason, with some really basic problems with the current state of mobile computing. Miniaturized computing produces way too much complexity, whether it takes the form of Tablet PCs or top-end PDAs. Electronic Day-Timers (entry level PDAs) are popular because they're simple, but they still have data entry problems and take some effort to set up. They also take up precious "carry-around" space that most people would prefer to use for a phone.

But there are a lot of things that people want to do as soon as the technology makes it simple and effective. To name just a few, we see demand forming for light, small, portable and connected devices that are one or more of the following:

• Phone
• Music Player
• Video Player
• Camera
• Photo Album
• Day Planner
• Note Taker
• Ebook Reader
• Document editor (e.g. MS Office documents)
• Presentation Device
• Email and Messaging Tool
• Gaming Device

But let's face it, while the tech geek may be able to do all of the above fairly effectively with some investment of time and money in a top-notch PDA and accessories, there is no device that's ready at the hardware or software level to even accomplish a portion of these things well for the average new user out of the box. Consumers are generally a lot more interested at what they can do well with reasonable effort, not what functions could theoretically be accomplished by a device, so they don't find PDAs as wonderful as the rest of us geeks.

So what could I possibly suggest that will help the situation? And why is it taking so long for products to improve?

Stay tuned to MobileRead for...
Killer PDAs #2 - It's A Crazy Market!, and
Killer PDAs #3 - The PDA You Always Wanted, But Didn't Know It!

06:40 AM by Alexander Turcic in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

Word came to us that ACCESS released a new version of NetFront, a highly funcational embedded web-browser for Pocket PC devices. With the up-to-date version, NetFront finally fully supports Windows Mobile 2003SE (including VGA resolutions)!

According to ACCESS, new features of NetFront v3.2 include:

• Windows Mobile 2003 Second Edition for Pocket PC support
• Flash support
• Java support (through JV-LITE2 CE)
• Rapid-Render (renders Web page content while downloading it)
• Japanese domainname support
• Outlook Web Access support
• Client certificate-based authentication

The browser conforms to the latest W3C standards including: HTML4.01, XHTML1.1, ccHtml, XHTML Basic 1.0, WML1.3, CSS 1 & 2, EC$$MAScript 3rd Edition (JavaScript 1.5), DOM1, 2 and Dynamic HTML, GIF and animated GIF, BMP, PNG and JPEG and MNG, HTTP1.1, SSL2.0/3.0, TLS1.0, and Cookies.

Current registered owners of ACCESS NetFront V3.1 will have to buy a new licence (we're not sure about discounts). A trial with restricted functionality is available for download (in Japanese, English hopefully soon).

Edit: Direct download link (trial PID: NF32PPC3ARJR10D)

11:33 AM by divajess in Miscellaneous | Lounge

In celebration of the first anniversary of GMail, Google has increased the storage capacity for all GMail users to 2 GB! This is NOT in fact an April Fool's joke, because I logged in to my GMail to find the storage space going up slowly. Currently users are at about 1.4GB and they have a counter steadily going up on the GMail login page.

They have said that this is only the beginning, with plans to roll out even more storage in the future. They have also added great new features like the ability to send 10MB of pictures at a time, fonts, colors, highlighting and their new basic HTML view that supports almost every browser out there.

Thanks GMail, and Happy Birthday!!

04:55 AM by doctorow in Miscellaneous | Lounge

Reminder: Beware of silly 1st April jokes. No, Apple is not entering the PDA market (at least as of right now).

03:21 AM by Alexander Turcic in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

Rob Reilly started a new series of tutorials at LinuxPlanet on WiFi networking with a Linux-enabled PDA. The first part includes instruction how to set up a generic WiFi PDA and how to connect to a Samba-based file server.

03:00 AM by Alexander Turcic in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

Hot off the press: WebIS, Inc has just released Pocket Informant 2005, perhaps the best PIM replacement for PocketPCs. The list of changes, bugfixes and news is bigger than the valley of the Jolly Green Giant; rest assured this update is worth every penny.

Click here for the various download options.

02:25 AM by Alexander Turcic in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

PalmSource swung to a third-quarter loss, hurt by a 20% decline in revenue (to $17.2 million from $21.6 million in the year-ago period). The company also reported a loss of $721,000 in the third quarter ending Feb. 25. This compares with a profit of $597,000 in the same period a year ago. Excluding charges for stock-based compensation and the amortization of purchased intangible assets, PalmSource earned $600,000, or 4 cents a share, narrower than the $3.6 million the company earned last year.

For the next quarter, PalmSource expects to generate sales between $17.2 million and $18 million and estimates a loss in earnings between $13 cents and 18 cents a share.

01:23 AM by Alexander Turcic in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

PalmOne is finally going to release a new (not-killer) PDA unit next month. The palmOne E2 will be officially available for sale on April 10 for a retail price of $219.99. Datavision (a NYC store near Bryant Park on 5th which I never liked much - J&R is 10x cooler), has it already in stock, so every true Palm believer listen up: it is time for your preorder!

You heard it here first: Engadget via PalmAddicts (Sam as usual you rock!)