Hmm...WIndows Mobile 6.5 Apps on Windows Phone 7?

Tucked away on the Agenda for TechEd10 in New Orleans

“Come join us for this interactive session on code compatibility between previous Windows Phone applications and Windows Phone 7. Come talk to experienced application developers and hear what they have to say about code compatibility and share your own experiences with other attendees. Even though the programming paradigm for Windows Phone 7 differs from previous Windows Phone versions, managed applications are still written in C#. Taking a number of best practices into consideration, the majority of your existing code, with the exception of the User Interface, can run on Windows Phone 7.”

There’s also a session entitled “Microsoft’s Next Generation Mobile Enterprise Application Platform (MEAP).” MEAP “allows corporate IT departments to support multiple mobile applications on a single platform.

Hp Buys Palm

Well , that came out of left field.

HP has bought Palm for about $1.2 bn (not a bargain price we think)

Which really means that HP has bought WebOS and a brand. It was increasingly becoming apparent that HP had backed Windows Mobile, was not part of the Windows Phone 7 launch group and needed traction in the smartphone market.

What next?

Well, we'll see a range of HP smartphone running WebOS obviously, which will likely amount to the same as a bunch of Palm smartphones running WebOS, which is seen to be a very "smart" OS but not a majorplayer in the Iphone, Windows Mobile, Android, Symbian field.

Windows Mobile turns 10 years old

The old "PocketPC" is 10 years old today. The OS that fired these devices matured into Windows Mobile and , in due course, Windows Phone

I had an Ipaq 3600 and it was, of course, an Ipaq that helped formulate the idea behind Crimson Tide's Mpro range of products and services.

The range of original PocketPc devices is hown below

Nice article on Microsoft Office for Windows Phone 7

PocketNow have produced a nice piece on Office on Windows Phone 7 here

The article shows PowerPoints being edited on the device - I just hope they get the memory level right because, there's no external storage.

On my Omnia 2, the storage memory is very poor, which I top up with an SD card. If I had no SD slot I would not be able to carry all I need on the road.

I am not sure how Microsoft's idea of continuously connected phones and storage will work in the real world - we shall see

Windows Phone 7 - No Cabs

Well, we knew that Windows Phone 7 would not allow cabs to be transferred to the device, now we know that ther will be no such thing as a cab.

The files that developers provision will be implemented via a xap file, a kind of zip file that will include all of the files necessary to run the app.

And, of course, the xap file we only be able to be loaded via Marketplace

Microsoft Project Natal - June release announcement?

Seems like the folks in Redmond are looking to announce Project Natal's release in June - Holiday '10 anyone?

The project which Big Steve calls Microsoft's most exciting release this year brings gesture based interaction with the Xbox using a camera and video setup

I look forward to watching my son snipe the enemy from behind the sofa on Call of Duty

64 Gb on an SD Card (yes, that's 64GB)

We're lookiong into an application for photographers at the moment and, with their huge photo files, I'm sure they'll be interested to know that SanDisk have produced a 64Gb SD card (well played SanDisk)

The minor drawback is that the price would appear to be about $350 (netbook anyone)

See the details here

New Blackberry devices

We have to keep up with the times here ar Crimson Tide towers and, although Blackberry is not our premier recommendation , we bring news of the refresh to the Bold and Pearl series

The 9650 and Pearl 3g will run on BB OS 5.0 and seem to be just a refresh rather than anything new and exciting

Live Messenger - for Iphone

In Microsoft's bid to license all of its products everywhere , I hear that Live Messenger for Iphone is slated to arrive in the coming months

Microsoft apps on the Istore, well fancy that.

Information Week give smartphone stats

Far too much detail for me but excellent article from Information Week here

As predicted, Android is taking amarket share like crazy from all players, except RIM (I'm surprised at this part)

I am 100% sure this will continue

Nice news article on the Crimson tide healthcare applications

Mobile News - April 2010

Data solutions provider Crimson Tide has won a four-year contract worth up to €100,000 a year from Dublin company Temperature Control Pharmaceuticals (TCP) to develop software enabling Europe's first barcode safety system for blood disorder suffers to treat themselves in their own homes. The system runs on a range of
Windows smartphones supplied to the patients. The system verifies the product
identification before self treatment is carried out. It can be used to alert patients to product recalls. Where there is more than one haemophilia patient in a household on different treatments, it ensures the right patient is treated with the correct medication. Crimson Tide executive chairman Barrie Whipp said: "This is our largest subscription deal to date. Our application is relevant to in-home patient drug administration worldwide, therefore we are anticipating extending our sales of this type of product in other markets."

Crimson Tide has also developed a mobile system to guarantee the security and confidentiality of a 10-year Irish Government study into the needs of older people.
The study examine 8,000 people aged 50 and over living in Ireland. It charts their health, social and economic circumstances over a 10-year period. The mobile system uses a Motorola MC55 phone into which people from the sample group can input information over a long period of time.

12 Mp camera on a phone? - Good grief !

I see that Nokia have announced the release of the new N8

As you may know, we do very little with Nokia smartphones (although we supply a lot of the "day to day " phones.

I was stunned to see that this new Symbian OS 3 device has......a 12Mp camera. It also recoeds video in 720p HD, which I think is quite amazing.

We're yet to be convinced by an N series device, although one of my friends at a serious softwrae company that I cannot name tells me the new devices are excellent indeed.

Have a look here (we won't be ordering the sickly green one)

Crimson Tide Tablets ?

Our mobile data solutions work really well on Windows Mobile smartphones , and we will certainly be developing for Android at some point soon.

In some instances, we can see that our applications would be really efficient on a Tablet device.

The IPad is leading the way , but there is an HP tablet running Windows 7 and Google are also developing this form factor. I'm sure there will be more to come. Even though I like the Kindle concept, it is just so easy to run other apps on this type of device I cannot see any reason to just run an e-book reader.

Watch out for a first draft mpro app for Tablets in the second half of 2010

Adobe Flash being developed for Windows Phone

After an unholy row with Apple, the people at Adobe have mentioned that they are working on mobile versions of Flash for Windows Phone 7.

I find this slightly odd as WP7 will be running on a Silverlight based platform. You'll recall that Silverlight was introduced as a direct competitor to Flash (but has now developed into a much broader canvas)

I am guessing (literally) that Flash is being developed to work within the Browser on Windows Phone 7 which, as we know HAS to be a cutdown version of IE

Adobe say they are developing for Android and other OSs too.

Nice Healthcare News

There is a nice mention here on the new Crimson Tide mpro solution for haemophiliacs

New smartphones from err....Dell

We were never fans of the old Axim pdas - very square and underpowered. We hear though that Dell are back in the market with a number of devices including some Android smartphones coming soon.

Our interest was increased when we learned that Dell had a Windows Phone 7 in production (we presume built by HTC or LG)

The Dell lightning is slated to have a 1Ghz Snapdragon plus an Amoled screen
Looks good (well, for Holiday Season 10 anyway). They have a non-slider available, but we understand that is an Android unit.

Thanks to Engadget for the image

SQL Server 2008R2

The latest and greatest version of our favourite DB is released today.

Lots of features and updates but my particular interest is the BI part and, of course, its associated reporting

We're as busy as anything at the moment but hopefully our Developers will get a moment to tell me about these features

Opera Mini for Autumn Fruit Device (AFD)

Wow - in a landmark change of direction, Apple has approved opera Mini for the AFD and the browser will be in the iStore .

I love Opera's work - this is good news for lovers of the AFD

Kin Phones

So, Microsoft were "economical with the truth" about not producing a phone

The Kin phones, announced yesterday, are aimed at the Teen/Twenties market and have Social Networking at their core. They are based on a limited version of the Windows Phone 7 OS. As you can see they look pretty cool.

Apparently the phones come with Zune (no idea about storage) but cannot take apps. Curiously (for the teen/twenty market) they are Excchange enabled.

Microsoft sees a big opportunity in the feature phone market and, although these phones are limited to Verizon at the moment, we'll see what impact they have after their May release.

Android is for squares

I hear that Motorola are releasing a 240x240 display phone with an Android OS

More fragmentation in the Android market!

Now that's what I call multitasking....and a small OS note !

The Samsung Omnia i8910 Omnia HD, has been proved to run over 62 applications at the same time. That's about 61 more than some phones I know. It runs these apps on a custom ROM, but that is a pretty impressive amount of grunt work for a phone

Add and 8MP camera and AMOLED display and you have a pretty compelling package. The reviews I have seen allege that it does not have 3G. I suspect that is US 3G but I'll wait to see whether that is a lack of Eurozone 3G. Other not so good news is that TouchWiz is on the device (aargh) with, I guess, its usual Memory Hogging Capabilities

I also read, wait for it, that the device runs on a SYMBIAN OS !! I am so taken aback I don't know what to write.......

Samsung now has Windows Phone, Androis, Bada and Symbian devices in its range....we'll have to have a think on this as I thought Symbian would not be playing in the "HD" space.

The NHB ™

Not sure if I should use a "Register" Trade Mark on this but today's "The Register" contains the wonderful NHB (Normal Human Being)view from The New York Times of the Ipad launch.

To quote: "Over at The New York Times, however, David Pogue made the reasonable observation that while a tech type might see the iPad one way, a Normal Human Being™ might look past its lack of Flash support, lack of multitasking, lack of a removable battery, lack of a camera, lack of standard USB ports, lack of an SD card slot, and any other lack you might want to mention"

To use another set of initials, looks like this confirms the RDF (Apple's legendary Reality Distortion Field)

RIP WMP

Well, for Mobile anyway.

I have never been a fan of the Windows Media Player experience (and I am a Microsoft kind of guy)

Good news for me, then, is the new Zune look and feel to media on Windows Phone 7 (told ya about the "series" thing !)

Nice vid here

I really like the software and user experience, so much better than Ithieve (which, for legal purposes, does not suggest that any media playing software would do such a thing as stealing your money for tracks that pay for but cannot use elsewhere)

Windows Phone 7

Told you that Microsoft would drop the "Series" and they have.....and no I didn't break my NDA !

Xperia X2

After waiting so long for the X2 I am afraid I missed the launch of the device. As many know, the Xperia X1 remains my favourite Windows Mobile phone so I am slightly embarrased

There is a video review at Pocket Now and I understand that there is an upgrade path to Windows Mobile 6.5.3 (obviously not to Windows Phone 7)

Not sure I would go back to a keyboard device now, but if I did, it would be an X1