Microsoft released the Windows Phone 7 Application “MSN Onit” yesterday. MSN Onit is a guys guide to …. well just about everything guys are interested in: Girls, Cars, Gadgets, Sports, Fitness and Life advice.

MSN Onit brings weekly updated content from magazines and others sources such as Esquire, Men’s Health and MSN Auto. This combination makes it a unique application in it’s own way. It may sound a bit dull and you might wonder if this application is interestnig enough, but if you’re just looking for some relaxing , interesting content on your Windows Phone 7 device, Onit might be just the right app for you.

The content is categorized, which makes it easy to find articles you’re looking for. Some of these categories are Cars, Eat & Drink, Entertainment and Events. In the “to go” category it is possible to save articles for later.

The settings of the application let’s you choose to see the content you want to see. So if you’re not interested in – for example – financial articles, then it’s easy to turn off this category. You can select which feeds should be updated and which feeds shouldn’t be updated.

Other settings are Location based settings for news just around the corner and local weather. Sadly this doesn’t work in Europe (yet). It’s also possible to connect MSN Onit to your facebook account so you can share the content with your friends.

What I think is special about MSN Onit is that MSN Onit is ‘just for Windows Phone 7′. There is no MSN Onit for desktop or in your favorite web browser. MSN Onit is just for Windows Phone 7 at the moment. And although the content comes from different sources around the web, this application provides a good mix of entertaining content… for guys.

Today Apple announced the iPad. Just like last year I’m going to share my thoughts on the iPad 2 today. As usual, there were a lot of rumors before the actual announcement. A camera, a better processor and a better display were all among those rumors. Here’s the actual list what has been updated / improved on the new iPad 2. First I’ll go through the facts, and a bit later in the article you can read about my personal thoughts on the iPad 2

Updated / improved features

1. First of all the iPad 2 has got a new Processor.
The A5-chip is up to 2 times faster and is up to 9 times faster in graphics and it runs on 1GHz.

2. It’s got 2 video camera’s. A rear and a front-facing camera.

3. There’s a built-in gyroscope.

4. A new design. It’s 33% thinner than the original iPad; It’s even thinner than the iPhone 4, and weighs 0.2 pounds less than the original iPad.  Also the iPad 2 comes in 2 colors: Black and White

5. Although it’s thinner and lighter it has got the same battery power (which is great on the original iPad). Up to 10 Hours.

The likes of the iPad 2

First when I take a look at the new dual-core processor I like the new speed indication. Although I don’t think the original iPad is slow at all (Looks very fast to me) extra speed is always good. As a side note, I need to say that the extra speed should absolutely not affect the 10 hours of battery life. That’s something I really like on my iPad now and I’m not willing to give up battery-lifetime for some extra speed.

The new design looks very sleek. the iPad 2 is 33% thinner than the original iPad and that’s amazingly thin! I feel like having a Fat iPad now.

The camera was something that I’d actually expected on the original iPad, but now the iPad 2 gets 2 camera’s. 1 front and 1 rear-facing camera. The front-facing camera was something everyone could expect. Apple is placing their bets on Facetime and need to get their product-portfolio on one line to accieve this. The rear-facing camera is a bit of a surprise to me. I didn’t expect to have 2 camera’s on an iPad. The usage of the rear-camera will be very dependent on the usability of iMovie (which also has been announced as iPad application today).

The dislikes of the iPad 2

Yes, I have to admit, I was a bit negative after last year’s announcement of the iPad. Now I’ve been using the iPad since the day it released in the Netherlands and I’m very positive about it. Looking back at the dislikes from last year we see that 2 items have been resolved by Apple. Multitasking and the camera.

The features I missed after last years announcement but don’t actually miss on my iPad after using it for several months now are OSX and the USB-port.

I don’t miss OSX on the iPad, because I frankly use my iPad more than my Macbook Pro. iOS really works great on the iPad and the Apps are the building blocks of the OS. For anyone still asking for an USB-port on the iPad: Apple won’t add an USB-port to the iPad as long as there are different prices for different versions (16GB, 32GB and 64GB). That’s the basic of their business-model on making money from the iPad.

There are however a few things I still miss on the iPad (or the iOS): Flash-support and Wireless Syncing.
Now for both options I know there are solution which aren’t supported by Apple. Flash-video’s can be seen with the Skyfire App and in the Cydia store (for jail-broken iPads) there are solutions for wireless iTunes synchronization.
Sadly I give up on the Flash-support for iOS devices. Wireless synchronization on the other hand would be a feature I (hopefully) see Apple bringing in a next major version of iOS.

Although I don’t think that the display of the original iPad is bad it would be a nice addition to the feature list of the iPad 2 if it featured a retina display.

Concluding thoughts and wrap-up.

The iPad 2 looks better than the original iPad in my opinion. The thinner design and less weight makes my original iPad look like a fat device.
I’m sure the iPad 2 will be as successful as the original iPad and probably more successful. I think users who own an iPad already, wont massively buy the iPad 2 because of the updated features directly. The rumors of the iPad 2 started late 2010 and I think since then there are a lot of people not buying the original version of the iPad, but waiting for the iPad 2 to be released.  Therefore the iPad 2 will sell very quickly just like the original iPad.

During the CES last month LG unveiled the LG Optimus Black and the LG Optimus 2X Speed. Today during the MWC in Barcelona they add the LG Optimus 3D and the LG Optimus Pad to their product line.

LG Optimus 3D

The LG Optimus 3D has got some exceptional features. The name addition “3D” isn’t a loose canon. This device truly has got some 3D features which I’d love to actually see and try how well it works on the device.

It features an advanced architecture with dual-core, dual memory and dual-channel.

The OMAP4 Processor has got 2 1GHz cores. This doubles the graphical performance compared to the biggest competitors. LG promises to deliver world’s first real 3D experience when it comes down to recording, viewing and sharing of 3D material. The device features two 5MP camera’s for 3D recording. The 4.3″ WVGA screen should make 3D glasses unnecessary and shows both 2D (max 1080P) and 3D (max 720p) multimedia footage.

The connectivity options should make it easy to show (via HDMI or DNLA) or share (via YouTube 3D) all your multimedia.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZdFOFOqsIM

LG Optimus Pad

The LG Optimus Pad is an Android Honeycomb Tablet. It has an 8.9″ Screen and the design should make it easy to operate the device one-handed. The 15:9 aspect ratio and the Full-HD decoding (1080p) of the screen features a WXGA resolution of 1280 X 768 Pixels. The Optimus Pad runs a NVIDIA Tegra 2 dual-core processor. It features 2 1GHz cores which takes care of performance as well as power-management.

Just like the Optimus 3D it features some 3D possibilities. It features a 3D camera for HD recording (The number of Megapixel wasn’t mentioned in the Press-release). If you’ve got a 3D TV, all your recordings can be viewed in 3D on your TV.

The LG Optimus Pad is a result of a good co-operation between LG and NVIDA.

Concluding Thoughts

It is clear that LG is betting on 3D for their new products. Other vendors like HTC, Samsung and others will make the same bet as well. I haven’t seen both devices yet, but I think if the 3D capabilities work well 2011 can be seen as the year where 3D breaks through in the mobile market.

Since the arrival of Windows Phone 7 there’s a lot to do about the customization possibilities of the platform. With the hubs it is possible to enter a world full of open possibilities.

The way of distributing applications and possibilities to change the OS in a way some users would like to are very similar to the iOS platform. Last week, Johan wrote about what our wishes are for the next Windows Phone update which. This lists a good overview about what we’d like to see in a first update.

One of these customizations is add your own Ringtones. I remember that back in 2003 I had an Orange SPV, on which I was able to select any ringtone I wanted! Now – 8 years later – The Windows Phone platform is not able to let you use your own ringtones.
There are a bunch of pre-loaded ringtones no-one would like to hear installed and that’s it! That’s all the choice you’re getting!

Obviously this unleashes a reaction from Windows Phone users who would like to customize their Windows Phone the way they want it, not the way Microsoft allows them to customize it. When something is locked, there are always people trying to open it, no matter how strong the safe is. The first to open-up parts of the Windows Phone 7 Platform was the ChevronWP7 team. This happened on November 25th 2010.

At first -obviously- Microsoft wasn’t very happy about this, Apple wasn’t really excited as the iOS-platform got jailbroken for the first time as well. But what’s most important is the reaction.

On December 1st ChevronWP7 posted a blogpost that they had been invited by Microsoft to discuss about the ChevronWP7 tool. At the same time they discontinued the Unlocking tool they’d released a week earlier.

“To fast-track discussions, we are discontinuing the unlocking tool effective immediately.”

Quote: ChevronWP7

Image Source:IstartedSomething.com

Now – from my point of view this is really really smart of Microsoft. There aren’t a lot of people running around on this planet who are able to create a mechanism to Jailbreak Windows Phone 7. Hence even for iOS there are only a hand-full of developers who find vulnerabilities in the platform and are able to turn these vulnerabilities into a mechanism to create a Jailbreak-tool. When Microsoft collaborates with the people who ARE able to create a jailbreak mechanism, Microsoft keeps control over their platform.

Of course the ChevronWP7-team isn’t the only one who work on Jailbreaking Windows Phone 7. But at the moment they are definitely the well-known ones.

Another fact is that Microsoft’s Director of Developer Experience for Windows Phone 7, Brandon Watson, tweeted George Hotz (the well-known iOS hacker) to flourish his dev creativity on the Windows Phone 7 platform.

Microsoft is pro-actively mobilizing people to  make Windows Phone 7

a) More secure by Fixing vulnerabilities found by ‘hackers’ (ChevronWP7, George Hotz)
b) More ‘Open’ by allowing Homebrew Appliactions.

I think there is no way for Microsoft -and Apple- to keep control over their platform other than collaborating with these people. Yes I am sure there are a lot of talented and gifted persons working for Microsoft and Apple, specialized in security and closing the platform, but face it. There will always be people trying -and succeed- to ‘hack’ the system. What happens if you don’t collaborate?

The exact same situation Apple is in since the release of the first iPhone: A cat-and-mouse game

Microsoft seems to understand this. Apple on the other hand seems to live in the illusion of being the cat and truly being the mouse.

From time to time we’re reviewing our site. We look back at what we’ve accomplished, and we look forward to what we want to achieve.
A few weeks ago we changed the style of MobilityMinded and today we’re giving MobilityMinded the largest functional update since its existence.

Our goal is to inform people about and help with problems or question regarding their mobile devices. We regularly receive emails via the contact form or visitors when they have a problem with their Windows Phone 7 Device, or with their iPhone or other questions.

Since this information is mostly not specific to the person who asks the question it is not efficient to just answer it via a reply. We think it’s better that the person asking the question asks it to the world so that everyone can join the conversation and anyone should be able to reply. On MobilityMinded we didn’t have this possibility except for the comment system in WordPress (our blogging software).

What has changed?

1. First of all since about 4 weeks we gave MobilityMinded a restyle. We need to fine-tune it a bit further, but this is going to be the new face of MobilityMinded. I hope you’ll like the new redesign.
2. Second we introduce the forum-side of the MobilityMinded website: http://www.mobilityminded.com/forum

In the MobilityMinded Forum anyone can ask questions, write opinions and discuss about mobile devices. Best of all: all the existing comments are transferred to the forum, so that we didn’t loose any data with the transfer to the new comment system.

Of course we strongly encourage anyone who would like to participate in the discussion to register on our forum and join the conversation!

How it works?

There are two scenarios of engaging in discussions about mobile technology on the MobilityMinded website:

A. You can place a comment as a registered user;
B. You can comment as a guest;

Registered user comments

1) Register on our forum.
2) Comment on the article, or comment in the forum itself.
If you comment on the article make sure you see this notice:

You are logged in as [Username]

3) If the thread is attached to an article it doesn’t matter where you comment: your comment will be visible on both the article, and in the forum.

Guest comments

If you do not wish to register on our forum you’ll still have the opportunity to comment on articles. The information will be placed as a ‘guest-comment’.

1) Go to the article you’d like to comment on;
2) Fill in all the required fields;

3) Push the “Post Comment” button;
4) Wait until your comment is moderated. (It can take up to 48 hours before your comment is published);

Concluding Thoughts

It has taken some time to get the foundation in place on which MobilityMinded can further develop!

It has meant that the limited time the core-team had available went into the redesign, and there for our apologies for the limited flow of content over the past weeks. However we do think (despite there is still a lot of fine-tuning work to do) that it has been worth the investment of time and efforts.

-        Better interaction with users and a more lively discussion;

-        Not only article topics can be discussed in the forum, but also other items that are not as such covered in an article;

-        In order to further improve the “stakeholder-satisfaction” please let us know what you like and dislike about the redesign. If there are any bugs please drop a note in this thread;

We hope you’ll like the newly added features.

If you have any comments, please register and post your thoughts on the new MobilityMinded!

Introduction

The Windows Phone Messaging Hub is pretty straight forward. In the Windows Phone core features Review written by Remo a few days ago, Remo described the basic functionalities of the Messaging Hub. There are however a few more options you can do with the Messaging Hub.
In this quick “How To” guide, I’ll write a few tips you might not know yet about the Messaging hub.

Receive SMS delivery confirmation

After Opening the Messaging Hub push the “…” on the bottom right of the screen. A menu will pop up. Click Settings. In the Messaging Settings there’s a button to turn on the SMS delivery confirmation on.

Delete a conversation

When you open the Messaging Hub, You’ll see a list of contacts with the latest message associated to that contact.
If you press and hold your finger on the name or message in this list, you’ll see an extra menu option popping up: “Delete”.

You will be asked if you’re absolutely sure that the complete conversation will be deleted. A message pops up stating: “All messages in the selected conversation will be deleted from your phone” After Clicking “delete” again, the complete conversation will be removed from your device.

Delete a single message

To delete a single message, make sure you’re inside a conversation in the Messaging Hub.
Push and hold on the message you want to delete. You’ll see an extra menu option popping up with 2 menu options. Click “Delete”.
You will now be asked: “The selected message will be deleted from your phone”. Click Delete to remove the message from your phone, or click cancel to cancel this action.

Forwarding a message

To forward a message, make sure your within a conversation in the Messaging Hub. If you see the messagebubbles click and hold one of the messages, you’d like to forward. A popup menu with 2 options will appear. Click “Forward”.

In the next screen you can enter a new phonenumber or select a contact, just like you’re used to do when writing a new message.
The text of the message you selected already appears in the messaging bubble. This way you don’t need copy/paste in the messaging application, and still be able to forward a message quickly

Previous how to’s for Windows Phone 7

• How To Share Your Zune Pass Safely with a Family Member on Windows Phone 7 and Zune HD
• How to quickly Search People in Windows Phone 7 Peolpe Hub
• How To Change your Picture Tile Image and Picture Hub background on your Windows Phone 7
• How to access Marketplace for Windows Phone 7 (or Zune HD) from outside the USA
• How to add (Windows Phone Radio) podcast to your Zune HD or Windows Phone 7 !

Introduction

With the introduction of Windows Phone 7, 3 weeks ago multiple new Windows Phone 7 devices got introduced. The Samsung Omnia 7 was one of these phones. The Samsung Omnia 7 is Samsung’s first Windows Phone 7 device, and it was even the first retail Windows Phone 7 device I got my hands on.
When looking at and holding the Samsung Omnia 7, you’ll notice that this is a really large phone. I’ve been using it for 1.5 weeks now, and although it’s size I don’t feel it’s bulky. It’s size is large, but not too large in my opinion. The Samsung Omnia 7 distinguishes itself by the large and crystal clear display.

In this review I’ll go through all the features of the Samsung Omnia 7. First I take a look at the Specifications. The next subject will be the Hardware of the Samsung Omnia 7. After that I’ll take a look at the additional Samsung software which can be installed on the Omnia 7.
The next subject will be the multimedia capabilities of the Samsung Omnia 7 and finally I’ll give a wrap-up and my overall conclusion about the Omnia 7.
Mark already made a nice hands-on about the Samsung Omnia 7. This hands-on is perfect if you don’t want to read all the specific parts in detail, but want to get a general overview of the Samsung Omnia 7.

]]> http://www.mobilityminded.com/10295/samsung-omnia-7-review-windows-phone-7/feed 7 http://www.mobilityminded.com/10361/how-to-quickly-search-people-in-windows-phone-7-peolpe-hub http://www.mobilityminded.com/10361/how-to-quickly-search-people-in-windows-phone-7-peolpe-hub#comments Fri, 29 Oct 2010 18:00:49 +0000 Paul Willen http://www.mobilityminded.com/?p=10361

After using the Samsung Omnia 7 for a week now, I discovered a nice trick yesterday, you might not know about. It’s “hidden” in the People hub. With this trick it is possible to quickly search people in the people hub.

Two straight forward methods

When entering the people hub there are 3 ways to navigate to the person you’ like information from:
1 – Scroll through the list of people, and search the person you’re looking for in the list
2 – Push the Search button in the people hub and enter the name of the person you’re looking for.

Another way to search people

The third is the one I’d like to mention in this tip.

When you push the letter “C” in the picture above, you’ll get a full-screen overlay with all the letters of the alphabet. If there are no contacts with the starting letter (In my example the letter Q) that letter will be grayed out.
The other letters aren’t grayed out, and pushing one of these letters, instantly brings you to people of the selected letter.

This way you don’t need to scroll down for ages to search the person you want to get in touch with, and you don’t need the hassle of writing his/her whole name when searching in the people hub. I hope this will help you navigate through your contacts more quickly than before!

Previous how to’s for Windows Phone 7

• How To Change your Picture Tile Image and Picture Hub background on your Windows Phone 7
• How to access Marketplace for Windows Phone 7 (or Zune HD) from outside the USA
• How to add (Windows Phone Radio) podcast to your Zune HD or Windows Phone 7 !

Mobile Monday Amsterdam has got it’s own iPhone application since the beginning of September. In this review I’ll go through the functionality of this iPhone Application. IN case you don’t know Mobile Monday; Mobile Monday is a worldwide open community platform for people and entrepreneurs interested in the mobile industry.
The Amsterdam capter is lead by 5 enthusiastic young gentleman. Marc Fonteijn (@marcfontijn), Maarten den Braber (@mdbraber), Sam Warnaars (@samwarnaars), Yuri van Geest (@vangeest) and Martijn Pannevis (@PanMan). If you’re interested in these Mobile Monday Event’s check here if there’s a Mobile Monday Chapter near you. The next Mobile Monday in Amsterdam will be held on november 8th. In this article I give a short overview of the iPhone application of Mobile Monday Amsterdam.

Main Interface

The main interface of the Mobile Monday Amsterdam app has four buttons:

• Speakers
• Live
• Twitter
• Setting

Speakers

The speakers button brings you to the Speakers screen. In the speakers screen you’ll see an overview of the speakers of the past Mobile Monday’s.
Currently the speakers of the last 2 Mobile Monday’s in Amsterdam are shown. (MoMo #16 & #17). I don’t know if the application shows the last two MoMo’s or the presentations since #16, but it’s cool to see older presentations back again. When you click on a speaker, a streaming video will start with the presentation of that speaker.

Live

The Live button brings you to the Live screen.
The next Mobile Monday will be held november 8th. When this event is on, there will be a live stream on the internet. The “Live” button should display the live stream of the Mobile Monday.
I wasn’t able to test this yet. If there’s no live stream available at the moment you’ll see a notice.

Twitter

After pushing the Twitter button, you’re asked to sign into Twitter. When the authorization process has successfully finished you’ll see the tweets of people in your timeline and 3 buttons on the bottom: My Timeline, #momoams & Both.
Selecting one of these three buttons, will either show you only tweets from your timeline, only tweets with the hashtag #momoams or both combined.
On the top of the twitter screen there’s an input box to enter a new tweet. When writing a new tweet the hashtag #momoams is already added.
This is particular good for people how want to ask questions via Twitter when they are listening to the Presentation.
The selected timeline gets automatic updates every 30 seconds.

Settings

The settings screen has the possibility to log out with the twitter account and features and “About” button. Further there are some sponsors listed in this screen

Overall conclusion

For People interested in the Amsterdam chapter of Mobile Monday, this is a very nice iPhone application.
There is only 1 thing I miss in this application: It sadly is not possible to see the date and line-up of the next (or current when viewing live) Mobile Monday in Amsterdam.
I like the fact that it is possible to easily watch back several presentations I’ve missed, because I wasn’t attending last MoMo.
The application has a clean interface, and all the important features are within a few clicks away.

Many of you know the website TED.com. There already was an iPhone application for TED.com but now there’s an iPad variant too. For the ones who don’t know ted.com here’s a short introduction.

TED is a small nonprofit devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading. It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from three worlds: Technology, Entertainment, Design. Since then its scope has become ever broader. Along with two annual conferences — the TED Conference in Long Beach and Palm Springs each spring, and the TEDGlobal conference in Oxford UK each summer — TED includes the award-winning TEDTalks video site, the Open Translation Project and Open TV Project, the inspiring TED Fellows and TEDx programs, and the annual TED Prize.

TED talks are most of the time very inspiring. Since I’ve owned the iPad my opinion was that a TED application on the iPad would be a great way to view the TED talks. In this article I’ll go through the most important features of the TED iPad app.

After starting the application you’ll see an overview of the latest featured TED talks. Below the featured talks there’s an “Inspire Me” button on the bottom-left and 3 buttons (“Sort”, “Top Tags” & “Tags A-Z”) on the bottom right.

The menu has 4 buttons. Next to “Featured” you can find “Themes”, “Tags” & “Saved Talks”

Inspire me

Inspire me is a button to randomly find TED talks based on your input. The “inspire me” Menu has 2 questions “You want to see something…..”

and the second question is “How much time do you have”

After answering these 2 questions you’ll get a playlist of TED talks which are suitable for you based on your input.

Themes

All TED talks are categorized in 50 Themes. The “Themes” button shows a list of all the themes (in 5 pages) and when you select a theme, all the TED talks with the selected theme are presented in an attractive way.

Tags

Just like themes, tags is another way to find interesting TED talks. but now more specific on tags. What I don’t understand is the Tags-button on the Featured page and a tag button as a separate page. I think the tag-section is good to find some TED talks. There are 2 entry points for the same functionality, and that can be a little bit confusing for some users.

No Search

The thing I really missed in the TED application for iPad is a search functionality. O.k. I have to admit that the themes and the tags work very well, but if you’re looking for a real specific TED talk, the themes and tags simply don’t do it for me. For instance I was looking for a video by Derek Sylvers called “How to start a movement” – I both knew the name of the presenter and the title of the TED Talk, but it was not easy to find that specific talk. So I truly hope that a next upgrade of the application also has a search functionality added.

Saved talks

This is a feature I particularly like, and this feature made me fall in love with this application. It is possible to download your favorite TED Talks for offline viewing. So you can watch your favorite TED talks anytime, anywhere. Saved TED Talks can also be deleted.

Final thoughts and wrap-up

I was completely surprised as I saw the TED iPad app in the iTunes Store. Because I’m a great fan of the TED video’s I immediately downloaded the app and I had to write a something about it. The app is really a must for anyone who likes the TED talks.

I think this is a great start to a perfect TED iPad application. In the test period I  experienced a few crashes (max 3) while using this application, but I sadly cannot recall when the application tend to crash. The lack of a search-functionality is something that bothered me most of all in this application.

On the other hand the possibility to save talks for offline usage is something I am very, very excited about!

The HTC Desire Z was introduced today at the HTC Press event in London as well as the HTC Desire HD. Both devices have Android Froyo 2.2
By giving these two devices the “Desire”-name it is clear that HTC continues their product portfolio based on the immense popular HTC Desire.

The HTC Desire Z has a 3.6″ touchscreen and a unique slide-mechanism for popping up the QWERTY-keyboard. HTC adds the functionality to assign shortcuts to specific keys, which should give access to services, without opening the menu.

The 4GB internal memory can store all the pictures taken with the 5-megapixel camera with autoflash, and video’s taken in 720P HD quality

Based on the pictures, I think the HTC Desire Z has an optical trackpad on the front-bottom of the device similar to the BlackBerry Bold. Also when I look at the pictures it comes to my mind that the HTC Desire Z doesn’t look like a phone with an additional QWERTY-keyboard. It looks very sleek and slim.

Personally I don’t see the HTC Desire Z as a low-end device, but the 800Mhz Qualcomm 7230 processor tells us that the HTC Desire Z isn’t a real Powerhouse like the HTC Desire HD in stead. While I’m writing this I actually think that an 800 Mhz processor should be ideal for anyone who needs both: performance and a long battery lifetime. Therefore I think that the HTC Desire Z is going to be a very popular phone.

Another great option which both new HTC Phones will have is “HTC Fast Boot”. HTC Fast Boot is a system which makes it possible to never let you wait for a long time to boot your phone.

Wrap-up

The HTC Desire Z  finally fills the gap in HTC’s product portfolio and gives us an Android Phone with a Hardware Keyboard. This combination is in my opinion a perfect one.  It’s very clear that the HTC Desire Z is a Phone for everyone who needs both: A speedy device, and a nice battery lifetime. I think with the HTC Desire Z, HTC has made another great phone which will be a very popular one.

When I listen to my music at home I normally connect my iPhone to my amplifier with the 3.5mm Jack, open iTunes on the iPhone and press “Play” on any song I’m in the mood for. Then I walk over to the couch, lay back and relax. When the song is over I head over to the iPhone again, choose an other song, press play and listen to that song.
Now one solution for not always walking from the iPhone to the couch is playlists but with playlists it isn’t possible to play exactly THAT particular song you’re in the mood for. That was a long description to introduce a nice solution for remote controlling music on an iDevice: Tango Remote

Two iOS devices

A Tango cannot be danced alone, It tales 2 persons to dance a Tango; and Tango Remote needs 2 iOS devices to work. Like I’ve said, I’ve got my music on my iPhone; With Tango Remote it is possible to Remote Controle the music I’ve got on my iPhone from my iPad.

First thing you’d have to do is to install TangoRemote on both iOS devices. The application is optimized for both iPhone (or iPod Touch) and iPad so there’s only one version. On start Tango Remote will ask if the device is the “Music Player” or the “Remote Control”

The device which is selected as “Music Player” will launch a shot scan through your music and then let you select the song you’d like to play.

The device which is selected as “Remote Control” will ask which device in the same WLAN should be controlled. After selecting a device to control the party is on. Pick a song and the “Music Player” will play the selected song.

Perfect harmony

When the devices are connected with Tango Remote,  there’s clearly a perfect harmony between the devices. The “Music Player” has most of the functions the iTunes player also has. So it’s still possible to for example skip the song, select another album etc. only on just the “Music Player”, the real power of Tango Remote comes obviously with the second device.

With the second device you’re able to control everything you’d possibly like to control when it comes to a music player.  I always use the Remote Control on my iPad in Landscape mode, but it also has a portrait mode.

In the landscape mode you’ll see the current song playing, song scrubbing, randomize, repeat, previous song, next song, play/pause and volume control. You’ll also see the album art of the current song, and the different kind of song selection. You can select songs based on Playlist, Songs, Artist, Albums and Genres.

To show how well the harmony between iOS devices is when using Tango Remote, I’ve made a screenshot on the iPhone and on the iPad at the exact same time. Below are both screenshots:

The first image is of the iPhone version while playing “Californication” by the Red Hot Cili Peppers. As you can see, all the common controls are also visible on the Music Player.

At the exact same time I also took a screenshot of the iPad version:

As You can see; All the important controls are also available on the “Remote” device.

Integration with iTunes

Now something I really like is the integration with the iOS iTunes player. Let’s have the next example in mind: You’re going for a nice bike ride or walk accompanied with the iPhone as your music player. You’re listening the music with the iTunes application.When you arrive home, you’d like to continue listening to the song which is just playing, so you connect your iPhone to your amplifier, but also want to Remote Control your iPhone’s music.

Tango Remote enables you to do this. Tango Remote picks up the music playing in iTunes and continues to play it without any hick-ups.
One small downside that I’ve found is that Tango Remote doesn’t exactly shows the correct information when the music is picked up from iTunes.

Concluding thoughts & Wrap-up

Tango Remote has definitely managed to get a good position on my ‘Must-have’ iPhone/iPad applications. When showing off your iPhone and/or iPad Tango Remote is an application you could show anyone and everybody would be thrilled about the possibilities. In my opinion Tango Remote is even more than that: It’s the standard for Apps when it comes down to connecting two iOS devices.
Tango Remote can be downloaded for free in the iTunes Store

I’m a big (maybe the biggest) fan of Grooveshark. If you don’t know grooveshark; Grooveshark is an online music playing service and it totally fits all my needs. If you live in the US, you’ve probably heard of Last.FM or Pandora or maybe Spotify. In my opinion all those services don’t work as great in the Netherlands as they do like Grooveshark does. If you are a Grooveshark VIP ($3 p/month or $30 p/year), you can use this iPhone App unlimited.

From Jailbreak app to Appstore

Grooveshark tried to get the official iPhone app approved by Apple for a long time. Because at some time the Grooveshak team thought it lasted to long, they decided to release it within Cydia and make it available for everyone who had a Jailbroken iPhone.
Luckily the Grooveshak Team kept trying to get the iPhone app approved and now it finally is available in the Appstore.

We’ve been working laboriously on this app for a long time, and we are really excited to announce what we honestly feel to be one of the best mobile music apps in the market.

Grooveshark for iPhone gives you access to your playlists, Favorites, search and play any song as well as nifty extras like Offline Caching (for Airplane Mode).

Key Features

The key features of Grooveshark are:

Play any song instantly: Search and stream any song in the world directly to your iPhone.
Save and make playlists: Create playlists and save them on your Grooveshark account.
Radio: Listen to the Grooveshark Radio: Based on songs you like!
Listen Offline: Get your favorite music offline and save the song directly onto your iPhone.
Worldwide: Have the advantage of these functionality anywhere you are in the world!

The Future

Now that the App is finally approved, the Grooveshark team will, without a doubt, work on further updates of the Grooveshark App. Multitasking is the next milestone for this app and there will be more features added to the app through time.

Final Thoughts

I mainly became a Grooveshark VIP because of the Mobile features a Grooveshark VIP receives. On most other platforms grooveshark already was available and now it’s also officially available with Apple’s approvement. I think Grooveshark totally rocks and now that it’s possible for Grooveshark to have their app installed on even more iPhone, I think Grooveshark will grow even bigger than they are already.

Now if you’re already a Grooveshark VIP and you’ve got an iPhone, go over to the Appstore and download Grooveshark now! Take a look at the application and wait for the much wanted update (already!) which includes background playback.

There are a few good iPad Twitter applications available. Osfoora is a very popular twitter client and this is for a good reason. In this review I’ll go through the main functionalities of Osfoora.

Osfoora has 6 main screens which will be described here. There are also 2 other screens which are important in Osfoora: “New Tweet” and “Profile”

New Tweet

The new tweet button is visible on the top right corner of every screen except from the “Nearby” screen. I like the way the new screen button is implemented in Osfoora.

It doesn’t matter in which of the other 5 screens you are, the button is always available within 2 taps on the screen and most of the time within one tap. The new tweet screen looks good in portrait modus, but in my opinion better in landscape modus. I think this is because the iPad’s on-screen keyboard is larger and better to use in landscape modus.

When composing a new tweet you directly see from which account you’re logged in into because you see the Profile picture from the account you’re posting from. There’s a large textbox on which you’re able to enter the 140 characters.

Below the textbox there are 7 buttons.

Add Picture: Add a picture from the iPad’s Photo Album (yFrog, TwitPic, Posterous, img.ly, TweetPhoto)
Tweet Song: Tweet the current playing song or tweet a song from the Library

@Reply: Add an @-Reply to a twitter user you’re following. (This also has the Random #FF button)

Location: Add your location to the Tweet.
Hash-tag: Add a hash-tag to your tweet. Recent searches are automatically added to the Hash-tag quicklist.
Shortening tweet: Shorten your tweet when you’re past the 140 allowed characters. (I didn’t get this to work)
X-button: Clear everything in the textbox.

Profile

The profile screen becomes visible when you tap on a twitter user’s profile picture. This view has a lot of functionality and depends if it’s your own user profile or a user profile from an other twitter user:

View user stats: View the number of followers, following, tweets and favorites of the user.
When you push one of these stats you’ll get to see the list of the selected stat. For example here a screenshot after selecting my following stat.
Mentions: See the list of mentions from the twitter user.
User’s Lists: See the list of twitter-lists the user created.
Lists follwing paul: See the list of twitter-lists which follow the user.
Lists user follows: See the list of twitter-lists the user follows.

Create new List (Only on your own profile): Create a new twitter-list.
Retweets by me (Only on your own profile): See the list of all the Tweets you’ve Retweeted:
My Tweets, Retweeted (Only on your own profile):See the list of all your Tweets, Retweeted by others:
Retweets by others (Only on your own profile): See the list of all Tweets whom your followers Retweeted
Edit Profile (Only on your own profile): Change your profile settings.

List Membershipt (Only on other’s profile): Add the user to one of your twitter-lists
Follow / Unfollow user (Only on other’s profile): Follow or unfollow the twitter user.
Block user (Only on other’s profile): Block the current user
Report user as spam (Only on other’s profile): Report user as spam
Send Message (Only on other’s profile): Send the user a Mention or DM

Settings

The Settings button shows a screen overlay with the Osfoora HD Settings. With the settings it is possible to customize the application the way you like it.
Pretty interesting settings are the Follow Friday Setting in which you’re able to set the Follow Friday Settings from Osfoora HD.

In the settings-Section “Services” you can choose which services you’d like to use for several functions. In the “Image Service” section there are 5 different services, but I miss one: Mobypicture. I hope the developer will add this service in a next release.

I would recommend to change the “Split View” setting to “On”.
When you have split view set to on, the screen in landscape modus splits into 2. On the left side you’ll see your normal Tweets and on the right side you’ll see one specific tweet with ten buttons.

Reply: Write a reply to this tweet
Favorite: Mark the tweet as favorite
Retweet: Retweet the current tweet. (You’ve got the possibility to Retweet or make a “Quoted Retweet”)
Direct Message: Reply to the twitter user with a Direct Message
Mail: Mail the tweet from one of your mailaccounts. A new message is directly composed inside Osfoora
Translate: Translate the current tweet in English
Delete: Delete the current tweet (only possible for your own tweets)
Navigate up & Down: Quickly scroll one tweet up or down.

Timeline

The timeline is obviously the most used screen of Osfoora HD. Here I’ll describe in detail what can be found on the Timeline screen. Of course here you’ll see all the tweets in your timeline, and if you’ve selected “Split view” in the settings, You’ll also see the options for the selected tweet.
Above the timeline there’s a filter tweet textbox, to search for text in tweets in your timeline.

The top-bar is in most screens different. Only in the ‘Timeline’ and the ‘Mentions’ it is the same. It shows in total 7 buttons.

Twitter Accounts: The most left button on the top is the “Twitter Accounts” button. With this button it is possible to manage your Twitter accounts within Osfoora. Most people only will have 1 twitter account, but if you manage more than one twitter account this is the place to add another account and switch to the selected account.

Settings: Displays the Settings overlay, which was described above
Profile: Displays the Profile screen from the current twitter account
Go to top: The button go to top scrolls you to the top of the screen.
Mark Tweets as read: The button mark tweets as read, marks all the tweets in the current screen as read.
Drafts & Snippets:In the drafts & Snippets overlay it is possible to save drafts and snippets. A draft can be made by composing a new tweet and pressing the “Close” button. But more about that in the next paragraph.
New Tweet: Create a new tweet

Mentions

The mentions screen shows all the buttons on the top of the screen just like the Timeline screen. But the tweets in this screen only shows mentions to the currend twitter account.

Messages (DM’s)

The messages screen shows the Twitter usernames from whom you’ve received or sent DM’s. Behind the twitter username you’ll also see a number indicating the number of messages communicated with the user.

When entering a DM conversation you’ll see wich DM’s you’ve send to and received from the selected contact.

In the main Messages Screen there are 4 buttons in the top:

Edit: For deleting a specific conversation with a contact.
Mark tweets as read: Mark all the DM’s as read.
DM to contact: Select a contact and directly compose a DM to the selected contact.
New Tweet: Create a new tweet (This isn’t particular a DM, but just the normal new tweet button)

Search

The Search Screen automatically adds an overlay of the Recent Searches. When tapping one of these search-queries Osfoora searches the latest tweets which match the search value.

On top of the search screen there’s a large textbox for entering the search string. Right next to the textbox there are 6 buttons:

Saved Searches: Displays an overly of all your saved searches.
Save Search: Adds the current search text in the textbox to the saved searches.
I found out that the Save Search functionality doesn’t always work the way I think it should. I think that when you push the save search button, and then push the “Saved Searches” button, the saved search should be visible in the “Saved Searched” overlay. It turns out that the only way to get the search string into the “Saved Searches” overlay is by restarting the application.
Recent Searches: The recent Searches is also an overlay and displays a list of all the recent searches in alphabetical order.
Search User: Enter the username in the textbox and push the “Search User” button to find the profile details of the searched user.
Twitter trends: Shows a list of the current Top 10 trends on Twitter. Tap one of the items in the list to search the selected trend.
New tweet: Create a new tweet

Lists

The Lists screen shows an overlay of all the list you’ve created and all the lists you’re following. Selecting a list will display all the tweets from all the users in the list.

This screen only has 2 buttons on the top:

Lists: Shows all the lists you’ve created and all the lists you follow. When selecting a list, all the tweets from this lists are shown in the main screen.
New tweet: Create a new tweet.

Favorites

The favorites screen shows all the tweets you’ve marked as a favorite. It shows 2 buttons on the top:

Accounts: Manage your twitter accounts.
New tweet: Create a new tweet

Nearby

The nearby screen shows a Google Maps screen with twitter balloons for every nearby tweet. I don’t know for sure, but I think here you’ll see only tweets from the last 24-hours or so.

Final thoughts and wrap-up

I’ve been using Osfoora for a couple of days now and must say that I really like the application a lot.
It’s one of the best applications I’ve installed on my iPad at the moment and basically when I need to read my recent tweets or write a new tweet I always use Osfoora. There are a few points the developer should work out in a next version. High on my personal want-list is mobypicture integration as a photo service.
Other points I’ve mentioned in the review are the saved search addition after the restart of the application and (which I didn’t mention) I’d like to see the DM chat style in a different way. The DM chat-style doesn’t fit the layout of the rest of the application in my opinion.
Those are just small comments on an application I basically don’t need to criticize. Because it’s just one great Twitter application!

Back in February during the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, HTC announced 3 new phones.
The HTC HD Mini, which was reviewed by Remo in April, the HTC Legend, which was reviewed by Mark in May and the HTC Desire.

In this review I’m going through the most important aspects of the HTC Desire. From the specs of the HTC Legend and the hardware of the device. The software (Android version 2.1), some multimedia possibilities and the general device properties, like battery and performance.

1. Specifications and First impression

• Processor:  1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor
• Operating System:  Android™ 2.1 (Éclair) with HTC Sense
• Memory:  512 MB ROM / 576 MB RAM
• Dimensions (L x W x T):  119 x 60 x 11.9 mm. (4.7 x 2.36 x 0.47 inches)
• Weight:  135 grams (4.76 ounces) with battery
• Display:  3.7″ AMOLED capacitive touch screen with pinch-to-zoom capability and with WVGA resolution (480×800 pixels)
• Network:  HSPA/WCDMA: Europe/Asia: 900/2100 MHz, GSM/GPRS/EDGE: Europe/Asia: 850/900/1800/1900 MHz,
• GPS:  Internal GPS antenna
• Connectivity:  Bluetooth® 2.1 with Enhanced Data Rate, Wi-Fi®: IEEE 802.11 b/g, 3.5 mm audio jack, Standard micro-USB (5-pin micro-USB 2.0)
• Camera:  5 megapixel color camera with auto focus, flash, facedetection and widescreen photo capture
• Audio:  supported formats: .aac, .amr, .ogg, .m4a, .mid, .mp3, .wav, .wma
• Video:  supported formats .wmv, .mp4, .3gp, .3g2
• Digital compass for use with maps or geocaching
• Battery: Rechargeable Lithium-ion battery, Capacity: 1400 mAh
• Talk time:  Up to 390 minutes for WCDMA / Up to 400 minutes for GSM
• Standby time:  Up to 360 hours for WCDMA / Up to 340 hours for GSM
• Expansion Slot:  microSD™ memory card (SDHC compatible up to 32GB)
• Accelerometer sensor for auto-rotate and turn-to-mute

First Impression

When I unboxed the HTC Desire and first saw the device my thoughts were: “HTC build an iPhone. NICE! I’ve always wanted to see something like this”. As I took the Desire out of the box it appeared that the dimensions of the Desire are getting very close to the iPhone’s dimensions. Since I’ve been using my 3GS for quite some while now, I was getting used to the ‘larger’ design of a phone.

After pushing the power button the Android OS comes up pretty quickly, and a easy start-up wizard guides you through the very basics of the Desire. This is especially handy for the not-so-technical users. In fact not only the start-up wizard is user friendly, the whole device is very understandable for non-techies. So the first impressions of the HTC Desire are very well, lets go through to the next part: The Hardware:

2. HTC Desire Hardware Design

In this section of the HTC Desire review I will go through all the hardware aspects and de design of the device.

2.1 The front of the HTC Desire

The front of the HTC Desire looks very much the same like the Google Nexus One. But there are some differences.
On the top of the front there’s a speaker completely at the top. Below the speaker there’s the 3.7″ AMOLED Display which is really beautiful. Below the display there’s the biggest difference with the Google Nexus One.  There are four buttons, from left to right: The home-button, the Menu-button, The Optical trackball and the last button is only one button, but acts as two buttons; the Back-button and the Search-button.

Because in the past a lot of devices with a regular trackball seemed to be very sensitive for dust and other small filth, the optical trackball is in my opinion a good alternative for the ‘regular’ trackball. The optical trackball seems to be more sensitive than other trackballs in other devices. Normally this would be a good point, but I have the idea that the optical trackball it too sensitive.

2.2 The back

The back of the HTC Desire is almost completely the battery-cover and has a rubberish feel. The back also features the camera on the top of the back-side. Directly next to the camera there’s a strong LED-flashlight for pictures which are taken in dark circumstances. Next to the LED-flashlight there’s a speaker for hands-free phone-calls.

2.3 The top

The top of the device has only one button, which is the power button. The position of the power button is well-placed (on the left side of the top of the device).
For right-handed users it is possible to turn the desire on or off with their index finger of the right hand.  On the right side of the top of the desire there’s are 3.5mm audio jack.

So the top of the device is just the opposite of the iPhone 3GS (where the power-button is on the right side of the top of the device and the audio jack is on the left side of the top of the device)

2.4 The bottom

The bottom of the device only has a micro-USB connector for charging and/or synchronizing the device and a very little hole where the microphone is located.

2.5 The left-side

The left of the device has 2 buttons: The two volume-control buttons.

2.6 The right-side

The right-side of the device is completely blank and has no buttons or connectors.

3. HTC Desire Software

The HTC Desire runs on Android™ 2.1 (Éclair) with HTC Sense. An official update to Android 2.2 will be out in Q3 of this year. In the HTC Legend review – which was written by Mark Briggeman is a lot of information about Android 2.1 and every software aspect of the HTC Legend applies to the HTC Desire as well. For the software aspect of the HCT Desire I forward you to Mark’s Legend review.

4. Multimedia

The HTC Desire has – just like any other Android device – a lot of multimedia functionality.  In this part I’m going to show a few Pictures and a video shot with the HTC Desire.

4.1 Pictures

These pictures were taken with the Desire.

The picture quality  isn’t the best quality we’ve seen on mobile devices, but in my opinion for a mobile phone the picture quality is good enough.

4.2 Video

Below a video which was shot at a bright sunny day.

Desire Video

In my opinion the video quality of the Desire is more than enough for what I need from a smartphone. It isn’t HD quality, but I think the quality is more than enough for taking good video’s.

5. General Desire

5.1 Calling

Above all the Desire is of course also a mobile phone. Luckily the Desire does not fail in what it primary has to do: The calling.
The call-quality is above average for the Desire above other phones. I did several test calls and in my opinion the Desire  really stands out.

5.2 Battery

Something I am not very happy about is the Desire’s battery drain. The desire barely makes it through the day when using the device on an average to heavy basis. Although almost all the recent smartphones have this issue, in my opinion you should be able to make it through the whole day with one battery charge. I think it’s something device manufactures should really focus on when developing a device.

5.3 Performance and stability

The Desire is a real power-horse. The 1GHz processor gives the device enough power to run very smoothly and especially very stable.Quickly browsing through different Sense views and running several apps at the same time is not a problem at all and doesn’t seem to slow the device down. This is an aspect of the Desire which I like very much. A good user experience comes together with the speed and responsiveness of the User Interface.

Final Thoughts and Wrap-up

The Desire is called the Legend’s big brother and in fact it really is that. The biggest differences between the Desire and the Legend are the Screen size, memory and the Processor. This makes the Desire a very popular device. It has all the thing you’d expect in an advanced smartphone.

What I really like about the Desire is it’s speed and stability. The speed of the Desire is brilliantly fast and very responsive, something I’m very excited about. When it comes down to speed and stability there are only few devices where you can really rely on and the Desire is definitely one of them.  I’ve never seen a software-crash or hick-up.

If someone made me choose between the Desire or the iPhone 3GS (I haven’t tried the iPhone 4 yet) it would be a very hard decision for me. So hard that I think it’s not possible for me to make a decision. If I’d had to advice my girlfriend to take a new phone, I’d recommend her the Desire. Why? The Desire is in my opinion just a little bit more user-friendly and less geeky.I’ve seen more female Android users than female iPhone users. Somehow the Android OS is (I think) a little more user friendly for the non-geeks. If I had to choose an Android device at the moment, I’d definitely go for the Desire!

Sometimes you think that software just can’t get any better. For instance Shazam; The famous application which gives you information about the current song on the radio. Today while browsing through the OpnMarket I found the application Midomi; A very good alternative to Shazam. Midomi has 2 different modes for finding a song. Grab Search and Sing Search

Grab Search

Grab Search is the mode we all know from Shazam. For Grab Search make sure there are not to many noises around you, click the record button and hold the phone near the speaker where the sound comes from. The sound is processed and after a few seconds you’ll get to see a list of results.

In the example above I listened to “Money for Nothing” by Dire Straits. Midomi found the song correctly.

Sing Search

Now sing search is really a bit revolutionary. When using the Sing Search tab the record button and sing or hum a part of the song. Do this at least 10 seconds and at max 30 seconds. Again after the recording stops, you’ll see that the recorded part is being uploaded and searched. A few seconds later you’ll get to see the result. The first time I tried this feature I uhm-ed “I got a feeling” by Black Eyed Peas and was very surprised that the way I uhm-ed it really returned me the right result. (eventhough it was the second search result)

Now I’m not a good singer, I nether uhm very well, so I’m really impressed that my uhm-qualities were that well that some results are returned correctly. I tried several times; some times it didn’t return the right result, some times it surprisingly did.

Song information

Midomi also gives advanced song information. Depending on the song this can be from album information to even buy the song

The album art is downloaded, if there’s album art available for the specific song. Some songs have a Preview option and can be listened to for about 30 seconds. The other menuitems are links which actually opens Internet Explorer to Youtube, Amazon (Buy Song) or Google (Find Lyrics).

Concluding thoughts

Midomi is a really cool application ad a very good Shazam alternative. Not only for song which are currently on the radio or through the speakers of your stereo, but also if you’re on the road and got a song in your head but haven’t got a clue how the song is called.
Simply uhm or sing the song in Sing Search mode and you’ll very likely get the right result back. To me Midomi is definitely added value over Shazam.

I really like iOS4 – It gives me a lot features I use every single day (Every hour to be quite honest).
But there’s one major downside to iOS 4: It’s batterylife.

The iPhone’s battery life never really was very good – Therefore I bought a Morphie Juice Pack Air last year, but with iOS4 on the iPhone 3GS the battery drain is significantly more than iPhone OS 3.1.2. Eventhough Johan already posted a nice post with a few tips how to keep your battery drain at a low level, I thought it would be good to share this tip as well.

I think the battery drain mainly is because of the new multitasking feature in iOS 4. Multitasking lets you quickly switch from one app to another, and return to the first app and go on where you left with the first application. But with heavy applications like Navigon or TomTom (which use a lot of battery anyway) it’s sometimes not good to have them running in the background all the time. With these applications, when I reach my destination I’d like to completely close the application and start it whenever I need it again.

Walk-through

Now there’s a solution to that – and the solution is directly in iOS4, but a lot of people don’t know about it.
When double-clicking the home-tab you’ll get a list of all ‘open’ applications. This list can become very long.

Now tab-and-hold with your finger on an application in the multitasking list.

You’ll get to see a close button on every single application. Pushing the close-button closes the application and removes it from the multitasking list. This can be done with every application in the list. In the example above I closed NAVIGON, becasue It took to many resources and I didn’t need to get directions anymore. So after pushing the close-button on the Navigon tab – all the other applications move to the left and the blank spot is filled with an other open application (In this case WunderRadio)

Update from comment Johan: When scrolling your finger to the left, You’ll get to see the next 4 ‘open’ applications. In this way you can more specifically select which application you want to close.

By repeating this on all the other open applications it is possible to completely get the list Empty so that no application is open anymore (And therefore doesn’t take any system resources)

Return to the default home-screen just like you’re used to do by pushing the Home-button once.

Concluding Thoughts

In my opinion this is the best way to get more out of the battery-life during the day on the iPhone (3GS). By closing an application in stead of just hitting the Home-button I honestly can say that the battery drain of my iPhone 3GS is significantly less than just leave the app ‘open’ in the background.
If you think your iPhone’s battery drains more after the iOS 4 update, I’d recommend this procedure and hope your battery drain problem is solved as well.

Yesterday Resco released a new version of their advanced text-input keyboard software; Resco keyboard Pro 6. Resco is known for their applications like Resco Explorer 2010, Resco Photo Manager 7, Resco Audio Recorder, and other great applications. With version 6 of Resco Keyboard Pro there are a numerous new features in this application. In this article I’ll go through the most important features of Resco Keyboard Pro 6.

Five Resco Keyboard Pro layouts

Layout 1: The QWERTY-layout

In the screenshots below I’ll give an overview of the standard HTC Touch Pro 2 keyboard and the Resco Keyboard Pro.

Looking at the differences between the two input methods there are only a few noticeable. The most important difference is that the up, down, left and right arrow aren’t available in the QWERTY-layout of Resco Keyboard Pro and that in Resco Keyboard Pro 6 the buttons are larger than the original HTC input method. The keyboard lay-out is only a little bit difference between these two input methods. But Resco Keyboard Pro 6 has a special feature: Swipe.

If you swipe to the left an other layout is being displayed. Which is screen 2: The symbol layout.

Layout 2: The Symbol-layout

The Symbol layout has two different pages:

The Symbol layout features a lot of special characters directly available on the keyboard. Not only characters like <, >, &, @ and $ but also the more advanced characters like [, ], ^, | are available in the 2nd page of the symbol layout. A really nice feature is that the bottom-left of the screen has the “aBc” key which brings you back to the QWERTY-layout within 1 single tab on that button.

Layout 3: The FX-layout

The FX-layout is a special layout which features 11 of text presets. If you tend to type a long sentence a lot, than you can set this sentence as a preset in the FX-layout. One single tab on one of the 11 text presets types the text completely. But not only text is being typed. This layout is called the FX-layout because it can also use simple formulas for example to enter the current date or time. Again, just like in the Symbol layout, the bottom-left button is the “aBc”-button which directly brings you to the QWERTY-layout

Layout 4: The Calculator

The calculator layout is something I personally like a lot, and which is a feature I use very much. It happens often that when I have to write an e-mail or text-message that I need a calculator. Resco Keyboard Pro 6 brings a calculator directly to the input screen, without opening a special calculator application. Calculations can be made and added to the e-mail or text-message directly.

Layout 5: Copy/Cut/Pate-layout

The Copy/Cut/Paste-layout is features only a few buttons, but a few very good ones to improve the usability of the device. Copy/Cut/Paste is a great feature and Resco Keyboard Pro 6 makes it via this layout very accessible. Also the arrowbuttons up, down, left and right which hadn’t seen yet are available in this layout. The last row brings all the other 4 layouts directly accessible with one tab on the button.

Secondary Language Support

In the Settings (which will be discussed in the next chapter) it is possible to set a primary and multiple secondary languages. These languages can be selected just like selecting any other keyboard.

Settings

The settings of Resco Keyboard Pro 6 are available as a separate application, but also when choosing “Options” while selecting any other keyboard. The settings page looks like this:

Most of these settings are self-explanatory.

• It’s possible to select Resco Keyboard Pro 6 as Default input method.
• Select a Primary Language for the language you write most of the time.
• Select multiple secondary languages for all the other languages you use to communicate
• The Tab Notification setting lets you set how to experience a tab. Via haptic feedback (Vibrate) or with several different sound-notifications
• The Button Preview setting lets you choose where the preview button is displayed in the screen (Disable, Above button, Middle of the screen)
• Skin: There are two different skins to choose; Default (Blue-ish) and Gray.

Speed

Another great feature of Resco Keyboard Pro is it’s speed. switching between the different layout’s works really well and has no lag. I’ve tested Resco Keyboard Pro 6 on the HTC Touch Pro 2, and my good friend Remo tested the application on the HTC HD2. We were both surprised about how well the keyboard works on the HTC Touch Pro 2 (with a resistive touchscreen) and also on the HTC HD2 (with the capacitive touchscreen).

Concluding thoughts and wrap-up

Resco Keyboard pro is a great advanced keyboard for windows phone users. The multi-layout design of Resco Keyboard Pro 6 is practical, easy to use and understand. Resco Keyboard Pro is a good solution for Windows Phone users who think the default input method isn’t sufficient, especially on the devices without hardware keyboard.
Read the full press release here.

ProClip USA released today the first set of holders for the Apple iPad. However the announced that they are also working on some future products. Their Apple line of products is very extensive and they try to accommodate many possible configurations. It looks like the will do the same with the iPad line of Apple.

The first ProClip Device Holders for the Apple iPad  are now in stock and available for online ordering at ProClip USA. I can see many possibilities with these holders. The mounts can be used to attach to a wall as well and have your digital picture frame on the wall.

Below these three in stock Items we will list and show you some future products of ProClip USA.

Item #511139 - Holder with Tilt Swivel $49.99

Item #215445 – Standard Holder and Monitor Mount Black $39.99

Item #215444 - Standard Holder and Monitor Mount White $39.99

The future product the mentioned to us are:

-An Adjustable holder which allows the iPad with the most common skins.

-A Desktop stand.

-A Car Headrest mount/holder which allows you to attach the Apple iPad to the back of the front seats for viewing in the back seat. See the images below for these.

IF you don’t know ProClip USA yet!!

I really recommend them. Check out their extensive custom designed vehicle mounts and mobile device holders (with or without charging capabilities).

Today Apple Announced the new iteration of it’s iPhone OS.  iPhone OS 4.0 gets over 100 new features. 7 of them were demoed by Steve Jobs, Scott Forstall and Phil Schiller on stage in Cupertino. Besides that the new iPhone OS 4.0 delivers over 1500 new APIs for developers. Developers now have the possibility to enhance their application with functions like access calendar, In-app SMS, Photo Library Access, Quick Look, Spell Check and many more new features.

I’ll go through the 7 features which were demoed today.

Multitasking

The first feature demoed was multitasking. To be quite direct: Multitasking is only going to be available for iPhone 3GS and iPad users, Multitasking isn’t going to be a functionality for current iPhone 3G users or users with an original iPhone. Of course it’s sad for current iPhone 3G users that their device doesn’t get multitasking, but in my opinion Apple just couldn’t keep the speed they wanted with this multitasking in the iPhone 3G. Since speed is 90% of a satisfying user experience, I think it’s legit for Apple to disable the multitasking feature in the iPhone 3G.

Multitasking can be enabled for a numerous of functionalities. These include:

• Background Audio (For applications like Pandora and Spotify)
• VOIP (For applications like Skype)
• Background location (For applications like TomTom or other Navigation Apps)
• Task Completion (Upload A Photo to Flickr in the background)

Picture used with permission of Ryan Block and Peter Rojas, gdgt

I think there’s only 1 functionality missing here and that’s an open connection to, for example, a twitter application. But all these background functionalities are very powerfull to enhance the way you use the iPhone. I think this can be a real big-deal and I like it!

Apple has had great succes with Push Notifications and therefore it introduces “Local Notifications”. Local Notifications are like Push Notifications but without the need of a server. The local notifications are directly from your iPhone.

An extra feature wich comes with multitasking is Fast App Switching. Fast App Switching is the feature which is the easiest to implement by developers. It saves the state of the application and it let’s you return to the application where you left it. So if you’re in a game and Fast Switch to an other application, the game continues when you return back to the game. The state is implemented in a way that it doesn’t take any system resources.

Folders

With OS 3.x it is possible to see 180 apps on your Homescreen. iPhone OS 4.0 offers folders, so that you can expand the number of available applications on your Homescreen to 2160! Now I think I’ve got a lot of apps on my iPhone (around 200) but I don’t think that I’ll ever reach the limit of 2160 applications on my Homescreen.

Picture used with permission of Ryan Block and Peter Rojas, gdgt

Apple has managed this to “stack” applications into folders. Drag an application onto another application to create a folder. The name of the folder is automatically set, but you can change it easily. This way you are able to create folders like “Games”, “Tasks”, “Social Networking” Etc. Because I always have too less space on my Homescreen I like this feature a Lot!

An other feature is that with iPhone OS 4.0 you can set a different wallpaper for your lock-screen and a wallpaper for your homescreen.

Unified Inbox

The Unified Inbox feature (again) is a feature I’m personally very happy with. At the moment I have 4 e-mail accounts set on my iPhone and they all have a different inbox. It would be great if I had just 1 inbox and that all my mail would arrive in just 1 inbox. This is exactly what happens with the new Unified Inbox feature. It is possible to select “All Inboxes” and see all the mails in all the inboxes from all the e-mail accounts. It’s like an aggregation of all inboxes in one view.

Picture used with permission of Ryan Block and Peter Rojas, gdgt

Other additions in the email application are for organize by thread and Open attachments in Apps.

iBooks

Of course we saw iBooks on the iPad first and Apple made a version for the iPhone as well. It’s just like the iBooks app for the iPad, but smaller. I don’t  know if I’ll ever read an entire book on the iPhone, but the iBooks application could definitively help me to read more books!

Enterprise Features

Additional Enterprise Features are not really the most spectacular features for the average user, but Apple thought well about what Enterprises would like to see as feature enhancements.

The real killer-feature is that it now is possible to sync with multiple exchange accounts. Personally I think this it the best feature of iPhone OS 4.0. Having multiple exchange accounts available is a real big feature for me and I like it very much that they’ve made this feature available.

Other enterprise features (which you’ll probably never ever hear from again) are Mobile Device Management, Wireless App Distribution and SSL VPN support.

Game Center

Apple adds a social gaming network. With this social gaming network it is possible to Invite Friends, Matchmaking, view Leaderboards and Achievements.
I guess game developers can hook their application into this Game Center and give users the possibilities to use the Game Center functionalities in their Games.

Actually the Game Center can be very much compared to the Plus+ network.

iAd – Mobile Advertising

Apple would like to help developers with making money by using the iAd mobile advertising features in their free Apps. The Ads would show up around every 3 minutes while using the App. I think this is a lot – and I think I’d rather pay for an application than see an ad every 3 minutes.

iAd isn’t really a feature enhancement for users, but more for developers of free Apps. One good thing is that Apple challenges to make creative ads. This can be a game, a video (with HTML 5) or anything else.

Concluding thoughts & Wrap-up

Overall I think that iPhone OS 4.0 is a really nice upgrade of the iPhone OS. A lot of features are added and some of them are more than welcome!

I think the iPhone OS comes to a stage where there are less and less like-to-haves for the iPhone OS, because we got (almost) everything we wished for. When we have multitasking, multiple exchange, better inbox integration; what keeps left to wish for; Please tell me your wishes for the iPhone OS which STILL isn’t included in the iPhone OS 4.0 in the comments of this thread.

Finally I would like to thank some people. First of all Ryan Block from gdgt (http://www.gdgt.com) for letting me use his pictures and the excellent liveblog. Vincent Nguyen from Slashgear (http://www.slashgear.com) and Joshua Topolsky from Engadget (http://www.engadget.com) for their great Live blogs; You guys Rock and many many thanks for keeping us up to date so damn quickly. An other thank goes out to all the guys from OneMoreThing.nl and a very special thanks to Gonny & Jean-Paul from iPhoneclub.nl for their live stream directly from Amsterdam.