Facebook always had the option on your desktop to filter your news feed to just read the updates of people you had put into a custom list. However in a couple of the last updates on Facebook, Facebook has been automatically creating some lists for you as well. My main complaint on the Mobile Facebook apps was that you couldn’t filter your news feed to these list on the Mobile device applications. It is possible but it is not that obvious and requires a little trick.  In this article I explain you how you can do this on your Windows Phone, Apple iPhone, iPad and on all Android devices.

Facebook app for Apple iPad, iPhone and all Android devices.

Facebook app for Windows Phone

The Windows Phone allows you to create your own filtered groups by creating a group tile which is really the best way. I have described this in an earlier article. This will filter the facebook, linkedin and twitter posts from these people in this group.

The Windows Phone Facebook app takes a couple steps to see the specific news feed of on of your lists.

1. Open the Facebook app on your Windows Phone
2. Tap on “Friends” in the selections
3. Tap on “Lists” on the top of your screen
4. Select the List of your choice in the selections.
5. Select “News Feed” on the Top of your screen.

A few days ago Vonage released a free app for all the iOS devices. The app is called Time To Call and can be downloaded for free from the iTunes store. The great thing about this new service is that you do not need to have a Vonage home account. MobilityMinded is proud to announce that Vonage (Facebook | Twitter) has given us the chance to give an Apple iPad 2 away as a contest prize. MobilityMinded will hold this contest from August 27th till August 31st. I guess I will be giving away an iPad 2 during my own Birthday !!

Apple iPad 2 Give away.

MobilityMinded is not the only blog that is part of the iPad 2 give away. Check out the dates of all the other 74 blogs on Callsfromsmartphone.com and come back to MobilityMinded.com from August 27th till August 31st for your chance to win the iPad 2 32 GB ($700 iTunes gift card, can get you the 64 Wifi model as well ) or a iTunes gift card for $15. This contest is open to all readers. Yes!! also you our international readers. If you are the winner and you have no Apple store in your country then Paypal will be your friend.

 What is the Time to Call ™ App?

• Pay per call and talk up to 15 minutes to 100 countries for $1.99 or less¹
• For an additional 90+ countries, talk up to 15 minutes for $2.99 to $9.99¹
• FREE download
• No need to be a Vonage home customer

LIMITED TIME OFFER: Download now and call up to 15 minutes for FREE.
 Activate your FREE call to take advantage of this offer.* No purchase required!

Download the Time to Call™ app and make low-cost international calls of up to 15 minutes to landlines and mobile phones in over 190 countries. Save money over dialing directly through major mobile carriers, and pay for your calls through your iTunes account. It’s FREE to download with no monthly charges and no commitments.
Make a FREE International Call! For a limited time, each download includes a FREE call up to15 minutes to landlines and mobile phones in any one of 100 countries. Activate your FREE call to take advantage of this offer. No purchase necessary.**

Description:

· Pay per call and talk for up to 15 minutes to 100 countries for $1.99 or less (excluding applicable taxes)
· For an additional 90+ countries, talk up to 15-minutes for $2.99 to $9.99 (excluding applicable taxes)
· Bill directly to your iTunes account
· Works on Wi-Fi® worldwide
· Also for use on high quality 3G networks in the U.S. and Canada
· Special bonus! For a limited time, unused minutes can be used for additional calls
· No need to be a Vonage home customer

Now it’s even easier to make international calls when you’re on the go. Conveniently bill calls directly to your iTunes account and save money over major mobile carrier rates. Whether you want to make an international call while traveling or catch up with friends and family abroad, just find the country you want to call, tap the Buy button and start talking. All you need is Wi-Fi. In the U.S. and Canada, may be used over a high-quality 3G network (carrier charges may apply if you have a limited data plan).

Start calling now!

What you’ll need:
· The Time to Call™ app for iPhone
· An iPhone with Wi-Fi or a high quality 3G connection in the U.S. or Canada

Get started now:
· Download the Time to Call™ app for iPhone
· Select the country you want to call
· Tap the Buy button on your screen and dial the number you want to call – no service plan is required and your call is billed directly to your iTunes account
· Call mobile or landline numbers and talk for up to 15 minutes
· For a limited time, each download includes a FREE call of up to 15 minutes to landlines and mobile phones in any one of 100 countries. Activate your FREE call to take advantage of this offer. No purchase necessary.**

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZnnITF35Y2A

** Limited time offer for first calls placed to landlines and mobile phones in any one of 100 countries using the Time to Call iPhone app. You must activate your free call before this offer ends by clicking the “Try it for Free” button on the country plan page within the app. Free call expires one year from activation. Eligible countries include: American Samoa, Angola, Argentina, Australia, Austria, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Belgium, Bermuda, Bhutan, Brazil, Brunei, Burundi, Cambodia, Canada, Cayman Islands, Chile, China, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Dominican Republic, Egypt, Finland, France, French Guiana, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Guadeloupe, Guam, Hong Kong, Hungary, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Iraq, Israel, Italy, Japan, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Macau, Malawi, Malaysia, Malta, Martinique, Mexico, Mongolia, Montserrat, Mozambique, Nepal, Netherlands, Netherlands Antilles, Nigeria, Northern Mariana Islands, Pakistan, Panama, Paraguay, Poland, Portugal, Puerto Rico, Reunion, Romania, Russia, Rwanda, Saint Barthelemy, Saint Martin, San Marino, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Tajikistan, Thailand, Trinidad And Tobago, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Uganda, United Kingdom, United States, US Virgin Islands, Uzbekistan, Vatican City (Holy See), Venezuela, Vietnam, Zambia.

[Disclosure: The giveaway prize will be provided by Vonage, but they are not the administrators of the giveaway on our site. We are not liable for the prize. We received an iTunes gift card for testing the Vonage Time to Call app. As always, the opinions expressed are ours.]

Today at the WWDC keynote event Apple announced the newest version of its mobile operating system. iOS5 will have more than 200 new features, the ten most important ones were included in the presentation. A brief overview of some of the most interesting features.

• Notifications

iOS5 will get a Notifications Center, notifications will become visible when you swipe down from the top of the screen (similar to how it works on Android).

• Twitter integrations

Twitter will be fully integrated in the OS

• Safari improvements

Tabbed browsing on the iPad and a reading list (similar to Instapaper or Read it later) to save articles for later. These will synchronise between your iOS devices.

• Reminders

A to do list that is location aware (many apps are available with similar features).

• Camera improvements

You can now make a picture without unlocking your phone, straight from the lock screen (a WP7 like feature). Furthermore the volume-up button will allow you to take a picture.

• Improved mail

Flags will be supported, hopefully this will work also for Exchange accounts. Full message search function.

• iMessage

A WhatsApp/Blackberry messenger service.

• PC Free

Should also be called Mac Free, no longer is it needed to first attach your new iOS device to iTunes.

• Over the air software updates

There will be incremental updates, no more downloading of a full version.

• iCloud

Apple online content storage service. Calendar, email, music, photos, apps, documents, this service will store it all up to 5Gb and push it to your iOS devices.

Wrap-up

Apple again improved their mobile Operating System with many useful features. Not all of them are unique to iOS, but by incorporating them deeply into their platform they are raising the bar again for the competition, in particular for their tablets. iOS5 will be available to the latest two hardware generations of iPhone/iTouch and iPad. iCloud will be seamlessly integrated with iOS5.

Looks like applications for smartphones can cover each moment of our life: from Oprah show to Cardio Calc. It can be rather laborious to think an application which has not been created for iPhone or Android devices. There are lots of specific female applications that have been already developed.  That is not to say that all women need a Period Calendar and Cooking book but using these 7 applications for iPhone and Android can ease women’s routine sufficiently bringing orderliness and saving time.

Recently Evernote released Evernote 4, an updated version of their software for the iPhone or iPod Touch. Evernote is a great notetaking service that can be used to store virtually anything digital, from text notes to images and with support for audiorecording and pdf files. Both images (through OCR) and pdf files as well as text are fully searchable making it a great resource for all the information you have captured in it. I have been using it since the company behind Evernote made the switch to a cloud service with mobile clients and I’m a premium user for almost two years now!

Evernote has software clients for many operating systems including support for mobile platforms such as iOS, Android, WebOS and Windows Mobile. Evernote for the iPhone/iPod Touch was available from the start of the App store, and has  now been redesigned for an optimized user experience.

As shown above, notes browsing and creation has been combined on the Evernote main screen. Notes are shown in Snippet View containing title and some text of your note, if your note also contains other content like an image or pdf a thumbnail will be shown too.

You can also use the Notebooks button to directly browse the notes you have stored in your notebooks, Evernote’s version of subfolders. Alternatively, you can use the Tags button to browse your notes by their tags.

When you browse your Evernote collection using any of the available options you can further browse your notes based on their content or location. As shown above for “All notes” browsing, you can select to only view notes containing images, attached files, or with location information.

At the bottom of the Evernote application you will  always find a large button with a big plus sign on it, tapping it creates a new note. Attaching additional information like images, voice recordings or location is very easy using the large buttons that show up underneath. These buttons will be replaced by the software keyboard when you tab the small keyboard switch button. This optimized interface makes it much easier to enter all the required information in your new note.

I really like the improved user interface in this update of Evernote for the iPhone, both browsing and creating notes has become much more efficient. According to Evernote they will bring many of the features from this update to an upcoming version of Evernote for your iPad. In addition to that, the expected Windows Phone 7 version of Evernote is moving along, with a release expected in weeks rather than months based on information posted on the Evernote forum. You can expect a review of it on MobilityMinded when it is released.

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.

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.

After the launch of the Apple iPhone 4 there are many reports about the “death grip” which gives a loss of reception in the antenna of the Apple iPhone 4.  Some how a good grip on your phone with your hand gives a conduction with the metal rim of the iPhone 4 with a loss of signal strength. Most solutions are as easy as by getting a case around your phone.  But I really do like the design of the iPhone 4 and don’t want to loose it by covering it up with a case.

In the steps below I show you how I used left over Apple iPad Invisible Shield by Zagg. Of course you can use any clear tape as well.

Step 1.

Create a strip from the left over edge of the Invisible Shield for the iPad. Measurements are 0.5 cm by a minimum of 20 cm.

Step 2.

Cut this long strips in to five pieces of:

1. 0.5 cm x 6 cm  for right under the volume buttons of the Apple iPhone 4
2. 0.5 cm x 1.5 cm for the side of the volume bottons  after the black strip break of the Apple iPhone 4
3. 0.5 cm x 5 cm for the upper part  of side of the sim card tray on the Apple iPhone 4
4. 0.5 cm x 2.8 cm for the lower part  of side of the sim card tray on the Apple iPhone 4
5. 0.5 cm x 1.5 cm for the side of the sim card tray after the black strip break of the Apple iPhone 4

Step 3.

Apply these strip on the correct parts on the side of the Apple iPhone 4. The volume buttons, sim tray and black strips on the sides should stay free of the shield.

For now this fix will give you a better reception. Hopefully Apple will come soon with a iOS 4.0.x update for this as well.

DocumentsToGo from DataViz was only available for the iPhone version when the iPad was launched. In my earlier review I showed you  how it still was a powerful application on the iPad using the 2 times rendering. But now with version 3.3 DocumentsToGo premium is “the” powerful app on the iPad and worth paying for it.

If you are already a DocumentsToGo Premium owner of the app for the iPhone this will be a free upgrade.

First of all, I just want to let you know because of the different OS (or iOS 3.1.3) on the iPhone compared to the iPad (iOS 3.2)  their is one major difference in the set up. To see e-mail attachments in your DocumentsToGo on the iPhone you need to set up these accounts in your iPhone app. For the iPad you don’t need to do this. The built-in Apple email app can now pass files to third party apps like DocumnetsToGo. All you need to do is have your email account set up within the built-in app and when you receive a Word attachment you can view it on the iPad and even open it within DocumentsToGo. With this great new feature it will support all types of e-mail accounts and not just Exchange and Gmail.

However I do miss the feature on the iPad to actually see all my email attachments in one list within DocumentsToGo. This of course is still the case on the iPhone.

Let me sum up the functionalities and in the video below I will show you most of these.

• Create new Word, Excel, PowerPoint messages on the go.(format in either MS Office 97-2004,X, XP or MS Office 2007-2008)
• Edit documents on the go.
• Sync documents with multiple desktop and many cloud services
• Store documents to local iPad, Desktop Sync Folder
• Send an e-mail with documents as an attachment.
• Cloud service documents listed in all and download-able upon request, remove as well (ideal for offline functionality)
• Many formatting functions available like the toolbars in office desktop applications like Save (as), mail to, B, I, U, Font Color, Font Size, Highlight colors, alignments, bullets, redo , undo, etc……….And same for Excel.
• Create Powerpoint presentations on the Go
• Cloud service support for; Google Docs, Box.net, Dropbox, iDisk, Public iDisk and Sugar Sync
• iPad all email attachments support within the iPad mail app. iPhone e-mail support for Exchange and Gmail accounts through set up in DocumentsToGo app.
• Move and copy documents easy between different services.
• and more that I haven’t found yet.

The image below is of the home screen. Click on the image for a larger view.

Click for Larger Image

The following image is of the settings page which includes already set up sync partnerships.

Click for Larger Image

The following cloud sync services are availalble. You can have multiple of each kind.

The image below demonstrates the list view of a service with the offline available documents on your iPad. When removing documents that are stored on your iPad you will only remove them from your iPad. You have to go through your desktop to remove the document permanently from your services.

Click for Larger Image

The following new documents can be created in DocumentsToGo.

PowerPoint has three possible templates to start creating a new PowerPoint within DocumentsToGo.

Conclusion

If you have an iPad and you want to be more productive, but feel like you still need to bring a laptop with you, then DocumentsToGo will be the app on your iPad that will allow you to leave the laptop behind more likely and hit the road with only the iPad.

I haven’t installed and used  the iWorks applications and I am not able to compare this with DocumentsToGo. But as a PC user I am now very mobile using my iPad to access all my documents online and offline.

The DocumentsToGo Premium app is available at the iTunes Store for $14.99. (every penny worth it for me)

Facebook is being used more and more for social communications. However, how would you know someone replied to something you have posted? Or maybe you want to be directly notified if someone makes a post.

In this article I will walk you to the process of enabling your Facebook notifications by E-mail and/or SMS text messaging. And the best thing of all is that you can respond back to these notifications by just replying in those e-mails and SMS Text messages. The experience with your mobile phone will be enriched by having these Facebook capabilities.

The KIN ONE, TWO and all other Mobile Phones

To enable push notification on all other phones you actually need to go to your Facebook on the computer to set this up.  Data and/or SMS Text messaging will be used on your phone and will charged according to your plan you have with your provider.

1. Login to your facebook page: http://www.facebook.com

2. On the right top of your screen you click on Account -> Account Settings

3. On the “My Account” Page click on “Notifications” in the top bar.

4. Now on this page you can already see that your email is listed and you can check on the list below of all the different notifications you would like to receive by email. If you get your email on your device they will show up accordingly to your email sync schedule of your device. The e-mails coming in will let you know that you can comment back to those notifications by just replying to those e-mails.
(Tip; remove your automatic signature in your email before sending back your reply)

Add these steps below to enable push notification via SMS Text Messages

5. In this next step we will activate your mobile number to receive instant push notification by SMS Text messages. On the in step 3 reached Notification Page you can now click on “Send notifications to my phone via SMS”

6.  A pop up will appear for step 1 out of three steps.

A warning will appear first

“Note:Before you can receive notifications via SMS, you must activate your phone for Facebook Mobile”

Open a new browser and go to http://www.facebook.com/mobile/ ->scroll down and select Mobile “Settings” and choose “Enabled” and save your settings. Some of you probably have it enabled already.

In the pop up screen select “your country” and then your “mobile carrier” and select “Next”

7. Using your mobile phone, send a SMS Text message containing only the letter “f” (without quotes) to 32665 (FBOOK).

8. At this point you will receive a SMS Text message back with a confirmation code. Select Next in the “Step 2″ pop up box from Facebook and enter your code there and check if you want this number listed under your profile for others to see. Now Select “Confirm“.

9. Your Facebook account settings page will now default to the My Account – Mobile page. Here you are able to select which notifications you would like to receive. This page also allows you to enter specific Facebook friends which status updates you would like to receive as well by SMS Text messages. Check out the other settings on this page to suite to your needs. Make sure to select “Save Preferences” on the bottom of this page.

10. When you receive a SMS Text message from your Facebook account you can respond back easily to those status updates by replying that SMS Text message.

iPod Touch and iPhone

If you have the iPod Touch and and the iPone you can actually easy activate your push notification within the Facebook application.

Go to Settings -> Facebook -> Push Notifications and turn all the notification you would like and go back to your home screen.

You might want to use the option above for other phones as well, since you will be able to reply back directly to your notification using the email and/or SMS Text Message.

Final Note

It is a little bit of work, but once you have it set up you will have instant Facebook push notifications by SMS Text message and email on your mobile device.

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.

It has happened to many iPhone users. Suddenly your iPhone is draining very quickly, even without using the iPhone at all.

This has happened to my iPhone now for two times. On many blogs and forums people are complaining about it and many tips are given but not a real good answer to the sudden quick drain of your battery.  Below are these tips to save on battery power but won’t fix the sudden extreme drainage of your battery.

We have changed the title to include Android and Windows Phone devices now as well. We experienced the same battery drain on other mobile platforms. It seems that the exchange sync funtion (possibly calendar) hangs on the devices. In which it means it constantly is asking for data transfer in which your battery drains very fast. The device will feel hot as well. The solution is simple but takes some time.

• You need to delete to exchange account on your device
• After is is finished deleting your synced information you turn off your device and restart it.
• Set up your exchange account as before, the device will sync all your information back to your device.

The tips below will preserve more battery power:

• Turn off 3G (saves battery and is almost a must in area’s where you have Edge coverage)
• Turn off Notifications
• Turn off Push for e-mail
• Turn off  WiFi
• Turn off Bluetooth
• Set your Fetch schedule on all your other emails to manually
• Turn your Brightness down

Again these tips above will not fix your sudden battery drain on your iPhone. And really turning off all these options, kinda makes your iPhone a phone like any other. You really don’t have to do this.

I have discovered that the sudden extreme battery drain has to do with your Exchange Account that has been set up on your iPhone.  For some odd reason it keeps check and checking for new info and it won’t stop. Before trying to do a restore on your iPhone I would first recommend deleting your Exchange Push Account on your iPhone and set it up again as a new account. This will save some time in the fix for the extreme fast battery drainage.

Follow the steps below to fix the extreme battery drainage on your iPhone.

1. Go to your “Settings” on your iPhone.
2. Select “Mail,Contact,Calendars“.
3. Select your account that has been set up with an exchange server.
4. Select “Account Info“.
5. Copy down the information which you will need to set up this account again later on.
6. Select the “Arrow back ” on the top of your screen with the name of your account.
7. Scroll down to the bottom of the page and select “Delete Account“
8. Let the iPhone do its work. It will remove all e-mails, contacts and calendar items from your iPhone associated with your account.
9. When done Turn off your iPhone and Turn it back on.
10. Once your iPhone is turned back on you can go back to Step 1,2
11. Back in the “Mail,Contacts,Calendar” Settings you have to select  “Add Account“
12. Select the “Microsoft Exchange” and enter the credentials you copied down before.
13. The server information is not visible in this field yet, it will appear after you set up your E-mail, Domain, Username and Password are entered and “Next” has been selected.
14. Now your account has been set up again. It will take some time for the iPhone to synchronize everything back. Give it some 5-10 minutes.

Now your Exchange Push account has been set up again and your extreme battery drainage has been stopped. If you think that after these steps you still have this issue, I would recommend using the “Restore” function in iTunes while your iPhone is connected.

During the launch of the Apple iPad the only attractive case in the Apple store was the Original iPad Case. They were selling  iPad sleeves as well, but this original Apple iPad case was designed to add some great functionality besides just a case.

The added functionality of the case is that it becomes your digital picture frame stand and elevated lap stand by locking in the front flap on the back. Do you want to see how, check out the video below.

The couple of negative things I have to say about it is that the rubbery feeling of the case leaves many finger prints left behind on the case, just like the screen is very sensitive to left-over fingerprints as well. The tight fit could be a problem if you will slide in the iPad with a screen protector applied to it. While sliding in it might peel off. But will find out later once I have a screen protector. The last part that you have to think of is that the iPad with this case won’t  with the original charging docks available at the Apple store.

On the Positive side. A case for other similar tablets with this  fuctionality should be available because it is simply said great and it is worth the $39.

Last week I read an interesting article on the Dutch website iPhoneclub.nl about the application FileApp Pro. Let’s face it: USB-flashdrives are old – get lost and are most of the time not very secure. FileApp seems to solve a few issues I have with flashdrives and therefore I decided to test this application and write this review about it.

I need to say that this application requires a Wifi-network to manage your files on your PC or Mac. If you don’t have a wifi network (I for example don’t have a wifi network at my work), you can solve this by using Connectify. My colleague and good friend Remo wrote an extensive review about about Connectify. I’ve tested FileApp with a connection created by Connectify.

The Interface

When you download FileApp Pro on your iPhone and open the application you’ll see the main FileApp Pro interface.

User Interface

On the bottom of the screen there are 4 buttons to change the view of the files (and folders).
The most right button sorts the files from A-Z. The second button sorts the files based on date, The third button sorts the files on filetype and the most left button shows all the files and folders in a folder structure.

The folders-view can go into folders and back

Folder View

The edit button on the top left of the screen gives several options.

Select files or folders to edit

Select one or more files or folders and push the Arrow button to move, copy, ZIP or E-mail the selected items.
When pushing the “+ Button” you can choose to add a Folder or Add a Text File.

Select an edit mode (Move, Copy, ZIP or Email)

The three buttons on the top right are from left to right for refreshing the current view, Enabling the WIFI- sharing mode and to edit settings.

Transering files to the iPhone

When enabling the wif-sharing mode you can connect your Mac or PC to the FileApp Pro folder. Instructions on how you have to do this are directly available for the most used Operating Systems.
Basically you have to enable the “share-feature” of the FileApp pro application and go to a FTP location which is stored on your iPhone in the Windows Explorer (Or use Cyberduck when you’ve got a Mac). In this case I type ftp://192.168.2.216:2121 in the addres bar of Windows Explorer.

Sharing with FileApp Pro Step 1

Sharing with FileApp Pro Step 2

Sharing with FileApp Pro Step 3

Now you get to see the folder structure of FileApp Pro within the Windows Explorer

In this view it is possible to add folders and copy files and folders to this FTP-location. My own experiences with Windows Explorer as a FTP-client aren’t very well. Therefore I’d prefer a freeware application like FileZilla . I’ve tested FreeApp Pro with FileZilla and this works very well in my opinion.

FileZilla in combination with FileApp Pro

View Files

FileApp Pro is able to display a lot of filetypes. More information about this can be found on the website of the developer of FileApp Pro.
I tried several files and was positively surprised to see that not only PDF files, but also .docx (Word) files and even .pptx (PowerPoint) files are displayed really nice.

Also pictures uploaded to the FileApp Pro application can be displayed. Viewing options like a slideshow for pictures are also included.
I’ve tried to display an .avi file but this filetype sadly cannot be played by FileApp Pro. Other mediafiles like .mp3 or iPhone supporting Video files (standard iPhone formats : H.264, MPEG-4) are no problem at all for FileApp Pro.

Viewing PDF-document

View Images in SlideShow

Creating Files

FileApp Pro basically can create 2 types of files: Txt-files and Zip-files.

Txt files can be created by pushing the “edit”, then the “+” button and finally the “Add Text File” option. You need to enter the filename and choose the location where you want the file to be created. After doing this, you’re able to edit the textfile which was just created.

Add a text file

FileApp Pro can also create ZIP-files from multiple files on the FileApp Pro filesystem. This is extremely handy when you want to send attachments, but don’t want to send more than one attachment in your e-mail.

A ZIP-file can be created by pushing the “edit” button, selecting one or more files (or folders), pushing the arrow-button and select “ZIP”. The name of the zip-file should be entered, and all the files will be zipped into this file.

I was really impressed how well the zipping of the files and folders worked. – I was able to create a 43MB zip file within a few seconds. The zip-file contained several file-types like Mp3, Large Image files and PDF-documents.

Preferences

This application is really an application which positively exceeds in simpleness. A good example of this is the settings page. There are only a few available settings.

The Preferences Screen

First there is the section “Display Options”. In this section it is possible to show or hide the file extension, show or hide the file size and set the slideshow timer on 2, 3, 5, 10 or 20 seconds.

The other section is the “Sharing” section. In this section it is possible to set a sharing password. This enables you to set a FTP account and password, so that other users on the same Wi-Fi network don’t have immediate access to your files, if they enter your iPhone’s IP-address

The section “Security” lets you set a password for entering the application. When you loose your iPhone the data and files inside FileApp Pro are secured with a 4 digit access code.

The last setting is the “Advanced” section which includes the “Memory Management” option. This option has the possibility to change the memory management of the application in order to open larger files than normally. Setting the memory management option to “OFF” can imply that the application slows down drastically.

Memory Management

Concluding Thoughts and Wrap-up

I have a few likes and don’t likes for this application.

Likes:

• Seperated Storage on your iPhone – Which can be accessed easily without much technological knowledge.
• 4 different types of viewing your stored files, including a folder-view.
• Not a lot of overall settings but enough settings to protect your valuable data
• Versatile application to carry all your important files with you all the time.

Don’t likes:

• No warning when deleting folder in which files are stored – Files are deleted too.
• Impossible to share when opening the app and the iPhone has no wifi connection, even if wifi is picked up later.

Overall I think FileApp Pro is a great application as an alternative for an USB-flashdrive. Even better is that the application is free of charge during the next few days – so grab it here, while it’s free

]]> http://www.mobilityminded.com/6811/fileapp-pro-for-iphone-review-a-filemanager-for-your-iphone/feed 1 http://www.mobilityminded.com/6547/navigon-mobilenavigator-iphone-update-adds-social-media-3d-terrain-views-and-myroutes http://www.mobilityminded.com/6547/navigon-mobilenavigator-iphone-update-adds-social-media-3d-terrain-views-and-myroutes#comments Tue, 09 Feb 2010 22:41:12 +0000 Johan van Mierlo http://www.mobilityminded.com/?p=6547

Navigon announced today an update for their iPhone MobileNavigator application.  We reviewed both the iPhone and Windows Phone version of the Navigon MobileNavigator earlier. The iPhone version has been around a little longer and had some minor updates.

The latest update adds Social Media connectivity. A simple tap on a icon will post your current location and your ETA (Estimated Time of Arrival) without leaving your navigation screen. The social media account that work with the application are Twitter and Facebook.

Another update which is part of the free upgrade are the Navigon MyRoutes. This feature will analyze driving habits, patterns, location, time/day and provides up to three routes clearly displayed in-map with ETA, distance and driving times for each.

The Panorama View 3D will give you an orientation of your surroundings. The information comes from NASA’s height and terrain data. This added feature will be available for $9.99 in the app store.

Below is the full press release

NAVIGON Announces iPhone App Update with 3D Terrain Views, Social Media Integration and Intelligent Routing

First Navigation App to Integrate Twitter and Facebook Functionalities

Macworld Expo and Conference, Moscone Center, San Francisco, CA (February 9, 2010)—NAVIGON AG, the leading provider of mobile phone on-board navigation, today announced a significant update for MobileNavigator, the most feature-rich navigation app available on the iPhone platform. Extending comprehensive functionality, the update adds three innovative features: in-app Connection to Facebook and Twitter, Panorama View 3D with 3D terrain views powered by NASA data, and personalized route delivery via NAVIGON MyRoutes, an intelligent direction provider. NAVIGON is showcasing the update prior to its launch in spring at the Macworld Expo in San Francisco, February 11-13, booth #575.

“NAVIGON, an industry first to launch an on-board navigation app on the iPhone platform, remains ahead of the competition by consistently delivering first to market, full-feature updates. Apple’s App Store is ideal for delivering our latest innovations to our users,” said Gerhard Mayr, vice-president worldwide mobile phones & new markets, NAVIGON. “The upcoming fifth version not only redefines routing capabilities on the iPhone platform but also integrates social media connectivity, and outstanding, reliable 3D environment views.”

Further enhancing the proficient iPhone connectivity capabilities, MobileNavigator allows users to broadcast current position, destination and ETA (Estimated Time of Arrival) to favorite social media outlets, Twitter and Facebook, without navigation interruption. The easy access in-app icons seamlessly launch and the Twitter feature automatically limits input to the maximum 140, and provides a character countdown.

Complementing the elegant iPhone UI, Panorama View 3D delivers 3D map views through digitized cartography rendered from NASA’s height and terrain data. The full 3D view delivers an accurate depiction of surrounding environment, and what lies ahead with digital landscapes that include elevations, shadows, and geographic images. Panorama View 3D is integrated in-map, independent from the phone’s data connection.

NAVIGON MyRoutes takes personalized route recommendations to a new level with intelligent, customized direction planning. The feature analyzes individual driving data and designs customized routes. Up to three choices with distance and ETA are clearly displayed in-map for each. One primary recommendation based on the user’s driving habits, the day of week and time of travel is provided and the additional two alternatives provide options to choose a preferred route.

MobileNavigator transforms the iPhone into an inclusive navigation device that relies on the GPS receiver, independent from a cell or wireless signal, to provide the most feature rich on-board navigation application. MobileNavigator offers a familiar, yet streamlined user interface that offers intuitive visual feedback and readily accessible connected features, which takes the efficiency of mobile navigation to new heights. It is the only on-board iPhone navigation app available that includes Google Local Search, Reality View™ Pro, branded in-route POI’s, seamless in-app iPod controls, enhanced pedestrian mode, Traffic Live, and soon in-map social media connectivity in one application.

NAVIGON is dedicated to delivering premium navigation software for multiple mobile phone platforms. The company recently launched MobileNavigator for Windows Phone and announced an application for Android phones. According to the latest market data from Canalys, NAVIGON is the industry leader of on-board/perpetual navigation solutions for mobile phones in the U.S. with a market share of 23 percent.

Version 1.5.0 Feature Highlights:

Connection to Facebook and Twitter: A simple icon tap posts users current position, destination, and ETA without navigation interruption.

Panorama View 3D: True 3D in-map views obtained from NASA’s height and terrain data enable intuitive orientation of surrounding environment, and what lies ahead with digital landscape elevations, shadows, and geographic images. Panorama View 3D is integrated in-map, independent from the phone’s data connection. The Panorama View 3D feature will be available via an In App Purchase.

NAVIGON MyRoutes: Analyzes driving habits, patterns, location, time/day and provides up to three routes clearly displayed in-map with ETA, distance and driving times for each.

Pricing and Availability

MobileNavigator is available for $89.99 in the Apple App Store and is equipped with maps of North America from NAVTEQ®. Special Macworld promotion: MobileNavigator for $69.99 and one time in-app purchase Traffic Live for $19.99 (regularly $24.99) from February 5-15. Panorama View 3D will be available via an In App Purchase for $9.99.

Besides being available for the iPhone 3G and 3GS, the NAVIGON app also runs on first-generation iPhone or an iPod Touch. Additional accessories are required for GPS navigation on these devices.

For more information, please visit: www.navigon.com/iphone.

So the iPad presentation has just finished and all the news is out. We’ve been waiting days, week, months some even have been waiting years to get an announcement from Apple like the iPad today. In a way the iPad fills the gap between the iPhone and the MacBooks. In this article I’ll give my opinion based on what we’ve heard today from Steve Jobs. My own conclusion is that Apple had to announce a device that really drop all the jaws in the press-room. In this article I will point out my likes and dislikes based on what I know now about the iPad.

The “likes” of the iPad:

• It looks sexy. Although it’s more square than I’d though it would be. I had expected a device the size of an A4 paper, but the iPad is smaller. Nevertheless: the looks of the device are just amazing.

• It’s light – 1.5 Pounds (680 gram). This is of course very nice for when you would like to travel a lot with the iPad. The lighter the better and I think that 1.5 pound is really acceptable for a device with these capabilities.

• It’s got apps. All the popular iPhone / iPod Touch apps are also available on the iPad – This means that you can install from 140.000 applications directly when you unbox the device. I assume it’s possible to install all the applications you’ve purchased both on the iPhone and on the iPad at the same.

• It’s well-priced. Compared to the iPod Touch the iPad is very well priced. Where the iPod Touch really is a music-device, the iPad gives better browsing/email/e-book experience than the iPod Touch and the price difference isn’t really that much.

The “dislikes” of the iPad

• No Multitasking. The biggest problem I think is that the iPad – Just like the iPod Touch and iPhone – doesn’t seem to have multitasking – It’s not possible to keep an application open on the background of the iPad. This is really annoying when you’re using applications like Twittelator (a twitter app), Facebook, or Beejive (messaging).

• No OSX. I really like my iPhone and have not much to complain about it’s OS (apart form multitasking ), but it’s certain that OSX has just much more to offer than the iPhone OS. I belive the software inside the iPad is exactly the same as the software in the iPhone – and that’s what bothers me a bit. Imagine having the iPad with the ease of having apps available and the power of OSX Snow Leopard, this would make the iPad a REAL killer device.

• No Flash. Do I need to say more? Flash support isn’t available yet for the iPhone platform and therefore as far as I know the iPad won’t have flash-support.

• No Camera. How great would it be to have a front-camera in the iPad – For video conferencing. My Macbook Pro has a webcam and because so small you almost don’t even see it.

• No Wireless Sync. Syncing with iTunes goes via USB (via the power connector) and it’s sadly not possible to sync via Wifi or via Bluetooth. Who wants cables these days?

• No USB port. The only interfaces you’re getting is the internet and bluetooth. The iPad is perfectly for creating documents and has no option to have your files stored on a USB-stick.

Concluding Thoughts & Wrap-up

I am 100% sure the iPad will be a major success. Not because it’s an iPad but, because it’s got Apple written on it.
If Apple made a toaster (iToast) everyone would buy one, probably including me.

The iPad isn’t really a revolutionary device. It’s got the same applications an iPhone has; the same touchscreen only larger and basically that’s it.
The only added value I really see that the iPad has over my iPhone is the convenience of e-book reading (Because of the larger screen). I can imagine Apple want to use the AppStore to it’s max and therefore make the iPad run all the great application we find in the AppStore, but that doesn’t need to be a reason that we can’t have OSX on the iPad right? If the iPad had the advantages of running apps and running OSX – it would be THE jaw-dropping device we’ve all been waiting for.

In these next 2 videos we will show you the specific User Interface LG as implemented on the eXpo which runs on the Windows Mobile 6.5 operating system.

These 2 videos will give you a very good impression what the possibilities are. LG has done some small little things that we are finding back on the iPhone as well.

We  forgot one small thing we really wanted to show you.  It is the iPhone like scroll wheel in the Calendar application.

Please see our other video reviews of the LG eXpo by AT&T:

• LG eXpo by AT&T Review – Part 1 -Unboxing
• LG eXpo by AT&T Review – Part 3 – Fingerprint Scanner & Headset
• LG eXpo by AT&T Review – Part 4 – Fingerprint Scanner Set-Up
• LG eXpo by AT&T Review – Part 5 – Pico Mobile Projector Set-Up

Currently the LG eXpo is available at AT&T for $199.99 after a $100 rebate with a 2 -year contract.

The specifications are as follows:

• UMTS/HSDPA Tri-band (850/1900/2100 MHz). Yes data on a world radio
• GSM/GPRS/EDGE Quad-band (850/900/1800/1900 MHz)
• Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g
• Bluetooth v2.1
• Display: 3.2 inch WVGA, 16M color 480×800 touch screen
• microSD slot
• Smart sensor fingerprint recognition and navigation(d-pad functionalities)
• Voice and Data at the same time
• GPS
• 5MP camera
• Slide out Qwerty keyboard
• All the Windows Phone applications (Mobile Office, text, mms, internet explorer)
• optional Pico Projector
• and more

Make sure to check out the LG eXpo website for some great video presentations what the LG eXpo from AT&T can do for you. This all in conjunction with the Promotion of Avatar the movie.

Powermat send us some samples of their wireless charging solutions to us to give you all a feel for their products. With many cables out there, we all want to reduce these huge amounts of cables and get rid of our clutter. The Powermat is a step in the right direction in reducing some of the extra cables you might use when creating your own charging stations or with all your individual chargers.

The Powermat will allow you to charge 3 different devices  wireless and one extra device by using the integrated USB port. The Powercube comes with 8 possible connector tips which will allow you to charge nearly all mobile devices on the market.  Some specific products from Powermat will allow you to charge specific devices with ease. These specific products are: BlackBerry Battery Doors, Apple Cases and Docks, Nintendo DS Back Panels and of course the Universal Powercube receiver.

In the video below I will show you the following products:

1. Powermat Home & Office Mat ( $99.99)
2. Powermat Portable Mat ($99.99)
3. Receiver-Dock for iPod and iPhone ($39.99)
4. Receiver-Case for iPhone ($39.99)
5. Powercube Universal Receiver ($29.99)

Items also available but are not shown in the video are:

1. BlackBerry Battery Door ($29.99) BlackBerry Tour, Bold, Curve 8300, Curve 8900 and Pearl
2. Receiver-Back for Nintendo DS  ($29.99) Nintendo DS Lite and Nintendo DSi

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=leqX1FjsMtE

Conclusion

Using the Powermat system is a good step into the future. At my home desk the Powermat is a great solution to charge three devices with ease. I highly recommend it.

It would be great if the Portable Powermat would be smaller and thinner. The Travel Case with everything into it is still more volume in my very limited cargo travel space. A simple small USB hub build into the plugs and 2-3 individual USB charging cables will save much more space in my luggage.

I think this technology will grow and will become a standard into devices into the future. I am glad the European Community is having results with creating at least a standard in Mini and Micro USB Charging for mobile devices. Let’s see if  integrated wireless charging could be the next step!!

There are a lot of iPhone games available. A lot of these games are free, but most of them are paid applications. I like it escpecially when an iPhone game is on sale.

A few days ago I found out about a website called appventcalendar which is created by Blacksmith games. For this last month of the year they’ve put up a website which is similar to the Advent Calendar. Every day between 1st and 24th december the visitor receives a free iPhone game.

The first day they received a lot of publicity and therefore the site was down for a bit, but now they have moved to anonther server and the site is up and running perfectly again.

When we look at the games available we see that first game was “33rd division” from Craneball Studios, the 2nd day was “TriDefence” by Kalio Ltda. Yesterdays game was “Snorkeling – The Game” by Alfonso Bozzelli and today was Totemo by Hexage.net.

All together it can be said that there is enough of varity of games available on Appventcalendar. With the first three days they’ve set the bar pretty high for themselves. Therefore I’m expecting a lot for the future 20 boxes which are at the moment still closed.

Every day a new box gets opened and only that day the game inside will be for free. So from now untill chrismas, make sure to check their website www.appventcalendar.com each day.