Posts filed under Mobile Web

Microsoft teased us at MWC 2010 last month with its new Windows Mobile 7 Series. Although we saw quite a few screenshots of the new mobile OS, the videos that were shown were frustratingly brief.

Today at last, our frustration can be relieved as Chris Pirillio has posted a 17 minute video of a hands on session he had with Windows Phone 7 Series, as demonstrated by a Microsoftie.

More details and the video after the jump.

Spotify have confirmed they have no intention of developing a Spotify app on the Maemo platform. This is bad news for owners of the Nokia N900, and shows one of the dangers of choosing a phone with a limited market share.

As I’ve been saying for ages, only the most popular mobile phone platforms will attract developers, and the platforms with poor developer support will face a death spiral of decreasing demand as few companies develop their apps on it – which in turn feeds reduced demand as no-one wants a smartphone with no apps!

While we wait expectantly for MWC 2009, the annual mobile phone trade fest in Barcelona where the great and the good in the mobile phone world will be showing off their latest handsets, news seems to have shifted to the software part of the mobile world.

There’s a new version of Firefox that’s being developed specifically for mobile phones, and it’s now reaching a stage where it can actually be tested. Currently codenamed Fennec, Firefox Mobile, as it’ll ultimately be called, is rumoured to debut on the HTC Touch Pro.

This is annoying for three reasons. Firstly, because it’s being released on Windows Mobile first, which is possibly the worst mobile operating system on the market today; secondly, because it’s being released only on the HTC Touch Pro, which means it’s either going to be a slow process porting it to every other device on the market, or else it requires some pretty serious processing horsepower to work; and thirdly, because I have neither a Windows Mobile machine, nor a HTC Touch Pro, so I won’t be able to give it a go. Bugger!

Fennec isn’t the only new browser in town though…

Mozilla has announced that an alpha version of its much-touted Firefox Mobile Web browser will be launched in a few weeks’ time.

Coming after the first imminent launch of the first Google Android phone and its mobile version of Google Chrome, together with the iPhone’s Safari browser, Pocket IE, Opera Mobile and Nokia’s use of the WebKit browser, the mobile Web is looking set to positively explode.

Indeed, it seems there are more mobile browsers than desktop-based ones!

This is fantastic news for the mobile Web, which should finally provide an experience similar to the desktop equivalent we’ve all grown used to.

Having used the mobile Web for the past year with my Nokia E90 and loved every minute of it, I think it’s something the vast majority of users will become increasingly accustomed to.

All the news seems to be Mobile Web-related today! Sony Ericsson have hinted that their new user interface for the XPERIA X1 smartphone could be made open to any developer who wants to use it, meaning we’ll no longer have to put up with the lousy Windows Mobile user interface that comes as standard on so many me-too Windows Mobile smarpthones.

When Sony Ericsson announced that their new smartphone, the XPERIA X1, would use Windows Mobile, the world was somewhat shocked, as Windows Mobile is, well, frankly appalling! Looking like a dinosaur in a 21st Century world of super-tech phones, Windows Mobile phones all use the same boring user interface that reminds you of Windows 95! The thought of a high-end Sony Ericsson smartphone featuring the same user interface was nothing short of horrific.

The mobile Web looks like it’s about to catch fire.

Not content with smartphones that really are smart from the likes of Apple, Google’s Android, Nokia’s Symbian platform and Windows Mobile (which has just received a boost thanks to Sony Ericsson’s decision to open up the new Panels-based user interface on its forthcoming XPERIA X1 smartphone), graphics chip company NVIDIA have announced a deal with browser developer Opera to create a new optimized version of the Opera 9.5 mobile browser that should bring a real desktop browsing experience to mobile phones.

In a surprising move, Nokia have announced that they are working with Microsoft to port Microsoft Silverlight onto the Symbian S60 platform. Silverlight, for those not in the know, is Microsoft’s brand new cross platform web-based multimedia software that enables the delivery of Rich Internet Applications and HD video onto your browser. It’s set to be a fierce competitor with Adobe’s similar AIR technology, which itself is based on Adobe Flash.

Today’s announcement that Silverlight will be available on Nokia and other S60-based phones is a huge boost for the technology, as S60 is used in over 50% of all smartphones – that’s 150 million phones that Silverlight has access to.

Yahoo! unveiled part of their new strategy at CES 2008, and showed how they were planning on taking on Google in the mobile phone space. Whereas Google has the new Google Android platform, which is a set of technologies for device manufacturers to use in order to create Android-compliant phones (and thus easily use Google services), Yahoo! is making its strategy far more open by releasing a set of software tools that will work on any mobile phone.

Well, I say any phone – currently they don’t work on my Nokia E90, which is a top of the line Series 60 phone complete with all the bells and whistles you think you’d ever need. And herein might lie Yahoo’s problem…