Posts filed under News

Garmin have announced that they’re working on an Android-based GPS smartphone for 2010.

Garmin entered the mobile phone market a while back with its much-delayed Nuvifone. Unfortunately, the delay meant that Garmin missed the boat somewhat with GPS phones, with first Nokia and then Google stealing a march on the company with a plethora of GPS-based phones that all worked rather well.

More details after the jump.

I’m pleased to announce that MobileMentalism is now sitting nicely in a brand new home. After much problems over the past month or so, the site has moved to a new server. More powerful and more reliable, so no more downtime, and a much faster response time. I’ll also be making more tweaks to get the site working even faster over the next few days.

There may be a few glitches to be ironed out, but they’ll be sorted out ASAP.

So enjoy, folks, have a good look round the new slicker site, and you can look forward to some seriously cool posts – starting tomorrow!

Remember the HTC Touch Dual, one of the first Windows Mobile smartphones that actually looked good? The keywords here are “Windows Mobile”, as it turns out you can also run Android on it, too – and not just any old Android, but a version of Android with HTC’s own shiny new Hero interface.

These pics show just such a weird chimera, with the HTC Touch Dual booting up under Linux and then the familiar HTC Hero interface bursting into life.

Impossible? No, not a bit of it. It’s one of the benefits of the openness of Android, the hackability of HTC’s phones, and the almost obsessive devotion to getting Android on virtually every device out there by the members of XDA-Developers.

Sure, it sounds geeky, but if you have an old HTC Touch and want to put some extra life into it, go ahead and install Android on it – jusrt don’t ask me how ;)

More pics and details after the jump.

We’re just about to hit the avalanche fo mobile phone press releases from MWC 2009 tomorrow. Making sure they still get a bit of attention before the noise ratio rockets skyward, Palm have released a preview video of the new Palm Pre smartphone.

The Palm is as close to an iPhone in terms of functionality, usability and interface, as it’s possible to get without breaking any patents. Every time I see it, I’m more impressed. Check out the vid and see what you think.

[Source: IntoMobile]

During a day in which Sony Ericsson released worst than expected figures for 2008, Sony haven’t exactly helped matters by allegedly refusing to allow Sony Ericsson to put the sacred PlayStation brand on a new range of gaming phones.

Rumours involving Sony’s snub have being circulating for sometime, but apparently Sony Ericsson made a formal proposal to the Sony board in December for access to the PlayStation brand that was categorically refused. Since then, relations between the two companies have become increasingly strained, leading some to wonder whether Sony is preparing to walk away from the partnership.

The announcement by Sony Ericsson of losses reaching EUR 129 million for the last quarter of 2008 (or a loss of EUR 262 million if you include restructuring costs) has only added fuel to the fire.

2008 has been the year of the smartphone, but we ain’t seen nothing yet! With Android, the iPhone, Symbian, Windows Mobile, and yet more smaller players all fighting amongst each other to be crowned king of the smartphone, we consumers are about to be swamped by a torrent of new devices fighting for our hard earned pennies.

While that sounds good at first glance, dig a bit deeper and you’ll see a problem emerge – four competing and completely non-interoperable operating systems equals four key platforms for software developers to choose from when building their apps.

Unless the developers have large teams and large pockets, they’re going to be forced to choose one or two platforms at most, meaning if you choose a platform that becomes unpopular (Windows Mobile ), then you”ll be out of luck when it comes to buying the fancy app you saw on your friend’s iPhone.

Or worse, you might move from an iPhone to an Android phone, only to find that you have to purchase all the apps you bought for your iPhone all over again, as they won’t work on Android. The nightmare of the fragmented platform looms large, just as it has done for years in the PC market and console market.

What can be done, and who can solve this conundrum? Well, Ericsson, apparently!

Sony Ericsson has just announced it’s joined the Open Handset Alliance and will develop a new mobile phone based on the Google Android operating system. There had been rumours about this for some time, but now it’s official, and 2009 should see the introduction of a new Sony Ericsson Android phone.

Not content with the Nokia N97 that was announced on Tuesday, we hear news that Nokia have even more announcements up their sleeve. The first is a certainty – actually, they’ve already announced it! – the second, is a little more unclear!

The first is something of a shock – it’s the Nokia Home Music system, a dedicated wireless music streamer pitched directly at the Logitech Squeezebox.

Seems Nokia’s going into the music business in a big way, and we can only assume they’re trying to usurp the dominance of Apples iTunes store (and thus sever peoples reliance on the iPhone) with an enhanced version of their Comes With Music music download service.

Either that or Nokia also has 10% time just like Google, and one of their engineers came up with something bloody amazing!

The second announcement rumour comes from Scoble, who has either got his days wrong, or knows something we don’t!

More details after the jump.

Uber-blogger Robert Scoble has got the inside scoop on Nokia’s new phones that will be shown off in just over 7 hours time. Writing on Twitter, he says “What I’ve seen tonight from Nokia has, indeed, not been seen yet on the Internet and was pretty surprising to the bloggers.”

Now if that doesn’t get you all excited, nothing will!

If you thought camera phones were old hat, think again. Samsung has announced that its shifted 10 million 5 megapixel+ camera phones so far this year, and expects to ship 13 million by the year’s end.

Gartner, meanwhile,has forecasted that 110 million 5 megapixel+ camera phones will ship globally next year, ramping up to 330 million by 2011.

Part of this is obviously to do with the fact that a high quality camera phone is desirable in its right, but it’s also due to the decreasing cost of developing such phones. In 2007, for example, 5 megapixel+ camera phones were extremely expensive high-end affairs, with the Nokia N95 leading the way. In 2008, 5 megapixels has reached the high mid-range market, with 8 megapixels becoming the norm for the top-end phones.