Apple's Tablet PC (iTablet?) coming in February?

Its sources are saying that Foxconn Electronics, makers of the iPhone and the iPod, will be the manufacturing partner for a tablet PC device and it will go on sale in the first quarter of 2010. Apparently initial shipments will be in the 300,000-400,000 range, which sounds like fairly low number to me.

Shiny Apple

Windows 6.5 Mobile not as good as Android or Apple

84 MyPhone_300X300_Web.png

Today Microsoft launched their new phone brains: the Windows 6.5 Operating System for smartphones, and they want us all to be very excited about it. At its best Windows 6.5 Mobile merges your work PC, your home PC and your mobile – letting you work across platforms by uploading everything seamlessly into The Cloud.

At its worst it’s a slightly clunky User Interface. And, perhaps most significantly, is it just going to end up confusing everybody? We cover the pros and cons below:

FEATURES
The best bits of the Windows 6.5 OS:
1. A simple easy to use home screen giving easy access to all functions. Without leaving the home you can see whether you’ve got new emails, you can flip through your photos or you can see your calendar or text messages. “It’s a very scrolly home screen” explained the demonstrator.

2. Windows Apps – there are 60 in the UK right now. Expect the number to increase rapidly.

3. IM – as part of their “commitment to communication” Windows Live is integral, and there’s an instant messaging bit, which allows you to leave voice clips instead of text IMs. A weird instant messaging version of an answer phone.

4. The Cloud – this is the interesting bit. Most useful if you use a PC at home and the office and want to work across platforms. There are also some useful provisions in case you lose your phone: info from your phone is automatically backed up to the cloud, so you can simply download it to a new handset. And – thanks to GPS you can trace where your lost phone is on a map.

Lovely. What are the downsides?

CONFUSION
I put that in capital letters for a reason. Microsoft and several of their partners spent a while telling us that having a phone with hardware from one company, software from another company and network provision from another – wasn’t confusing for consumers. It was choice! Lucky consumers.

You can get Windows Mobile 6.5 on an HTC phone with T-Mobile or on a Sony Ericsson with Vodafone. Will customers be able to tell the difference? Will they ever choose a phone for its Operating System rather than its hardware?

The man from Phone4U at the press conference said it was a bit confusing. People go into a shop and ask for a phone, not a network or an OS or an app store.

Microsoft are upping the Windows Mobile brand – by advertising their OS directly. TV adverts for Windows Phone showed a man getting hugged by a cross between a Tellytubby and a Twitter icon, show how your applications follow you, metaphorically hugging you when you have Windows on your mobile. Windows Mobile is fun. And it’s being promoted by itself. But still, are people actually going to buy a phone for its OS?

VERDICT
As for the app store – it will be big, but I don’t think it will be as big as Apple’s or as exciting as Android’s – the app store that developers love.

The UI – a bit clunky and not very good looking. No wow factor here.

MyPhone and the Cloud co-ordination is what would make this worthwhile for a PC user. But, in my opinion – wait till Windows 7 comes out and all its touch capacities are exploited fully on a really high-end touch screen device.

New Phones with Windows 6.5
HTC Touch II from T-Mobile
HTC Touch HD II from O2
LG GM750 from Vodafone
Samsung Omnia II and Samsung Omnia Lite
Samsung Omnia Pro B7730
Sony Ericsson X2 from Vodafone
Samsung Omnia Pro B7610

Phones with Windows 6.1 may be available for an upgrade.

Via ShinyShiny.tv

Shinychris Mobile phones

Microsoft set to unveil new 'iPhone killer' phones

Big day for Microsoft today. It is set to unveil new Windows phones at 11am today at London’s Centre Point. Last week we reported on its supposed iPhone killer, the ‘pink phone‘. Today it announces its first smart phones with Windows Mobile 6.5.

Although precise handset details are still a closely guarded secret we have found a little bit about new integration services for the Windows phones which will be announced. These include My Phone and Marketplace. My Phone lets users back up and manage their photos and apps for free as well as other content from their phone including contacts, appointments and text messages directly onto their PC.

People can also publish their photos from the My Phone website or the phone directly to Windows Live, Facebook, My Space and Flickr as part of the free service. It’s also possible to go online to map the last known location of the phone from when it was last synchronised. There will also be a premium My Phone package which will immediately locate a phone’s current location on a map, will remotely lock a phone and will post an ‘if found’ message to its screen. Initially this will be available only in the US but it will come to Europe in the ‘near future’.

Shinychris Uncategorized

Sky TV on an Xbox 360 – not long to wait now

The service will deliver up to 20 live channels and a host of video on demand footage like movies and music events. Initial demos back in May when the scheme was unveiled also displayed how Windows Live Messaging facilities could be added to the video so that user could talk about the games/movies/events they are watching with friends as they can do now when online gaming.

Shiny Gaming