Both Google and OpenMoko have been making strides towards an open source handset for the mass market, though they’ve taken drastically different approaches thus far. Google has been working with handset manufacturers and mobile carriers to launch the Android mobile OS, a daunting process for any nimble web company. Openmoko has opted to design their OS around their own hardware, which makes it easier to develop the handset, but much harder to use on the carrier networks.

So let’s take a look at how far each has come in the last year since I pleaded with Google to open source my phone. We’ll also compare the advantages and disadvantages of their approaches. Read more…

Is mobile technology reducing our need to be self-reliant and interact with strangers almost entirely? It’s a relatively recent phenomenon that practically everyone in the US carries a phone with them. Now that the mobile web is starting to provide directions, location services and listings of every imaginable service, is it affecting our ability to be self-reliant and think on our feet?

Just imagine that your car breaks down on the side of the highway and you need some help. Once upon a time you would have to find a payphone or possibly even knock on a stranger’s door to ask them for help. If you needed gas, you would likely have had to walk to the nearest gas station to get help. Now you can just call for roadside assistance and they’ll come right to you.

Another common scenario could entail finding yourself a stranger in a strange place. You might have once found yourself hanging out in a hotel bar or wandering aimlessly to find something interesting. In fact, you may have had to ask a total stranger where to find the best sushi or, ohno, your way back to the safety of your hotel room. Read more…

It seems that all we hear about in terms of the mobile web lately is about how the iPhone is responsible for fueling the growth of the mobile web. This could be because of the recent release of the iPhone 3G or the high percentage of Apple users logging onto the mobile web, but are they ruling the roost quite yet?

Comscore’s recent report found over 80% of European iPhone owners were regular mobile web users as compared to about 30% of overall Smartphone users that also use their data packages. This could be due to the vastly improved mobile web User Experience on Safari. However, global market share of iPhone’s as compared to other Smartphones is actually only 5%.

Admob recently compiled a report on mobile web usage trends based on the aggregated traffic data from their customers which represent over 1 Million impressions per month. One surprising metric from their data is was the number one phone overall. 7.9% of total global pageviews came from either a Motorola RAZR or KRZR phone which are the top 2 mobile web phones in terms of overall mobile web users. Often we think about the mobile web purely in terms of PDA users which is clearly not the case. Read more…

As I’ve mentioned before, Opera Mobile is hands down my favorite Windows Mobile browser. They’re the first to come out with a mobile web browser for the Pocket PC that includes tabs, finger panning and zooming and they’ve done a fantastic job of implementing it. Skyfire provides a similar experience, but is slower because it’s actually using a proxy. In fact, they’ve gone one step beyond even Mobile Safari by including copy and paste support in this release.

Now you can get it directly from Opera for free during the Beta phase without having to resort to what I’ve been told is a buggy alpha. I predict that more Windows Mobile users will start using their data connection now that they have a fantastic alternative that makes the browsing experience almost as good as the iPhone.

After having been in existence for just over a year, Palringo is on it’s way to becoming the top free mobile instant messenger on the market. After Sage reviewed the Palringo client for Windows Mobile back in February, it became our instant messenger of choice. AIM for Windows Mobile also provides an excellent user experience for free, but only for AIM and I might be a bit biased as an AOLer myself. Their smooth interface, flawless support for all the major IM networks and Push-to-talk voice features are all useful and well implemented.

Palringo also launched a free Blackberry client last month to little fanfare. It runs on the Blackberry Curve, Pearl and 8800 models. I’ll have to admit that I’m not quite as knowledgeable about the landscape for free Blackberry IM clients, but it’s still a relatively young market as many mobile im clients are either subscription-based to the carriers or per-license fee.

They haven’t released a launch date for the iPhone version of Palringo, but I stumbled across some screenshots that I’ve included below. I was really looking for Blackberry screenshots, so you can imagine my surprise. The interface looks really clean and they seem to have found a way to manage switching conversations by a small finger-friendly menu that you can bring up from the bottom.

Check out screenshots after the jump Read more…