MySpace and RIM teamed up to release a social networking application for Blackberry phones last Thursday that seems to be gaining some momentum for MySpace in the mobile arena. The application allows Blackberry users to browser the popular social networking site and receive notifications of activity on their mobile phone.
Over 400,000 people have downloaded the application to their Blackberry device in the first week since its release. As mobile becomes more social, users can bring their social network with them anywhere they go. This allows them to keep up with friends, send messages and feel connected even when they’re far apart.
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Apple has released the highly anticipated 2.2 firmware update for the iPhone overnight. For me, the most exciting part of the release is the addition of Streetview access from the iPhone in the included Google Maps application.
While there’s still not a turn-by-turn driving application for the iPhone, this seems to be as close as we’re likely to get in the near term. Streetview will provide a realistic view of the area that you’re traveling, as long as its been caught on film by Google’s famous camera-laden vehicles.
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Previously Google Sync for Blackberry allowed mobile users to sync their calendars to Google, but didn’t help in terms of managing contacts. This morning Google announced a new version of its Mobile Sync for Blackberry that lets you sync your Contacts and/or Calendar with the cloud.
Google Product Manager Marcus Foster says that it’s a good way to maintain your contacts because, “If you ever lose your phone or buy a new one, getting your address book and calendar to your new device is as easy as installing Sync.” It’s really good to see Google putting a focus on contact management. The lack of sync tools for its own Android operating system when it released the T-Mobile G-1 has been causing headaches for early adopters everywhere.
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Yesterday we covered the impending arrival of Flash on Windows Mobile which was demonstrated at the Adobe Max developer conference in San Francisco. However, news broke later on in the day about a few special guest appearances that we weren’t quite expecting yet.
Andy Ruben of Danger Inc fame, who also happens to be the genius behind Google’s Android mobile phone operating system, was on hand for the conference. The real special guest for the occasion was Flash 10 coming to the Android platform. Andy did the demo himself, which marked the second major handset platform that is about to start supporting Flash animations.
This move could position Android phones to surpass the web-surfing capability of the iPhone and here’s how…
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Ever since Asus announced its forthcoming P565 smartphone yesterday with an 800 mhz processor, I’ve been marveling at the thought of having that much power in a Windows Mobile device. The P565 is 3G network-capable , supports b and g Wi-Fi connectivity, and has SIRF GPS built into a package that’s only about 4″ x 2.5″.
Then someone asked me how long the battery could possibly last while running that fast of a processor. After checking out the specs for the P565, the results were, well, unbelievable.
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For years Windows Mobile users have had their web surfing experience hampered by poor support for rich Internet applications on the handset platform. Today Adobe makes a giant leap forward in mobile web experience by bringing a full version of Flash 10 to Windows mobile handsets.
It’s not quite clear yet whether this is a browser plugin designed specifically for Internet Explorer mobile 6 or whether it will also run on other mobile browsers or previous versions of Internet Explorer mobile. The company will be showing off a demo version at it’s Adobe Max developers’ conference in San Francisco.
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Microsoft has finally begun taking Google Docs and Spreadsheets seriously as a threat to the MS Office suite and is preparing to release a web-based edition of Office. While Microsoft isn’t known for playing well on other platforms nor for its innovative thinking as of late, this time it may just have a winning idea.
Sources say that Microsoft Office web applications will run on a variety of browsers, from Internet Explorer to Firefox and Safari. In addition, iPhone owners can rejoice at the ability to edit documents using the MS Office web applications on the go. Even better is that users will be able to use the applications without having to install any additional plugins or software components, though the company says that Silverlight will result in a crisper interface.
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