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.

This breaks  a record for both companies, who are embattled as the leaders in their spaces in the US. The iPhone has just surpassed the Blackberry as the predominant smartphone in the US and MySpace is feeling the pressure of Facebook challenging its US dominance. While this application might not fend off the competition, it at least keeps them in the game.

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.

Apple has also released an updated User Guide to reflect the changes made in this latest release. You can download the latest version of the User Guide in pdf format directly from Apple here, or just update your phone and jump right in. Here’s a quick view of a page taken from the User Guide courtesy of CNET:

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.

You can download the application by pointing your Blackberry’s web browser to m.google.com/sync. Alternately, you can check out the FAQs and have a link sent your your phone via SMS at the Google Sync for Blackberry product page. Just make sure you have Internet connectivity, as data charges could apply.

Kelly Carter over at NewBBies has a good primer on how to install and set up Google Sync on your Blackberry. The instructions don’t include the new contact management functions, but detail the security and sync settings in detail. You might be careful about enabling two-way sync before tidying up your Google Contacts, otherwise you could end up with every person you’ve ever emailed in in your Blackberry Address Book.

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…

The iPhone has been the only kid on the block to provide good handling of complex Javascript or AJAX interactive events with its mobile browser. Although Apple doesn’t seem interested in supporting Flash plugins, up to this point it’s provided the best support for Rich Internet Applications on a mobile device.

However, Google built Android’s browser using Webkit for full AJAX support. And now it’s vaulting ahead of the iPhone in supporting interactive Web applications by being the first mobile platform to support both AJAX and Flash. At least, that’s once the plugin is officially pushed to handsets.

Now my diatribe about Steve Jobs shooting himself in the foot by banishing Flash from his precious handset platform doesn’t seem nearly as far-flung. Granted, Android does have a long way to go in terms of integrated and smooth user interaction, but hopefully Jobs won’t sit back and watch Android fly past the iPhone.

Via I4U

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.

The Asus P565 spec sheet shows 3 hours of talk time on a 3G network. That’s not a whole lot and doesn’t take into account other battery-draining activities such as checking email, web-surfing or multimedia features.

The truly unbelievable claim is that the P565 has provides 250-300 hours of standby time. That’s completely ridiculous. Have you ever had a phone that could go over 10 days without having to recharge? I can barely make it through a day without having to juice up my phone, granted I’m a heavy smartphone user.

The P565 still looks to be quite an impressive device. I haven’t played with the Asus Glide interface, but any touch option should be an improvement over the standard not-so-finger-friendly Windows Mobile interface.

You can see the rest of the stats here.

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.

The mobile browser wars on Windows Mobile are really starting to heat up. Microsoft is playing catch-up by just getting zoom features into Internet Explorer 6. In my opinion, Opera Mobile is leading the pack in terms of user experience, but Flash could give Microsoft an advantage. Latecomer Mozilla is prepping what looks to be a killer Alpha release of Firefox Mobile, code-named Fennec.

Flash arrival on Windows Mobile signals a further gap widening between mobile web browsing capabilities as compared to the iPhone. Windows Mobile will support full Flash, but still doesn’t have a browser that supports the extended javascript support necessary for AJAX. Apple’s iPhone, on the other hand, provides decent javascript support, but doesn’t seem interested in supporting Flash animations.

Flash 10 for Windows Mobile isn’t expected to ship until next year, when Internet Explorer mobile 6 ships with new devices. Hopefully we can get a preview of both and potentially the CAB files to be able to install the applications on our current hardware, but I haven’t been able to hunt one down yet.

Via MobileCrunch

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.

It looks like Microsoft Office web applications for businesses will be available via a hosted model for an additional licensing fee. There are hints that there may be an ad-supported as well as a paid version of the web applications that will be available for home users.

This raises the question of whether Microsoft will create the ability to store documents in the cloud as Google has done. This is important so that users have a way to access their documents from anywhere that is both stable and secure. Hopefully we’ll be getting more information on their document management strategy as we get closer to release.