PinStack Week in Review:Smartphone News, Reviews for November 6, 2009

**cherrichiodo** · #1 1 Week Ago -

Who can tell me they aren't just a little bit intrigued by the Motorola Droid? Are you a "lifer" BlackBerry user? Or using an Android phone already and ready for the next level? Either way, the next chance I get I will be stopping by my local Verizon store to check out the most talked about release in a VERY long time.

Next week is the BlackBerry Developer Conference. I am anxious to hear the speakers at the General Session and of course, the last day being "Developer Day" will give the media a great chance to get one on one with the people behind the application development. New for this year is working sessions for developing themes. There have been rumors that App World will begin selling themes in the near future. I can remember when there were less than 10 creating and sharing themes. The development has come a very long way. The software to create these next generation themes has always been available via the Composer portion of the Plazmic CDK. I'm interested in seeing the structure of these sessions. RIM requires $200 fee for every 10 submissions. While that fee can be earned back rather quickly, that fee is, from what I understand, in addition to the 20% you will owe theme from your sales. I am assuming the $200 is a "QA" type fee because if your application is rejected, your money is refunded. Also better make sure your application is ready for the public. Any updates will count against your limit.

Quote:

There will be an initial $200 USD administration service fee in order to complete registration and submit applications.
In the event your account is not approved, this $200 USD administration service fee will be refunded.
This initial fee will allow for ten (10) application submissions.
If you have used all ten (10) application submissions, an additional $200 USD administration service fee will be applied on your next submission, adding another ten (10) application submissions to your account.
Multiple versions of the same application will not count as separate submissions. (Example: An application might have a version for the BlackBerry Storm and the BlackBerry Bold)
An upgrade to your application, resulting in a submission of new COD files, will be counted against your ten (10) application submissions.
Resubmission of a rejected application will be counted against your ten (10) application submissions.
Removal of an application will not affect your remaining balance of application submissions.

Siri: Virtual Personal Assistant
Siri is a Virtual Personal Assistant - a new way to interact with the Internet on your mobile phone. Like a real assistant, Siri helps you get things done. You interact with Siri by just saying, in your own words, what you want to do. You can ask Siri to find a romantic place for dinner, and get reservations for Saturday night. You can discover things to do over the weekend, get tickets to the movies, or call a cab when you’re out on the town. You don't have to search through a bunch of web pages, following links and hunting down facts. Siri does all the work giving you the information you need at your fingertips.

Google Voice Has Competition
I've been a longstanding fan of Google Voice. I got my invite within the first few weeks of it's debut and have used and abused the SMS capabilities. The service has overall saved me a ton on my wireless bill and made it easier to for friends and family to keep in touch with me by calling one simple number that rings me wherever I am. It seems though that this innovative service has some competition in the form of a new service called Ribbit Mobile. via eWeek:"Ribbit brought its cloud computing phone application to the mobile device sector Nov. 3 in the form of Ribbit Mobile, which lets users manage calls and messages to mobile phones from their computers. Ribbit Mobile aims to challenge existing Web services such as Google Voice and VoxOx, and offers many of the same services as those products. However, Ribbit features a third-party developer platform to enable programmers to build applications that extend the Ribbit Mobile platform.

Bing Mobile Site Optimized for Touch Screen Smartphones
Microsoft has touch-optimized its Bing mobile site, allowing owners of the iPhone, Zune HD, Verizon Imagio and others to navigate the search engine via their multitouch screens. The increased popularity of devices such as the iPhone has made touch screens a vital component to consider for developers of mobile software.
Bing for touch devices
Great news for you touch phone owners in the U.S.: we have a new version of Bing just for high-resolution touch devices. We optimized for touch navigation to make the most of your phone, and added a great new Movies feature. Search for Movies in your city, and you’ll see the movies playing nearby, showtimes, overviews, and even trailers and video clips.
You can get to this version by going to m.bing.com with your iPhone, Zune HD, T-Mobile G1, Verizon Imagio, or Samsung Omnia. We’ll be adding support for new devices over the next couple of months.
Try Bing today at m.bing.com Give the updated Bing a try now by visiting m.bing.com with your mobile phone. For more information about Bing for mobile products, visit our website at www.bing.com/mobile.

Google Search by voice travels the world, finds Nokia, learns Chinese

Today Google Search by voice is taking another big step - Google search by voice is available for Nokia S60 phones, and now understands Mandarin Chinese.

Nokia S60 phones are popular around the world. If you have an Nseries or Eseries phone such as the N95, N900 or E71 etc, you're using S60. Many of these phones have 12-digit keypads — good for making calls, but not so easy when you need to type a few words.

Google Voice Quick Reference Guide
Save in your email or print to carry with you ... an easy to read reference guide for Google Voice

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PinStack Exclusives
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New App: TaskManager & Process Viewer for BlackBerry
Task Manager & Process Viewer for BlackBerry brings the familiar interface of Windows TaskManager to your BlackBerry!

Organized into 4 Tabs, the app allows you to view a list of all running applications, view battery performance chart over time and see detailed system info like Free Flash Memory and Battery Temperature etc. The app also allows you to drill down into each application to reveal information about its Vendor, Version No. etc.

We have also coded a Processes Tab that shows you a list of hidden application and process running in the background which are otherwise undetected. I would love to do a quick beta with about 10 users on different devices. Interested members may please post their device model and OS below.

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**hayden** · #2 1 Week Ago -

Thanks C!

**srl7741** · #3 1 Week Ago -

Hope you post up more on the working sessions for developing themes. It will be interesting to see what is planned and if the CDK remains open to the public for free. I think it's a little late going the App Store route and those requirements are odd.

**azstar** · #4 1 Week Ago -

I thought I was a BB lifer until recently but got my Motorola Droid last night and so far I'm loving it!

Can't wait to here your experiences at the developers conference!
Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; U; Android 2.0; en-us; Droid Build/ESD20) AppleWebKit/530.17 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile Safari/530.17

mobile99 · #5 1 Week Ago -

Quote:

Originally Posted by azstar

I thought I was a BB lifer until recently but got my Motorola Droid last night and so far I'm loving it!

A good friend bought one the day they were released. We spent the most of the day yesterday comparing it to our iPhones (3Gs) and BlackBerrys' (8900 & 9000) and I must say the Droid is one fantastic smartphone.

If I was with Verizon I would already be an owner. This is one phone and OS, that is coming on strong. I've also heard unofficially that version 3.0 of Android will be out in approx six months, and will be pushed to this phone.

Then_ it may _really_ put my iPhone to shame.

I'm hoping T-Mobile will get this one. AT&T seems to be too Anti-Android for it's own good.

**cherrichiodo** · #6 1 Week Ago -

Quote:

Originally Posted by srl7741

Hope you post up more on the working sessions for developing themes. It will be interesting to see what is planned and if the CDK remains open to the public for free. I think it's a little late going the App Store route and those requirements are odd.

Yes, its nice to see RIM take note ... especially when themes for other devices remain free, but are only available for use if your jailbreak or root your device.

Quote:

Originally Posted by azstar

I thought I was a BB lifer until recently but got my Motorola Droid last night and so far I'm loving it!

Can't wait to here your experiences at the developers conference!
Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; U; Android 2.0; en-us; Droid Build/ESD20) AppleWebKit/530.17 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile Safari/530.17

Will be waiting for your hands-on review