Tungle launched their web-based meeting organizer earlier this month, and now has cooked up an iPhone-capable site just for those few corporate iPhone users out there. It’s a pretty capable solution (especially for those poor souls without access to an Exchange server), featuring meeting requests, confirmations, and works across multiple platforms, like iCal.
It’s official: SmartPhone Cool is going to BREW 2008. What am I looking forward to? BREWfest clearly! BREWfest 2008 will feature the band Live. “Lighting Crashes” was a great jam so it should be awesome.
What, a developer actually put out a BlackBerry version before Winmo? Blimey. Well, regardless, the fine travel software WorldMate Live is now available for Windows Mobile. WorldMate Live lets you keep track of flight status, reservations, hotels, currencies, time zones, and all the other fun stuff that comes hand in hand with travel. This is one of many announcements that will be shot out of CTIA, so keep your eyes peeled.
Aw, our little pseudo-smartphone is growing up. Gartner Research has been sufficiently wowed by the latest iPhone SDK and enterprise e-mail promises that as soon as the new software hits, they’re bumping the device up to “appliance-level support status”. Just get some copy and paste action, and we might be able to keep a straight face when calling the iPhone a smartphone.
ABI is tossing out a forecast that by 2012, one in three phones sold will be smartphones. Right now it’s closer to one in ten, so it’s not that crazy to imagine market penetration tripling over the next four years. Getting the right OSes down to mid-range handsets is one issue that carriers face, but the revenues to be gained from advanced data services are just juicy enough to necessitate the push. And as for the iPhone?
The report finds that the iPhone effect is truly filtering through the handset market as other OEMs strive to remain competitive. Features that look set to proliferate and become central to enhancing user interface experiences include touchscreens, touchpads, and accelerometers facilitating tilt and shock sensing, as well as haptics providing tactile feedback.
Unwiredview is reporting on a new patent filed by Apple for what looks like the iPhone 2.0: an iPhone-looking device with a transparent, touch-sensitive panel covering the whole display area. You can flip that panel open, making it a clamshell format, and the inside of the panel will change to the regular phone keypad. Apparently some folks just need their clamshell phones, so Apple is obliging. These pics have been made up by the Unwiredview guys (they’re talented, eh?), and the actual Apple drawings are after the jump.
HTC has filed a patent for a new type of slider phone that allows users to choose between keypad entry and full keyboard entry a-la-Helio-Ocean by sliding the screen at a funny angle. These mock-ups by UnwiredView give us an idea of what the final product might look like. Interesting idea, but it seems silly to make the screen so small when the keyboard already sets the footprint size. We’ll have to wait to see the final product, I guess, but you can see the sketches they submitted for the patent behind the jump.
Varioptic has teamed up with Seiko to begin mass producing liquid lenses for cameraphones, beginning Q3 of this year. Their first two models will be the Arctic 314 and Arctic 416, which are both 5 mega pixels in 0.33-inch and 0.25-inch modules, respectively. The two perks of these liquid-filled lenses are that they have a faster response time, lending themselves to improved video capture, and the draw less battery power, which is worth a thousand words.
At long last, Google has released a 2-way synchronization tool for Microsoft Outlook. Available directly from Google, it syncs your Google calendar to Microsoft Outlook, your Outlook calendar to your Google account, or both. The app installs in your system tray and lets you choose the sync frequency. Read more about it here.
SplashData has released SplashMoney for the PocketPC, letting you see how poor you are in real time:
From their website: Manage your money anytime, anywhere. Connect to your online bank from your desktop computer or wireless handheld and download transactions directly into SplashMoney. Create budgets and then track and analyze your spending with customizable reports and charts. Synchronize your phone with your desktop PC to Includes free desktop companion software for Windows.
It’s $30 with no trial, but it looks full-featured. This PocketPC version is new but it is also available for Palm and on the desktop. Maybe we’ll give it try - keep you posted.