If you’ve been waiting for the Kate Moss of WM 5.0 phones, Verizon has announced you can order one May 31. Even better, the reported price will be $199 with the standard $100 instant rebate/2 year plan. In a stunning reversal of recent trends, the Q won’t get AKU 2 out of the box, but it will get A2DP! It also has a very good 1.3 Megapixel still/video camera, a thumbwheel (finally, a trend I can get behind), and of course, the reason we’re willing to shell out $120+ dollars a month and no longer have any sort of attention span, EV-DO. Almost enough to make me consider a smartphone edition device. Almost.
As for AKU 2, if Verizon’s recent track record with the i730 is any indication, Q owners can look for that ROM update about this time next year.
Official Samsung SCH-i730 Windows Mobile 5.0 AKU 2.2 Update Now Available - But Still Unannounced 29 Comments
The long awaited WM 5.0 upgrade for the i730 is finally here. Inexplicably, Verizon has posted it on their site, but has yet to announce it. Thanks to some enterprising guesswork of a forum member at pdaphonehome.com, the link has been discovered - http://download.vzwshop.com/vzw/samsungos/Samsung_i730_WM5_Upgrade.exe
It contains AKU 2.2, so you can get push email via exchange, but no A2DP. Beware: tethering is disabled in this upgrade.
The manual has also surfaced on Samsung’s webite.
If you have the “unofficial” version and would like to go legit (even tohough the only noticeable difference is that the MITS screen is back on reboot and tethering is disabled), you’ll need to first change the version ID. SuperDave over at pdaphonehome has posted a file and instructions to make it quick and painless.
It’s way too early for screenshots, but a Microsoft presentation in Switzerland revealed some sketchy details and even sketchier release dates for the next updates to the Windows Mobile platform.
It seems the next update to WM 5.0, code named Crossbow, will go out to developers q4 ‘06, (in Microsoft speak that means q4 ‘06 will be when they announce that it will be delayed until q2 ‘07, and will have most of the announced improvements taken out). Crossbow will be to WM 5 what WM 2003SE was to WM 2003: a bunch of bug fixes and minor OS revisions. (more…)
If you’re like me, you rarely pick up a newspaper anymore. With access to an infinite source of information, I find less and less occasion to pick up the traditional printed page for my news. And I miss it. Their’s just something about drinking coffee and reading a genuine Sunday paper that is far more satisfying than reading the same information on a 240 x 320 digital screen.
Enter the A6 Times. It’s an RSS Aggregator that fills a need that I didn’t even realize existed. It has quickly replaced my old RSS aggregator as my standard news repostiory. The difference is in the way A6 Times formats RSS feeds. As you can see from the screenshots, it formats digital information as if it were an old fashioned newspaper. Purely cosmetic fluff? Sure. But I’m just that shallow. If you are too, check it out. The beta is free until May 19th. It requires the .net compact framework 2.0 (Editor: ugh. I hope they take that out of the release version), and it doesn’t yet support enclosures other than images (read: podcasts), but the release version will.
If you weren’t able to get the, umm, “unofficial” (cough, cough) WM 5.0 i730 ROM before Samsung sicked their lawyers on us, your wait is almost over. We have it on good authority that the legit version will be available this Friday, April 21st. And Samsung, before you ask, we won’t tell you where this info came from either.
Update: In true Verizon/Samsung fashion, the update has once again been delayed. We’re now hearing it won’t be released until the beginning of May. A couple more delays and it will be a full year that we’ve been waiting for WM 5 on a device that was designed for it and should’ve shipped with it.
The much anticipated Pocket Informant Rev 5 has finally been released. It’s a free upgrade for existing users. I live by this program. Get yours here. Now the wait begins for PI 2007!
The fact that there has yet to be a single virus for Windows Mobile powered devices in the wild hasn’t stopped the major players from launching revenue generating scare tactics antivirus software to protect us from the nonexistent threat. The latest is Kaspersky lab, who just announced a public beta. No word yet on how there alien detector kits or bad mojo shields are coming along.
Rev 5 of the essential Personal Information Manager, Pocket informant 2005, should be released any moment. If you can’t wait (and I know you can’t), you can get the most recent beta here, which should be identical, or at least pretty close, to the final release.
WebIS has just released the newest version of their information vault for your Windows Mobile device:
“FlexWallet enables you to securely store and carry any
type of information on your Windows Mobile™ Pocket PC device.
Bank accounts, credit card information, emergency contact numbers,
travel documents, software registration codes, online passwords,
calling cards, gift ideas, clothing sizes, ATM Pins, you name it!
FlexWallet has a full-featured desktop version,
industrial strength 128-bit encryption for maximum data security, the
ability to create your own templates, over 110 colorful icons to
visually identify your information, and much more.”
Adobe has just released a new version of their Flash Player for Pocket PC’s that now supports WM 5.0. You can get it Adobe has just released a new version of their Flash Player for Pocket PC’s that now supports WM 5.0. You can get it here. Now if you figure out something to do with it, let me know.