The Mobile Minute 88

 I’ll start this issue of TMM with some friendly reminders:

1) The November CTP of Visual Studio 2005 for is still the best release so far for device development. Check out these words of wisdom from Amit Chopra  ..and don’t forget the patch

2) Early registration for MEDC 2005 ends on March 29, 2005  I’m still not certain if I’m going to make it.. :-/

Software / Hardware 

• Omar has gotten a Treo 650. Read his experiences..  I agree with him; I would love to have the purported iPAQ Mobile Messenger or even the alleged Treo 670.  Many of the folks I was working with on my last project had Treos; I must say, I find it a really compelling form factor.  I just can’t get past the limitations of the PalmOS, so you won’t see me with one.
• Samsung just received FCC approval for the SCH-i830 A PPC PE device that includes CDMA (think Verizon (US)) and GSM (think T-Mobile & Cingular (US)).  Bluetooth and a keyboard, but no Wi-Fi or camera. Bummer. (via phonescoop)
• Coolsmartphone.com has gives us the goods on the Samsung SCH-i300  Lots of links to msmobiles.com and ppcw.net.  The phone looks swell, but I’m wondering the likelihood of that 3GB HDD surviving a drop…
• Smartphonethoughts.com links to a mozongo.com review of the i-mate SP3i.  Definitely a phone worth looking at.  Also take a look at the T-Mobile SDA review; this phone is similar to the SP3i.
• Feeling adventurous?  Give MiniMo[zilla] a try.
• The folks at msmobiles.com bring us some bits about a new PPC PE device from Samsung (SGH-i750) that is smaller than the HTC Magican (i-mate JAM)! Straight from CeBIT – check out their hardware review and the announcement.   Also check out the Samsung i730.  …Samsung is on a tear; look out HTC!
• Also from CeBIT 2005, coverage on the HTC Universal device  and more here.  This is another compelling device.
• Russ talks about device form factors and which is appropriate for a given use case. Good points.
  

 Development

• Trey gives us some updates on CFNUnitBridge (currently at version 0.2) and announces the CFNUnitBridge Forums.
• Mihir Solanki instructs us how to create a CAB provisioning format file for mobile devices   Useful stuff.
• David Kline dives into the NetCF WebCrawler sample that shipped with VS.NET 2003

Information / Services

• CEWindows.NET is now Pocket PC FAQ and the URL is http://www.pocketpcfaq.com
• Will Microsoft Exchange support true push e-mail to devices?  msmobiles.com thinks so.  A number of people I have talked to have cited the lack of a true push solution from Exchange as a reason they went with RIM. :-/  Intellisync has announced that its server software will soon work with with BlackBerry devices (their software will do true e-mail push)
• Cingular wants to take their slice of the Wi-Fi hotspot market  via MobileGadgetNews
• Mike Hall gives us a how-to on getting podcasts onto a Smartphone or Pocket PC
• Oh yeah… Gmail will now work with other browsers (read that as pocket IE in this context)