- Windows Mobile 2003
- Windows Mobile 2003 SE with at least 889K free memory
- Windows Mobile 5
- Windows Mobile 6
I began this blog as a way to help i wireless customers understand and effectively use wireless data. I have not maintained the blog since leaving i wireless in 2008, but it continues to get a lot of visitors, so I have decided to dust it off and see if I can keep it updated with fresh content. I no longer live in Iowa so I can't address what is going on with i wireless, but being a bit of an Apple fan boy, I thought I would try to cover some of the ways that I use iOS devices in my daily life.
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
Download & Read eBooks on Your Mobile - Download eReader for WM for FREE!
Friday, October 12, 2007
Handango Introduces "Free App Friday"
Friday, September 07, 2007
Windows Mobile 6 and Yahoo! Go 2.0 Available for HTC S620 for Free
Saturday, August 04, 2007
EDGE in Cedar Rapids
I was at Hawkeye Downs in Cedar Rapids tonight with my kids, watching the Cedar Valley Trail Riders Motocross. At one point in the evening, I looked down at my phone and was surprised to find that there was an "E" (for EDGE) displayed on my screen instead of the usual "G" (for GPRS). I don't know if EDGE is turned on permanently in that area, or if I just happened to look at my phone during a test run. My phone went back to "G" after we left Hawkeye Downs and unfortunately, it stayed that way all the way to my termite-infested home in Iowa City.
Wednesday, June 27, 2007
Microsoft Updates MSN Mobile
Opera Mini 4 Beta Released
Plaxo Mobile is Now Free
- Search-based access to all your contacts
- Full access to your calendar
- Weather, tasks, and notes
- Plus your network feeds!
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
YouTube Now Mobile
You do not need to download any applications to be able to view the videos, but you do need a handset that supports streaming video (RTSP/3GP with H263/AMR). Apparently Windows Mobile devices do not. I tried it on my HTC S620 to no avail. According to Adam Jackson's Daily Tech Talk, "YouTube did the best they could by working on a codec that every handset maker uses but Windows mobile only supports variants of wmv." I'm sure there is a workaround or a compatible media player that I can download, but I haven't looked into it yet. If and when I find a solution, I will post it.
Friday, May 25, 2007
Now Your Mobile Phone Can Help You Save on Gas
- With your mobile browser, go to GasBuddyToGo.com and search for prices by City/State or Zip Code (e.g. "Iowa City, IA" or "52245")
- Send an MMS or email to gas@gasbuddy.com (for gasoline prices) or diesel@gasbuddy.com (for diesel prices) with the City/State or Zip Code as the body of the message (leaving subject field blank). A reply will be sent to you shortly with the 5 lowest gas or diesel prices from the area that you requested.
i wireless Transitions to HTC S621
- The S621 has symbols (in blue on the keys) more commonly used in the U.S. vs. the more European-centric symbols on the S620. The “J” and “L” keys have the symbols for the pound and euro on the S620. These are replaced with the “@” and “=” on the S621.
- The S621 has predictive text. The S620 does not.
More Free Games!
Free Your Photos From Their Cameraphone Prison!
I'm All A-Twitter!
Twitter lets you broadcast what you are doing to anyone who is interested anytime and anywhere. As a member of Generation X, I think I'm a bit older than the target market for Twitter. I've heard that John Edwards uses Twitter to update potential voters on his whereabouts, but I can't imagine there are too many people who want to know what I am up to RIGHT NOW...or RIGHT NOW...or RIGHT NOW. My life is just too boring, and all of my friends are too preoccupied with their own families to worry about what I am up to. But based on the level of addiction my step-kids had/have with instant messaging, Facebook and MySpace, I can see the attraction for those of you younger that me. Try it out on your mobile phone at http://m.twitter.com.
Smartphones to Account for 22% of All Handsets Worldwide By 2012
Access Your Google Calendar From Your Mobile
To experience it for yourself, go to
http://calendar.google.com/. If you don't already have an account, you will be prompted to sign up...and of course, it is free.
Bank of America Launches Mobile Banking
- Check balances on your checking, savings and credit card accounts, as well as mortgages and home equity lines held with Bank of America.
- Pay your bills and e-bills.
- Transfer money between accounts and to other Bank of America customers.
- View transactions for checking and savings accounts, mortgages and home equity lines, including posted and pending transactions.
Receive Your Voice Mails As Text Messages or Emails
If anyone out there gets either of these to work, let me know. If the transcription works well, it's a service that I could really get used to.
Norton & Symantec Coming to a Windows Mobile Phone Near You
Symantec currently offers free trialware downloads of their Symantec Mobile Security products here. You may want to check the site May 29 to see if they offer a trialware version of these latest products.
Wednesday, May 23, 2007
"inside the i" is Now Mobile
Vote for Your Favorite Portable Utilities & Applications
Thursday, May 17, 2007
i wireless Coverage Map Updated
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
Listen to Streaming Music (Internet Radio) on Your i wireless Phone
If you would like to try this application out for yourself, you can download it for free here.
Most of You are Men Under 35
Microsoft's Mobile Browser for Windows Mobile
Microsoft has been limiting the distribution of their Deepfish beta, but I finally had an opportunity to try it out recently on my HTC S620.
The idea behind Deepfish is to make the mobile browsing experience more similar to the desktop computer web-browsing experience. While Deepfish does preserve the formatting of web pages, I found the navigation clunky and unusable as my daily browser. Web pages initially load zoomed waaaaaaaay out so you can't read any of the type, then you move a rectangle around to show which areas you want to zoom in on. You can read text and click on hyperlinks, but you still have to do scrolling left and right and up-and-down sometimes to read body copy, which I find annoying.
I'm sure web designers and advertisers like the idea of their designs reaching mobile users in the format that they intended, but at this stage in the life of the mobile web, what people really care about is content, not presentation. Google figured this out a while ago, when they started reformatting full-sized web pages for the small screen.
I do applaud the fresh approach to the problem at hand. I might be tempted to keep Deepfish on my device in case I ever want to see a webpage in its entirety on my mobile device, but will continue to use Internet Explorer or Opera Mini as my primary browser.
I don't know that this link will work, but if you want to try Deepfish out yourself, you may be able to do so through this link.
Tuesday, May 15, 2007
Who Are You?
Stats provided by sitemeter indicate that 14% of recent visitors to inside the i had the domain dohrn.com. The next nine domains represented based on number of visits were all internet service providers (which are usually near the top), and the remaining domains each had less than 1% of all visitors.
So, for whatever reason, it appears that this blog is really, really, really popular with employees of Dohrn Transfer Company. Why it appeals to employees of one particular trucking and warehouse company, I haven't a clue. I'm hoping someone out there can help me out.
Want to Work at i wireless?
Saturday, May 12, 2007
Listen to Your iTunes Music Collection on Your Mobile Phone
For the Avvenu Music Player to work, you need to download an application to both your host computer and the WM 5.0 device that requires you
Once you sign up for a free Avvenu Music Player account, you simply need to install the Avvenu Connector software on the PC with your Apple iTunes® music collection and install the Avvenu Music Player to your mobile device. Then you will launch the Avvenu Music Player on your PC (which runs within an internet browser) and select which songs or podcasts you want to be able to listen to on your mobile device. The beta version of the Avvenu Music Player includes Anytime storage of up to 250 music tracks.
I was initially disappointed that I was not able to get this to work right away, but soon realized that Avvenu needed to upload my selections. Since my computer was not on and connected the entire time, this took a couple of days. Once I had filled up my 250 track quota, though, it worked as advertised. It was pretty cool to hear the songs I had stored on my computer emanating from my S620, and yes, it even worked when my computer was turned off.
Once I got beyond the initial "Wow" factor, I realized pretty quickly that this application just isn't quite ready for prime time yet (which makes sense, as it is still in beta testing). It takes a few minutes for my playlist to load when I start up the application on my mobile device, and while longer before I could get it to play my first selection. Once the music does start streaming, there is a good 60 seconds of silence in-between tracks as well. I don't know how much of these delays can be attributed to network data speeds and how much to attribute to this being a beta version. Only time will tell.
I guess if you really want to be able to listen to your iTunes collection on your phone, this application will do, but as a music lover I find the dead silence between songs annoying enough that I will probably be uninstalling Avvenu from my device soon.
Instant Messaging for Your Windows Mobile Device
It has been a while since I posted anything about instant messenger applications available for your mobile device. Geodesic is one of a number of companies I talked to while at CTIA 2007. They have developed a mobile application that they call mundu IM. This application is interoperable with all the major IM services (AIM, Yahoo, MSN, GTalk, Jabber and ICQ), and you can be logged into all of the services simultaneously. I recently took advantage of mundu's 5-day free trial and was impressed.
Although I don't regularly use IM, I do have a screen name for five of the six services, so I entered in all of my information, and when I started up the application, I had no problems logging into any of the services. Mundu IM is fairly intuitive. All of your contacts are viewable with an icon next to them, showing which IM service they are on, and you have the option of sorting your contacts by the groups (folders) they are in or the IM service that they are on. There are a number of other user-customizable options as well, including the ability to set a different presence status for the different IM services and you can choose whether or not you want to see your offline contacts. You can even access saved chats (although I'm not sure how long they are stored) and mundu IM will tell you if you have unread e-mail if you have active e-mail accounts with any of these services.
As I stated earlier, I'm not a big IM user, so I didn't put mundu IM through extreme testing with multiple chats going on at the same time (although I think it has that capability) but it worked well enough in the 1-to-1 chats that I tried. The application did not run incredibly fast, but it was noticeably faster than EQO (Although, to be fair, I tested EQO last Fall, and it was on a Motorola KRZR. They may be due for a retest). I'm sure as our network data speed increases and the processors on these mobile devices get faster, mundu IM will run faster as well.
I know software versions can sometimes be misleading, but Geodesic brags that mundu IM is v4 (EQO is still in beta). It does have the refinement that comes from a more mature product. Geodesic sells a lifetime license for mundu IM for $11. If I was a bigger IM user, I would not hesitate to buy it.
Currently mundu IM is only available for Palm and Windows Mobile, but they promise to soon have versions available for Symbian and Windows Mobile Pocket PC.
Just Launched: HTC P4300
i wireless just launched the HTC P4300. For those of you that were disappointed that the Qtek 9100 came and went so quickly, this is the device for you! Key features of the P4300 include a slide-out QWERTY keyboard (with much bigger keys than the S620) and a touchscreen (yes, a touchscreen!). The HTC P4300 runs on Microsoft's Pocket PC Phone Edition.
Saturday, April 28, 2007
i wireless Launches More New Phones
- The Nokia 2610 is the successor to the Nokia 6030 (which is the successor to the Nokia 6010). All three phones support data, but their smaller screens make navigation a bit arduous and the lack of Bluetooth, infrared or a data cable port means that you have no way to connect your phone to your computer. If you want to use data services, I recommend skipping the low-end phones and going for a model that is a little fuller-featured.
- The Nokia 6126 is a thinnish phone with a push-button flip (Anyone out there remember the Ericsson T28 World phone?). This is a great choice if you are going to do any browsing of the internet or viewing images on your phone. The size, color, resolution and brightness of the screen is incredible! It's been a while since I tried it out, but I believe it also has some auto-complete features that remember websites that you have visited in the past, so you don't have to repeatedly type in those long URLs again and again.
- The Sony Ericsson W710i Walkman is a great choice for anyone that is active, loves music and does not want to be weighted down with multiple devices when you go on your morning run. Even if you haven't side-loaded your entire CD collection to the phone, you can still listen to music, as it has an FM radio that will even autoseek the strongest stations in your area. Any the W710i comes jam-packed with extras included in the box: A USB cable, an arm-strap and holster, even a removeable memory card! From a data standpoint, I am a huge fan of Sony Ericsson. Sony's success in gaming (PlayStation), imaging (CyberShot), audio (Walkman), and video (Wega) has really started to show through in SonyEricsson's entire mid-to-high-end handset lineup. Navigating the web is almost a joy on a Sony Ericsson, ranking right up there with the Motorola RAZR.
- The Sony Ericsson W300i has many of the features that make the W710i great, but is more of an "everyday" music phone at a more affordable price point.
We have also added new colors of some existing models are anticipating a few more new phones in the coming weeks. Hopefully I will have some time to tell you about those later. If not, keep your eyes on http://www.iwireless.com/phones.asp for any new arrivals.
HTC's Model Naming Convention
"Well, that's all fine and dandy"you say, "But what happens now that Microsoft has changed all the names with Windows Mobile 6.0?" Conveniently enough, this still works out: The Smartphone Edition becomes Windows Mobile Standard and the Pocket PC Phone Edition Windows Mobile Professional.
Again, this is just a theory, but it makes sense, doesn't it? HTC (with U.S. headquarters in Bellevue, WA) has pretty close ties with Microsoft (with HQ in Redmond, WA).
I'm Back!
No need to get nasty, loyal readers. I didn't realize that I had so many people waiting with bated breath for my next post. :) I have tons of great things to share with everyone, but I simply have not had time (or made time) to blog about them. I maintain (poorly, apparently) this blog in my own personal time. Unfortunately, much of my personal time has been taken up lately by work and other priorities and projects I have going on at home. Right now I am sitting in a waiting room which happens to have a computer connected to the internet in it, which is why I am able to write this post.
And as for EDGE...
As I have said before, as an i wireless employee, I am not going to make public any non-public information. That includes timelines for upcoming product/service launches. If you want to know when you will have EDGE in your area, I would suggest keeping your eyes and ears open for an official announcement from i wireless. You might also want to keep an eye on your phone's display. When the little "G" changes to an "E" - voila! You have EDGE.
Sunday, March 25, 2007
Roaming Data Speeds
Sony Ericsson GC89 Price Drop
Saturday, March 10, 2007
Free Games
Thursday, March 08, 2007
Freeware for the HTC S620
HTC S620 Alarms Multiplying Like Rabbits!
I made the mistake of setting different times for the alarm, as I needed them. Little did I realize how under-designed the alarm feature is with Windows Mobile and/or the HTC S620. I now have alarms going off at all different times of the day, with no apparent way to deactivate them. Thanks to the HTC Wiki and a free download from SKKV Software, I think I may start hating my S620 a little less now.
I found and followed the directions below to clean up my unwanted alarms. It appears to have worked with my multiple 5:55 AM alarms. I will know by this time tomorrow if it worked on all the other alarms.
- Download, install and open SKToolsLite (Clean up and uninstaller utility)
- Select View -> Maintenance -> Notifications Queue
- Scroll to the bottom of the list and you should see multiple entries already checked for “Clock.exe” (these are the alarms in the notification queue).
- Select Action -> Delete marked
- Do a soft reset (turn off then back on).
Great Resource for Finding Quality Mobile Websites
I was going to say that WAP Review doesn't have the local edge that I can offer, but they had a posting about the Iowa City Press-Citizen's new mobile website the same day I wrote about it.
CNN Relaunches Mobile Website
Well, the world's second-most watched TV news source appears to be changing their strategy. I learned via MediaPost that CNN has re-launched its mobile site as a free service supported by ads. The site (at cnnmobile.com) allows you to sign up for breaking news alerts via SMS, and will feature a searchable news archive and correspondents' blogs. There is also a two-minute video news update each hour. It's supposed to be "mobile-friendly" but I receive the message "your handset does not support this video format" when I try to view it on my HTC S620. If anyone has any luck with this, please post a reply in the comments.
CNN's parent company, Time Warner, apparently plans to roll out mobile sites for their other media properties throughout 2007.
Have You Applied the Daylight Savings Time Update to Your Windows Mobile Device Yet?
http://www.windowsmobile.com/daylightsaving/ and download the necessary updates.
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
Verizon Buys i wireless Roaming Partner, Plans to Convert Network to CDMA
Saturday, February 24, 2007
Top Seven Trends for 2007 in the Smartphone Market
1. Smartphones Will Go Mainstream
2. Mobile TV Will Hit the Small Screen in a Big Way
3. GPS-Enabled Location Based Services (LBS) Will Be Killer Applications
4. Smartphone Adoption in Europe Will Continue to Explode
5. Over-The-Air (OTA) Downloads Will Grow at a Faster Pace
6. More Professionals in Vertical Markets Will Rely on Smartphone Content
7. Large Consumer Brands Will Create Content for Smartphones
To read more, go here.
Iowa City Press-Citizen Launches Mobile Website
Monday, February 05, 2007
Google Maps Now Available for Windows Mobile Devices
Friday, February 02, 2007
Windows Mobile flaws could crash phones
Trend Micro has found security bugs in Microsoft's Windows Mobile Internet Explorer and Windows Mobile Pictures and Video. Viewing a rigged Web page or malicious JPEG image file on a Windows Mobile device will cause it to fail. The problems affect Windows Mobile 2003 and Windows Mobile 5.0. Microsoft is aware of the issues and will provide an update to hardware makers for distribution to people who use the Windows Mobile devices, if needed.
Thursday, January 25, 2007
Podcast About Web2 from i wireless
The Weather Channel Mobile Exands Offerings
Choose Your Own Phone!
Sunday, January 21, 2007
Qtek 8500 No Longer Being Sold
.mobi Internet Domain for Mobile Devices
For those of you who are interested in knowing more about the .mobi top-level domain I mentioned in a previous post, here you go...
The .mobi domain is intended for sites that are designed to be used on wireless phones and other mobile devices. The Internet's governing body, ICANN approved the creation of the ".mobi" domain suffix in 2005. mobile Top Level Domain Ltd (mTLD), a joint venture of mobile technology companies, is the global registry for the .mobi top level domain. It has contracted to provide the registry service for .mobi for ten years.
As part of its contracts with companies that use the domain names, mTLD will require they follow a style guide that includes requirements such as the ability to use a site on a low-bandwidth connection. The company sees phones eventually appending the ".mobi" suffix to site addresses automatically, saving users the trouble of entering it via a numeric keypad.
To see what .mobi sites are already up and running, go to http://showcase.mtld.mobi/information.html.
Web developers: mTLD provides a free "Mobi Ready checker" to analyze your website's mobile-readiness, using industry best practices & standards. Many of the tests performed are based on the mobileOK work performed by the Mobile Web Initiative group of the World Wide Web Consortium. I ran the i wireless website through the checker and ironically, the site received a score of 1 out of 5.
A Better Small-Screen Experience
If you are having trouble accessing a website on your phone, or getting it to load in a format that you can read and navigate, I have some tricks that you can try:
- Use the prefix "wap" in the URL
- Example: http://ebay.com vs. http://wap.ebay.com
- Use the prefix "m" in the URL
- Example: http://www.flickr.com vs. http://m.flickr.com
- Use the prefix "xhtml" in the URL
- Example: http://weather.com vs. http://xhtml.weather.com
- Use the index "/pda" after the domain in the URL
- Example: http://google.com vs. http://www.google.com/pda
- Use the top-level domain ".mobi"
- Example: http://cnnmoney.com vs. http://cnnmoney.mobi
I am not a web developer, so if there are any web developers out there that want to clarify, correct, or expand on my post, please feel free to add a comment.
Wachovia Offers Mobile Banking to Users with Windows Mobile 5.0 Devices
I'm not a Wachovia customer any more, so I haven't been able to test this, but Wachovia is now offering mobile banking to its customers with Windows Mobile 5.0 on their wireless device. Here is how the company describes this service:
Wachovia Mobile is a new service providing access to your online account information through your Internet enabled wireless device. Devices using the Windows Mobile 5.0 operating system with Pocket Internet Explorer can:
- View and monitor account activity
- Check account balances
- Transfer funds between eligible accounts
While you will have the optimal Online Banking experience using Windows Mobile 5.0 with Pocket Internet Explorer, you may have success with other browsers and operating systems as well. However, display of your account information and online functionality may vary depending on the device and operating system used. In addition, you must use a browser enabled with 128-bit encryption.
Top Ten Mobile Websites Visited in November
According to NPD, the following were the top mobile websites visited in November:
Friday, January 05, 2007
i wireless Launching EDGE in Iowa
While I am quite confident that i wireless will eventually launch 2.5G (EDGE) and/or 3G technology, I have no dates or specifics to share. As an early-adopter (or wannabe-early-adopter) myself, I understand the interest in this, but as an i wireless insider, I am not going to leak any of i wireless' future plans on this blog.
Same goes for the international roaming question -- Probably will happen at some point, but I can't say for sure.
I would like to point out that you have always been able to take select i wireless phones with you and use them in overseas GSM markets. First, make sure that you have a phone that operates on 900 & 1800 MHz (typically referred to as a "quad-band" phone, because it works on four bands total, including 850 & 1900, which is what is used in the U.S.). Then all you have to do is buy a prepaid SIM when you reach your destination and slip it into your phone.
It's been years since I've been outside the U.S., but I've been told that prepaid SIMs are readily available in most major international airports and many are more economical than what you would probably pay for international roaming with a U.S. carrier. Of course, you won't have your same phone number, but I guess you have to decide what's more important to you.