Google Search From Your Windows Mobile Home Screen

I may have to take back what I said on my last post already. Earlier this week Google released a plug-in for Windows Mobile that puts a Google search shortcut onto the phone's home screen. This shortcut reduces the time it takes for you to get search results from Google by eliminating the initial "clicks" (e.g. finding the browser application, opening it, and navigating to Google.com before entering your query). This makes it so much quicker and more convenient for me to go back to my old habit of looking up movie showtimes through Google. I installed the plug-in on my phone yesterday, and I am already wondering how I lived without it. You can download it yourself here.

Google had previously released plug-ins for Symbian and BlackBerry.

Disclosure: In the interest of integrity and transparency, I will be making a concerted effort moving forward to disclose when I write about a company that I own stock in. Google is one of those companies.

Follow Your Team Through the NCAA Tournament with MySI Mobile

SPORTS ILLUSTRATED DIGITAL and Action Engine Corporation announced the launch of MySI Mobile, the beta version of a subscription-free, downloadable mobile application that delivers personalized sports content from SI.com on Windows Mobile devices. MySI Mobile allows sports enthusiasts the ability to select and track the scores, schedules and standings for their favorite teams, view popular SI photos, read the latest sports news and set calendar alerts for upcoming games using their phone.

The features of MySI Mobile, as touted by Action Engine Corporation, are:

• Personalized Home Page – Personalize the application home screen by selecting your four favorite teams to track. Then access scores, schedules and standings for each team with just one click. Teams can be selected from: Major League Baseball (MLB), National Basketball Association (NBA), National Football League (NFL), National Hockey League (NHL), College Basketball (NCAA) and College Football (NCAA)
• News – Receive timely news feeds about anything and everyone in the world of sports.
• Calendar Alerts – Never forget game time again. MySI Mobile integrates with the calendar on your phone to make it easy to add game and sporting event reminders to your personal calendar.
• Photo Gallery – View the best photos of the week, from cheerleader photos to action shots from March Madness games, all chosen by the editors of SI.

The calendar alerts are the most intriguing feature to me. I will have to see how that works. So far I am unimpressed with the rest of this application. It seemed clunky and slow on my HTC S620, using both WiFi and EDGE. I maxed out my personalized home page without including all of the teams that I am interested in following. It may give faster and fuller access to information on the teams that I care about most, but I will need some convincing that I should fire up the MySI Mobile app rather than visit http://mobileapp.espn.go.com next time I want to know what is going on with "my" teams.

The MySI Mobile application is available as a free download here. If you are an i wireless customer, you will want to scroll down to the bottom of the page and use the appropriate generic CAB file for the version of Windows Mobile that you are running.

Smartphones to Account for 22% of All Handsets Worldwide By 2012

According to Berg Insight, global shipments of smartphones will increase from 10% today to 22% by 2012. Symbian OS was the leading smartphone operating system in 2006 with a market share of 63 percent. Linux was the second largest platform, followed by Windows Mobile. Microsoft’s performance in the smartphone segment is consistently improving, even though Windows Mobile is still far from threatening either Symbian OS or Linux for the top market positions. The once popular Palm OS has virtually disappeared from the market and is now being converted into a version of Linux. Apple’s OS X will become a new entrant on the smartphone operating systems market this year with the launch of the iPhone.

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.

Have You Applied the Daylight Savings Time Update to Your Windows Mobile Device Yet?

Update your Windows Mobile powered device now! Due to Congress' Energy Policy Act, you'll need to remind your Windows Mobile device that clocks will be set forward this Sunday. To update your device now, visit
http://www.windowsmobile.com/daylightsaving/ and download the necessary updates.

Google Maps Now Available for Windows Mobile Devices

Stop using that Java application on your Windows Mobile device. Google Maps is now available for Windows Mobile devices! Download it for free here (you have to download it to your computer first, then move the CAB file to your device.

i wireless Launches Windows Mobile Devices

To go along with their new expanded data plans, i wireless now is offering three Windows Mobile devices made by HTC. The Qtek 8500 and Qtek 9100 are now available for sale from the i wireless website, from i wireless company stores and by special order from i wireless dealers. The HTC S620 should be available in another week or two.