News from TreoCentral

Dieter will be live at Palm's keynote to supply you with up-to-the-minute Palm goodness...

Palm Infocenter has an article about some things that we need Nova to have. Plus some of our forum members have some thoughts on the vertical slider, as do I...

We now know what the new Palm Smartphone form factor will be.

The winning entry was submitted by Rizwan Parvez, a TreoCentral Forum member...

In a previous post, it was mentioned how the Fool's Tim Beyers felt handwriting recognition would be something Palm could include in Nova that would leapfrog what others are offering. His write-up was quite positive and somewhere along the line, he may have been accused of being "Pollyanna-ish," because his follow-up post titled "How Palm Could Lose Everything" took a more sobering look at Palm and its potential.

Nova - Open or Closed?

According to Beyers, closed systems (like those offered by Nokia, Apple and Research in Motion) are "crushing" open systems (think anyone offering Windows Mobile or Android).

In particular, he noted that "Palm uses an open environment," and "Investors haven't been well served by that choice" because the wireless carriers like closed systems better.

Read on for the full article

This week we're looking at a few Free Palm OS apps plus some updated apps such as CrazySoft Smart Educational Games, Investments Options and more. Some new WM apps are Superior Theme Pack (Over 500 Themes), Scripture of the Day and more. And some updated WM apps are HiCalc, Alarm Master and more...

Our friend Sammy McLoughlin over at PalmAddict has let us know that TreoCentral's TreoCast has won Best Mobile Technology Podcast in the PalmAddict Reader Awards 2008.

Sammy said that PalmAddict received in excess of 82,000 votes over the year, so Congratulations to Dieter and Mike for winning the Best Mobile Technology Podcast in the PalmAddict Reader Awards of 2008!! Well done guys!

Best Mobile Technology Podcast:

• TreoCentral TreoCast 33%
• MobileTechRoundup 32%
• 1src 19%
• Mobility Today Podcast 11%
• Other 5%

Dieter and Mike have recorded 57 TreoCasts so far! You can listen in on all of the TreoCasts here.

Thanks Sammy! PalmAddict is a great place to go to read about Palm gadgets and lots of other cool gadgets as well. Be sure to check it out! I've been reading there for years and check it out daily. ;-)

An Arizona environmental group, the Center for Biological Diversity, is celebrating the success of their program that put the calls of endangered species into cell phone ringtones. The New York Times has dubbed it the "call of the wild."

Started in 2006, the program is celebrating 200,000 ringtone downloads. The group offers dozens of sounds, including a few from species that aren

This week Brian tells us about a Free weather app for our Windows Mobile Treos...

There has been quite a bit of speculation in the blogosphere about Palm's impending announcement scheduled for January 8 during the Consumer Electronics Show (CES). It has to be pretty darn good if Elevation Partners was willing to kick down more funding.

Monday, Tim Beyers of Fool.com put forth an interesting theory... That Palm's breakout could be related to handwriting recognition which is something sorely lacking in the BlackBerry, iPhone, Android and other smartphones.

He states that where others have failed, Palm has succeeded:

"Surely I can't be the only one to remember the old PalmPilot and its Graffiti recognition system, can I? Graffiti set the Pilot apart because it was an easy-to-learn language, and therefore a better alternative to deciphering barely legible scribblings."

His story talks about how the PalmPilot remains a cult icon to this day, which means that the Graffiti language is not only alive and kicking, but with an application called Graffiti Anywhere, it is accessible to owners of the latest Palm devices, including the hot-selling Centro and Treo smartphones.

Tim's ponderable: "Imagine what might be if Nova were a lightweight, touchscreen Linux OS with advanced handwriting recognition, a new Graffiti for a new era."

Humm... It's an interesting thought.

We've extended the Smartphone Round Robin, so you have 10 more days to comment in all the contest threads for more chances to win!

I just read over at Pocket PC Thoughts about an interesting app called VirtuaMouse One-Hand that's just been released by Innovisoft. VirtuaMouse gives you a virtual mouse pointer that can be used instead of the stylus, whenever the stylus isn't convenient for you.

With VirtuaMouse One-Hand, you can "tap" anywhere that a stylus can tap, easily and without the stylus. VirtuaMouse One-Hand lets you use the virtual mouse cursor as a "temporary stylus" whenever you need it, instead of relying on your stylus for those non-thumb-friendly apps.

To use VirtuaMouse One-Hand, you simply use your Pocket PC's D-Pad/Joypad to control the mouse cursor. This cursor can be used to:

• Easily "tap" any part of an application
• Open any program
• Browse the web
• Read your email

Innovisoft says that VirtuaMouse One-Hand is designed to significantly reduce stylus use in an easy, natural and enjoyable way.

Requirements are Pocket PC with Windows Mobile 2003, 2003 SE, 5.x or 6 Professional installed.

VirtuaMouse One-Hand is priced at $24.95, but you can get a free trial and give it a whirl first to see what you think. I would think that the app would work on some of the Palml Treos. Learn more here.

The Round Robin is over, and I'm back home with the Palm Treo Pro at last...

I just read over at CoolSmartPhone.com that the Palm Treo Pro has just popped up on the O2 website. The Treo Pro became available in Europe recently via Vodafone and Palm had a nice event in London and had a fun event at a pub also.

The O2 online shop is offering the Treo Pro for free to business customers with some data plans.

With O2 Business, you can keep your number, have access to My Business Account Online, Unlimited calls to 10 UK landlines, Unlimited calls 18 million 02 mobile customers, 20% discount on 24 month tariffs, Calls to Europe 8p/min, Free 24/7 UK customer service, Free Voicemail, and Unlimited free texts to your team from your secure website a/c.

Spb Software House, the world's top WM software developer, has just announced that they've updated their Spb Online. The mobile TV update doubles the number of mobile TV channels streamed. Commercially launched at the end of September 2008, the subscription-free mobile TV component of Spb Online has hosted over a million of mobile TV viewing sessions, and today it offers 40 mobile TV channels in 11 languages.

Some of the new channels streamed by Spb Online are:

• Deutche Welle (Germany)
• MAD TV (Greece)
• Graafschap TV (Netherlands)
• Channel One Russia
• CCTV (China)
• RTV Pink (Serbia)
• iTele (France)
• and more...

Spb's patent-pending mobile TV technology facilitates fast channel switching, on-screen controls, intelligent video/audio stream adjustment to broadband fluctuations, picture-in-picture mode, and an integrated TV guide with option to set outlook show reminders. Other Spb Online components are Online Radio, Online Games, global Weather service, News reader, and an On-Device Catalog.

Tim Ferrill, over at our sister site WMExperts, reviewed Spb Online back in September

You can get Spb Online here for $29.95.

Dieter, over at our sister site WMExperts, is a Qik fan and he's let us know that Qik has added more WM phones for live video streameing. Qik, the free live-video-streaming app, has added over 20 Windows Mobile phones to their compatibility list. So now the latest Treo from Palm are compatible with Qik.

With Qik, you can share your videos with the entire Internet or just the people you choose. You can share with anyone and everyone what's going on anywhere and everywhere you go.

On Qik's product highlight page, it says that the key attributes of Qik are that it's Fast, has the Best Possible Quality, is the Most Reliable, and is Simple and Secure.

Is it built for iPhone, or Palm smartphones? That does not matter much, the luxurious leather Incipio Bond Street Holster works great on my Centro, and looks good too.

Casey is finished with the Palm Treo Pro in the Round Robin and has posted his excellent review and final thoughts...

It happened live last Tuesday, but you can listen in to the (slightly foreshortened) version in our podcast feed: the 2nd (and last) Smartphone Round Robin Round Table. Join Casey, Kevin, Rene, and Dieter as we discuss the final two devices in our Smartphone Round Robin: the T-Mobile G1 and the the HTC Fuze. Plus, we answer your questions live -- well, it was live then, so forgive the slightly worse-than-usual sound quality.

Update: Seems that our sister site WMExperts had already reported on this news a few days ago. I missed it from being so busy with last minute holiday stuff going on.

I just read over at jkOnTheRun that SlingMedia has added fifteen current phones to their lineup of SlingPlayer Mobile compatible phones. The Palm Treo Pro and the Sprint Treo 800w are among those fifteen phones.

Below are all fifteen newly added phones:

• Sprint Treo 800w
• Sony Ericsson X1
• Palm Treo Pro
• Sprint HTC Touch Diamond
• Sprint HTC Touch Pro
• Verizon HTC Touch Pro
• Verizon Samsung Saga
• Verizon Samsung Omnia
• AT&T LG Incite
• AT&T HTC Fuze
• AT&T Samsung Epix
• HP iPAQ 910
• AT&T Pantech Duo
• Sprint Samsung ACE
• Verizon XV6900

According to jkOnTheRun, some of these phones might have worked with the SlingPlayer client in the past, but they're now officially supported. Also, the newest client supports resolutions of 800x480, 640x480, 400x240, and 320x320. Treo Pro owners will surely appreciate that last one; the 320x320.