Microsoft launched its new Windows Mobile 6.5 operating system this week at the CTIA Wireless conference (see all stories) in San Diego. The OS includes a refreshed Internet Explorer Mobile, the new My Phone media sync and share service, and a brand new app store called, unceremoniously, Windows Marketplace for Mobile.
Microsoft may be the last major smartphone platform to get its application storefront, but to its credit, the app store is full-fledged, not in beta like Palm's App Catalog on Pre. Unlike Blackberry App World's use of PayPal at launch, there's a flexible payment system; you're not tied down to a single financial channel. And while the Marketplace may not be the sexiest design around, all the elements are here. All it lacks now is critical mass.
In this First Look video, we walk you through the app store, from search filters to a limited return policy that's still fairly lenient compared to other mobile app stores. Check it out.
Line up the freeware photo manager/editor combos and you'll quickly realize that Google's Picasa stands out in its class. The latest version, Picasa 3.5 (Windows | Mac), is no exception, offering one huge new feature and a few little ones, to offer you more choices for organizing and sharing photos from your desktop.
Facial recognition is the big news here, and Google's team has handily translated the face-tagging feature that it had implemented in the online version, Picasa Web Albums, to the desktop app. You can even download tags you used online into Picasa 3.5.
If you're starting out fresh, you'll notice that Picasa now displays an extra tab, one organized around the people in your albums, and not just the pictures. After naming your contacts (made slightly less laborious with a little help from your Google contacts list), you'll have a photo album dedicated to each friend. With it, you'll be able to find other photos, create a face collage, and plot photos on a Google map. How? We won't hold you in suspense any longer. To see Picasa's new features in action, check out the first Look video above.
Facebook's freshly overhauled iPhone app (Facebook for iPhone 3.0) is so stuffed with goodies, that we were anticipating a similar bounty of features with the much-awaited Facebook for Android.
Shame on the Google/Facebook development team (mostly Google's, with consulting from Facebook) for creating an abbreviated app that fails to offer a complete Facebook.com experience, and shame on us for holding Google up to the high standards we've come to expect from, well, Google.
Having said that, the Facebook for Android 1.0 application is by no means a failed application. Its features are limited, sure, but the app completes its actions as advertised. In the sense of delivering on its promised functionality, it is a success. We just wanted it to be so much more. The good news is, the app can only mature from here. Check it out in the First Look video above.
There have been plenty of ways to view Flickr photos and upload to Flickr from your iPhone using third-party apps. But Yahoo's Flickr for iPhone app is the company's first official take.
How is it? We're sorry to report that for avid uploaders, it's only so-so. You can search, view your photostream, and also friends' photostreams. You can also take and upload photos or video--for the latter, only if you've got the video-enabled iPhone 3GS. Commenting, e-mailing a photo, and tagging are also present.
So what's the problem? Flickr for iPhone is missing some management basics like deleting photos from the photostream, editing tags, and zooming in on a photo. These may seem small, but they add up to an experience that isn't fully baked. Catch all the pros and cons in the First Look video above, and share your own opinion in the comments.
Related story: Smile! Flickr has an official iPhone app
Opera 10 (for Windows, Mac, and Linux) is less than a week old, and the browser has already caused quite a stir among fans (just check out the comments). It has also inspired many a comparison with the more-often downloaded (and extension-rich) Firefox, and with the upstart browser Google Chrome which, despite its newness, has managed to unseat Opera as the fourth most popular browser.
That leaves you asking how Google's young Chrome browser, just a mewling infant in its lifetime, has already ousted a browser that's been publicly available since 1996. Is Opera really that bad?
Not at all. In fact, Opera pioneered some of the industry's features, including the Speed Dial feature that has since been adopted and adapted in Google Chrome. It also includes useful hooks to your Web mail, mouse gestures to help you navigate with that favorite of peripheral devices, and a built-in RSS reader.
How, then, does one explain Opera's uncomfortable fifth place in the consumer browser category? As with most situations of market share, there is a range of factors we could debate at length. One push factor, I'll argue, is Opera's lack of extensions support. True, it does have its own version of third-party apps for developers, called Opera widgets, which are mini standalone apps that float around the screen (here's a collection of game widgets rounded up by one of CNET's bloggers). However, widgets aren't the same as Firefox's popular, incredibly numerous, and quite inventive extensions. For a start, they pop up independently of the browser, so you need to keep track of them yourself. More significantly, they're limited in number. With my picks, performance has ranged from not-very-exciting to a letdown.
As for Google Chrome's ascendancy, its famous pedigree is an undeniable draw, and as Chrome grows in strength, Google will have even greater advantage to advertise its new browser around its network, as it does now on YouTube.com. However, Chrome's other great advantage, and one constant threat to its browser rivals, is its speed. For awhile there, Google made an intensive push to outperform Firefox, with the two leapfrogging each other in the final pushes of their beta builds. Opera, while working on its own back-end speed enhancements, hasn't produced the kinds of test results to steal the others' thunder.
Opera claims it has increased its browsing speed, and is offering an interesting solution to global users with fitful browser speed to boot. Opera says that Turbo, its compression engine, can increase browsing speeds up to eight times faster than on other browsers suffering from the same network holdup--but we still haven't seen independent test results on this.
Regardless, while browsing speed is important, on our fast data connections on multiple computers, Opera 10's performance never came into question in our tests. We suggest you try it out to see how you like its new look and its take on browsing enhancements, but for a view of its new features before you commit either way, check out the First Look video above.
The release of Yahoo's latest instant messenger for Windows (Yahoo Messenger 10 beta) got us revisiting two others that were updated in the more recent past: the all-in-one chat clients Trillian Astra and Digsby. We enumerated the program enhancements that went into Trillian Astra beta here, but after three years in the making (!), we were hoping to be wowed.
In terms of sexiness, that honor belongs to Digsby, which cuts a fine figure, but doesn't always smoothly deliver the performance goods. It also adheres to some questionable software bundling, and shady CPU practices while your computer runs idle. Users have since rebelled. At the very least, Digsby will change the way they alert you to these opt-ins and opt-outs, so we can all get back to enjoying a quality IM frenzy with friends on all our networks.
Don't get us wrong. Trillian Astra, with features like voice chatting and file transferring, by no means offers up a shoddy experience. There are, however, a few caveats to the service, including one of the most important--that some of Trillian Astra's best features are accessible only to those who have upgraded to the premium version. Luckily, we've captured Trillian's goods and bads on film. Check them all out in the First Look video above and see if Trillian is a better instant messenger for you.
Last week when it first updated, we related our first impressions of Facebook for iPhone 3.0. Now that's we've spent some more quality time with it over the weekend, we can confirm that the 3.0 update is huge. Sure, it takes up more room on your iPhone or iPod Touch, but that's not what we meant.
The real growth spurt comes from the pile of new and improved features that Facebook has poured into the app. They range from the typical--support for landscape mode, capability to change your profile picture--to the powerful--such as creating photo albums and kicking off a text message or call from the Facebook interface.
That last point echoes a central thesis in a June 2009 Wired article ("The Great Wall of Facebook"): by storing intensely personal data about real people--their likes and dislikes, e-mail addresses, friends, activities, and even phone numbers--Facebook is creating a formidable "second Internet" to rival Google. Indeed, the SMS and phone call triggers on Facebook for iPhone 3.0 (and a similar feature on Facebook for BlackBerry that hooks into your address book) do influence, even facilitate, the way you contact friends in real life. Now you can rely on a Web-based network as a point of entry to your actual social life.
But that feature is just one of many. See the new Facebook for iPhone 3.0 in action in this First Look video. If you have used it, let us know how you like it.
Four betas, three release candidates, and one version number change later, Mozilla finally gave Firefox 3.5 the kick out the door that the general public has been waiting for. If you're not convinced that it's worth upgrading, watch what's new in this First Look video, and download it for your Windows, Mac, or Linux computer.
Die-hard fans probably already know this, but this is the fastest version of Firefox yet. Even though some of its competitors can load JavaScript faster, version 3.5 offers plenty of toys for developers and casual users alike.
Its emphasis on getting screen captures and screencasts shot and shared makes the freemium application Jing extremely quick and easy to use for Mac and Windows users. I use its big brother, the professional capture app Snagit, at work (we take a lot of screenshots in these parts,) but I've often installed Jing on laptops and on other peoples' computers when I need something light and free.
The one irony for Windows users is that if you don't have the .NET framework installed, it adds a few more minutes of set-up time and a heftier footprint. The benefit is that you won't have to do much--Jing's installer takes care of the framework and of launching Jing after round one of the installation. This video takes on the Windows perspective for installation and use, but the program's main components will remain the same for Mac.
While Jing saves video clips and stills to your desktop, sharing is its specialty. Take your pick of publishing via Screencast.com, an FTP site, Flickr, or even YouTube, if you subscribe to the premium version for $15 a year. Upgrading also gets you access to recording from the Webcam, a neat feature you can use to narrate or introduce a screen recording.
This week, Corel came out with a brand-new suite of office applications for XP, Vista, and Windows 7 users. Corel Home Office ($69.99) bundles in three applications: Write, the word processor, Calculate, the spreadsheet maker, and Show, the presentations builder.
Corel Home Office differs from other Corel office suites in two ways. First, it's been written with a new code base, so it's not a perfect continuation of Corel WordPerfect Office. It doesn't hurt that the suite is the near-spitting image of Microsoft Office 2007 in layout and design.
Second, it has been optimized for Netbooks, both in terms of a smaller footprint (just over 100MB) that translates into lighter features (Corel sticks to core tasks) and a couple concessions for the small screen. The best of these is the F11 button, which hides the menu bar, significantly increasing the amount of screen visible on a Netbook.
As a result of its lighter features and lighter footprint, the suite is aimed toward home users--both casual consumers and those operating home businesses. While there are strong features in this suite--like a built-in PDF maker in each of the three apps--there are detractions, too. Converting files from Microsoft Office into Corel Home Office was sometimes off, and the results from pasting data were imperfect. While it's meant for the budget-conscious, freebies like OpenOffice.org offer a full-featured suite for no cost and may be better suited for Netbook, laptop, and desktop users looking for more powerful tools. However, it may also provide casual users with more functionality than they really need.
Corel Home Office isn't for everyone, but it does hold its own as a midrange productivity suite. It has the added bonus of giving Microsoft users a very familiar workflow and feel in a smaller, cheaper, and less cluttered format. Try Corel Home Office for free for 30 days, or read more of the pros and cons in our detailed review (with images.)
