Well, that’s a relief, I guess. I just read that James Young doesn’t actually work for Microsoft and can’t actually take legal action against XDA Devs for all of its cooked ROMs. Pocketnow also noted that this isn’t the first time somebody has posed as an MS representative – apparently another site, msmobiles, was asked to take down pictures of WinMo 6.5 even though Microsoft themselves had released the screenshots to the public. That was also a fake MS rep.

I’m thinking WinMo communities are going to be a lot more sceptical from now on about MS representative e-mailing them about anything. I wonder how long until Microsoft goes after the fakes…

[news from pocketnow, awesome screencap from Superbad]

Lately, we have brought you links to a few Windows Mobile based reviews from Clinton Fitch (dot)com.  In fact, he uses and reviews more devices than almost anyone I know.  And as you might expect, someone who uses this many devices has become quite the expert on protecting them from accidental drops, dings, scratches, and general ugliness.  Earlier this week, Clinton posted reviews of two fantastic cases:  The Proporta Alu-Leather case for the HTC S740 and the Piel Frama case for the HTC Advantage.

These are two of the more difficult devices to find good cases, due to the design of their respective keyboards.  Clinton found both cases to be effective, while still allowing access to all of the necessary controls and functions.  In other words, exactly what you want from a case like these.

Read Clinton’s review of the Proporta Alu-Leather case here, and the Piel Frama case here.

As most of you probably read here, I recently purchased a new Kindle 2 from Amazon.  And I have to be honest and tell you that I love it (review coming soon).  But I have to say that I have been less than impressed by some of Amazon’s recent actions.  Many of you may have read recently about the restrictions Amazon placed on the text to speech function of the Kindle 2, bowing to pressure from the industry and publishers.  Well, hit the jump to hear about the latest legal entanglement caused by the Kindle 2.

Read More …

Gartner recently released the Q4 2008 and full 2008 smartphone sales numbers.  As someone that is just now getting back into programming, and specifically mobile programming, these numbers are a huge deal.

2008 was a good year for smartphones as they saw a 13.9% growth from 2007.  I’m sure that Apple deserves a lot of credit here for getting some dumbphone (no insult intended) users into the smartphone arena.  

Read More …

It appears that Microsoft is looking to take a big step forward with Windows Mobile 7.  They want to ‘revolutionize’ the way people interact with their phones.  WM 6.5 will have more touch oriented features.  However, with the success of the iPhone, and with the Palm Pre on the horizon, its good to see that MS realizes they need to do more to compete.  I know they still have a huge market share, but if they want to keep it, they will need to step up.  I am honestly surprise they don’t have something ready to come out already.  It appears that WM 7 is still in its infancy stage.  Check out this job posting from MS:

Windows Mobile 7 will change the way you view your phone. We aren’t just building a me-too iPhone or RIM competitor; we’re changing the way customers use and experience their device. In the OS Platform team we are responsible for the OS, file systems, security, hardware platforms and drivers, networking & connectivity, location framework and updateability. In other words, we build the foundation upon which the rest of Windows Mobile is built.

I hope we see this new product soon.  MS has the resources to make an excellent OS, so I am excited to see what they have in store. 

Via:  IntoMobile