The often forgotten other open source mobile operating system, MeeGo, just received some fresh support by way of a source code release in the form of an SDK. The MeeGo team hopes that in releasing said code in a more digestible format that developers will more readily accept the MeeGo platform. Thus far, however, few hardware manufacturers have jumped on board the MeeGo train. Instead, the likes of Google and Apple have mostly dominated the smartphone/tablet market that MeeGo is designed for. But perhaps a little developer love will help move things along, no?
Yes/no? It’s definitely one of the…more colorful logos in Android’s history. But you know what? I like it. In fact, I like it a lot. If you want your very own bumblebee/honeycomb logo, you can always right click and “save as” on the image, or you can download the official Android SDK which includes the new logo. The choice is yours.
- February 16, 2010 8:54 am
Besides world hunger, rampant diseases, and a good chunk of the world ready to slit the others’ throat, the most obvious thing that we need at this point is another app store. While Apple’s App Store certainly has it’s fair share of problems — as does the Android Market, RIM’s App World, Windows Marketplace, Nokia’s Ovi Store, and Palm’s App Catalog to name the most prominent and relevant — it seems someone else thinks they can do us consumers better. Except this time, the person launching the app store is somewhat of a surprise — Ericsson.
No, not that Ericsson (Sony Ericsson — the company that makes beautiful cellphones), but Ericsson, a mobile infrastructure supplier. The Swedish company is partnering with Opera Software in launching an already 30,000 strong app store titled “eStore”. At first glance, I’m left wondering exactly why an infrastructure supplier is jumping into the consumer software front. Hell, even second and third passes have me still doing a double take and scratching my head.
If you can manage to stop your double-take dilemma for a few minutes, you’ll come to realize that money is again at the root for this new venture. There is some incentive to be had though. Instead of a single OS or device specific market, the eStore is geared towards the mobile sphere as a whole. Of course, when such lofty and large goals are set, it usually detracts from the overall end user experience since most apps aren’t optimized to their full potential as to retain compatibility across multiple devices/platforms.
If it were just Ericsson launching the eStore, I’d strongly caution against getting too wrapped up in their ventures. Opera’s inclusion however does provide some hope. Opera has a pretty good track record for support, execution, and flat out awesome applications. If you’re still caught up on how well an infrastructure supplier can do on the consumer software front, just look at it this way: the “Ericsson eStore” is really no more than an Opera mobile app portal with Ericsson’s logo slapped on it for good taste. Make you feel any better?
The things money will do…
Is anyone out there interested in this Opera-rebranded-to-Ericsson “eStore” or are you plenty happy with your current offerings?
[Opera Press Release]
Techie Buzz
MobileBusinessBriefing
[Image Source]
One of my biggest complaints with BlackBerries, and the main reason I’ve moved on to the iPhone and soon Android is the fact that the OS feels old. Sure there are tons of themes to pretty it up, but at the end of the day even the leaked 5.0 beta is essentially the same 4.1 OS from years before. RIM is taking baby steps in the right direction however with their release of an official BlackBerry widget SDK. The widgets will pull from several languages including HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.
Also included in this new release are widget API’s that will be able to tie into other native BlackBerry applications making the widgets even more useful. In order to take advantage of BB widgets when they do become available you’ll need a BlackBerry running OS 5.0+ as well as a browser that supports Gears, SQLite and the BlackBerry Widget APIs.
Even though I knock the BlackBerry for being the old guy in a room full of young hippies, I am excited to see how these widgets will be used and ultimately how they will look, and blend in with the rest of the BB environment. Excited?
PhoneScoop > RIM
Image Source
With all of the publicity surrounding Apple, the iPhone, Google, and the rejection of the Google Voice app from the App Store, one can understand why other platforms such as Android and BlackBerry are tooting their horns happily crying out regarding their support for the Apple shunned service. Naturally, those who are trying to catch up to the success that has rained down on Apple and the iPhone (pretty much everyone), have begun talking up the fact that Google Voice will work flawlessly on their platforms. Palm, being the fact they needs some major boosts in the popularity and monetary departments are joining in and announcing that they plan on having full and deep Google Voice integration on the Pre and future devices. The only catch….? Google isn’t even working on a full fledged Pre version of Google Voice at this point and time.
- February 25, 2009 3:14 pm
In what is sadly another common feature that has somehow been neglected on the iPhone is bluetooth file transfers. I can see why Apple left it out (persons at Apple and AT&T think file transferring will hurt downloads and data traffic) but the fact that it is a common feature that every phone should have is a negative in my book. However, those of you who are willing to jailbreak will soon be able to get your hands on iBluetooth, developed by “MeDevil” is an application that will allow you to transfer files over bluetooth! Just like everyone else since 2002! Obviously, since things of this sort are prohibited by the SDK rules, Cydia will be the app store of choice. As soon as it’s ready I’ll let you know. More pictures of iBluetooth inside.
