Mobile » Applications

Windows Phone steps up, has iPhone in sight

New figures from IDC have come out of the US indicating Windows Phone 7 will be more popular than the mighty iPhone in 2015. How is this even likely? It’s all about the operating system, of course.

By Rodney Gedda | 30 March, 2011 11:29

Tags: Android, Apple, IDC, iPhone, Microsoft, smartphones, Windows Phone, Windows Phone 7

HP aims to make webOS mainstream

The news from the US overnight is HP will pre-install webOS on all its PCs in 2012. Short of HP deliberately stopping such PC shipments outside the US, Australians will finally get a taste of webOS and an alternative operating system other than Linux distributions and Mac OS X.

By Rodney Gedda | 10 March, 2011 11:17

Tags: Android, HP, iOS, Linux, PCs, tablet PCs, webOS

iPad 2 is here, ahead of the Android posse

We didn’t have to wait long in 2011 for the second-generation iPad to arrive. As expected it’s an incremental improvement over its predecessor, but will it be enough to keep Apple ahead of the impending Android tablet tide?

By Rodney Gedda | 03 March, 2011 11:46

Tags: Android, Apple, iPad, iPad 2, iPhone, tablet PCs

How sweet it is: Google splits Android like Honeycomb

This week Google announced the availability of Android 3.0 “Honeycomb”, a release of the Linux-based mobile operating system for tablets and larger touch screen devices. It’s a deviation from Android’s core market, but can we expect the smartphone success to be mirrored with tablets?

By Rodney Gedda | 28 January, 2011 12:22

Tags: Android, Google, Google Android 3.0, Honeycomb, smartphones, tablet PCs

Windows Phone 7: the next great smartphone OS

In recent years the mobile phone space has been upended with the rise of Android and iOS smartphone operating systems. But the arrival this month of Microsoft's Windows Phone 7 and Nokia's Symbian-based N8 make the battle for mobile computing a four horse race.

By Rodney Gedda | 21 October, 2010 11:59

Tags: Android, iPhone, Microsoft, operating system, smartphones, symbian, Windows Phone 7

Security Manager Journal: Woes hang up mobile policy

Over the past seven months, I have led a team of IT representatives in making sure that all mobile devices are aligned with our new security policy. I thought this was going to be straightforward -- a few mouse clicks to check off some boxes, and our policy would be in effect on our entire inventory of mobile devices.

By Mathias Thurman | 25 August, 2009 13:29

Tags: mobile phones, mobile security, policy, security, security policy

CreditSMS helps structure informal mobile finance

Mobile commerce is quickly becoming one of the most cost-effective, far-reaching means of giving the 'un-banked' poor their first taste of financial services. Yet many of these services are almost entirely informal, connected to neither banks nor traditional forms of regulation. A new initiative - CreditSMS - aims to integrate m-commerce with traditional financial management tools, thereby formalizing the informal and bridging the financial divide.

By Ken Banks and Benjamin Lyon | 11 August, 2009 05:09

Tags: CreditSMS, mobile commerce

Windows Mobile: Alive and well -- and suitable for business

Having discussed the progress of the iPhone in the enterprise last month, I thought that this month I would take a look at a longtime player, Windows Mobile, and see how it stacks up against the competition these days. And next month, I hope to have some comments on the new Palm Pre and how it fares for business use.

By Michael Gartenberg | 15 May, 2009 04:19

Tags: mobile applications, Windows Mobile

Paperless office? Ha! How about a paperless life?

The invention of the PC was supposed to usher in the "paperless office," a completely digital workplace without paper memos, forms, files or records. But that vision was ruined by another invention -- the printer. Now offices have more paper than ever.

By Mike Elgan | 03 March, 2009 09:21

Tags: paper waste

Elgan: 'Getting Things Done' to go

I'll admit it. I'm one of those annoying "Getting Things Done" fanboys. I love David Allen's productivity system, which he lays out in three books: Getting Things Done, Ready For Anything and the brand-new Making It All Work.

By Mike Elgan | 20 January, 2009 09:22

Tags: digital productivity

Post on Twitter by talking into a phone

Microblogging on Twitter is great. But sometimes you're just too busy to sit down and type that 140-character tweet. Maybe you're climbing a volcano, sprinting through the airport or running a marathon and just can't stop to type. Here's how to post on Twitter using only a voice phone call.

By Mike Elgan | 17 November, 2008 10:12

Tags: twitter, speech recognition

Nokia goes after Google with open-source Symbian

Nokia has announced its Symbian mobile operating system will join the likes of Android and will become an open source operating system. The announcement was made Tuesday at the Smartphone Show in London and is seen as a bid to maintain and possibly grow its developer base. This move comes at the same time Google makes its Android source code available to developers. The Nokia news contradicts previous reports on Nokia adopting Android OS.

By Daniel Ionescu | 24 October, 2008 13:51

Tags: Nokia, symbian

Two more handy iPod/iPhone add-ons

Who says gadgets have to be expensive? Here are two simple and effective iPhone/audio accessories that will enhance your ownership of portable audio devices.

By Keith Shaw | 24 October, 2008 09:47

Tags: iphone apps, ipod

Nokia challenges developers to think outside the phone

You don't have to be a programmer to be a mobile innovator. All you need to do is open your eyes to the fact that a smart phone or QWERTY handset is a personal computer, sans legacy baggage. In the future, user-facing computers will have more in common with the high-end mobile devices of today than with the eight-core desktops and quad-core notebooks of 2009.

By Tom Yager | 02 October, 2008 11:55

Tags: Nokia

SDK shoot-out: Android vs. iPhone

InfoWorld has been all over this week's official launch of Android, the new smartphone platform from Google. With its slick interface and open application platform, Android shows every sign of giving Apple's iPhone a run for its money when the first phones begin shipping in late October.

5 reasons why the Android phone isn't game-changing

T-Mobile, HTC and Google launched the "world's first Android-powered mobile phone" today and proudly announced that this phone was going to be "game-changing". But after reading details on the phone, the service and some of the new applications, I'm left wondering where the game is actually changing.

By Keith Shaw | 24 September, 2008 09:54

Tags: Google Android

Next-generation mobile is all about the cloud

"Cloud" has a special place in my hit parade of despised neo-techno-vernacular. Unlike Web 2.0, my all-time favorite, at least "cloud" is somewhat self-descriptive: Formless, vaporous, and a semi-reliable indicator of climatic conditions. If you point at a round, puffy cloud and declare that it looks like a pitchfork, and someone with you nods and says, "Cool, I can see that," the forecast is mostly patronizing with zero vision and periodic sucking up. You're in trustworthy company if that person says, "Are you blind?" If someone in a meeting refers to a cloud, or worse still, the cloud, don't nod just to keep the conversation going. Consider it your duty to ask them to define the term.

By Tom Yager | 22 September, 2008 11:06

Tags: cloud computing, mobile phones

I want my mobile social address book

Business cards are as obsolete as fax machines. And like fax machines, business cards have us still using paper to move electronic data from one digital system to another.

By Mike Elgan | 22 September, 2008 09:12

Tags: Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, Skype, social networking

Mobile social networking goes mainstream

Two weeks ago, I shared my belief in this space that mobile social networking will become the most important business technology since e-mail.

Apple, Amazon cloud snafus leave Microsoft sitting pretty

Pity the poor road warrior who tried to find his data on The Linkup, only to get this message when he logged in: "Unfortunately The Linkup service is no longer available. Please visit box.net for your storage needs." What's worse, the sales guy was on an extended trip through North and South America. That's a real story, told by one Jacob Sherman, "I just want my data," he said.