It’s sad to hear that the only major competitor to Apple’s Ipod is pulling out of the game. I am all about more competition within product market, but this section of the market being replaced by faster, larger smartphones. And you don’t have to be a genius to begin to wonder how much longer Apple will continue to make Ipods. Microsoft’s Zune was late to the party but I found that I was much happier using it than having to deal with iTunes and paying the standard Apple Tax. I wonder what use I can find for my old Zune 30 considering I just purchased the new Motorola Atrix which can hold all the music I need plus stream some over the cell network. Thanks for all the good times Zune.
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Digsby Encounters The Dark Side Again
A while back I blogged about how Digsby had gone to the dark side, well with their most recent update they take another step in that direction. Today they introduced a new “feature” that allows: “Trending News: We’ve partnered with the folks at OneRiot to bring the latest trending news stories to your social feeds.”, in other words we put random spam in your feed.
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Yes, this can be disabled by going Preferences > General & Profile and unchecking “Show trending news articles in social network feeds”, but that’s not really the point. Digsby continues to introduce features to increase their bottom line by auto-opting in all of their users without notifying them of the changes. How did they not learn their lesson from Facebook’s Beacon fiasco or even their own policy of automatically opting in users for their own for-profit research? I ask of you again Digsby if you are going to change the way your product work you need to explain it to the user and let them opt in or out. You’ve done this when you added features like achievements but you fail to do so when it comes to your bottom line. I ask you again please come back from the dark side.
AT&T Tilt 2 is now shipping
I got my confirmation last night that my new phone the AT&T Tilt 2 is shipped and Fedex is working on delivering it. It looks like it should be here on Monday sometime before 4:30pm. I will be very happy to retire my current phone the Samsung Blackjack and I just hope this new phone lasts as long as the Blackjack has.
If you haven’t ordered yours yet and you have an AT&T Preimer account go check out: https://www.wireless.att.com/business/phones/phone_details_main.jsp?skuId=sku7311300030 and you will first need to login to AT&T to view this page. It currently shows $538.99 as the no-commitment price, however I got mine for $349.99 earlier in the week before the page was public, still unsure if I am signed up for 2 more years of AT&T but in any case my new phone is on the way. I will try to do a short review over it once it gets here. For more information about the phone check out the Prelaunch information I found over at http://www.waynezim.com/2009/10/att-tilt-2-prelaunch-info/.
AT&T Tilt 2 Prelaunch Info
After playing with a few HTC Pure SKU urls I came up with AT&Ts prelaunch information page. Check out the information below.
Check out the real screenshot here!
Go here to order your own real AT&T Tilt 2, you will need to login to AT&T website with your account information.
Pricing on this page shows $349.99, although AT&T said it would be $299.99 in a press release today!
UPDATE 2: I ordered one, it currently shows my order as “Shipped”, I’ll try to do a review once I get it. This should be sometime Monday
Overview
The HTC Tilt(TM) 2 is the latest Windows Phone from AT&T running Microsoft’s Windows Mobile® 6.5 Professional software. The HTC Tilt 2 features a large 3.6″ high resolution tilting color touchscreen so that you can easily explore the Web, review your email, or watch videos. In addition, this Windows phone has a full slide out / slide away QWERTY keyboard that features finger friendly keys for fast and easy text entry. The Tilt 2 offers a unique people focused method of communication with all of your contacts – no longer do you need to start different applications to view or communicate with your friends. You can now easily sort and view any type of communication with that particular contact without having the non-relevant info in the way. View all relevant calls, text messages, email, and even the latest Facebook updates by simply pivoting around a contact and filtering out the information not related to that contact. Download and install the latest applications from AT&T’s new AppCenter or discover a new application in Microsoft’s new application MarketPlace, or use any one of the applications already installed on this app friendly Windows phone. This powerful and feature rich Windows phone delivers the following features plus many more: aGPS for turn-by-turn navigation using AT&T Navigator or other location-based services, Video Share Calling for live streaming video communications, the HTC TouchFLO 3D user interface for fast and easy access to email, calendar, messaging, pictures, music, weather, stock market and more. The HTC Tilt 2 supports 3G tri-band HSDPA 7.2 and 3.6 for global voice and data connectivity, including Japan and Korea.
Included Accessories
Lithium Ion battery, AC charger, Mini-USB sync cable, Spare stylus, 3.5mm audio adaptor, Screen protector, QuickStart, Companion CD
Features
Voice & Calling
* Advanced Speakerphone with mute button (dual speakers and dual noise / echo cancelation microphone)
* Vibrate
* Silent Mode
* TTY/TDD Support
* Push To Talk
* Voice Dial
* Voice Record
* Voice multimedia messaging
Messaging
* Mobile Email — supports Microsoft Direct Push, Active Sync – scheduled sync and POP3/IMAP4*
* Conversational Text Messaging — send/receive short messages*
* Multimedia Messaging — send/receive messages comprised of text and images*
* Mobile Instant Messaging — download the application then send/receive messages in real time using AOL® Instant Messenger, Windows Live(TM) Messenger, or Yahoo!®*
* MEdia(TM) Net Internet Browsing — gives you access to email, Web sites, games and more on your wireless phone*
* *AT&T service required.
Software & Connectivity
* Stereo Bluetooth® 2.1 with EDR
* Wi-Fi IEEE (802.11b/g/e/i) — access and transfer data
* aGPS supports AT&T Navigator — for turn by turn navigation*
* MicroSD(TM) Memory Card support — store songs and other media files up to 32 GB (microSD card sold separately)
* HTC ExtUSB(TM ) — 11 pin mini USB 2.0, audio jack, and TV Out in one (HTC TV Out cable sold separately)
* *AT&T service required.
Camera & Video
* 3.2 megapixel color camera with auto focus (take panoramic pics and Geo-tag pics)
* Mobile Video (MV) — watch streaming video on your device*
* Video Share — share a live or recorded video during a call*
* *AT&T service required.
Highlights
* Talk, Tilt, Touch, and Type
* Connect seamlessly
* Innovative design
Personalization & Entertainment
* AT&T Mobile Music — includes integrated MP3 music player, MusicID and more*
* AT&T AppCenter & Windows MarketPlace – Downloadable ringtones, Answertones®, games, graphics, and applications*AT&T AppCenter & Windows MarketPlace – Downloadable ringtones, Answertones®, games, graphics, and applications*
* AT&T Wi-Fi
* AT&T Navigator
* PTT
* FaceBook, YouTube, Mobi4Biz, Mobile Banking, MSN Money, MSN Weather,
* My Cast, NewsBreak, Online Locker, WikiMobile,
* WorldCard Mobile, FM radio, JetCet Print 5, Getting Started
* Games: Astraware Sudoko, Astraware boardgames, Bubble Breaker, Diner Dash 2,
* Ferrari GT Evolution, Guitar Hero IV, Ms Pac Man, Scrabble, Solitaire, Teeter
* *AT&T service required.
Organization
* Alarm Clock
* Calendar
* Weather & Stock Updates
* Calculator
* Tasks
* Search
* File Explorer
* Notepad
* Voice Recorder
* MS OFFICE Mobile (Word, Excel, OneNote, PowerPoint)
Specifications
* Dimensions: 4.54 x 2.33 x 0.65 inches
* Weight: 6.30 ounces
* Battery: 1500 mAh Li-Ion
* Talk Time: Up to 8.5 hours
* Standby Time: Up to 20 days
* Technology: GSM/GPRS/EDGE/HSDPA/UMTS*
* Frequency: 850/900/1800/1900 MHz (GSM/GPRS/EDGE); 850/1900/2100 MHz (HSDPA/UMTS)*
* Data Transmission: 3G
* Operating System: Windows Mobile® 6.5 Professional
* Memory: 512 MB ROM, 288 MB RAM
* Display: 3.6 inches Color TFT LCD, flat touch sensitive screen with WVGA (480 x 800) resolution
* TTY Compatible
* Hearing Aid Compatible
* *AT&T service required.
Digsby Come Back From The Dark Side
For many months now I have used an Instant Messaging client called Digsby. It allows you to connect to multiple different IM networks like AIM, Yahoo, Facebook, MSN, ICQ, Google Talk and a few others as well as your social networks like Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Recently they have changed over to the Dark Side. By this I mean they have added two revenue generating programs to their application.
- Installer Spyware – This allows you to optionally install different programs so those companies will pay Digsby for getting them installed. The optional software usually doesn’t play nice and typically adds nothing more than a loss of screen real estate to another annoying system hogging toolbar in your browser. There are several other ones that are offered. This model I can tolerate because if the user is smart enough they will figure out how to not install them in the first place or how to uninstall them if they were installed.
- Research Module – This allows digsby to user your computer and bandwidth to do pretty much whatever they want with it. Most likely be another pawn in some search engines indexing program. This one I find much more troubling because it uses your electricity and your bandwidth (remember bandwidth caps are coming kids) to make them money. I agree everyone needs money but this isn’t the right way to go about it. This needs to be added to the installer as an opt out program or better yet you could add a non evil model and have it process something cool like cancer research or mapping the human genome.
Digsby please fix these items and in a hurry. I have already opted out of your research program as I like my bandwidth and computer to myself, your probably the best IM client out there but if you continue to the dark side I will have to find an alternative.
For more information about Digsby IM Clients Dark Side:
http://lifehacker.com/5336382/digsby-joins-the-dark-side-uses-your-pc-to-make-money
Also checkout Digsby’s Explanation: http://blog.digsby.com/archives/693