calmcomputing

Watching the iPhone frenzy is almost like a spectator sport. I don’t have one yet and I’m not sure I’ll get one anytime soon, but I can certainly understand the enthusiasm of the early adopters. It reminds me of how I felt back in 1984 when my Dad surprised me with a brand new Mac.

Once of the criticisms of the iPhone that I hear often is that it’s a closed environment with no SDK. Although that’s true, it appears that the web is the platform on which iPhone applications will be built. The iPhone uses Wi-Fi and AT&T’s EDGE network to provide a seamless data connection. Despite the difference in performance between the two, it’s enough to allow web applications to keep working. Add a caching mechanism like Google Gears and things start to get interesting.

Anyway, I’ve seen several lists of web applications appear since the iPhone launch. This one from Rev2.org is the most extensive. Lifehacker also has a good list. Finally, I’m glad to see 37signals get on board with Ta-da list for the iPhone. After iPhoneDevCamp, who knows what will happen.  

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Mary Jo Foley is reporting that the iPhone will be compatible with Microsoft Exchange after all. If true, the biggest barrier to adoption among the Enterprise set is removed. This will be interesting to watch.

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I’ve been trying to get Virtual Earth Mobile to work with my GPS receiver for days with no luck. Because the application uses Windows Mobile 5’s GPS Intermediate Driver, no application specific GPS configuration is offered. After a bit of searching, I found this post on the Windows Mobile Team Blog and my problem has been solved. The confusion centered around Windows Mobile 5’s reference to “Hardware” and “Program” ports. After reading the post, it’s simple: “Hardware” refers to the COM port that you would normally configure your GPS enabled application to use directly and “Program” is the COM port that you select for all or your GPS enabled applications to use (share). In the case of Virtual Earth Mobile, it finds this “Program” port automatically.

Technorati Tags: windowsmobile5, virtualearthmobile, gps, map, mobile

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Anxious to see the new Mobile Device Center, I connected a Pocket PC running Windows Mobile 5 to my Beta 2 machine with Office 2007 installed. I thought a test run would be good before connecting my Smartphone. The Pocket PC was recognized and Mobile Device Center came up. Right now all you can do is browse the file system of the mobile device and sync music, pictures, and video with Windows Media Player. Calendar, contacts, mail, and tasks will be added to the mix through an update scheduled to be available through Automatic Updates by the end of June. More information can be found on the Windows Vista Team Blog.

Technorati Tags: windowsvista, vista, microsoft, beta, mobile

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