New Windows phones won't run current apps

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PETER SVENSSON, AP Technology Writer

06-March-2010 05:13 AM

NEW YORK - Microsoft Corp. has said its new software for smart phones, Windows Phone 7 series, is a "clean break" with the past. Now it's clear just how clean that break is: The new phones, expected late this year, won't run any applications written for older versions of Microsoft's phone software.

In a blog post Thursday, Microsoft executive Charlie Kindel, who handles contact with outside software developers, said that jettisoning support for older applications was necessary to make the new operating system as powerful and user-friendly as possible.

The announcement is perhaps most disappointing to companies that have created their own software to run on Windows phones issued to their employees. The news also leaves software developers with a dilemma: they can write applications for Windows Mobile 6.5, which will soon be a dead end, or they can write for Windows Phone 7, which isn't coming out until later this year.

Phone providers compete in part by providing support for as many applications as they can, and everyone is trying to catch up to Apple Inc.'s successful App Store, which has more than 100,000 applications. Microsoft is leaving behind tens of thousands of applications written for different versions of Windows Mobile that go back more than a decade.

Few of those applications are up to today's standards. They're also designed for phones that came with styluses for precise input. Windows Phone 7 Series is designed for touch screens that work well with fingers but don't work with fine styluses.

Palm Inc. made a similar "clean break" last year, abandoning an operating system that was more than a decade old in favor of a completely new one. However, the new system is able to run applications written for the old one.

Kindel said Microsoft still will support Windows Mobile 6.5 "for years to come," and expects some new devices with that software will come out. AP

From GMANews.tv; see the source article here.

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Apple shuts down Palm Pre's iPod functionality

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

More on the technology side, and maybe to cut short the competition, nothing of its own functionality should be found in other phone models; that could be the reason why the act was done.

Are you into iPhone?

Or are you eyeing Palm's Pre?

I am neither. I'm looking at Samsung. This is my honest talk. It would be either the Samsung i8910 HD, or the Samsung Omnia II.

For the removal of the iPod functionality from Palm Pre phone, read it here.

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Fans gather for launch of "iPhone killer" Palm Pre

Reuters - Monday, June 8

By Sinead Carew and Jessica Wohl

NEW YORK/CHICAGO - Small crowds gathered on Saturday for the official launch of Pre, the smartphone seen as Palm Inc's best chance to claw back market share from Apple Inc's iPhone and Research In Motion Ltd's Blackberry.

The new high-end phone, considered a pivotal product for both Palm and Sprint Nextel, has been greeted by rave reviews.

Lines were far shorter than those that snaked around Apple stores for its first hugely popular iPhone two years ago, but many consumers said they were eager for the new product.

"I wanted their iPhone killer. I've been anticipating this for a while," said Peter Lewis, who bought phones for himself and his wife at a Sprint store in Chicago, where some 45 people were in line when the doors opened at 8 a.m.

"This is my birthday present to myself," said Wilma Rivera, 36, a heating technician who brought her 17-month-old daughter to Sprint's flagship store in Manhattan.

Rivera, a long-time Palm user, said while she had been tempted by iPhone, sold only by AT&T Inc in the United States, she "never wanted to leave Sprint."

Sprint, the No. 3 U.S. mobile telephone service, is depending on Pre to help stem defections and win back subscribers from rivals such as AT&T and Verizon Wireless, a venture of Verizon Communications and Vodafone Group Plc.

Sprint spokeswoman Jennifer Walsh Keifer said late on Saturday that Sprint had sold out of Pre phones at a number of different locations around the country and that the company was doing its best to restock stores.

Pre is hitting the shelves just before Apple is widely expected to announce a new iPhone on June 8.

PRICE AND KEYBOARD

The Pre costs $199.99, after a $100 rebate, for customers who sign a two-year service contract. It is priced in line with the $199 smaller-capacity iPhone. Pre's monthly service fees start at $69.99, including unlimited text messaging, lower than the cost of iPhone service plans with similar features.

"It's always nice to see a bunch of people waiting for a product you worked on," Palm Executive Chairman Jon Rubinstein, a former Apple executive who helped create the iPod, said at a Sprint store in San Francisco's financial district, where more than a dozen people lined up to purchase a Pre.

He said the opportunity for smartphones was big enough to sustain a market for three to five successful vendors.

"For us, the opportunity is not to take customers away from RIM or Apple," Rubinstein said, but rather to entice users of lower-level cell phones to upgrade to a more powerful smartphone.

Some who waited in line on Saturday were clearly more technologically savvy.

Juan Mondragon, a 33-year-old jewelry store manager in line at another San Francisco store, said he wanted to compare the Pre to his current iPhone, even if the experiment meant paying for two separate service plans.

"At least I can afford it for one month," Mondragon said.

The Pre's tiny keyboard is expected to attract some consumers who find it difficult to type on iPhone's virtual touchscreen, such as Lynne Margolin, a Chicago grandmother who traded up from a Palm 650 Treo to the Pre on Saturday.

Margolin said she was concerned the number of applications may be limited early on compared to the vast number of "apps" her friends can get on their iPhones.

Pre was the most talked about device at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas in January. It is the first Palm phone to use the company's new webOS operating system.

Palm investors have been waiting for its new mobile platform since June 2007, when Elevation Partners took a $325 million, 25 percent stake in Palm and brought in Rubinstein.

Sprint hopes to attract corporate clients, but the Pre could have a difficult time making inroads with often conservative corporate technology departments.

From Yahoo! News; see the source article here.

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