MobileViews Blog

Author: todd

  • EXIF Data in T-Mobile Dash Photos

    T-Mobile Dash EXIF dataThe T-Mobile SDA (Windows Mobile 5) smartphone didn’t place any EXIF data in its photos. The T-Mobile Dash (Windows Mobile 6), however, does. It doesn’t store much EXIF data. But, the Dash at least identifies itself as the camera type. This means that if you use it to upload photos to sites like Flickr, statistics about camera types will tally it correctly and viewers of your photos can tell it is a camera phone. It also stores data, time, and resolution and file size. I noticed that flash information is also stored even though the Dash does not have a flash (or one that is evident to me).

    The Dash’s camera controls are not as intuitive as the SDA’s. But, more on this later. For now, I’ll just add that I received my MicroSD card on Saturday and finally have enough storage space to test photos and video recording on the Dash. More later…

  • Small Smartphone Excel Mobile Display Glitch

    Windows Mobile 6 Excel Mobile for Smartphone Find Screen GlitchI found a minor display error in Excel Mobile running on a Windows Mobile 6 T-Mobile Dash (Smartphone; AKA Standard Edition). The “Look in:” selection box in the “Find” window is not completely displayed. It is still usable since I can see enough of the option to figure out what the choices are. But, it would be nice to see the whole thing. I suspect we’ll see a few more of these screen form format glitches as time goes by. The variety of resolutions and screen orientations (landscape or portrait) is bound to mess up some applications on the Pocket (Classic or Professional Edition) and Smartphone (Standard Edition).

    Excel Mobile is probably a double whammy case since the Office Mobile components are seeing their first appearance on the Smartphone starting with Windows Mobile 6 and most people (including developers) probably think of the Smartphone as having a portrait oriented screen.

  • Windows Mobile 6 Pocket PC

    Windows Mobile 6 Excel Mobile for Pocket PCI’ve got Windows Mobile 6 on a Pocket PC to compare with a Smartphone (or Professional and Standard Editions if you prefer). Word Mobile and Excel Mobile have obvious advantages on the larger Pocket PC format factor with a touchscreen. But, it is amazing how much nicer some features like word completion look on a Smartphone vs. a Pocket PC. You would think the more mature (from an editing perspective) Pocket PC would have the advantage. But, that is not the case from my point of view. Despite this, though, entering information in Word Mobile or Excel Mobile on the Pocket PC is still a much better and easier experience overall.

    And, ack, ack, ack, when is Microsoft going to bring the good ol’ calculator for the Pocket PC out of the 20th century and into this one? It looks awful and out of place compared to the rest of the Pocket PC and downright archaic compared to the small but reasonably effective UI they added for the Smartphone’s WM6 calculator.

  • Google Calendar for Mobile Devices

    Google Calendar for mobile devicesGoogle announced a mobile device friendly version of Google Calendar today…

    Calendar for Mobile Devices

    I gave it a quick try on my T-Mobile Dash by adding an event. The agenda view (list of events) is the only view available on a mobile device. I went to the regular PC to flesh out the information (I could type faster there). Adding the address for an event lets you use the mobile version of Google Maps from a link on the event.

    Microsoft Pocket Streets used to integrate with Contacts on Windows Mobile devices. But, now that it is gone, I guess that this Google feature could be handy (unless you are out of tower range :-). You can find Google Calendar at:

    calendar.google.com

  • Windows Mobile 6 Word Mobile Looks Surprisingly Good!

    I had to rush out of my office early this afternoon after completing a 6 page memorandum draft. I didn’t want to use a USB thumbdrive or a take the notebook with me. So, I just emailed it to myself after saving the file to Word 97-2003 format (from Word 2007). The document does not have any unusual formatting (e.g., embedded images). But, I did use a Word 2007 theme (Header 1 is a large font in blue, etc.). So, I was quite surprised how good the document looked on my T-Mobile Dash. The edge wrapping was well done, the titles and text looked good and was easy to read on the phone’s screen. I kind of wish there was an option to view it at, say, 33% size to fit more on the screen. But, the 50% size view was reasonable to use. If you haven’t tried viewing a “real” Word document on your Windows Mobile 6 phone, try it out. You might be pleasantly surprised like I was.

  • Windows Mobile 6 T-Mobile Dash Bluetooth ActiveSync Video Demo

    I could never get my T-Mobile SDA Windows Mobile 5 Smartphone to work with ActiveSync over a wireless Bluetooth connection. There was nothing wrong with the old Belkin USB Bluetooth adapter on my desktop or ActiveSync since other Windows Mobile devices could sync with it over Bluetooth. Fortunately, my new T-Mobile Dash with the Windows Mobile 6 upgrade doesn’t suffer from this problem. The new WM6 communications center has an ActiveSync button (unlike WM5’s comm center) to make the whole process of wireless syncing Bluetooth a bit easier. I recorded a brief video (1 minute 28 seconds) this evening to give you an idea of what the Bluetooth ActiveSync process looks like. You can find the YouTube link to the video below…

    Video: Windows Mobile 6 T-Mobile Dash Bluetooth ActiveSync Demo