Thought I would list out a few Twitter apps for your Windows Mobile phone.  I personally use Twobile the most.  Each application is obviously similar, being that they mostly do the same things.  Enjoy…

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There are many free software applications for the Windows Mobile platform, unfortunately many of them are horrible. After years of testing various apps on both WM5 and Windows Mobile 6 Professional, I have settled on my essential free programs. I’ve decided to only include those programs I use on a regular basis, or find incredibly helpful. I know everyone has their favorites, but these are mine. I recently had several friends purchase windows mobile based phones (after years of me telling them to do so), so this will also serve as a resource for them to get up to speed. I’ve already done the testing to figure out what works and what doesn’t, so you can just start enjoying your phone for all the cool stuff it can do.

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I finally got my invite to the Skyfire Beta after a long wait for an invite. It was well worth the wait. Skyfire is a new web browser for the Windows Mobile platform that allows you to view “full” web pages. This includes the ability to watch streaming video, flash based content, and full Javascript support. All of the “Web 2.0″ style sites that I’ve tested Skyfire on have worked for the most part. This includes personal favorites such as Netvibes and Hulu. I was really surprised that Hulu works. A major feature of the browser is that you can watch Youtube videos, which is cool and all, but I’ve been able to do that for quite some time with the FlashVideoBundle “hack” for Windows Mobile. I was very surprised that Hulu works.

The streaming video portion of the browser is cool. Its a tad choppy on my Verizon EVDO setup, but the audio is clear. I hear it works better on a WIFI connection, but I don’t have WIFI to test it on at the moment. The current version of Skyfire is 0.6 Beta. I am treating this version as more “proof of concept” versus what the final product will look/function like. That may be wishful thinking, but I can’t pass final judgment yet.

UPDATE: I am testing video streaming via WIFI at the moment, and it is indeed much smoother over the WIFI versus EVDO.

Some of the navigation/zooming features are cool on Skyfire, some are not so cool. I believe they will work out some of the bugs in future releases. I think some of the limitations may just be due to the small screens on Windows Mobile based phones. Any of the performance related issues I’ve experienced with Skyfire are probably because of the limited processing power and memory available on Windows Mobile handsets.

Overall, Skyfire looks very promising and is worth signing up for the beta. It will not replace PocketIE for text browsing just yet, but has a lot of potential, especially on future mobile devices.

I love to rip on crappy companies as much as the next guy, but when a company does something RIGHT for a change, I don’t mind telling people about it. As you may know from reading thew0rd, Palm recently released a broken update (1.22) for the Treo 700w / 700wx series of phones. Palm then recalled the update a few days later screwing all of the early adopters, much like Apple has screwed early adopters of the iPhone by lowering the price. I have been battling with Verizon to replace my Treo 700w with the bad update, but the warehouse was out of phones with the old firmware. So I walked into the downtown Verizon flagship store and laid it out for the customer service guy.

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OMFG! I am really starting to hate Palm. I’ve been a loyal Palm user since the first PDAs. I’m at my wits end. I recently installed the Treo 700w 1.22 update on my Verizon handset, and its got even more bugs than the phone had before! I paid something like $600 for this phone when it came out, and instead of improving the phone, with every update they have made it worse. Palm has now taken down the 1.22 Update because so many users are having issues. There is no ETA on when a fix willbe released, if ever.

For the benefit of anybody who may have already upgraded their Treo to version 1.22 I’ll give you some resources to check on some of the issues involved with the update. After that, I will go on my rant lambasting Palm.
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Something that has bugged me for quite some time about my Treo 700w is the lack of good Instant Messaging applications for Windows Mobile.  I’ve tried trial versions of virtually all of the non-free solutions.  None of them really meet up to my standards.  I just want an instant messaging application that is free, runs in the background, has a today screen plugin, and works.  I am surprised that Google has not released such an application for gTalk.  Google has released a Windows Mobile interface for Google Maps, and it works well.  You would think that an IM client would be easier to code than a mapping application!

So if anybody has suggestions on FREE Instant Messaging solutions for Windows Mobile that meet the requirements above, please comment below!

P.S.  I’d also love to see a free application that syncs multiple Google Calendars with Windows Mobile.   That would rock my world.

Wow, looks like palm quietly released an update to the Treo 700w / 700wx for Verizon. I may test this update soon. I have already hacked the Bluetooth on my 700w to allow A2DP to work with my Motorola HT280 wireless headphones. PDAnet has already added the ability to use Bluetooth DUN. Sometimes upgrades like this scare me, they might break what I’ve already done. I will be using Palm’s “Sprite Backup” utility to make a complete backup of my Treo incase the official update screws it up. I will let you know how it goes if I do it.

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