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Filed under: Audio, Video, Windows Mobile, Apple, Mobile Minute

Anti-iPhone day at Download Squad

FreeStylWMThe iPhone gets a lot of attention these days, and rightly so. It's an attractive phone/media player with a beautiful interface. And Apple brought the idea of an innovative finger-friendly multi-touch display to the masses. But you know what? The iPhone isn't for everyone. There are plenty of things it can't do, or that you can do better with another device. And while the price of the phone continues to drop, you have to pay a rather pricey phone bill every month if you really want to make use of the phone.

With that in mind, Download Squad brings you anti-iPhone day. Throughout the day, we'll be looking at alternatives to the iPhone. To kick things off, I wanted to review some of the posts of DLS past that have already shown that there's little you can do with an iPhone that you can't already do with a Wndows Mobile-based phone.

Program Launchers

Somewhere between the time when Steve Jobs first demoed the iPhone and the day it actually hit the shelves, third party developers decided it would be cool to create an iPhone-like interface for Windows Mobile. Probably the most interesting project is FreeStyleWM, which started out its life as WhoNeedsAniPhone.

But not every third party developer wanted to replicate the iPhone interface. Some were just inspired enough to go out and create their own easy to use, finger-friendly program launchers and other applications. Thus GoodWin and iSwish were born.

Meanwhile, before the iPhone was even threatening your pocketbook, folks were puting out software that takes Windows Mobile and makes it feel like an entirely different operating system. Over a year ago, we brought you a roundup of applications designed to make Windows Mobile look and feel a bit more like Windows XP or Vista.

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Filed under: Audio, Video, Windows Mobile, Palm, Commercial, Mobile Minute, iPhone

CorePlayer mobile media player updates include YouTube, iPhone


The developers of mobile media software CorePlayer have been hard at work. The team is showing off CorePlayer 1.2 with support for YouTube videos at CES. And as you can see from the video above, CorePlayer is also coming soon to an iPod near you. Right now the iPhone version is pretty rough around the edges. There's not even any video support. But that will all change in time.

If you're not familiar with CorePlayer, here's a little history lesson. Once upon a time there was an awesome media player for Windows Mobile called BetaPlayer. It could handle all sorts of audio and video codecs that the mobile version of Windows Media Player could not. Eventually BetaPlayer grew up and became the freeware TCPMP (The Core Pocket Media Player).

For a while all was well in the land of TCPMP, but one day the team decided they should drop support for files downloaded from iTunes for legal reasons, and TCPMP became a little less useful and the commercial CorePlayer was born, allowing the developers to collect some revenue and pay licensing fees for proprietary codec support.

[via SolSie]

Filed under: Features, Macintosh, Windows Mobile, Apple, Mobile Minute

Anything iPhone can do, you can do better - Mobile Minute

RE's LauncherCongratulations. You've spent the weekend managing not to buy an iPhone, which is more than we can say for at least two Download Squad writers.

Sure, the new phone is the coolest thing since sliced bread was replaced by low-carb bagels. But aside from an innovative new interface and one of the best web browsers ever to grace a mobile device, does it really do anything new?

Today we'll take a look at some of the features that make the iPhone special -- and show you how your 2 year old Windows Mobile phone or PDA can accomplish most of the same tasks.

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Filed under: Features, Windows Mobile, Mobile Minute

YouTube hates Windows Mobile and other news - Mobile Minute

Spb Mobile ShellIn today's mobile Minute, we'll take a look at some of the latest news and software related to Windows Mobile devices.

Spb Mobile Shell 1.5 released

While you're waiting to find out if you qualify for a Windows Mobile 6 upgrade, you might want to breathe some new life into your Windows Mobile 5.0 PDA or Smartphone.

Spb Mobile Shell is a complete replacement for the built in Windows Mobile Today Screen and program launcher. Sure you could use free software to design your shell, but Spb's taken the hard work out of your hands.

Version 1.5 includes the following improvements:
  • Windows Mobile 6 support
  • Menu customization
  • Easy item pinning on today
  • Ability to change the order of pinned items
  • Support for third party plug-ins
  • Device locking improvements
  • Assign Spb Menu actions to hardware keys
  • Performance, stability, and battery life optimizations
  • Integration with CorePlayer 1.1
Spb Mobile Shell costs $30, or about $$470 - $570 less than an iPhone. Prices of Windows Mobile phones vary.

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Filed under: Audio, Video, Windows, Windows Mobile, Palm, Commercial, Freeware, Open Source

CorePlayer updates to 1.04, almost as good as the free version

CorePlayerCoreCodec's The Core Pocket Media Player (TCPMP) has long been regarded as one of the best multimedia players for Palm and Windows Mobile devices. But what started off as a free and open source program called BetaPlayer eventually ran into some problems. For example, TCPMP had a reputation for being able to handle pretty much any video you could throw at it, no matter what codecs it used. Of course, some of those codecs were proprietary, and if you really want to include support for them in your program, you have to pay a licensing fee.

So the makers of TCPMP split the project in two. A new commercial program called CorePlayer was released with support for licensed third party plugins, and work began on an open-source stripped down version called BetaPlayer.

But here's the thing, CorePlayer 1.0 had all sorts of pretty new menu buttons. But it couldn't handle all the same files that TCPMP could. And many users reported stability issues on their Palm and Windows Mobile devices.

Apparently many of those problems have been addressed with the recently released 1.04 update to CorePlayer. The update adds features that had been missing since the last TCPMP release, hot key management and playlist functions. And there've been a number of bug fixes. But it seems like if you want a stable multimedia player than can handle most any type of audio or video file, TCPMP is still the better option. Hopefully by the time CorePlayer gets to version 1.5 it will be worth updating. But if CoreCodec really wants users to pay $20 for the program, they may have to stop offering TCPMP.

Filed under: Audio, Utilities, Video, Windows Mobile, Productivity, Freeware

5 Windows Mobile freeware programs I'm thankful for

Dell Axim x50vI've been using Pocket PCs for about six years. I've owned more PDAs than I can keep count of. And on each one, the first thing I do when I open the box is install a couple of free programs that Microsoft should be including standard (or integrating into the operating system).

1. Pelmar Wisbar Microsoft developers, in their infinite wisdom, have decided that users can't be trusted to close programs when they're short on RAM. So rather than put a close button on Windows Mobile software, Microsft puts an X button that means "minimize." Only when you've got way too many programs open will your device automatically close some. Either that, or you have to click over to settings/system/memory/running programs to close programs individually.

There are a number of third party programs that let you configure the X button to actually close programs. Most also include a handy task switcher for flipping back and forth between running programs. Some, such as Wisbar Advance offer advanced screening to completely change the look and feel of your PDA. I'm partial to the free Pelmar Wisbar v 1.4.2 which has been around for years. It takes up almost no memory and does exactly what I need it to do. It's not compatible with Windows Mobile 5.0 though, so if you're running a newer Windows Mobile device, you might want to check out Magic Button, which performs a similar function.

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The World's Hardest Game 2.0 - Time Waster

So, just how good at time waster games are you? Think you've got the stuff? Well, The World's Hardest Game 2.0 doesn't think you do. Yes, amazingly, it's possible to have a sequel to a game called "The World's Hardest Game". It doesn't seem logically possible, since if the first one was actually the world's hardest, how could another one come along and share the moniker? It made me doubt the name in the first place. That is, until I tried the game. The mechanics of the game are very simple. You are a small red square, ...

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