If you haven’t heard of Grooveshark yet, you really should check it out- Unlike other streaming music services such as Pandora and Slacker Radio, Grooveshark will let you pick any songs you like in their extremely extensive database, and create your own playlists. Since there is no restriction on playback, its like having a limitless library of MP3’s at your disposal!
The advantages of a mobile version are obviously appealing. Imagine being able to play any song you want, any time you feel like it, wherever you are, and without worrying about the limits of your storage space… as long as you have a data connection, that is.
Enter Grooveshark Mobile, the official application for Android, WebOS and Blackberry phones. Grooveshark, however, was denied access to Apple’s App store, so there will be no official iPhone version (unless you wish to Jailbreak, in which case they DO supply an at-your-own-risk version to show Apple what you think of their policies). Also glaringly absent is Microsoft’s platform, Windows Mobile.
Not to fear, all you WinMo fans out there. The development community has stepped up to the challenge and created their own Grooveshark applications to fill the need. The best of the bunch is undoubtedly Nanogroove, which has playlist support and album art.
The best bit of NanoGroove? Its free! Well, sort of- they offer 5 minutes of use each time you run it if you don’t register. Registration costs a one time fee of $5, and after that you are free to use it as much as you want. A worthwhile investment for unlimited music, if you ask me.
But wait, isn’t GrooveShark also free?
Yes, technically, however they reserve their latest-and-greatest features for VIPs only, which costs $3 a month for membership to. All the mobile apps are VIP access only, which means your unlimited music is going to cost a monthly subscription. Three bucks a month isn’t anything major, however compared to nanogroove’s $5 one time fee to register, it seems like Windows Mobile users come out on top this time!
In case you haven’t been paying attention to the mountains of coverage, Google has announced the “real” GooglePhone, the NexusOne. A Snapdragon sporting, AMOLED adorned, Android 2.1 touched smartphone, the NexusOne is taking the tech sites by storm. Several people have asked me my thoughts on the new phone, and I decided to put them here.
Actually I have been looking for a good Google Reader for the Android. I’m going to sent up my blog-post-by email account up on word press so I can (to use an old term) Moblog!
This just in – Google has now made their Google Maps Navigation solution available in the Android Market for *any phone* running Android 1.6 and up. Despite leaving Sprint’s HTC Hero out in the cold, this continues Google’s possible gamechanging of the GPS market.
We’re all still playing the waiting game to see if Google ports this solution off of Android to iPhone, WinMo, or WebOS. Could be interesting.
Clutching onto my Nokia E71 (one of the 3 cell-phones I use on a daily basis) I just read on Mashable how Nokia announced the slow phasing out of S60 for the iPhone / Android competing opensource-asized Maemo. The phase out is expecting to occur on all Nokia Smart Phones by 2012.
Could Symbian really not shape up and build a killer touch phone OS the way Palm did? I mean if Palm could do it… maybe Maemo is the hiatus they will need.
Stan at Mashable was a bit bold indeed when he said S60 is not good enough. For what it is it is very good. I often feel a sense of ease when using it on my E71. But he is right, it is no flashy Android iPhone killer. If Stan is right in reporting that Symbian will remain the main platform for E-Series devices that makes sense. I have friends that work in regular corporate jobs who runaway screaming when it comes to using an Android or iPhone like device for work… its just to much, to distracting and not capable of dealing with the fast blackberry like pace of business as usual.
But Stan also makes a good point. “While we’re thrilled to see more Nokias on the powerful Maemo platform, running two mobile smarpthone OSs and two separate app stores will definitely cause confusion to the customers.” From a branding perspective he is correct.
Nokia can lessen the confusion a bit if they market it well. Symbian as a business like device, Maemo for everything else.
But the larger question here in the US is, does anyone care. I mean, I am a Nokia fan boy that for the most part does not use a Nokia (my main phone is still the iPhone). I am still convinced that as far as phones go, Nokia builds the best of them…I mean a majority of the world cell phone users cannot be wrong. But the question remains, will Americans pick up the Maemo lingo like they have picked up “Android” and “Windows” and “Palm” and “iPhone.” Or will these just remain fancy and expensive Nokia’s. It seems these days the Operating System is king, so they better hope not.
It’s interesting how married to Operating Systems people can become. My first computer was an Apple IIGS, but then we swiftly moved to Windows. I used to join in deriding Macs, then I got one. Mac OS, especially 10 and up, became my OS of choice. However, I still used Windows (and occasionally Linux) on a daily basis. I’m basically platform agnostic. A platform is a tool, and the one that works best for you is the best… for you. There is no perfect platform for everyone, for computer or phone.
I mention this because of discussions I’ve been having with some fellow techies. This week I finally broke down and bought a Pre. The reactions from my iPhone, WindowsMobile and Blackberry using friends (Sort of sad, but I don’t personally know a single Android user – no I’ve never met Justin) were almost comical in their predictability. I even got complaints about the Pre from a fellow Pre owner… because he’s really a Blackberry user. I’m not saying they’re wrong – I’m just saying the Pre is closer to my “ideal” phone than most of those other options (In fact, I recalled a doodle I drew ten years ago and it resembles the Pre to the point of scariness).
Every phone does its job in one way or another and every phone does it for someone. The cell market is really big enough for everyone. So how about we all just calm down and let people find the right solution?
So, why is the Pre my “perfect phone” (so far, anyway?)? Click the read link and find out.
[Warning – this thing is a fricking essay. I clearly have no life.] (more…)
The much anticipated Motorola Droid from Verizon launched this past weekend, selling approximately 100,000 units according to market analysts.
Motorola’s Droid marks a large step forward for Google’s Android platform. Unlike HTC’s underpowered handsets which have been accused of performance issues (slowdowns while multitasking, etc), the Droid combines Google’s OS with far more horsepower and high end specs than ever before, making it arguably one of the most powerful handsets to be released by any US carrier. Combine that with the power and reliability of Verizon’s network, and it would appear that we have a serious force to be reckoned with.
On paper, the Droid should be a real winner- The question is, how does it stack up in the real world?
Lucky for us, MoPocket creator Justin Oberman just got his hands on Moto’s new Droid to test Cellogic’s new application, FlyScreen. In case you missed the writeup last time around, FlyScreen (which Justin was involved in starting) is a revolutionary app concept that takes your device’s sleep screen, and places RSS-style feeds for zero-click access to information on an otherwise unused screen (more on that here).
Justin happens to also have been a loyal iPhone user since the beginning, which I think will make his opinions especially interesting- a look at Droid from the perspective of an iPhone user.
Stay tuned and watch this space for his upcoming post…
Comic book fans have long been awaiting a Digital Format for comics. The theory is that just like we have digital audio, video, and ebooks, one day we should have digital comics. There are groups dedicated to scanning comics into formats like .cbz and .cbr (renamed .zip and .rar files, really), and distributing them via the internet, but the legality of such endeavors are… well, non-existent really.
Marvel Comics, publishers of such hot properties as X-Men and Spider-Man, as well as really good comics like Agents of Atlas and Nova, have long experimented with digital formats, but mostly online. They’ve made several “motion comics” available on iTunes – but comics purists turn their nose up at such mixed media. Sure, you can get Joss Whedon’s Astonishing X-Men run for a low price, with some neat animations, and it may be fun but it’s not comics.
Recently, comic news and rumor site bleedingcool took notice that Marvel’s newest online comic book reader was a lot like the Longbox reader. Longbox are trying to set themselves up at the iTunes of Comics. Now Marvel’s announced a distribution deal with Longbox, and that pretty much explain the reader. Indeed Marvel’s added support for a whole bunch of iPhone readers . So now you can buy a comic for 99 cents and read it on your desktop, laptop, or iPhone. DigitalLongbox hopes to add eReaders to that list soon, but one journalist has created a bit of a storm by suggesting that all this digital comics talk is a harbinger of the oft-rumored “iTablet”.
It would be fascinating to see, but considering the niche – and a large niche, but still a niche – of comic book readers vs the billions of music lovers, videophiles, and just plain readers, it’s hard to imagine comic books as the “killer app” for an iTablet, especially since you can read them just as well on an iPhone, and there are even solutions for Windows Mobile, Android, and other platforms. If you don’t want to squint, there’s always the option of using your netbook.
I’m not saying it wouldn’t be cool, I’m just doubting that it “proves” anything.
While the HTC Hero and Palm Pre have been shown to not work on SERO, this writer was able to log onto the SERO web site and select a Moment without any sort of flag. This is very different from what happens when you select a Pre or a Hero – when one does so, the site flags it and tells you one must change one’s plan.
I’ll be spending my lunch break tomorrow testing this theory at a local Sprint store, but I just wanted to throw that out there.
it would seem to make for an interesting corroboration of Mordy’s theory that Sprint is making exclusive OSes (WebOS, Android+SenseUI), and making them require one set of plans, while having “generic” OSes (Palm OS, BB, WinMo) work on any plan.
Oh and side note: Has anyone tried a Samsung Intrepid? For Sprint’s first WinMo 6.5 device, the internet has been stunningly sent.
UPDATE: Looks like the answer is a resounding “no”. A long conversation with a reliable source has shown that yes, you can order the Moment, but it won’t activate. In some ways, that’s even more annoying than just not being able to order the thing. Teases. -Morts 11/4
As Morts already mentioned, with the new Verizon Droid launch, Google has announced a new mobile maps feature: Navigation.
No, I’m not talking about using Google Maps to calculate driving directions on your phone. I mean real bona-fide location aware turn-by-turn spoken directions that rival and even surpass the features of high-end standalone GPS navigation units.
Using your phone instead of a standard GPS navigation system on your phone isn’t new- Old-school smartphone owners (Palm & Windows Mobile) have had access to commercial software from Garmin and Tom Tom for years. If you don’t want to store maps on your phone, or just have a simple feature phone, many carriers licensed Telenav software for a nominal charge to your bill.
What’s interesting here, however, is that Google is offering this for free. From Verizon. Yeah. Verizon is OK with letting Google give you something without them getting paid for it.
This really could be the start of a new Verizon.
The question is, will Google make this available for other GPS-enabled platforms as well? What about the iPhone or Windows Mobile? Or even Blackberry?
Now, before I sound too excited and ahead of myself, let’s not forget that Bing! mobile does this as well, and is also offered for free (as long as you have unlimited data) on some smartphone platforms such as Windows Mobile. Bing even offers a similar voice-recognition feature for speaking your destination. However, the interface is harder to navigate and it doesn’t speak the directions as it follows you. It looks like Google has taken all the good of Bing’s navigation features, and combined it with everything good in a standalone navigation package, and slapped on some killer features that only Google can get away with for free.
The question on my mind, however, is whether or not Google will be releasing this for all the other mobile platforms that currently have Google Maps supported. Remember all the fuss and delays Tom Tom had trying to push the iPhone navigation package?
Imagine for a moment that Google releases their nav system for iPhone, for free, before Tom Tom can break even on their sales. Wow. Talk about game changer.
If you haven’t heard of Grooveshark yet, you really should check it out- Unlike other streaming music services such as Pandora and Slacker Radio, Grooveshark will let you pick any songs you like in their extremely extensive database, and create your own playlists. Since there is no restriction on playback, its like having a limitless library of MP3’s at your disposal!
The much anticipated Motorola Droid from Verizon launched this past weekend, selling approximately 100,000 units according to market analysts.
While the HTC Hero and Palm Pre have been shown to not work on SERO, this writer was able to log onto the SERO web site and select a Moment without any sort of flag. This is very different from what happens when you select a Pre or a Hero – when one does so, the site flags it and tells you one must change one’s plan.
As Morts already 
