A number of forum users are strong advocates of the particular OS that they use while others claim to be 'device agnostic'. Today's question, then is Are you wedded to your OS or do you regularly chop and change device OS?

I used to be fairly Palm dependant but use WM almost exclusively now. I'd still say I'm OS independant but I am VERY application dependant so I'll only use an OS that supports the type of apps I need.

A Question of the Day last week asked whether your phone is "a good phone". Unhappily, this coincided with my realisation that despite my best intentions and my desire to love all of my Toshiba G900, it just can't be described as a "good phone". I've only ever had the one smartphone so maybe I simply picked a bad device, but from reading Shaun's multiple hardware reviews over the last couple of years I'm not too sure.

The call quality of the G900 is one of its known problems and has been discussed to death in a number of other places on the web. I know about the problems of hearing a caller while walking along a busy road and the odd system crash or unexpected button behaviour when receiving a call (mostly fixed now). I just never used to worry about them.

Recently, however, this has become an issue because I've been using the phone a lot more. I even bought a contract type 'free minutes' plan last month and at that point my phone ceased to be an 'emergencies only' communication device and became my main voice interface with the rest of the world. Since then things I could live with on an 'occasional use' basis have become much more annoying. It reached the point at the weekend where I was even considering using my Motorola F3 as my main phone in place of the G900 and carrying both with me. In the end, though, I couldn't bear to live with the F3 SMS display interface for more than a day at a time.

My problems are largely volume related, both in-call and with the ringer. Personally, I believe that these stem more from the marriage of PDA and phone than the design of any specific device. For instance, by choice I would have my phone volume much higher then I would ever set my PDA volume but with a converged device this isn't possible (e.g. phone and PDA notifications are both managed with a single control with only the ringer separate)

More important is the fact that outside, I simply can't hear the thing ringing and even with it's vibration mode enabled can't feel it moving in my pocket. Inside it's better but it still isn't great...but then I do turn it down. Hmmm. Maybe I shouldn't! Aside from that, I think the problem lies with pumping a phone function through what is essentially a PDA speaker. Do WM Smartphone edition devices have this problem? (By that arguement, the in call volume is simply inexcusable since this is a phone function pure and simple.)

Of course I've just made this all worse by putting the phone in a case that I'm reviewing. While offering device protection, it doesn't do a lot for device audability where the G900 is concerned. Maybe I'll remove it and try with 'the phone on its own' again.

So is this just a Toshiba G900 problem or is it common to all Windows Mobile Smartphones? Does it affect PalmOS phones too? Answers in the comments thread please.

There was a time when posting Palm OS related news was incredibly easy, and most days the difficult part was deciding what to leave out. It has become apparent recently that there is scant news around concerning new developments for Palm OS, and that most of the Palm related news sites are struggling to find original and good content that is not rehashed in some form or another.

I could fill WindowsMobile247 and MoreMobile247 up with news every day quite easily and on the WM247 side could probably post 20 items of news each day without too much effort, but sadly the Palm side has dropped to the point that I now scrabble around for any news I can get.

What’s your view on the lack of Palm news around these days, and does it affect how you think of your device?

Palm has newly introduced its glacier white "Palm Centro" smart phone featuring a full-color touch screen in India.

With a fun new design, "Centro" is the smallest and lightest Palm phone till date, the company claims. Along with stylish looks, it features voice, text, email, Web, contact and calendar capabilities, and full keyboard, promising easier texting and email management.

The "Centro" includes features such as a one-touch speaker phone, conference calling, Bluetooth connectivity, etc. All conversations can be saved in a chat-style view, just like instant messaging, so that users can see the entire conversation unfold. For multimedia fans, the 'Pocket Tunes' feature lets users side-load songs and manage music, audio books, and videos easily. Apart from these, the "Centro" has all the regular Palm smart phone features -- including built-in digital camera.

"Centro" is priced at Rs 13,990, and will be available at IT retail stores in Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata, Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Jaipur, Pune, and Chandigarh. Meanwhile, Palm has associated with mobile networks like Vodafone and Airtel to widen its reach in the country. More at TechTree (excuse the English:))

A Truly Smart Smartphone is a good read over at 1src- "In the future, your smartphone will truly become smart and then it will become a real personal digital assistant.

I had the opportunity to listen to Nortel’s Phil Edholm, Chief Technologist and Vice President of Network Architecture, speak recently about the future of data and voice convergence, the future of wireless networking, and mobile computing.  One of the things that I took away from that keynote session was what the future holds for mobile computing.

Back in the early 1990’s, Apple’s CEO John Scully coined the term “personal digital assistant” to describe the Newton.  The term stuck.  Years later we are still striving to reach a true digital assistant that is really our personal device.  We have yet to see a device so in tune to the person who uses it, that it can anticipate our needs and take action to address them.  In short, we have not yet seen a truly smart personal device.

Now before you accuse me of having had too much Sam Adams Boston Logger while at the conference, just hear me out.  (And I didn’t by the way, if you must know.)  Think about the device you carry with you everywhere.  It could be your Treo, Centro, or iPhone.  Now, think about what could be possible if that device knew where you where, what you were doing, and was something that you kept with you at all times.  Conspiracy theorists don’t get all riled up.  Governments have already pretty much implemented the really scary things found in “1984”.  So lets just move on."

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Nokia (NOK1V.HE) said on Thursday that growth in the European mobile phone market fell to 3 percent in 2007 compared with a growth rate of 16 percent the year before.
 
The estimates from the world's biggest mobile phone maker, in a document filed with U.S. regulators, came a day after smaller rival Sony Ericsson cited slowing growth in Europe as it issued a warning that its current quarter profit could fall by half.

Sony Ericsson is a venture of Sony Corp (6758.T) and Ericsson (ERICb.ST).

Nokia also said that growth had slowed in the Middle East and Africa mobile phone market to 19 percent from 68 percent in 2006. Growth in North American unit sales fell to 6 percent in 2007 from 13 percent in 2006, Nokia said.

Phone sales in Latin America fell to 10 percent from 15 percent, according to Nokia's estimates.

The slowing growth in these regions was offset by a boost in sales expansion in China and in Asia-Pacific countries, according to Nokia. It said phone sales in emerging markets accounted for almost 60 percent of industry sales volume in 2007 compared with a 55 percent share of sales in 2006. More at Yahoo.

Today's free eBook is Tonino and the Captive Girl by Jennifer Pelland- "In the choreographed chaos of space, she searches for patterns that do not fit. She listens to the hiss and murmur of the interstellar winds; she peers into the visible spectrum and beyond. Whistling particles stream by, and her mind sizes them up, then discards them as harmless background radiation. Just flotsam on the solar winds. Wait, that light— No, it's just a weather satellite catching a glint of sun. Too close, anyway. She does not let anything approach the planet without scrutiny.

Motion.

She zooms in, listening hard.

"A-s-t-e-r-o-i-d," she types out. "Possible collision course."

There is a scroll across the very bottom of her vast vision. "We see it. Calculating now."

She looks away. The team is on it. This asteroid could simply be a distraction, and she does not want to be caught unawares. There will be no repeat of last time. Not on her watch.

"It's a miss," the scroll says. "Shift's over. Come on back."

And her mind contracts, sinking down, down, plummeting back to the surface of the planet, past the colony domes, into the bunkers, deep underground.

Alice gasps through her chest tube as she crashes back into her body.

Mittened hands grope at the metal mask welded to her face, and she's shocked to realize that they're hers. She sags forward onto her walker, resting the mask on the padded bar that rings her. She is too tired to call up any video, any audio, and surrenders her overextended senses to nothingness. She struggles to walk forward a few steps, but the seat/body interface chafes, and she works her mouth in a silent gasp behind the metal."