Cell phone accessories blog

Yahoo stopping mobile 'Go' app in 2010

On Wednesday, Yahoo will tell some mobile phone owners that it's pulling the plug on the mobile app called Yahoo Go (video). Yahoo Go was Yahoo's all-in-one native app of Yahoo services for Windows Mobile, BlackBerry, and Symbian phones, since January 2006. It gathers together Yahoo's services around a rotating carousel motif, the application's start page.

Yahoo Go, which first emerged at the Consumer Electronics Show in 2006, was full of content--but information was buried and the app wasn't intuitive to customize. Yahoo pretty much halted work after January 2008 with Yahoo Go 3.0

Microsoft opens app store to more phones

When Microsoft launched its mobile app store last month, Windows Marketplace for Mobile was only available for Windows phones running operating system 6.5. Although highly anticipated among users, the execution of the app store nevertheless put Microsoft on wobbly competitive footing. Here was Microsoft, a year and a half behind Apple on producing an app store, and the company had already dropped a boulder on its big toe by limiting the storefront to its brand-new operating system, which a bulk of its users didn't have.

Thankfully, Redmond seems to have recovered, and on Monday, Microsoft opened up its more

Microsoft opens online mobile Marketplace

Windows Marketplace for Mobile debuted in October as Microsoft's answer to smartphone app stores. As with Google's Android Market, Windows Mobile 6.5 users could initially only find and purchase apps from the device. Now Microsoft has published an online catalog to mirror its mobile storefront.

As with iPhone's app store in iTunes and BlackBerry's online App World, Windows Marketplace for Mobile site lets you find apps by browsing, searching, or discovering programs from lists of what's most popular or new. App screenshots, ratings, and version details are accessible from product pages. Like BlackBerry's

Sneak peek: Xobni e-mail app for BlackBerry

A few months ago, e-mail search app Xobni told us they were creating a version for BlackBerry. At the BlackBerry Developer Conference in San Francisco on Monday, we got a look at it.

Xobni on the Windows PC is an Outlook add-on that quickly finds e-mail messages and attachments. On BlackBerry, Xobni will integrate with your e-mail account, where it will extract addresses, phone numbers, and social networking details to automatically create a secondary address book for your phone. You'll be able to use Xobni for BlackBerry to quickly find contacts--including those you have not physically added to the more

Review redux: Flixster movie app for BlackBerry

"Come on, Flixster. We know you can do better than that."

Those are the words I wrote on Friday to sum up a review of Flixster's movie app for BlackBerry phones. The trouble is, I goofed. I was apparently a day early, reviewing the previous Flixster for BlackBerry, which did deserve the critiques I dished out, and not the Flixster update that was set to release on Saturday (we still don't see it in the BlackBerry App World as of Sunday, but keep checking the store and this post for an update). A re-review--or rather, a preview of more

Popular iPhone movie app flops on BlackBerry

Updated 11/8/09 at 9:15 pm PT: This post evaluated Flixster's Movies 1.0 app for BlackBerry phones. It turns out, we got a little bit ahead of ourselves on this review--but here's the hands-on review for the update to the app described below, Flixster's Movies 1.1.6 for BlackBerry.

We were excited to hear that Flixster's popular iPhone movie app was making the jump to BlackBerry. Unfortunately, not all apps dive as elegantly into other mobile platforms. Flixster's Movies app is one of them.

The free Movies by Flixster app for BlackBerry more

Opera Mobile 10 beta browser: First Look video

It's been a few days since Opera unwrapped its latest beta browser for mobile phones, and we've had some more time to get acquainted. Opera Mobile 10 beta (download), which runs on certain Symbian Series 60 smartphones, adds some improvements to its password manager and has made a few tweaks under the hood. However, its most significant alterations are in its visual design. Bottom line: We like it, and we like how similar it is to Opera Mini 5 beta, a recent overhaul of the free Opera browser for Java phones.

There are some downsides with the version 10 beta browser that have cropped up--these go beyond the known issues and bugs. Opera's smartphone browser continues to struggle with accurately rendering complex pages. When zooming in on CNET Download.com on the Nokia N97, we saw text and graphics overlap. While Web sites often redirect to a URL optimized for mobile phones, we'd still like to see graphically rich pages rendered more faithfully in Opera Mobile on those that don't have specialized versions.

Its responsiveness was also an issue on the Nokia N97 test phone, but we suspect this has more to do with the device than with Opera. CNET reviewers dinged the Nokia N97 for its choice of an inconsistently responsive resistive touch screen instead of the capacitive touch screen that's found on the iPhone.

Even if you don't have a compatible Nokia, Samsung, or Sony Ericsson phone to test Opera Mobile 10 beta with yourself, you can watch our First Look video to see the new browser beta's features--its new tabs interface shines.

Released! Opera Mobile 10 beta for Symbian

Right now I'm Web surfing with a browser that's sleek and fast. It has Speed Dial thumbnails to quickly load a favorite Web page and preview thumbnails to help rotate through open Web pages by sight. The app I'm wielding sounds a lot like Opera 10, Opera's desktop browser (Mac | Windows), or even the recently released Opera Mini 5 beta for Java phones. But it's not.

I'm navigating the Internet from a 4.6x2.2-inch screen belonging to a Nokia N97 smartphone using a prerelease version of Opera Mobile 10 beta for Symbian Series more

Philips Tapster shies away from retail

Philips' sleek and unique stereo Bluetooth headset, dubbed the Tapster for its slick touch-sensitive controls, garnered early praise from press and even took home an iF Product Design Award. Sadly, the gadget will never grace retail shelves, and while Philips elected not to enlighten us as to why, I think I have an idea: it doesn't work.

Well, at least our review sample didn't. The major draw of the Tapster is the playback and volume controls, which are manipulated via light tapping and swiping on the ear modules. In theory, this is a sweet idea, because pressing tactile more

Verizon pushing Bing app to BlackBerry Storm

Just days after Microsoft cranked out a touch-optimized Bing search page for touch screen phones comes another announcement for mobile searchers. Microsoft on Monday reported that Verizon will roll out the first Bing mobile app to BlackBerry Storm 1 users. The Bing mobile app already comes preloaded on the BlackBerry Storm 2.

After Verizon pushes Bing for mobile, Storm owners should be able to click the icon in the program list to get started.

In addition to search are features carried over from a former incarnation of Microsoft's search app, Windows Live for mobile, such as voice search, and