Cell phone accessories blog

Speak search terms into Google's app for Nokia

Google released a new version of the free Google Mobile App for Symbian Series 60 (S60) phones on Monday. The update gives phone owners the ability to press the Talk button and speak search terms into the phone. While a new feature to the S60 operating system, users on other platforms, like BlackBerry and iPhone, have been able to turn speech into search results for some time.

The new Google Mobile App shows up as a shortcut widget on the Nokia home screen, which makes sounding out searches on those Nokia N and E series handsets faster than on other more

What's your funniest Google Voice transcription flub?

Earlier this week, I bashed Google's visual voice mail service for its inability to transcribe my voice messages into understandable English. (OK, most of the article really focuses on a new flexibility in Google Voice, which I do like.) To be fair, poor transcription isn't all Google's fault. They're offering a free service based on a computer-aided technology that improves each year. The real problem is that machine transcription just isn't good enough.

Up until yesterday, I hadn't received more than a handful of visual voice mail message translations imbued with any meaning in more

Google Maps Navigation takes a mobile turn

You can almost hear the portable navigation industry swearing already.

Google is announcing plans Wednesday to release a new Android application called Google Maps Navigation. When combined with a GPS-equipped mobile phone running Android 2.0, it provides turn-by-turn directions powered by Google Maps and a slick user interface that combines features such as voice recognition and Google Street View. Google Maps Navigation, like seemingly everything that emerges from Google, will be free.

"Mobile platforms--Android and others--are so powerful now that you can build client apps that can do magical things connected to the cloud," said Google CEO Eric Schmidt in a briefing for reporters at Google's headquarters on Tuesday.

Companies in the cell phone navigation industry have seen this day coming for quite some time. Right now, the beta application only works on phones that will use the Android 2.0 software, which is scheduled to be available very soon with the expected arrival of Motorola's Droid phone on Verizon's network.

Google's Vic Gundotra appeared to demonstrate the application on the Droid: he wouldn't confirm it, but it was a shiny black Android 2.0 phone running on Verizon's network and bearing Motorola's stamp, so we're probably not going too far out on a limb here. (Update, 7:24 a.m. PDT: Says Google's Wednesday morning press release: "The first phone to have Google Maps Navigation and Android 2.0 is the Droid from Verizon.")

However, Google is working with Apple on bringing it to the iPhone, and it's not ruling out licensing the software to makers of portable navigation devices used in cars throughout the world, said Gundotra, vice president of engineering at Google for mobile and developers. The process involving Apple is slightly different from the usual App Store submission process, because Maps is a built-in iPhone application, he said.

The application works like any navigation system that you may have used, but it combines Google Search and Google Maps functions that are normally only available on the desktop and brings them to the smartphone. Perhaps the most interesting and useful feature comes from Google Street View, allowing Google to provide a Street View image at every turn that the application suggests during your journey.

Hands-on: Google Voice's new voice mail service

Updated 10/28/09 at 11 a.m. PT with a tip about checking voice mail from your cell phone.

On Tuesday, Google took another step toward bringing Google Voice to the masses, fulfilling the wishes of those who are curious enough to try Google's brand of visual voice mail, but either too jealous of their mobile number to give it up for a Google Voice number, or too weary to go through the hassle of training family and friends on a new number.

Google now lets you access some key features in the Google Voice service using the number you've always had, and no longer forces you to sign up for a new Google Voice phone number. How? Google Voice can now take advantage of what's called conditional call forwarding. I tried out the new feature today with success, and have some tips to share.

With Google Voice in charge of your missed calls, callers are directed to your Google Voice in-box instead of to the voice mail box that your carrier operates. There, friends can leave a message after hearing the greeting you recorded online. You, for your part, can listen to messages online or from your phone, in any order you'd like.

As promised, setup was easy for this existing Google Voice user. In the Settings menu, under the Phone tab, click "Activate Google voice mail for this phone" next to any phone that you've associated with your account. Then, select your carrier (U.S.-only for now) and dial the string of numbers and symbols you see into your phone. Then dial the number. This sets up call forwarding. While many high-end feature phones and smartphones do have separate menu settings for call forwarding, Google's method of entering the forwarding code is faster and removes the guesswork.

New users have slightly more setup involved. You'll first choose if you want to use your own number or sign up for a new Google Voice account. Then you'll need to enter your Google Account credentials or register an account before setting up your phone.

Using the conditional forwarding service is brainless; whomever calls you hears your Google Voice recording, which you can set up online. You may want to tinker in the settings to forward calls straight to voice mail, or else you could annoy callers with a full ring-through to your mobile voice mail and another ring through to the recorded number. However, leave the setting in its default mode and friends may be able to track you down on other numbers associated with your Google Voice number, if you use Google's number and not your own mobile number.

To send a call straight to voice mail, go to the Phone tab in the Settings menu of your online Google Voice account. Click Edit, then click to see advanced settings. At the bottom is a call-forwarding option that you can switch to send straight to your recording.

If you use the call forwarding option from your cell phone, checking voice mail isn't entirely straightforward. If you're forwarding to a Google Voice number, you'll need to dial your new phone number from your handset in order to get to your in-box options. This is because Google now presides over your messages, not your carrier. Google provides a separate access number for those using their own mobile numbers to access Google's visual voice mail, which you'll get when you sign up for an account.

Google Voice app gDial Pro updates for WebOS

Back in September, we tested out a Google Voice app for Palm WebOS phones called gDial Pro. The free gDial Pro just recently updated to version 0.8.9, and is available now in Palm's App Catalog. While gDial Pro still isn't quite as integrated into the Palm Pre as Google's native Google Voice app is for Google's own Android platform, it remains a good option for Google Voice users on Palm's comeback platform.

In addition to fixing some dialing bugs, the developer made a ton of other user interface adjustments, including changing the wording

Premium Documents To Go updates on BlackBerry

Your BlackBerry may already have the free version of the Documents To Go viewer and editor loaded onto it. That's fine for casual users, but professionals who annex their smartphones into their virtual office will want the advanced creating and editing features of the premium version (compare features--PDF).

On BlackBerry phones, Documents To Go Premium Edition 2.0 adds four new features. There's a file browser to delete, rename, and copy and paste all the Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Adobe PDF files across the Documents To Go sub-apps. There's also an enriched PDF To Go

Google Maps for BlackBerry gets layers

If you haven't recently updated Google Maps for your BlackBerry, do. Earlier this week, Google bumped up its BlackBerry map app to version 3.2. As with Google Maps on Symbian Series 60 and Windows phones, Google's BlackBerry map app now supports layers.

In the layers submenu on the maps app, you'll find a list of layers you can turn on while mapping. These include Wikipedia entries, local transit lines, traffic, your personalized My Maps, and Google Latitude.

When accessing your My Maps listings, Google Maps for BlackBerry 3.2 prompts you to log in to your

BlackBerry watch in the works?

As if checking e-mail on your BlackBerry wasn't addicting enough, there may be an accessory in the works that may just fuel your habit. CrackBerry.com has posted images of what it's claiming to be actual renderings of a BlackBerry watch.

The site claims that the Bluetooth accessory is being developed by a new, dedicated BlackBerry accessory company and will be branded as the inPulse Smartwatch. It's not meant to be a replacement for your BlackBerry but rather shows your notifications and previews of incoming messages for those times when you can't pull out your BlackBerry; more

Throwdown: Microsoft's My Phone vs. Best Buy's mIQ sync

Article updated at 5:00 pm to correct mIQ media sharing details.

Microsoft introduced its My Phone service last week, an online dashboard for managing and sharing the contents of your mobile phone. We liked some aspects, and critiqued some others. Ultimately, we wished that Microsoft had teamed up with its Seattle neighbor, connected services startup Dashwire, whose legacy dashboard did much of the same thing as My Phone does now, but did it better. Dashwire has since turned its standalone product into a platform. Best Buy Mobile snapped up a license and is now offering its own sync-and-share service, called mIQ (short for mobile IQ).

I know what you're thinking: The T-Mobile Sidekick backup service just failed, and the blame is Microsoft's. Why trust its My Phone service at all? But backup isn't the point of these services. They're about management. Moreover, comfortably managing the contents of your smartphone from a screen and keypad that's larger than anything you can get on your smartphone. And if you delete a number or photo from the Web or phone, it's gone. Neither of these services intends to save it, but they do intend to make it available online.

So now that that's clear, it's time for a throwdown.

My Phone and mIQ both download small clients to the mobile phone. From there, they bidirectionally sync the phone's contents to an online dashboard. My Phone is limited to Windows phones, but mIQ is free for anyone with a BlackBerry, Symbian, or Windows phone.

Features

We'll say right off the bat that Microsoft's My Phone is richer in feature types overall compared with Best Buy Mobile's mIQ. more

Dictionary.com now available on BlackBerry

Thanks to Dictionary.com, I won a contest this weekend. The challenge: who could find synonyms for a word fastest (it was "fancy," as in "stop being so fancy about everything.") I had Dictionary.com loaded on an iPhone; my colleague, the BlackBerry Storm browser. Had he had the free Dictionary.com for BlackBerry, my challenger might have beaten me to the word bank.

At 250KB, Dictionary.com 1.0 is almost identical to the iPhone version. It, too, packs in a dictionary, a thesaurus, a list of recent search terms, and the opportunity to sign up for the Word more