11:23 AM by Alexander Turcic in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

Douglas Bowman from Stopdesign (great webdesigner btw) wrote an essay on the status quo of mobile browsers and mobile websites.

Douglas' most important question: Why isn’t the handheld media type supported more widely by now? Why aren’t mobile browser software companies doing the right thing from the start?

Further down in the essay he tells us his answer:
It’s a chicken and egg thing. Mobile browser software companies aren’t building in support for the handheld media type because virtually no sites are authored with a handheld media type style sheet — yet. However, designers and developers won’t start using the handheld media type until they know there are at least a few mobile browsers that reliably support handheld style sheets, and can immediately see the benefits of providing these additional style sheets.

Overall a must-read for every serious webmaster!

10:00 AM by Alexander Turcic in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

AvantGo offers a free memory upgrade to everyone who registered with AvantGo prior to January 1, 2004. This upgrade allows you to add 1MB of more AvantGo content, at no extra charge

Editor remark: alternatively, you can try using one of the many great alternatives, such as Plucker or iSilo, and get rid of all memory limits.

09:54 AM by Alexander Turcic in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

The AvantGo '05 beta is now production. AvantGo version 5.7 build 35 is the production release.

The biggest changes are the integrated online-browser and support for hi-res Palm OS handhelds.

You can click here to download the latest software.

03:34 AM by Colin Dunstan in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

PalmOne shares plunged yesterday 15 percent to $36.35 in after-hours trading after it reported fiscal second quarter results that disappointed investors and said third-quarter sales and profit would be below analyst estimates.

PalmOne CEO Todd Bradley told analysts on a conference call (archived copy, WMA format) that a decline in revenue from the second to third fiscal quarter, and a lift in the fourth, was due to "typical handheld seasonality" and timing of the rollout of the Treo 650. Overall, Bradley sounded optimistic: "Our strategy is working, and this quarter's excellent growth in revenue and a more than tenfold increase in operating income from the year-ago quarter demonstrate we executed well. Our fall products raised the bar for competitors and earned widespread acclaim. And we grew our handheld-computer market share domestically and abroad."

PalmOne's share price more than doubled between mid-June and mid-December as investors bet that its new Treo 650 product would drive rapid sales growth.

Investors are now disappointed that Palm's third-quarter sales - which will include the important holiday shopping season and were expected to rise 31 percent versus a year ago - won't grow enough to justify the recent run-up in its shares.

Read the official report at palmOne (PDF).

07:26 PM by Bob Russell in Miscellaneous | Lounge

As always, we at MobileRead are thankful to all of our readers for being a part of the MobileRead community, whether you just make frequent visits here or whether you are a frequent contributor. We hope you will all continue to enjoy our content and even participate in our forums. I think that you'll find the MobileRead team is continually making an effort to make this a better and better site.

You would probably be amazed by the amount of work done behind the scenes by the creator and administrator of MobileRead, Alex Turcic. He can be flat on his back, sick in bed, and he will still be working on ways to make this place even smoother and more enjoyable for all. (I'm sure all the web site teams out there can understand what I'm talking about!) We are very grateful for all his efforts.

By the way, some of our newest visitors may be saying to themselves, what is MobileRead about anyway? Is this a site all about mobile reading? Well, the answer is yes. And no!

Yes it's all about mobile reading. Sure, this is a wonderful place to learn about reading ebooks, clipping web content for reading later on your mobile devices etc. But no, we are not limited to such a small set of topics. Once you start discussing reading on a mobile device you are completely and inextricably tied to a myriad of related topics. The web, blogging, emerging technology, games, video, desktop PCs, smartphones,... and even operating systems like Palm Cobalt. I'm sure there are also many more related topics that will grow naturally as the technology progresses. That's part of the fun. Plus we have a community center in the forums where you don't even have to talk about the web or reading or technology at all. You're perfectly welcome to share about the new dog your Aunt Martha bought your daughter for a birthday present if you like!

We think our topics are a natural fit, and you our readers have supported that hypothesis by demonstrating a lot of interest in those sorts of topics. We want to be inclusive, and provide a community where we can all share and enjoy all sorts of thoughts and information.

So as we approach the close of another year, thank you all for being a part of our growing community. We're having a great time, and look forward to many more years to come.

07:05 PM by Bob Russell in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

Thanks to Andrew over at Treonauts.com for pointing me to his article at http://blog.treonauts.com/2004/12/paradigm_shift_.html

He gives his take on the future of PalmSource. Well worth the read, it is a very positive and thoughtful look at their future.

05:30 PM by sUnShInE in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

While palmOne has said that it was 'eventually' planning to release a driver for Wi-Fi card use in the Treo 650, one industrious owner already has solved the problem, and Engadget posted the details.

Download the file and read the installation instructions here. In 6 easy steps you should be swingin with Wi-Fi.

Note: This is not officially supported by palmOne, which may void your warranty or service agreement, so proceed at your own risk. < / buzzkill>

05:19 PM by Alexander Turcic in More E-Book Readers | Legacy E-Book Devices

Sony has released a downloadable new firmware (20Mb) for its Librie e-book reader.

Firmware V1.0.00.06160 contains some performance improvements related to dictionary access and sound output.

What is more interesting about this firmware upgrade is that it could reveal hackers some ideas how to directly access the software of the Librie, perhaps to replace parts of or even the entire operation system with a more "user-friendly", i.e. non-DRM system.

[VIA Librie list]