This post is part of Mashable’s Spark of Genius series, which highlights a unique feature of startups. If you would like to have your startup considered for inclusion, please see the details here . The series is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark. Name: moBistro Quick Pitch: Create your own mobile websites that are compatible on 98% of all smartphones with a simple user backend. Genius Idea: moBistro is a service that makes it easy for business owners to create mobile versions of their websites without having to do any coding on their own. Many of the features are aimed at restaurant owners, who often have Flash-based websites that break on most mobile phones. While other sites like MoFuse also offer mobile website creation, moBistro is unique in its restaurant-focused options. Users can easily add in location data, links to external sites like OpenTable, events that can become accessible in a calendar, menus, special offers and more. Everything on your moBistro site is manageable through a control panel that was designed to be easy to use and operate. When it comes time to serve the website, moBistro will automatically redirect mobile phones to the correct version of the site, depending on what capabilities the phone has. You can customize moBistro to fit with your business’s branding and color scheme and you can monitor mobile web traffic from Google Analytics. moBistro doesn’t just create the mobile-friendly version of your website; it hosts it too. That’s good for users who don’t want to have to deal with configuring their web server to serve the mobile version of their sites, however, it does make the product more expensive. While we think the services offered by moBistro are great, we think the pricing — which starts at $19.99 per month — is a bit high for this kind of service. Still, the ability to easily create mobile-friendly content that can work on hundreds of devices without having to do any coding is an idea that should appeal to lots of business owners who are trying to figure out how to best address the mobile web. Sponsored by Microsoft BizSpark BizSpark is a startup program that gives you three-year access to the latest Microsoft development tools, as well as connecting you to a nationwide network of investors and incubators. There are no upfront costs, so if your business is privately owned, less than three years old, and generates less than U.S.$1 million in annual revenue, you can sign up today . Entrepreneurs can take advantage of the Azure Services platform for their website hosting and storage needs. Microsoft recently announced the “new CloudApp()” contest – use the Azure Services Platform for hosting your .NET or PHP app, and you could be the lucky winner of a USD 5000* ( please see website for official rules and guidelines ).” Tags: mobile web , mobistro , Web Development
Missing from the discussion about Flash and its role in mobile devices has been real-world feedback about how well the technology actually works. After all, what better way to stick it to the no-Flash crowd than to make the experience utterly awesome? Now that Android 2.2 is out with support Flash 10.1 beta, we’re finally getting some reports on Flash performance from users. Flash 10.1 is still in beta, so it isn’t fair to make any conclusive judgments. That said, it does look like fears regarding speed and battery life may not have been unfounded after all. Gizmodo’s first overview acknowledges that while there are many things to like about Flash on the Nexus One, battery life — especially in the beta version — is adversely affected. PocketNow performed a pretty exhaustive speed test comparing the Nexus One running Froyo and Flash 10.1 beta, the iPhone 3GS and the HTC HD2. In his tests, the Nexus One slowed down considerably when loading Flash content, though with Flash turned off, the browser was blazing. Check out the video: Meanwhile, over at Engadget , a comparison test between Flash 10.1 beta and Flash Lite running on Android 2.1 proved that the new Flash is a big step up in terms of speed and overall video quality. It’s easy to be overly pessimistic about Flash on a smartphone even in beta, but as we noted with the Hulu browser workaround , the fact that Flash content can run decently on a mobile phone at all is nothing short of cool. Mashable’s Ben Parr has been testing Flash 10.1 beta and will be posting his own thoughts later in the day. Based on what you’ve seen, what do you think of Flash on mobile devices? Let us know. [via Business Insider ] For more mobile coverage, follow Mashable Mobile on Twitter or become a fan on Facebook Tags: adobe flash , android , Flash , flash 10.1
Nokia and Yahoo announced a partnership today that will meld the companies’ e-mail, chat and mapping services across their respective platforms. In addition to sharing services with one another, Nokia and Yahoo will be working on making the login process more seamless. Nokia currently offers mapping and navigation tools for its phones under its Ovi brand; with the new partnership, Yahoo Maps will now be “powered by Ovi.” In exchange, Yahoo will become the exclusive provider for Nokia’s Ovi Mail and Ovi Chat services, which will be branded with a “powered by Yahoo” message. In the login space, Nokia and Yahoo are working to make Ovi user IDs usable across select Yahoo properties. We presume these will include maps, e-mail and chat, although it isn’t clear if the Ovi login will extend to other Yahoo services like Flickr . Strategically, this makes a lot of sense. Although Nokia is the largest mobile device maker in the world, its marketshare — especially in next-generation smartphones — lags behind companies like Google, Apple and RIM. Likewise, while Yahoo still has a significant share of the online mail market, its services are in decline and its search deal with Microsoft won’t be complete on a global scale until 2012. Since Nokia already has strong investments in mapping and navigation, and Yahoo has a handle on chat and e-mail, it makes sense for the two companies to partner together instead of trying to build out their own services. What do you think of this arrangement? For more mobile coverage, follow Mashable Mobile on Twitter or become a fan on Facebook Reviews: Facebook , Flickr , Google , Twitter Tags: Nokia , ovi maps , Yahoo , Yahoo Mail
Chinese website Apple.pro has posted pictures of a purported next-generation iPhone, this time in white! While we’ve seen the black variant of the iPhone 4G in the wild on numerous occasions , the images of the white model are a nice change of pace. While the authenticity of the photographs haven’t been verified, the photos do show what appears to be a complete white faceplate sitting atop the standard iPhone 4G body. The phone itself looks likely to one of the same pre-production models (hence the seams) with the white faceplate not completely snapped on. Now, as Engadget astutely points out, this could just be a non-official faceplate. Engadget posted about the existence of a white faceplate for the next-generation iPhone, but its authenticity hasn’t been verified. After all, China does have a booming market of shanzhai merchandise and assorted accessories, but the existence of such a prefab that appears to fit the physical dimensions of the new iPhone prototypes is interesting to say the least. One of the reported hallmark features of the next iPhone is a front-facing camera for video conferencing. In that vein, BGR has more photos showing off some official video call debugging screens from the next iPhone. Thanks to the iPhone leaks and the data inside the iPhone OS 4.0 beta builds, video call support is all but a foregone conclusion; still, it’s nice to see some official debug screens that mention the feature. The next generation iPhone is expected to be unveiled at WWDC on June 7, 2010. What do you think of the white iPhone faceplate and the new video chat details? Let us know! [ via Engadget and BGR ] Tags: iphone 4.0 os , iphone 4g , iphone hd , video chat
This post is part of Mashable’s Spark of Genius series, which highlights a unique feature of startups. If you would like to have your startup considered for inclusion, please see the details here . The series is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark. Name: Trip Journal Quick Pitch: Real-time travel sharing through Facebook & Smartphone GPS – Broadcast photos and videos live from your vacation! Genius Idea: Trip Journal is a mobile app for iPhone and Android that lets you capture photos, video and route marks of your vacation as it happens. You can then share your trip with your friends and family via Facebook, Flickr and Twitter. Trip Journal 5.0 has just been released for iPhone and Android, and it adds full Facebook support for you to export your trip, your photos and your route to your friends. Your friends can then comment on your trip in your Facebook stream and also make comments to items in your Trip Journal directly. Trip Journal is a really great app for users who might be traveling abroad or covering lots of area because it uses your phone’s built-in GPS to give your photos and places a location and marker on an interactive map. That map, which can even be exported to Google Earth, can act as a running log of your trip. You can go back later and add tags, descriptions or notes to the images, but everything associated with your trip is kept in one easy-to-access and attractive place. One of the things that really impresses us about Trip Journal is its design. The app looks beautiful on both iPhone and Android. In fact, this is easily one of the best-looking Android apps we’ve ever seen. What’s also great is that when you export your trip to Facebook or Google Earth or upload videos to YouTube, the overall look and feel of Trip Journal can become a part of those services. In other words, your friends following along on Facebook get the same sort of vintage-scrapbook feel as you do in the app. The app is $0.99 for iPhone and $2.99 for Android. If you’re planning on a vacation this summer and want a way to chronicle and share your adventure, you might want to give Trip Journal a try. Sponsored by Microsoft BizSpark BizSpark is a startup program that gives you three-year access to the latest Microsoft development tools, as well as connecting you to a nationwide network of investors and incubators. There are no upfront costs, so if your business is privately owned, less than three years old, and generates less than U.S.$1 million in annual revenue, you can sign up today . Entrepreneurs can take advantage of the Azure Services platform for their website hosting and storage needs. Microsoft recently announced the “new CloudApp()” contest – use the Azure Services Platform for hosting your .NET or PHP app, and you could be the lucky winner of a USD 5000* ( please see website for official rules and guidelines ).” Tags: Android apps , facebook , google earth , iphoen apps , travel , trip journal , vacation
In this week’s edition of our long-running Web Faceoff series we wanted to know: which is better for mobile device typing, physical QWERTY or virtual keyboards ? The polls are closed, all hanging chads have been counted and the results are in: physical keyboards still rule the roost . At 50.3% of the total vote, the QWERTY keyboard is still a favorite amongst Mashable readers. Still, the virtual keyboard put in a respectable showing at 39.5% of the vote — showing that touchscreen typing has likely come a long way since the advent of the iPhone , which inspired more than a few tech pundits to declare it a completely crazy idea. Meanwhile just shy of 7% of voters couldn’t decide between the two, and 176 of you indicated your T9 keys would be pried from your cold, dead hands. Were you surprised by the results of the poll? Let us know in the comments, and tune in on Monday for the next edition of the Faceoff Series! Who would win in a fight: QWERTY or virtual keyboards? online surveys Faceoff Series: Overall Results Week 1: – Mozilla Firefox vs. Google Chrome – WINNER: Firefox , 4600 votes (Chrome: 3310 votes, Tie: 911 votes) Week 2: – Tumblr vs. Posterous – WINNER: Tumblr , 1809 votes (Posterous: 1496 votes, Tie: 256 votes) Week 3: – Pandora vs. Last.fm – WINNER: Last.fm , 1187 votes (Pandora: 1156 votes, Tie: 122 votes) Week 4: – Twitter vs. Facebook – WINNER: Facebook , 2484 votes (Twitter: 2061 votes, Tie: 588 votes) Week 5: – WordPress vs. Typepad – WINNER: WordPress , 2714 votes (Typepad: 267 votes, Tie: 357 votes) Week 6: – Windows 7 vs. Snow Leopard – WINNER: Windows 7 , 3632 votes (Snow Leopard: 3278 votes, Tie: 121 votes) Week 7: – TweetDeck vs. Seesmic Desktop – WINNER: TweetDeck , 3294 votes (Seesmic Desktop: 1055 votes, Tie: 260 votes) Week 8: – Microsoft Office vs. Google Docs – WINNER: Microsoft Office , 1365 votes (Google Docs: 994 votes, Tie: 315 votes) Week 9: – Apple iPhone vs. Google Android – WINNER: Google Android , 3323 votes (Apple iPhone: 1494 votes, Tie: 228 votes) Week 10: – AT&T vs. Verizon – WINNER: Verizon , 1161 votes (AT&T: 538 votes, Tie: 118 votes) Week 11: – Google vs. Bing – WINNER: Google , 2180 votes (Bing: 519 votes, Tie: 97 votes) Week 12: – iPod Touch/iPhone vs. Nintendo DS vs. Sony PSP – WINNER: iPod Touch/iPhone , 704 votes (Sony PSP: 639 votes, Nintendo DS: 482 votes, Tie: 108 votes) Week 13: – Digg vs. Reddit vs. StumbleUpon – WINNER: Digg , 14,762 votes (Reddit: 11,466 votes, StumbleUpon: 2507 votes, Tie: 1032 votes) Week 14: – Old versus new Twitter retweets – WINNER: Old style retweets , 1625 votes (New style retweets: 699 votes, Tie: 227 votes) Week 15: – Gmail vs. Outlook – WINNER: Gmail , 3684 votes (Outlook: 980 votes, Tie: 590 votes) Week 16: – Boxee vs. Hulu – WINNER: Hulu , 626 votes (Boxee: 591 votes, Tie: 106 votes) Week 17: – Nexus One vs. iPhone 3GS – WINNER: Nexus One , 6743 votes (iPhone 3GS: 2818 votes, Tie: 592 votes) Week 18: – Foursquare vs. Yelp vs. Gowalla – WINNER: Foursquare , 1182 votes, (Yelp: 661 votes, Gowalla: 509 votes, Tie: 143 votes) Week 19: – AIM vs. GTalk vs. FbChat – WINNER: GTalk , 2189 votes, (AIM: 1257 votes, FbChat: 511 votes, Tie: 203 votes) Week 20: – Music Ownership vs. Music Subscription – WINNER: Ownership , 533 votes (Subscription: 299 votes, Tie: 237) Week 21: – Match.com vs. PlentyofFish – WINNER: Plenty of Fish , 430 votes (Match.com: 334 votes, Tie: 187 votes) Week 21: – Google Buzz vs. Facebook Vs. Twitter – WINNER: Facebook , 3353 votes (Twitter: 1828 votes, Google Buzz: 1298 votes, Tie: 651 votes) Week 22: – HTML5 vs. Adobe Flash – WINNER: HTML5 , 3892 votes (Adobe Flash: 1779 votes, Tie: 660 votes) Week 23: – Project Natal vs. PlayStation Move – WINNER: Project Natal , 1268 votes (PlayStation Move: 668 votes, None: I don’t like motion controllers: 170 votes, None: I prefer the Wii: 150 votes) Week 24: – Chatroulette vs. Hot or Not – WINNER: Chatroulette , 742 votes (Hot or Not: 281 votes, Tie: 99 votes) Week 25: – iPad vs. Netbooks – WINNER: iPad , 3098 votes (Netbook: 1969 votes, Tie: 605 votes) Week 26: – Amazon Kindle vs. Apple iBooks – WINNER: Apple iBooks , 1227 votes (Amazon Kindle: 928 votes, Tie: 118 votes, Neither: 276 votes) Week 27: – Next-gen iPhone vs. Droid Incredible – WINNER: iPhone 4G , 9765 votes (Droid Incredible: 8175 votes, Tie: 1318 votes) Week 28: – Facebook “Like” vs. “Become a Fan” – WINNER: “Become a Fan” , 3161 votes (“Like:” 1634 votes, Indifferent: 719 votes) For more mobile coverage, follow Mashable Mobile on Twitter or become a fan on Facebook Reviews: Bing , Boxee , Chrome , Digg , Facebook , Firefox , Foursquare , Gmail , Google , Google Buzz , Google Docs , Gowalla , Gtalk , Hulu , Mashable , Pandora , Posterous , Seesmic Desktop , StumbleUpon , Tumblr , TweetDeck , Twitter , TypePad , Windows , WordPress , Yelp , aim , iPhone Tags: keyboards , Mobile 2.0 , phones , polls , QWERTY , web faceoff
Elliott Kosmicki is the founder of Good Plum, an online business blog focused on marketing and productivity. Elliott also quips with interesting people on Twitter . Three summers ago, people lined up around the country — and then the world — to get their hands on the next generation of mobile phone . Apple’s iPhone made “app” a household term, while cashing in on a movement that sent their stock — and everyday people’s productivity — soaring. In 2010, Apple released most of the specifications for iPhone OS 4.0 , which will launch along with the new iPhone sometime this June. I’d like to take a moment to review what we know, and what we think we know, about the new OS, the new phone, and what it all means for your everyday productivity. Things We Know About iPhone OS 4.0 Multitasking The most talked-about feature of the new operating system is, of course, “multitasking.” I put it in quotation marks because as many of you may know, it’s more of an application manager than an actual multitasking feature. Multitasking would insinuate that multiple applications can be running at the same time. And while that’s true for some applications (like audio apps, for instance), the majority of programs simply enter a suspended state until you resume them at a later time. However basic this feature may be, it’s a huge move forward for a system that has, until now, only let you work in one program at a time. No, you won’t be able to keep Facebook and Twitter updates streaming in the background. You won’t be able to get instant e-mail messages streaming to your home screen, either. But I’d bet those things will come eventually. For now, the ability to quickly switch between your recently used applications will make a huge difference to people who use the iPhone every day, and would like to do several things simultaneously. For instance, people on the go often need to quickly copy part of a web page and paste it into an e-mail. This becomes much simpler when you have the ability to switch quickly between the apps without having to close one, then open the other, and then do it again if you want to copy a second item. I, for one, am looking forward to this new flexibility, even if the upcoming version is still fairly basic. App Folders Those of you who are already App Store addicts know that having a double-digit number of pages on the home screen makes it a challenge to find downloaded apps quickly. Now, with Folders on the iPhone, we’ll be able to group apps into whatever categories we like. I’m sure I’ll still keep my first few pages of frequently-used apps out in front. But after that, I can make groups for those I frequent less, like games, travel apps, and more. This feature will be a huge time-saver if you utilize it wisely. Unified Inbox and Multiple Exchange Accounts For those of you with one e-mail account, this might not be a huge deal. For those who are pulling e-mails down from many different servers, this is huge. In the past, we’ve had to go from one inbox, back to accounts, select the new account, and then that account’s inbox in order to see other messages. With OS 4.0, we’ll have them all on one screen. I’ve already “tricked” my phone into using one inbox by forwarding all my mail through a single Gmail account. OS 4.0 will allow me to keep things separated if I want to, as well as make it easier to send from multiple addresses. For those of us currently burning our single Exchange account on Gmail syncing, 4.0 will let us sync to multiple Gmail accounts, or pull in a work Exchange account as well — a huge plus. Bluetooth Keyboard Support Once you become familiar with the iPhone’s on-screen keyboard, it can be handy for typing out even long e-mails. But what about full-blown blogging? WordPress has put together a great app for the iPhone which, until now, has been useful for simple edits and comment moderation. Add a full-size Bluetooth keyboard to the toolkit with OS 4.0, and you’ll have everything you need to knock out a full blog post right from your phone, and quickly. This feature is going to make many mobile web workers even more dangerous when it comes to productivity on the road. iPhone Calendar API iPhone OS 4.0 introduces 1,500 new developer APIs, and for me, the best one will allow developers to interact with the user’s built-in calendar. This feature hasn’t seen much discussion, but I feel that this small offering could have a huge impact on the iPhone’s productivity apps. Right now, there are many apps that will interact with your Google Calendar, which you can then sync to your iPhone via Google Sync and one of your Exchange accounts — quite the round-about solution. However, in the new OS, developers will have the ability to read and write directly into your iPhone’s calendar. This will open up a whole new set of features for task apps and other productivity solutions on the iPhone. You could have instantaneous task reminders sent to your calendar, for example. Or, your doctor’s office could make an app that would deliver your next appointment right to your schedule. The possibilities are endless.
The long-awaited Seesmic app for iPhone is now available. You can download the app for free from the iTunes App Store . Just like in its BlackBerry app , Seesmic for iPhone includes baked in support for Ping.fm thanks to its January acquisition . You can also manage multiple Twitter accounts and your Facebook account within the app, along with saved searches, trending topics and Lists. What do you think of the Seesmic version for iPhone? Let us know in the comments. For more mobile coverage, follow Mashable Mobile on Twitter or become a fan on Facebook Tags: facebook , iphone , ping.fm , seesmic , twitter
Flash for mobile is finally here, because today Adobe is releasing the public beta of Flash Player 10.1 for Android. The release of the Flash 10.1 for Android Beta coincides with Google’s release of Android 2.2 (“FroYo”) here at the Google I/O conference in San Francisco. The release also comes as tensions escalate between Adobe and Apple . Flash 10.1 for Android was redesigned from the ground up so that it would support mobile device inputs, as well as optimize performance and battery life. Adobe told us that the new version supports multi-touch, gestures, accelerometer inputs, and smart zooming — all things that differentiate smartphones from desktops. We saw some of these features before when Adobe demoed Flash 10.1 for Android for Mashable. Adobe Flash 10.1 is also serious about performance. It includes hardware acceleration with H.264 video decoding, advanced memory management (which can decrease RAM usage by 50%), and a sleep mode that slows down the Flash player if an Android-powered device enters screensaver mode. Adobe tells us that it has worked with all the major chip and mobile platform players (including Intel, ARM, NVidia, Qualcomm and AMD) to get the best performance possible. There is a drawback to all of these hardware and software performance enhancements, though; Flash for Android is only compatible with Android OS 2.2, meaning those with older model Android phones won’t be running Flash anytime soon. The performance factor cannot be understated, because the release of Flash 10.1 for Android has gained major significance over the last few months due to Apple’s ban of Flash on the iPhone and iPad . It has sparked a debate over whether developers should abandon Flash in favor of HTML5. We’ve had a chance to try out Flash for Android through a review model Nexus One. We’re going to follow up with our review of Adobe’s mobile offering later today. For more mobile coverage, follow Mashable Mobile on Twitter or become a fan on Facebook Tags: adobe , adobe flash , Adobe Flash 10.1 , android , Froyo , Google Android
