Ba-da-Bing – Microsoft’s New Search – Part 2

In my earlier write up about Bing, I just used what was presented to me when I launched Bing. What I didn’t notice was that it automatically determined that I was in Canada and displayed the Canadian version of Bing. I didn’t expect that the US version would be any different – but I was wrong. After changing my location to US – English, I saw a similar, yet different Bing.

On the home page, Bing shows Travel and Shopping, which are not displayed on the Canadian version. When I search in the shopping section, you are presented with options down the left hand side – much the same way as images or video’s works. These allow you to filter your search even further. For Shopping, the options are Show, Category, Brand, and Price.

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Ba-da-Bing – Microsoft’s New Search Prepares for Launch

One of the big news stories this week was Microsoft’s big Bing announcement. Bing is a “Decision Engine” providing customers with a first step in moving beyond search to help make faster, more informed decisions. This new Decision Engine idea is designed to empower people to gain insight and knowledge from the Web, moving more quickly to important decisions. Initially this will be focused on four key vertical areas: making a purchase decision, planning a trip, researching a health condition or finding a local business.

Bing is currently in private beta and is expected to launch on June 3rd. I was invited to test out the new Bing, so I thought I would post some pictures and thoughts about it.

If you’ve used Live search in the US, then you’re familiar with the vibrant picture that is displayed behind the search window. The new Bing engine brings this forward and extends it to those outside of the US, like here in Canada. As you’re typing in your search terms, a list of suggestions is populated below allowing you to navigate more quickly to the results you are looking for.

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Mini Review: Spb Mobile Shell 3.0

Well, this isn’t really a review, more of an opinion piece.

After seeing the initial information about Spb’s Mobile Shell 3.0 I was very impressed and wanted to take a closer look. I started by taking a look at an in depth review from Remo at MobilityMinded.com. Take a look at his review when you get a chance.

In the past I have actually tried a lot of shell type applications and have just not been overly impressed. I like the idea of putting a new face on the today screen, and that has been pretty much been all that most shells are capable of. I generally just play around with a trial version and then get rid of it within short order. I am slightly manic (is that possible?) about keeping my gear running as quickly as possible and have mostly seen these kinds of applications as wasteful resource hogs.

Spb’s Mobile Shell 3.0 has been a wonderful exception! It doesn’t seem to affect system performance at all and is so fluid. It is certainly finger friendly and it is quite obvious that a lot of time and effort was put into its design.

Mobile Shell 3.0 actually goes fairly deep. It doesn’t make UI changes, simply includes a lot of functionality for commonly used actions. It really covers off some of the things you do with your smartphone everyday, such as looking at your schedule, looking up contacts, seeing mail, text and phone messages on one screen and a lot more.

Spb has really made Mobile Shell 3.0 VERY customizable. You can change the colour (theme) and select contacts for a quick view screen. Most impressively, there is a “today” screen for both professional and personal set up. The default is the professional one, but with the personal one it is kind of 3 screens together. You can place widgets on any of the 3 screens and change the background image. I am actually using this screen all the time and you can have it show all the info on the professional screen, but with the added benefit of being able to add to the 2 other screens. If none of that made sense, look at Remo’s review again. J

One of the things I really wanted to see was how this shell would run on my HTC Touch. The Touch is a slower processor than the latest WinMo devices and if it was laggy at all I would probably not be using it. I am happy to say and am impressed with how fluidly Mobile Shell 3.0 runs on my hardware. It is finger friendly and scrolls very well. It really made my Touch seem like an all new device!

The only negative I would say is that there is a noticeable delay in switching to Landscape and back. SPB knows all about this and is probably working on it. I think in their latest beta build it is better, but I haven’t tried that.

The price of Spb Mobile Shell 3.0 is $29.95, which I think is a little bit high for a mobile app, but they had done so much with this that I don’t blame them! As long as you aren’t digging change out of your sofa to buy diapers for your triplets you can probably afford the price and will feel good about it. Mobile Shell 3.0 is worth it.

Unboxing the Samsung Jack at Mobility Minded

Johan van Mierlo was able to get his hands on the new AT&T Samsung Jack smartphone and has filmed an unboxing video showing off the device in all of it’s glory. The Jack sports a similar keyboard to that of the Motorola Q9, but as the picture below shows, the Jack’s keyboard is a smaller due to the overall device being smaller. Samsung will be releasing a Windows Mobile 6.5 upgrade to the Jack later this year. Samsung and AT&T recently released the Propel Pro smartphone, which is similar to the Jack but the keyboard slides up and underneath the screen. Check out the full unboxing videos over at MobilityMinded.com (Part 1, and Part 2) and let us know your thoughts on this device. Is there a Samsung Jack in your future?

Mobile Twitter – The PockeTwit Way

PockeTwit is one of the more popular Twitter clients for Windows Mobile devices. I’ve written about this app a couple times in the past and the developers keep making it better and better and adding more and more features. So it’s worth a re-visit.

PockeTwit works on both touch and non-touch screen devices. When looking at a tweet, pressing left will bring up a menu showing you all the global options you can select. And pressing right will bring up a menu with all the options you have in relation to the tweet you have selected. Over time, these menus have grown to include more and more options. Beyond the normal twitter client features, with PockeTwit, you can easily:

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AT&T Set to Release New Samsung Jack Smartphone

This past week, AT&T announced another Samsung smartphone that will be added to their line-up. The new phone is called the Samsung Jack, not to be confused with the Samsung Jack being offered on the Canadian GSM carrier – Rogers, which is actually a BlackJack II. This new Jack runs Windows Mobile 6.1 but will be upgradable to Windows Mobile 6.5 when the time comes. The new Jack adds WiFi, a 3megapixel camera and a new keyboard design. The new keyboard is more like the one found on the Motorola Q than on previous BlackJack models. There are no more spaces between the keys on this new layout. I actually prefered the keyboard on the old BlackJack and didn’t care for the keyboard on the Q because of that space. I found it much easier to find the keys without looking at the keyboard. So it might take a little getting use to for some of us. It’s getting very hard to decide what my next device should be. I’m still lusting after the Propel Pro which was released a couple weeks back.

The Samsung Jack will be available on May 19th for $100 after a mail-in rebate and a 2 year contract.

MTV’s Samsung c6620 Reviewed at WindowsMobileItaly

Diego Magnani over at WindowsMobileItaly.com has posted a review of Samsung’s C6620 smartphone. This is one of the devices that Samsung showed off at Mobile World Congress earlier this year. The device is running on Italy’s TIM network and sold under the MVNO (Mobile Virtual Network Operator) MTV. Samsung has produced a number of devices based on that BlackJack footprint and it looks like this approach is working very well for them. Each version has some slight modifications. With this version, they have increased the screen size from 2.4 to 2.6” and removed some of the network radio’s. This phone is great for use in Europe, but doesn’t fair well when it’s brought to North America.

You can check out Diego’s full review translated to English (thanks to Google) here, or the original version in Italian is here.

Competition is Creeping up on Rogers

Today I was reading that Telus is planning on a soft roll out of its GSM network in BC this year! Their plan is to be able to go live in February in time for the Winter Olympics.

I must say, I am plesently surprised by this news. Rogers has had a wonderful romp as the only GSM provider in Canada. They’ve flaunted and taken advantage of the fact. It is going to be fantastic to have some real choice.

Since Bell and Telus are joined at the hip these days (merge already!) Bell will probably be going live with GSM at around the same time. Perhaps they will soft roll out to the Toronto area. If so, I know someone that can test it out (pick me, pick me!)

Of course, the more public this GSM rollout becomes the more urgent is the need go live quickly. Delays will cause customer hesitation as they won’t want to buy CDMA phones. Plus, Rogers will miraculously become everyone’s friend by offering continually better incentives designed to lock subscribers in for 3 more long years.

Take our advice, wait for the GSM competition to heat up and then take advantage of the inevitable deals.

No matter how you look at it, all this new GSM goodness will be very refreshing. With how quickly Telus seems to be moving we aren’t going to have to wait too much longer.

We Have a Winner for the Matrix Pro Giveaway!

Thanks to everyone that took the time to enter our AT&T Pantech Matrix Pro giveaway by posting a picture of their mother, either in a reply to the contest post or on Twitter. And thanks to AT&T and Pantech for making this event possible. Unfortunately, everyone can’t win. If you’re name was not selected, please remember that you can still enter for a chance to win on some of the other websites – check out this post for more details about which sites are still running their contest along with the start and end dates. You can also enter the Matrix Pro Tweetstakes over at PantechMatrixPro.com.

Enough talk about that, on to the winner! The randomly selected entry is from Maggie Bushway – Congratulations! Maggie gets a AT&T Pantech Matrix Pro smartphone along with a $100 gift card for AT&T.

AT&T Pantech Matrix Pro Giveaway!

Does everyone remember that giveaway we’ve talked about a couple times? Well, it’s now Mobile Jaw’s turn to giveaway a brand new Pantech Matrix Pro smartphone. The Matrix Pro is a Windows Mobile 6.1 Standard device (that means it doesn’t have a touch screen), that sports a regular 12-key slide-down number pad, as well as a full slide-out QWERTY keyboard. If you’re not familiar with the Matrix Pro, I would suggest you take a couple minutes to read my review of it as well as the reviews from other popular mobility websites.

What do you need to do to enter and have a chance at winning this device? With Mother’s Day fast approaching, I thought it would be nice to include our mother’s in this contest. So, to enter, you need to post a picture of you and your mother. Since we don’t have the ability for you to upload your images, you have 2 choices on how to do this:

• Share you picture here on MobileJaw
  1. Login here at MobileJaw (If you don’t have an account, you can register here for free).
  2. Reply to this post with a link to a picture of you and your mother hosted on Flickr, ImageShack, or some other free image hosting service.

Or,

• Tweet your picture on Twitter
  1. Login into Twitter (If you don’t have an account, you can register for a free account at Twitter.com).
  2. Follow @MobileJaw
  3. Tweet the following message along with a TwitPic of your Mom – “Happy Mother’s Day Mom and thanks for the chance to win a Matrix Pro @MobileJaw”

And that’s it. The contest will run until the end of day May 11th. The winner will be randomly selected from all the entries and announced first thing on the 12th. They will get a Matrix Pro of their very own along with a $100 AT&T Gift Card! Please note, the Matrix Pro and gift card are for AT&T, so in order to win, you must be a US resident with a valid US shipping address. Please, only 1 entry per person. Good Luck!

Hopefully you’ve been following along with the giveaway event and have entered for a chance to win on the other websites. If not, you still have a chance to enter on about 7 out of the 26 websites. Each day will see a contest end and another one start. For a full list of the sites involved, check out our earlier post about the event.

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