Latest Posts from Download Squad

Oh my... not content with finally being at the stage where they're ready to release a working version of their 'Fennec' mobile web browser (albeit only for the Maemo based Nokia N900 initially), Mozilla seem to be on something of a mad world-domination-power-trip at the same time.

Why? Well, Mozilla have declared that Firefox Mobile will render all existing device application stores redundant as developers shift to developing applications which simply run in your mobile web browser.

Although this is probably the millionth time I've read that web applications will make client applications completely redundant, I'll explore their asseration for the benefit of you, dear DLS reader.

Vice President of Mobile at Mozilla, Jay Sullivan, spoke to PC Pro about application development and raised some valid points. He talked about the relative simplicity of developing in JavaScript and HTML and the benefits of not having to learn the development platform required for a specific mobile or desktop OS. It is valid to say that, featuring the fastest Javascript engine of any mobile browser, some great experiences will be possible with Firefox Mobile.

But I see a problem -- two, in fact.

Read more »

In a move that marks a change of direction for the device manufacturer, HTC have just released four additional Hero / Droid Eris widgets for download in the Android Market.

The initial release offers 'Battery', 'Dice', 'Tip Calculator' and 'Today in History' widgets for download free of charge, though it should be noted that the widgets are Sense UI widgets rather than standard Android widgets, which means they will only work on the aforementioned HTC devices. This also means that other HTC manufactured devices such as the G1 or MyTouch 3G are also excluded.

It will be interesting to see whether HTC offers additional software in the Market going forward and whether the releases will remain limited to HTC devices - users of other Android devices would love to have the ability to use the excellent Sense UI or perhaps the HTC designed software keyboards - even at a cost.

Would this be a good opportunity for HTC to earn additional revenue or would it be a danger to the unique selling points of their devices? What happens over the coming weeks and months will likely reveal HTC's thoughts on the matter. What are yours?

If you're currently a user of Evernote, the awesome note storing solution AND you're packing an Android device, then today is the day to finally rejoice as the Evernote client for Android is available now, free, on the Android Market!

Comprehensively featured (yet with 'big plans for 2010'), the new client allows you to collect text based notes, camera images or audio clips for synchronisation to the Evernote cloud. Free users can also upload PDF, text, audio or image file attachments while premium users can upload absolutely anything provided it is under 25MB in size. The user can specify note attributes can at creation time as well as selecting the notebook to upload to.

Unlike some lesser clients, Evernote for Android provides native viewing of content within the application - it doesn't bounce you off to the Evernote webpage to view your notes. The application's interface is straightforward but fully featured and it looks and feels like a proper Android application, while still remaining familiar in look and feel to anyone who has used Evernote on another platform.

Of course, the beauty of Evernote is the fact that whether you create a note on your device, the web or your PC / Mac it is accessible everywhere and this applies to the Android version too. Upon synchronising your newly created content to the Evernote cloud, you can then take advantage of the services offered online such as OCR (which I find great for meeting notes). An excellent search function allows you to find content both on your device and in the cloud.

Using the location functionality of your device (either network based or GPS), notes can be geotagged. After allocating a note to a particular location, you can view the 'Notes Near Location' menu to view nearby content, a neat feature for segregating work and personal notes for example.

Evernote is available free from the Android Market now. The Evernote service is free for a basic subscription with 40MB storage or $5 per month / $45 per year for a premium account offering an enhanced feature set and 500MB storage.

Interestingly, while the Evernote client for Android gets a full release, the Windows Mobile client remains in Beta and it's features pale in comparison.

Since the start of August, Google has been running the 'Android Developer Challenge 2', inviting developers of Android software to submit their previously unreleased applications for judging. The judging process itself has been carried out both by a panel of Google selected judges and by Android users via a special ADC2 judging application, made available from the Android Market.

This morning Google have announced the winners of the challenge - each of whom will receive between $25,000 and $250,000 in prize money. The winners are split into 1st, 2nd and 3rd in 10 categories, out of which 3 'overall winners' are chosen.

I'm delighted to see two of my personal favourite applications included in the top 3 overall winners, 'WaveSecure' and 'What the Doodle?!'.

WaveSecure is an application that allows you to remotely secure your phone in the event of loss or theft. It allows you to track your phone's location and who is using it, lock down your phone remotely and wipe out your data remotely as well as providing backup and restore functionality.

What the Doodle?! is best described as online phone 'Pictionary'. After launching the application and choosing a difficulty level, the player enters a room with 4 other players who take turn to draw pictures of words for the other participants to guess. It works fantastically well and is seriously addictive!

The third top placed application is 'SweetDreams', an application for managing your device's settings at night. After setting an overnight period, you can configure your phone to be silent, with WiFi, Bluetooth and similar services disabled, saving battery power as well as preventing your beauty sleep being interrupted!

The full list of winners is online now at the Android Developer Challenge 2 website. Did you vote? Which were your favourites?

Travel management site TripIt have launched their mobile companion application for Android, available for download free of charge from the Android Market.

The new application, which is usable with both Standard and Pro TripIt accounts, allows you to access your travel itinerary direct from your Android phone, get maps and directions, make calls to airlines, hotels etc. as well as enabling flight alerts and alternate flight details for Pro users.

As well as launching on Android, TripIt have released an update to their iPhone application, available for download now from the App Store. The iPhone version adds support for Pro account features, as well as a number of useful travel tools including terminal maps, seating advice and live flight status.

If you have a Blackberry and you're feeling left out, fear not! The TripIt Blackberry application is currently in Beta, with release expected before the end of the year. Now how about good old Windows Mobile and that young upstart WebOS...?

There are some great little tweaks available in Google Labs for GMail, one of which is pictured above - 'Green Robot!'!

Like many of the labs additions (accessed by clicking the little green conical flask at the top of the GMail page), the beauty of Green Robot is in it's simplicity. It changes the appearance of your Google Talk contact list to illustrate which of your contacts are using Google Talk from their Android mobile device - handy!

If you haven't checked out the contents of the laboratory yet it's well worth a visit - I have a total of 12 labs features enabled on my account at this time which really smooth my GMail experience.

My labs features at the time of writing are Offline Mail, Message Translation, Sender Time Zone, Mark as Read Button, Inbox Preview - to let you view your inbox contents as the main site loads, Multiple Inboxes - to allow me to view a specific subset of my messages in a seperate 'pane', Undo Send, Green Robot (of course), Search Autocomplete, Inserting Images, Google Docs Gadget and the ability to Add Any Gadget by URL.

Which labs features are you using?

Seesmic have released their 'Seesmic Mobile' Twitter client for Android and Blackberry on their respective application stores. Available for download free of charge, the clients are slick, feature packed and refreshingly free of advertisements.

The Android client (pictured above) has a great design that utilises a standard tab-based user interface with a red accent, providing virtually every feature (bar multiple account support) that a Twitterer could desire. Included are the ability to scroll without limits back through your timeline, photo and video upload (either from your device camera or from the gallery) via a variety of online services, the ability to add your location to your tweet, URL shortening, saving tweets-in-progress as drafts, switchable full name / username display and very granular notifications.

The Blackberry application also features a native-feeling UI and adds lists and saved search support, albeit at the expense of video and location features.

If you give Seesmic Mobile a try, let us know how you get on and - of course - don't forget to follow @downloadsquad!

The SEVEN Beta setup is an interesting one.

As a company, Seven (enough capitalising already!) sell their excellent push e-mail products only via mobile operator channels, however their Beta program is an excellent way for users on unsupported carriers (that's likely you and I) to enjoy their software.

Available in a variety of editions on a variety of platforms, Seven's software allows you to receive push mail on your device from a variety of services - Exchange, Yahoo, GMail, AOL Mail, HoTMaiL and standard POP and IMAP services are all supported. A Beta release it might be (with the usual associated disclaimers), but the application is a supremely useful piece of software that i've been using for many years to push synchronise GMail with my Windows Mobile devices.

I happened to visit the Seven Beta site earlier today to download the latest Windows Mobile client and I was intrigued to notice that an Android download option had appeared. Obviously I had to download the application and take a look!

As expected, it's a Seven client for the Android OS that includes all of the goodness that i'm used to - push mail across a host of platforms, 'quiet times' when push can be automatically disabled, multiple accounts, server contact search, customisable notifications and more! Although the currently version of the software is missing a few features i'd like to see (primarily HTML mail), for Android users it can often be a trying task getting mail set up and working as desired if you are using something other than GMail, and Seven is making that story easier. I've been pushing an additional e-mail account and a HoTMaiL account all day without any issues!

If you'd like to try out Seven on Android (or indeed any of their other support platforms, which include WinMo Standard / Professional, Symbian S60, Palm OS and even J2ME!) then head on over to the Seven Community Forum to sign up for an account.

Socialite (Née Eventbox) for OSX is now available in Beta 3 form prior to an expected full release later this month.

Originally developed by TheCosmicMachine before being acquired by respected Mac house Realmac Software (creators of RapidWeaver and LittleSnapper), Socialite provides single client access to your favourite social networks. Currently supporting Digg, Facebook, Flickr, Google Reader, RSS feeds and Twitter (with the historical support for OneRiot, Identi.ca and Reddit now removed), Socialite takes your presence off the web and into a smooth UI in the finest native style.

The latest Beta adds support for Twitter lists as well as implementing a host of under-the-hood improvements. As a long time Eventbox owner the promise of a one stop social networks centre continues to appeal and Socialite looks like a worthy upgrade!

The Socialite Beta 3 release is currently available free from the Realmac forums and will cost $20 when it is released. Existing Eventbox owners will receive a free serial number for the new product.

Opera have released version 10 of their browser, now with Opera Unite and Opera Turbo included.

Opera Unite gives your web browser the ability to deliver content as well as consume it. The standard download includes a number of Unite applications, with more available for download from the application directory. The bundled applications include a file sharing server that allows you to make files available to the world (as well as allowing the world to upload content to your machine), a virtual fridge door for you to share notes with friends and family (pictured), a media player that allows you to play content from your Unite equipped machine remotely, an instant messaging server, a photo sharing application and a web server for serving your own web content.

The inclusion of Opera Turbo in the new browser marks the migration to the desktop of a technology that has long been a key feature of Opera's Mini product. Opera Turbo speeds up your browsing session by compressing content at Opera proxy servers before delivering it to your machine - particularly useful for those on low bandwidth connections.

Opera 10.10 is available free from www.opera.com for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux.

We're intrigued to hear what you, our lovely readers, think about Opera's advancements. They have an excellent, solid browser base and some truly unique additional features... are you tempted to make the switch?