High-resolution satellite maps on your phones soon?

Geoeye recently launched a satellite that will provide high resolution (0.5 meter) satellite images to Google. This is from their press release:

GeoEye-1 will simultaneously collect 0.41-meter ground resolution black-and-white (panchromatic) images and 1.65-meter color (multispectral) images. Designed to take digital images of the Earth from 423 miles (681 kilometers) and moving at a speed of about four-and-a-half miles (seven kilometers) per second, the satellite camera can distinguish objects on the Earth's surface as small as 0.41-meter or 16 inches in size. Due to U.S. licensing restrictions, commercial customers will get access to imagery at half-meter (0.5 meter) ground resolution.


According to this Reuter's article:

GeoEye said it successfully launched into space its new GeoEye-1 satellite, which will provide the U.S. government, Google Earth users and others the highest-resolution commercial color satellite imagery on the market.


According to this Information week article:

Google has expanded its reach into space with the successful launch Saturday of a new satellite that will provide the company with exclusive images for its maps.

Although GeoEye did not mention Google in any of its announcements regarding the satellite, the search engine giant's name appeared on the satellite and company founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page attended the launch, according to reports. GeoEye said it plans to sell the images to customers around the world, but a Google spokesperson said that Google has exclusive rights to the images for commercial maps.

I read somewhere that these maps might be available to Google users in 3-6 months! These might even be better than the high resolution bird's eye maps available on Microsoft Live maps. I can view Google maps and Live maps with bird's eye view on my iPhone 3G. These are nice.

Without the LCDUI Java keyboard, Sprint Instinct users can use the Google maps app but are not able to enter any text to do a search. The LCDUI update is scheduled for later this year.

Sprint CEO Dan Hesse talks to Forbes

Forbes' website has an interview with Sprint CEO Dan Hesse. Here are a few highlights:

"Sprint's customer service ratings have lagged those of competitors. Where do you want to be in those rankings?
No. 1, absolutely. In some of our care centers, you'll see banners on the walls with respect to wanting to become No. 1 in J.D. Power [rankings]. If you don't have your eye on the gold medal, you aren't going to win. There's no reason we can't do it, especially by making these bold, dramatic moves. I think people will finally start to realize this is a very different company from a year ago.

Speaking about data brings to mind Sprint's flat-rate "Simply Everything" plan. Are other simplified plans in the cards?
We are definitely moving to a more simplified fee structure. This year, we've eliminated 85% of the combinations that we were selling to customers. It's making things simpler for our customers and internally for our care reps and salespeople. They could do a much better job if we didn't make their job so complicated.


Sprint introduced a number of new phones at CTIA. Are there any likely successors to the Samsung Instinct, your flagship phone?
We feel very excited about our new phones. They're all newsworthy in their own right. We think the HTC devices [the Touch Diamond and Touch Pro] will be considered iconic and [will] do very well. The Instinct will continue for quite some time, perhaps with improved versions of it. Samsung is making as many as they can, but they still sell out. Our employees still can't get them.

With all your new data-enabled, 3G phones, are you worried your network will have capacity issues like some say AT&T has with the iPhone 3G?
Absolutely not. I give my predecessors credit for building a really strong data network and we have continued that work. Our data loads, because of things like "Simply Everything," have increased significantly. But we manage the network to deal with it. "

Video review of Sprint HTC Touch Diamond

Here are the mobileburn video review clips of Sprint HTC Touch Diamond:

Video 1:



Video 2:

Opera Mini Browser on Sprint Blackberry curve 8830

Here is a video of Opera Mini Browser on Sprint Blackberry curve 8830. The scrolling on a web page looks very cumbersome compared to smooth and fluid touch scrolling of Opera Mobile 9.5 browser on Windows Mobile devices (such as HTC Touch diamond) or of Safari browser on iPhone.

Sprint Instinct LCDUI (Java) fix to enter certification test around 10/13

According to this thread at baw forum:

"Sprint anticipates the LCDUI fix entering certification test on or around October 13. This date is subject to change based on results of unit and system testing. When the MR for the LCDUI fix enters test, we will be publishing public release notes with the anticipated over-the-air release dates, subject to change.

Congratulations - it's in the works folks! The petition worked, and can now be closed.

Will England
Buzz About Wireless Admin
Sprint Nextel "

This is good news for all the Sprint Instinct users who have been very patient with the lack of downloadble third party apps for the phone. This will likely allow many of the Java mobile apps to run on Samsung Instinct phone once the certification is achieved. This will also make Instinct one of the first phones without an actual hardware keyboard to support Java LCDUI keyboard with the aid of virtual keys.

CNet review of Sprint HTC Touch Diamond

Here is a CNet review of new Sprint HTC Touch Diamond. Much thicker if you are used to Samsung Instinct (probably bigger battery for power hungry windows mobile). But likely much better than Instinct if you are a power user.

After testing Opera Mobile 9.5 beta on my old PPC-6700, I can tell you that Opera Mobile 9.5 on Sprint HTC Touch Diamond will be much better than Instinct's Obigo browser and Opera mobile has excellent iPhone like fluid scrolling and double tap zoom in and out. If browsing is important to you, make sure that you check this phone out.

Telenav for iPhone - possibly better than Samsung Instinct...

According to this Forbes story, TeleNav has better than Instinct navigation application for iPhone. I remember reading earlier that Apple didn't allow true navigation on iPhone 3G as part of its developer software licensing terms. Even TomTom had something in works for iPhone 3G. It is possible that Apple might allow it or come up with their own. Here is the teaser from the Forbes story:

"With its built-in GPS chip, Apple's iPhone 3G is poised to become a major player in mobile location services. The phone is already capable of tracking a user's location, a feature that developers have marshaled to locate nearby stores and restaurants. In a few months, wireless location-based services provider TeleNav will debut new software for the iPhone that will likely include turn-by-turn directions, voice prompts and 3-D maps.

The firm is tight-lipped about the software's exact features, but says the application will resemble the mapping features it developed for the Samsung Instinct, another touchscreen phone. Following its June release, the Instinct has won plaudits for its easy-to-use, voice-guided maps and comprehensive directories of local businesses.

Apple being Apple, the iPhone app will have some additional flair, says Sal Dhanani, TeleNav's senior director of marketing. "It will be cooler, have more pizazz," he promises.

Will the thousands of iPhone developers worldwide be able to use the maps for their own apps? Possibly, according to Dhanani. "We have no reservations about opening the data up to third parties, but it probably won't happen right out of the gate," he says."

Knowing AT&T, I bet they will ask $10 per month for it when it comes out though!

HTC Touch Diamond - PCWorld review

PCWorld has a review of HTC Touch Diamond here. Some highlights:

"Since it is based on Windows Mobile, the Touch includes the full suite of Windows Mobile applications in addition to HTC's own. While this presents you with two media players and two Web browsers, it also means that the Touch Diamond comes preloaded with quite a bit of software (including Outlook Mobile and Office Mobile).

For browsing the Web, you get Internet Explorer Mobile and Opera Mobile. The Opera browser can handle regular Web sites as well as mobile sites--and it can do so over the Sprint EvDO broadband network or over a Wi-Fi network. But like similar smart-phone browsers, it does not include Flash support out-of-the-box.
The Touch Diamond's built-in accelerometer can recognize when you tilt the phone on its side."

The Opera Mobile 9.5 (don't confuse it with Opera Mini 4.1 that Instinct users are waiting for)browser on HTC Touch Diamond is nice and almost as good as iPhone's browser. I recently tested Opera Mobile 9.5 beta (free download here if you have a Windows mobile pocketpc device) on my previous phone PPC-6700 and it is much better than Instinct's browser in its current version. But it had problem displaying a very small number of websites that iPhone browser was able to display better. Overall, if you get Sprint HTC Touch Diamond or iPhone (or Google Android phone in the near future), you are in much better shape than getting Instinct if you are looking for third-party application support and lot of flexibility and power. Instinct is good for basic needs and is much more buggy or probably has memory deficiency issues causing it to lock up.

Latest Sprint Instinct navigation update causes more headaches

According to various users at Sprint's baw forum, the latest Sprint Instinct GPS Navigation application update (Software version: BF30, Navigation App version: 2.1.0.23) causes phone to lock up if you follow the following steps:

• Open Navigation
• Go To Maps and Traffic
• Press the PHONE key
• Press the Contacts, History or Dialer tabs
• Phone lock up for some time (sometime it is fine, sometime it locks up or crashes)

A possible workaround is to hit the back arrow button at the bottom twice and then select "Yes" to "Exit Sprint Navigation".

Some people did not experience this problem though.

UPDATE:
According to this latest post, the Navigation app upgrade was found to be flawed and will be removed.

"Navigation Upgrade Flawed - to be removed
Due in part to the problem reports on this forum, we have identified a flaw in the Navigation upgrade to version 2.1.0.23. This flaw causes the handset to lock up or stop responding for a significant amount of time. Because of this defect, we have turned off the over the air upgrade for Navigation.

Customers who have already had the upgrade to version 2.1.0.23 will be prompted to update their navigation application again. This update will return the navigation to the previous production version, 2.1.0.21.

At a future date we will release a new upgrade to navigation.

Thank you all for your problem reports!

Will England
Buzz About Wireless Admin
Sprint Nextel"

Want a portable PDF and eBook reader - Plastic Logic Reader

A company called Plastic Logic previewed a nice Electronic-Reading Device. Check out the second half of this video. This is neat for those that don't want to lug around heavy books. It looks better than Amazon Kindle. But after using iPhone, I can say that iPhone browser and PDF reader are plenty for my needs. I bought a $6.99 app called Files on iPhone 3G that was able to open large 1200+ page PDF files (20MB+) and is quite usable. I don't know if Instinct phone will ever have a good PDF reader. iPhone natively supports PDF reader and most other common document formats in email attachments and browser.

RIM announces Flip-Screen Blackberry Pearl

RIM announced a new Blackberry phone - the flip screen Blackberry Pearl 8220. Full device specifications are available here.

Sony Ericsson Xperia X1 launching abroad on September 30th

Another high-end smart phone Sony Xperia X1 will soon be launching in a few countries - United Kingdom, Germany, and Sweden (not in US yet).




It has the highest resolution touch screen (800 X 480) of any mobile phone. In comparison, Samsung Instinct screen has a resolution of 432x240, iPhone 3 has 480x320, HTC Touch Diamond has 640x480.

Full Specifications of Sony Ericsson Xperia X1 are here.

Some more details of next Sprint Instinct software update

Here are some more details on the upcoming Sprint Instinct software update:

"InstinctAdmin
Sprint Administrator

Sprint Product Development has announced that MR-3 will be releasing later this month - this software update will fix many of the bugs in the web-browser including crashes, rendering speed and more. This is a full rewrite of the browser. Over 249 bugs have been fixed, including the handset crash on entering text like 'microbrew', 'townhouse' and others.

Full details can be found on the Sprint Developer forum "

Apple iPhone and Samsung Instinct head to head

(Image source: ReadWriteWeb.com. Click on image to view larger)

According to this, the web traffic from iPhone had the fastest growth in August but it was closely followed by Samsung Instinct! This means that among the smart phones, iPhone and Samsung Instinct users are spending more time online compared to the other phones.

Switched to iPhone from Instinct

After my frustrations with the two Instinct phones (documented here and here), I finally switched to two iPhone 3G's. I will be doing more reviews later but here is the bottom line based on my experience (after owning Instinct's for over 2 months and 3G iPhones for about 10 days):

iPhone 3G - Great (some third party apps crash though) but no turn-by-turn navigation or live TV. Free AOL radio and Pandora radio better than Instinct's radio and stitcher is nice for over the air (OTA) news podcasts. GPS with Google maps is ok but not great.
Instinct - OK phone but low on memory and has memory leak issues. Has nice voice-guided turn-by-turn navigation (not reliable on my Instinct, crashes after a while) and live TV (not reliable on my Instinct, crashes after a while).


AT&T 3G network - Not too good but iPhone does have wi-fi if you are near a free hotspot or at home.
Sprint 3G Network - Excellent.


AT&T rates - High
(I am using the free text messaging workaround - Yahoo push email between two iphones, works better than text messaging but will only work with properly setup iPhones and blackberry devices with data plans)
Sprint rates - Best (cheapest!)

After being a loyal Sprint customer for over 8 years, I just canceled my 2 month old renewed Sprint contract and will be paying $200 per line early termination fee. Sprint practically made me leave after the hassle I went through to get the defective Instinct phone replaced (Instinct apps crashing didn't help much either). Halfway through the hassle, I decided it wasn't worth it so I walked into AT&T store and the store manager gladly offered me the iPhones. But I persisted with Sprint before canceling and finally got the defective Instinct phone (was still under 1 year manufacturer's warranty) exchanged for $55+tax. Now I will try to sell them after I receive the $400 early termination bill (for 2 lines) to recover some of these costs.

This blog will stay alive with the coverage of latest toys and I will do more Instinct vs iPhone reviews as I have the privilege of owning 2 Instinct phones (3 if you count the one before the replacement; until I Master Reset and sell them all) and 2 new 3G iPhones!

If you are considering switching to iPhone and are already past the 30-day contract period, my recommendation is to wait until HTC Touch Diamond is released on Sprint and give it a try first (if Sprint will let you exchange it without paying the full existing-customer price). It will be much more comparable to iPhone. I couldn't wait that long because one of my Instinct's wasn't working and wife was without a phone and Sprint was making me go through too many hoops so I ended up getting iPhone half way through the process of getting Instinct replaced. I will still give it to Sprint that they have the best phone replacement policy among all US carriers because if it happened to my iPhone, I will be going to local Apple store to fix it under their 1 year warranty and not AT&T (which I don't like much anyways). If I drop and damage my iPhone, I will be SOL (actually Apple might repair it for an out of warranty fee as long as it is not liquid damage or beyond repair). Or I might go with the Squaretrade iPhone warranty (which one should be able to get on Instinct phone or anything else as well!)

Details of Per Incident Service and Repair Pricing on Sprint phones

Here are the details of latest per incident service and repair pricing of Sprint phones:

"If you have insurance on the line you may make a claim with the insurance which would cost $50.00 for the replacement phone through Asurion (which is the insurnace company).

We also have a Per Incident Insurance for customers that do not have the Total Equipment Protection plan on their phone line.

This became effective 7-20-08

The New Per Incident Pricing is applicable for all Service & Repair In store, Self-Service, and Advance Exchange repairs and replacements.

Repairs and Replacements due to Mechanical/Electrical Failure or Normal Wear and Tear
- Non-PDA devices and Mobile Broadband Cards $35.00
- PDA devices $55.00

Repairs or Replacements due to Physical Damage
- Non-PDA devices and Mobile Broadband Cards $99.00
- PDA devices $119.00

These items are ALWAYS considered Physical Damage
- Cracked/Broken Housing
- Cracked/Seperated Flip/Hinge Assemble
- Cracked/Bleeding LCD
- Cracked/Broken Lenses
- Broken/Bent Port/Pins

These service will be completed at no charge to the customer:
- Device Unlock/Reset
- Phonebook Swap
- Software Customization
**Excludes antenna replacement.

I hope this helps. Whatever store you went to should have informed you of these options as well, you may want to go back and mention this to them.

Brittany Smith
Sprint e-Care "

I didn't know about this pricing until a couple of days ago. I had to recently get my Instinct phone replaced at Sprint's local corporate repair center and they were first asking the full price ($449.. I think) and then $119 and then finally after arguing with them that there was no damage (touch screen sensor failure - should be considered electronics failure within 1 year warranty) they said as a courtsey they would replace it for $55+tax. If I had known about the policy/rates above, I would have asked them to do it for the "Non-PDA devices and Mobile Broadband Cards $35.00" rate because Sprint clearly says that Instinct is not a PDA and is not even listed on their website among PDA phones :-)

Streaming media on Sprint Instinct using Orb

CAUTION: I am not sure how secure Orb is so make sure that you have at least some firewall or router on your network and your PC is not directly connected to the internet.

Here are the steps to stream media on your Sprint Instinct phone using Orb:

• Download Orb on your PC from here and install it.
• On your PC, start Orb (something like Start->All Programs->Orb Networks->Orb->Orb).
• If it goes to the task bar on the bottom right, right click on the icon that says "Orb" and select "Configuration".
• Follow the setup as shown in these screen images

(click on image to view larger)

• Then login to the Orb website at https://mycast.orb.com/orb/html/index.html
• If you have iTunes installed and Podcasts setup, you will be able to see them on the Orb website. Any other music and video files in the the folders added to Orb (see screen image above) will also be listed on Orb's website.

(click on image to view larger)

• You can even add other online streaming media that normally doesn't play on Sprint Instinct directly to re-stream through Orb custom channels. You will then be able to play this media on your Instinct phone!


• The screen print below shows you how to create custom channels in Orb and add streaming media links/URL's (from sites such as http://www.channelchooser.com/mobile.php) that can be played on your Instinct phone.

(click on image to view larger)

• Now from your Sprint Instinct phone, login to Orb's website at https://mycast.orb.com/ and select the checkboxes to remember login and autologin.
• Once you are logged in, click on Settings and then from the Streaming formats, select the 3GP-AAC/RTSP format (.3gp). This is important for playing on Instinct's player.
• You can try different streaming speeds or leave it to default for now.
• You can now go back to Orb's mycast home page on your Instinct (https://mycast.orb.com/) and click on any media that is available to play it. It will open up in Instinct's player and will look like the same player that plays Instinct's TV app.

Another Instinct update post at Sprint's developer forum

UPDATE: Based on this post at baw forums, the browser update on 9/17 looks to be real. Here are the details:

"MR-3 is the browser fix. It's on 9-17, unless something changes. :-) Java fix is not ready yet, although Samsung / Sprint are developing it. That is all I know for sure. I do not know when it'll be ready or launched.

Will England

Buzz About Wireless Admin

Sprint Nextel "

Another confirmation:

"That's the official word - for real. I got it in my email at 4:30 PM; unfortunately I was playing POETS day (power off early, tomorrow's Saturday) and missed it till this morning.

Sweet! Can't wait to see what the browser fix does.

Will England
Buzz About Wireless Admin
Sprint Nextel "

(Click on image to view larger)

Another post showed up at Sprint's developer forum late Friday evening promising what seem to be "unbelievable" improvements in Sprint Instinct's browser. It is difficult to guess if it is a genuine message from Sprint or another attempt by someone with unauthorized access.

While the post tries to look very genuine, there are some things that stand out:

• Posted late Friday evening (around the time most employees are ready to head home for the weekend)
• Use of "subject to change with no notice" instead of commonly used "subject to change without notice"
• Use of "brings an 10x improvement to rendering speed" - Generally, the companies are not so specific in any public statements to say "10x improvement" which seems somewhat on the far-fetched side considering the current browser performance.

We will have to wait until Monday to find out for sure if this is indeed a genuine message from Sprint and if so, why wasn't it posted in a more public forum at Sprint's buzzaboutwireless forum where Sprint's forum administrator had said this earlier on the same day (he did indicate some kind of update but not so specific like the developer forum post):

"Nope - especially if I post rumors, innuendo, hearsay or other non-substatiated facts. When I post something it is to the best of my knowledge complete, correct and accurate. If I hose up and get something wrong, I'll follow up with that.

I can say there is an update planned, but I don't have a list of what is in it, nor do I have the timeframe for the release. Once that is firmed up and final, it'll be out here.

Will England
Buzz About Wireless Admin
Sprint Nextel

However, there are some screen images here and here that seem real.

ZDNet - Review of Samsung Omnia

ZDNet has a nice review of Samsung Omnia phone. Some of its features that aren't even in the iPhone include the ability to rotate in three directions in all apps, tethering, 5 MP camera with video recording, flash and image stabilization, ability to download podcasts wirelessly, FM radio, Microsoft office mobile support, copy and paste, turn-by-turn navigation, haptic feedback.

Don't forget to check out the photo gallery here.

Google's Android phone - HTC Dream to launch on October 13th?

According to several websites, some leaked documents indicate the official launch date of HTC Dream (T-Mobile G1) is likely to be October 13th and T-Mobile will start taking pre-orders from existing customers on October, 17th. It is likely to cost $199 after instant rebate and a new 2-year contract. There will probably be two unlimited data plans ($35 per month that includes unlimited data and text messaging and $25 per month that includes unlimited data and 400 text messages).

AT&T iPhone Data Outage today

It seems that there is widespread data outage affecting iPhone users (and users of other AT&T phones). According to this post in Apple forums:

"There are multiple reports of a widespread AT&T data outage affecting both 3G and EDGE networks. Phones show as connected to 3G or EDGE, but cannot access data. Voice, visual voicemail, and SMS are unaffected.

Reports so far from Boston, DC, Chicago, St. Louis, etc., but given the time difference it's possible that other parts of the country are affected as well. A call to AT&T support confirmed the outage as 'affecting many cities'. A few reports in the Apple Discussions so far, more on AT&T's forum, and at least one blogger's confirmation picked up by Google."

An AP report confirms that:

"AT&T Inc.'s wireless data network was down Wednesday morning in parts of the eastern U.S., according to user reports and the company. AT&T spokesman Michael Coe said the company was looking into the problem, but could not describe its extent."

UPDATE: AT&T says that the problem was caused by routing issues and was fixed by noon.

Do you like this blog? Here are some blog stats

What started as a way for me to bookmark the websites to use on my Sprint Instinct phone's browser has become a popular blog among Samsung Instinct users. So here are some blog stats (as reported by Google) since its inception about 2 months ago.

I was surprised to find that there were some visitors from South Korea (home of Samsung)!

(click on image to view larger)

Suggestion to Sprint

A suggestion to Sprint was posted here. Copy and paste follows:

"A large number of Sprint Instinct users are upset about the poor performance of included browser and also about the browser crash on a number of popular websites. However, most of these users are hopeful. Hopeful because of Instinct's "supposed" Java MIDP 2.0 compliance which could potentially allow these users to run Opera Mini 4.1 browser on their Instinct phone. This is a lightweight browser that runs even on the most basic handsets that support Java but isn't usable on Instinct because of a missing hardware keyboard and missing virtual keyboard implementation.

Suggestion to Sprint

1. Set up a conference call with Opera this week.
2. Tell them that Sprint is interested in a custom/OEM version of Opera Mini 4.1 for their popular Instinct phone.
3. Ask Opera to create a custom version of Opera Mini for Instinct that supports Instinct's SIWL (Sprint Instinct Widget Library) keyboard.
4. Work with Opera to make sure that this browser is delivered as soon as possible (a simple download of .jad/.jar installers from Opera's website will work while OTA delivery options are thought out).
5. Happy Instinct customers!

Benefits to Sprint

1. Happy customers!
2. Increased Instinct sales!
3. Reduced network traffic (Opera Mini compresses web pages significantly) and better network utilization!
4. Improved customer retention!

So why wouldn't Sprint do this???"

Sprint Instinct LCDUI - Current Status

LCDUI - official update from Sprint ADP

"wengla02

Sprint Administrator

Posts: 1216

Registered: 11-21-2006
Message 1 of 28 Viewed 587 times

1: There was an email posting claiming to have a fix by Sep 1, which is incorrect. We apologize for any confusion this has caused (and the reason why we removed that thread)

2: We are working with Samsung for a solution to enable LCDUI. Our timelines to deliver the solution are based on two criteria:

A: having to minimalize the size of the software updates we can do, as they are being done over the air

B: as the existing VM does not support touch mappings for LCDUI, how to come up with a solution to support LCDUI

We provide these forums as an avenue for developers and users to provide constructive dialogue and feedback. We will continue to provide updates (including timeframes and scope of functionality being supported) as we have more information to pass along.

Thanks

Sprint ADP

Origninal Post at ADP
Will England

Buzz About Wireless Admin

Sprint Nextel"

UPDATE: The screen print below (as of 9:25pm Central) seems to indicate that someone other than a Sprint representative might still have access to update their developer forum:

(Click on the image to view larger)

Sprint Instinct LCDUI (Java keyboard?) update Today?

According to this post in Sprint Developer forum:


"nathan_sprint_adp
Rank :User
Posts:225
Overall Rating:9

Subject:LCDUI Update
Date:2008-08-20 at 03:26 PM CDT

Want to give an update on getting LCDUI support in the Samsung Instinct handset. We will have an Update END OF DAY SEPTEMBER FIRST! :)

Thanks
Sprint ADP Team"

This seems to have been updated recently as the same post had a different message earlier. I am not sure if they have an update on the status or an actual update of the Java software implementation. Maybe this petition thread made them work extra hard in the past few days!

UPDATE: Apparently this was the work of a non-Sprint/unauthorized user who might have gained access to a Sprint developer's account.