FreshPhoneNews.com

Microsoft’s recent announcement of bringing native Office support to Nokia handsets was good to hear. But in all truth, considering that there are some pretty great third-party solutions for S60 out there, it wasn’t the news piece to end all news pieces. But now Microsoft has come up with an exciting tidbit; confirmed support for mobile browsers. In the words of Redmond;

Yes, mobile browsers will be supported for Office Web applications. We are still in early phases of development and will share additional details around specific browsers and functionality at a later date.

Office Web App support for mobile browsers has been a dream for smartphone users and now we finally get to see it happen. Sure there was Google Docs, but it was usable on a few platforms and the functionality was sadly limited. So yeah, this is a ‘yay!’ moment.

via

In what seems like the strangest bit of WinMo news yet, DigiTimes has written an article claiming that Microsoft will have a two pronged strategy for the launch of Windows Mobile 7 instead of the anticipated single pronged one. According to the article, Microsoft will launch Windows Mobile 6.5 in early 2010 and later towards Q4 of 2010 will come Windows Mobile 7. But the WinMo 6.5 devices won’t be replaced; instead, Microsoft is planning on pitching Windows Mobile 6.5 as a budget OS that will compete with Android, while Windows Mobile 7 will be a high-end OS that will compete with the iPhone. So basically Redmond is going to keep both OS running on devices in the market. It’s not impossible, but would it really be a good idea, considering how much of an effort has gone into making Windows Mobile what it is today, for two versions to be in the market?

via

In a recent Microsoft and Nokia press conference, many were expecting an announcement about a possible Windows 7 Internet Tablet or maybe even a Windows Mobile powered Nokia phone. Yeah no such luck, what the two giants did announce was the introduction of Microsoft Office on Nokia handsets. As you know, currently only WinMo handsets have MS Office support while other platforms are dependent on third-party software. This partnership, however, will put the world’s most popular and widely used document editing software on the world’s most popular handset manufacturer. This isn’t the first of Microsoft’s expansion onto other platforms, Apple’s Mac has just gotten some love from Redmond and it may be a safe bet to assume that the iPhone may be getting a piece of the pie too.

via

Alright folks, time to take your magic marker and put a big circle around September 15. According to a leaked Best Buy pre-order flyer, the mid of September is when you get your beloved Zune HD. For those looking to make faces at the iPod Touch crowd with something, you have a partner. We already have a guess at the pricing, and we’re pretty sure that if Redmond wants to keep the Zune ball rolling, it will stick under-pricing the iPod Touch.

via

Great thing about the XDA-developers forum is that they never give up, no matter how hard manufacturers may try, they are relentless. Thanks to an xda-forum member zenulator we have a look at the possible. Zenulator got hold of the HTC Hero Sense UI and stuffed it neatly into an HTC Vogue-compatible package. Now the Vogue, also known as the HTC Touch is an outdated handset, but still it gives us hope; the Sense UI may come to more handsets…even jailbroken. Here’s the link to video, but please don’t waste your life by installing the Sense UI just yet.

via

Ah…Windows Mobile…we shall miss thee. What you see in the image above is the final version of the Windows Mobile platform, as it is readying for public release. Only now it has a new name; Windows Phone. That’s what Microsoft has shared with the good people at The Inquirer, along with the Windows Phone of course. The handset shows off features like the Zune-ish UI, Marketplace for Windows Phone, the free My Phone sync service, Microsoft Tag, etc, etc. Also, let it be known once and for all that the Windows Mobile 6.5 name is history; “We don’t even refer to the operating system because it’s part of the whole long term strategy of releases coming out.” Oooh…I can just feel the authority.

Alright Windows Mobile developers, your day has come at last. Todd Brix, Senior Director for Mobile Platform Services Product Management at Microsoft made the announcement that the company will begin accepting app submissions in 29 supported countries as of July 27th. Brix also told everyone Microsoft is well on schedule to launch “Windows Marketplace for Mobile” this fall along with Windows Mobile 6.5. Current users don’t need to lose their cool, since the Marketplace will be available for WinMo 6.0 and 6.1 before the year is over. Finally WinMo users have something to be excited about.

via

Good news for all you HTC Snap or HTC Ozone owners, you may well be looking at an official upgrade to Windows Mobile 6.5 in the near future. Sprint hosts the HTC Snap while Verizon is offering the HTC Ozone. The information about the upgrade came from documents that got published on the Bluetooth Special Interest Group’s website, a Windows Mobile 6.5 variant of the HTC Cedar, codename for the CDMA Snap, has received regulatory approval. Apart from the CDEA100 moniker and the WM6.5 designation, there weren’t any further details. The release of Windows Mobile 6.5 is nearing, so it’s a sane hope that HTC, along with Sprint and Verizon, will give early adopter this much deserved break.

via

Are you sick and tires of pushing buttons on the same old media player? Are the newest, latest upcoming phones coming with dedicated players? Is freedom what you crave? Well then get excited about the Microsoft HD Zune. The device is way loaded and the features are definitely eye catching to say the least. It boasts of. 3.3-inch 480 x 272 OLED capacitive touchscreen display, built-in HD Radio receiver, HD output (requires an optional dock), Wi-Fi, integrated web browser, multitouch support and Xbox LIVE integration and as of latest received intelligence, the device will also pack NVIDIA’s Tegra processor. A Gizmodo regular reports along the lines that Microsoft is looking to offer the device with 16 GB and 32 GB options. Release may be sometime around September 8 and with all the excitement we’re fortunate to have a launch date especially for those early birds and dare devil go getter types who like to shop early for the holidays.

via

I think the age of seeing an actual Terminator type robot roaming the streets is pretty close by because people have been cruel enough to create “the Phone Creeper”. This is a new application built to take over your WinMo powered Handset. The application, closely resembling the qualities of spyware was created by xda-developer member chetstriker and will do the unthinkable to WinMo 5, 6.1 or 6.5 handsets having .NET CF 3.5. At present the software is distributed as a cab file, i.e. it requires acceptance from the user to install. Once installed, it wreaks havoc, and if we know how fast these little buggers develop into monsters, I don’t think the time is far when it won’t bother to ask if you want to install it or not. The Phone Creep can

• secretly and remotely read incoming / outgoing SMS
• secretly and remotely delete incoming / outgoing SMS
• secretly and remotely view call history
• bounce SMS messages off remote phone to someone else
• create a pop-up message on phone
• send a secret fart sound
• secretly and remotely listen to person – (Initiates silent call back of person to your phone with their speaker phone enabled)
• send listening in call to somebody else’s phone
• remote wipe of installed flash card

The control commands are sent through remote SMS from other any other handset to the infected device. The worst thing is that it has no interface and does not appear in the task manager. So why create such a cruel thing? Could it be that chetstriker is actually a single parent to teenagers and wants to control his/her kids better? Keep them off drugs and stuff? Hard to say, but this is one thing you don’t want crawling around in your handset. After all this cruelty, I think I would welcome a killer robot. Who wants to live when your cell phone isn’t personal anymore?