Our friends over at 1800PocketPC.com put together a neat video showing the today screen through the variations of Windows Mobile. It’s pretty laughable how long it takes to get to where we finally are with 6.5. Hopefully it’s a sign that the ball has finally started to roll. Late, yes, but at least it’s moving.

 Yesterday’s announcement that the Tilt 2 would be shipping without a 3.5mm jack started a firestorm of comments. We need some order around here so let’s put it to a poll. This is a personal preference for some and for others it’s clearly a necessity. Feel free to continue the comments here. So…jump in the polling here at Fuze Mobility

Well it’s officially Super Tuesday so 6.5 is live so why not celebrate by making a custom theme? Microsoft has set up a simple site to choose your colors, choose or upload your wallpaper and then get a link to your theme to install. They only list Pure and Imagio as supported phones which are both WVGA phones so at a minimum it supports WVGA phones and I presume other resolutions will work just fine except the wallpaper may not size right (or you can just manually set a wallpaper:)).

If you want more sophisticated themes just cut to the chase and go to Mobile Matt’s site (check out the new TP2 FuzeBerry 3 theme!)…sorry but MS can’t compete with that:)

Nice find hrhnick.

We’ve talked about a penny dock in the past but this version is a little more sophisticated. The Mobile Spoon had a nice posting on how to make a dock from paper for some other phone…I can’t remember what they call it:) Anyway, I figured why not give it a go and see how my phones look in it. Oh but I didn’t have any fancy paper so I just used a cereal box (I know, I went all out:)). And the results? Dang thing holds my phone.

There’s a slit in the back that a USB cable would go through to connect to your PC by the way.

Want to see it with some more phones? Let’s try a Tilt, HD and BlackJack:

So a few notes. First off, if you’re using a thinner/lighter phone (let’s says like the Pure) then this will work just fine for you. If you’re going to go with a thicker/heavier phone then you should consider a heavier stock paper (maybe those big FedEx envelopes- those things are great) or simply making the ‘lip’ that holds the phone a little wider. It stays on now, even with the Tilt, but I’m not sure how long the cereal box will hold the mass of the Tilt:) You can also consider using the larger paper sizes instead of 8.5 x 11 so it’s a larger dock and thus sturdier. It’s really very simple, but you should probably use a straight edge and a ruler if you care about how it looks. I printed out the template on regular paper and just traced it onto the box and then cut – easy enough and it takes less than 5 minutes. But if you really want it to look good I suggest asking your wife for help:)

The template (and video) for A4 (large) paper is here and the template for US 8.5 x 11 paper is here. Good luck with it

Marketplace officially goes live tomorrow (even though it’s live today) but Chainfire tested out the security and to his surprise it took a mere 5 minutes to bypass the copyright security, thus letting him exchange ‘secure’ apps with anyone.  He has not shared the method (which we would not share if it were disclosed) but he stated the following:

What it all comes down to is that there is no copy protection, not even at the advanced level, at least if they implement it in the way I interpret from reading that document.
So today I started up Marketplace and it worked. Hurrah. The current level of protection is making sure the CAB files are deleted upon install – which is obviously not a way to protect anything – but even this, I thought, should easily be circumventable.
Now, because I wanted to see how fast it could be done, I went with a hunch instead of doing any investigation. And that hunch worked like charm. It took me less than five minutes to circumvent this "protection", and get the ability to save the CABs the MarketPlace app downloads to a different folder. As the CAB file is the same for every downloader, you could just give this CAB you paid for out to all your friends.
Obviously I will not disclose the method, because that would be working against other commercial developers, and ultimately myself. It’s just to let you know how ridiculously easy it is, and to give fair warning to those looking to sell apps on the Marketplace.
So, the moral of the story is… WTF MICROSOFT?
I know firsthand there is no such thing as perfect copy protection, but this is just plain ridiculous.
What we really need is for apps to be able to use our own copy protection schemes… you know, like the good web-based app stores out there.

We’ll all see where this goes together…

Want to look at more pics and specs of the Tilt 2? Well AT&T is ready to let you take a good look. Just head here to their business site. It’s a full page of specs, overview and features. Nothing new here but it’s nice to see it all shiny and put together:)

They say a picture is worth a thousand words so take a look. On the left is the Tilt 2 and on the right is the Verizon Touch Pro 2. You can see the difference in layout of the USB module at the bottom with the AT&T version only have a single USB jack whereas Verizon has both jacks side by side. Sorry folks, but it appears to be solo.

[Insert rant here]

For those of you who read Ramon’s Pure review you may have noticed he mentioned that Marketplace was live when he opened it. Other 6.5 phones are getting an error message that they cannot connect after downloading an update to Marketplace but the Pure is loading Marketplace. Again, here are some photos to show it off.

Well AT&T has really been the gift that keeps giving lately. As you all know we’ve been hanging out in their stores just trying to see what they’ll sell us and another gift was handed to us today. This time the lcd ads displayed in the store were spotted showing the inserted pic (which we’ve put along side a stock Omnia 2 photo so you can see the metal bezel and buttons on the side).  We know back in July the Omnia 2 passed the FCC with US 3G bands (which was formerly dismissed since that was thought to be a Latin American tag) but based on the shape, size and button layout it appears to be in the flesh right there in their store. To give you some reminders, here are the specs on the Omnia 2 from Samsung’s website (note the AMOLED screen:)) from the Euro version (so ignore the bands):

They’re missing some specs that are included like accelerometer, proximity sensor, DLNA technology and 800mhz Samsung CPU.

If you want to get a sense as to how the interface works just head over to Samsung’s site since they’ve provided a nice web based emulator. 

I want to note that the picture eerily matches the AT&T Rogue particularly in terms of the name placement but that device does not run WM so that’s why it was ruled out. Aesthetically a lot of Samsung’s phones look the same and that’s why it’s so hard to narrow it down (there could be a keyboard under there even). What are your thoughts – is this the Omnia 2 or is there another explanation?

As we’ve been telling you for a few days now, TODAY is the official launch of the AT&T Pure. Yup, this is the first WM 6.5 phone available for sale and it’s even before Super Tuesday. Need proof? Ramon just walked into a store and bought one…just like that:)

And here’s some pics he took to share with the world:

Make sure you compare cell phones before buying, just because a new device is getting a lot of attention in the media does not mean it is right for you.