Mobility Digest » Diamond II

Windows Mobile Interview: XDA TV Throwback Episode

Albert Bunn — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 01:40:57 +0000

Hey there, it’s Albert again. I haven’t posted an entry in a little bit because I’ve been pretty busy lately, but I thought I’d like to write again and shed some light on a spectacular YouTube video I watched around a week ago. For some of you that haven’t been there, one of the only other blogs beside Mobility Digest (that I know of anyway) that posts anything about Windows Mobile 6 anymore is XDA DEVELOPERS, and the other day I saw something on their YouTube channel that really caught my eye: They did sort of an interview between “Azrienoch” and “CajunFlavoredBob”. They talked a little bit about how “CajunFlavoredBob” got into Windows Mobile (and later their forum) and his past devices and his current HD2 and why he liked Windows Mobile and continues to use it to this very day. The almost eight minute video features interesting nuggets of information starting with where the name “XDA DEVELOPERS” came from – which led them into exposing to the world that British people have cell phones, and that one of those foreign carriers got one of HTC’s devices custom branded as the “XDA”. He shared about his first phone device, the HTC “Wallaby” and really nailed exactly what I thought about how the market has changed: We’re moving into higher end, yet more disposable devices. If I’m not mistaken, the launch cost of the Samsung i700 was in the $600 neighborhood, and you can get powerful smartphones today on contract for next to nothing which seems to be really hurting the industry to me. What this does is it screws up the value of everything – any mobile handheld now depreciates faster than video games pertaining to sports.

Anyway, “Bob” goes on to tell us about some more evolutionary HTC Windows Mobile handhelds which included the well known Blue Angel, the original HTC Touch, the Titan, Touch Pro, and the Touch Pro 2. He went into a little more detail on his Touch Pro 2 and held it up beside the Wizard to demonstrate how deep HTC’s “Sense/Manila” made it into the system before Microsoft screwed over the Windows Mobile userbase. From there, they moved on to talking about how (little) the messaging program changed over the years and how our messaging habits as a culture have evolved before he kind of got ready to wrap up the video.

Toward the end, he shared how he had tried Android on his HD2, but it just didn’t “feel” the same to him, and while he said he was learning, Windows Mobile is still his “Daily Driver”. After this part, they add in a random clip of their weird girl and she told her HD2 story (ironically, she basically just ranted about why she didn’t like it), and then “Cajun” comes back and talks a little bit more about holding onto his HD2 for the immediate future since he could still run the “modern” Android platform but also be able to use Windows Mobile which he (and still many of us) are comfortable with. To conclude they shared some “deep” thoughts about how since Windows Mobile 6 had no real successor, it will be tough for many of us to say “goodbye” and admit that the platform is kind of almost “dead”, although it will certainly live on here and on XDA Developers for a very very long time.

::AB

Push Your Buttons

Doug Simmons — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 15:21:30 +0000

My biggest complaint about stepping over to the Fuze from the original Tilt was the loss of all those buttons. I liked those buttons. Damnit. Don’t get me started. Have you heard of AEButton? Well it’s a hard button mapper (hard meaning the buttons you can feel on the phone, not buttons to press on the screen, mapping meaning you can tell that button to do something you specify) that’s been around for a while, and I appreciated having had it. The thing is it hits you with a splash screen on boot which I could do without, on some roms it randomly stops working or only works on some buttons and in recent 6.5.5 builds that I’ve used it doesn’t appear to work at all. Not to mention they’ve got a .ru domain …. j/k! Nothing wrong with that. But still.

Not a problem because my main man tarkim hooked us up with Keyboard Controller. “What is it?” tarkim asks himself rhetorically. “It’s a modified keyboard driver with configurator application for keys setup. Any key (yeah, I mean ANY, including Home and Back keys) can be reassigned to perform any desired actions.” So you can assign the volume up button, for instance, to make the volume go up on a single click like it normally does if you love manipulating the volume frequently, to start up Google Maps on a double click, to fire up your RSS reader on a triple click and the camera on a long press, but for any button on the phone including the mute button on the back of the Tilt 2. That should be enough to cover you for all of the programs you regularly use, otherwise you are what they call a power user. And it doesn’t even drop anything in your StartUp folder. That pleases me.

Its configuration interface ain’t winning any beauty contests but if you can’t figure it out, c’mon man step your game up. This is Windows ~~Mobile~~ Phone baby, you’re in the big leagues now. Here are his threads for the Fuze / Touch Pro, the Tilt 2/ Touch Pro2, and the Pure / Touch Diamond2. Note those are unique threads with unique versions for each phone so I encourage you not to click the wrong link. They should work for all carriers’ versions of each phone, and only each of the phones I listed, GSM and CDMA alike.

Doug Simmons

Comments

HTC Obsession Coming Later This Year As The Diamond 3

Doug Smith — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 19:27:19 +0000

For all you that passed on the AT&T Pure & HTC Diamond 2 will be rewarded when you learn that there is hardware upgraded HTC Obsession coming to T-Mobile and AT&T to be called the Diamond 3. With a 1GHz processor and an upgraded Amoled “multi-touch” 3.7” capacitive screen, the Diamond 3 will be sure to please. It is also mentioned that the Diamond 3 will come out of the box sporting Windows Mobile 7 and not an upgradable WinMo 6.5 version. Check out the specs:

CPU: Qualcomm QSD8250; 1GHz
GSM HSDPA
Device Size: 112 x 56 x 11.7 mm
Memory (RAM/ROM): 512MB/512MB
Internal Storage: 4GB
External Storage: MicroSD (up to 32GB)
Screen Size/Type: 3.7-inch capacitive AMOLED “Multitouch Supported”
Camera: 5.0 Megapixel AF with flash; HD 720p video@ 25fps
Video Support: Windows Media Video (WMV), MPEG-4 (MP4/M4V) H.264, DVR-MS4
Audio Support: Windows Media Audio (WMA), Advanced Audio Coding (AAC-LC), FairPlay DRM, MP3 (.mp3)
Battery: Removable 1230 mAh
Talk Time: Up to 10 hours
Standby Time: 240 hours
Internet Use: 6 hours (3G), 7.5 hours (WiFi)
Video Playback: 7 hours
Audio Playback: 24 hours

According to WMPU, who got the goods on the Diamond 3, it will not be coming in CDMA either. Attributing the absence from entering the CDMA market is based on poor sales of the past Diamond device. The rumor is the Diamond 3 will start shipping in June which means AT&T Customers should see it in October.

We’ll keep you posted on leaked photo’s and more news as we get it so stay tuned.

(read) (Photo)

Xperia Panels Working On The Tilt2 and Pure

David K — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 15:40:20 +0000

Herg hasn’t done anything phenomenal since yesterday so it was time for another treat. This time he was able to get the Xperia Panels to work on the current WVGA line of HTC phones and it is confirmed to be working on the Tilt 2, Touch Pro 2, and the Pure (Diamond 2). If you’ve never used Panels before they’re pretty neat actually and they vary from the very simplistic ‘fish’ theme (poke the fish and watch them swim away) to the more complex screens with calendars, appointments, shortcuts, etc but they are very very highly customizable. The stock Panels work and there’s some limited success with additional Panels. FaceBook, Skype and On The Road did not load but WindowsLive did run. If you want to test additional Panels there’s a great XDA thread located here with lots of them to try out. Additional Panels are spread throughout XDA in the Xperia threads.The Panels cab itself can be found in Herg’s Corner in our forums and is located here. Please also report on working/non-working third party panels in that thread in the forums as well so there is one place to keep all of the information together on this project. If you do want to use the Panels as your primary interface you should probably dedicate a hardware key to launch them.

This is another great project from Herg. This one is worth testing out since it’s multiple user interfaces wrapped into one. Don’t forget to thank Herg for his hard work with some coffee, scotch…hey whatever you give he likes

Your Zoom Bar Is Your Friend

David K — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 05:16:28 +0000

For those of you using a Tilt 2/Touch Pro 2 or a Pure/Diamond 2 you’ve probably been pretty disappointed with the space HTC wasted on a ‘zoom bar’ that’s functional in only a few apps. In fact, in our review of the Tilt 2 we noted “HTC has provided a zoom bar that allows you to zoom in/out on select applications. I don’t find this particularly useful or well implemented. I would have preferred to see a trackwheel or touch sensitive dpad instead.” I doubt many would argue with that. So what if that zoom bar were a scroll bar? So lets say you were in the programs directory and it was useful in scrolling to the next app? Maybe in TF3D you would be able to scroll through emails, music albums, favorite contacts and scroll through photos? And when you view a photo it’s original ‘zoom’ function remains in tact. Pretty cool, right? Well XDA mod joshkoss provided the files which dotcompt has turned into a cab that does exactly that. There’s one down side to it – without an ‘ok’ or ‘enter’ button then you can scroll but you still need to eventually tap the screen to trigger the action, so scrolling through a programs list is neat but not practical since you can’t start the app. Scrolling pics and emails is functional though and actually pretty appreciated. It does not work on every screen (like in the stock Windows inbox). One trip across the zoom bar equals two items moves (so scrolling from 1st to 3rd email) but you can stop half way through to move one item.

The complete XDA thread is here. After installing the cab you must soft reset for it to take effect. I can confirm it works on the Pure.

More Pure News

David K — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 01:13:24 +0000

You asked for it so here it is. More pics and more info on the Pure. First off, 100% it is WM 6.5. Also, 100% it does not have a 3.5mm jack and it comes with the USB dongle we all know. Talk time is noted at 5 hours and 15 days of standby time. Compare that to the Fuze’s 8 hours of talk and 17 days of standby. It’s an improvement over the Tilt’s 4 hours of talk and 8 days of standby though. It’s running TF3D 2.1 (not 2.5).

Now let’s get speculative here – we have 4 sources all indicating an October 4th launch. Yes, totally inconsistent with the October 6 super 6.5 launch day but absolutely consistent with AT&T’s launch day (which is Sunday and the same day the Nuvifone is being released). I called a few local stores as well and were told that they had some in store but couldn’t sell them or that they would have them tomorrow in the store (so expect me to try to nab one tomorrow;)).

Here are two more pics to show you the box and the lack of a 3.5mm jack.

Anyone else want to jump onto the October 4th bandwagon with us?

AT&T Pure Handled

David K — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 18:46:18 +0000

We can confirm that AT&T stores are getting some AT&T Pure’s (Diamond 2) in stores. In fact, we have some photos to prove it. Ooohhhh so pretty:)

Does this mean it’s an October 6th launch? We’re working on it but we sure hope so.

Tilt 2 and Pure Appear On AT&T’s Site!

David K — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 05:17:59 +0000

I must admit that I regularly search AT&T’s site for any clues that the Tilt 2 or Pure really exist and today I smiled. A search result yielded the updated No Worry Protection Program updated as of October 1 which show that the Tilt 2 will have a $125 deduction and the Pure will have a $50 deduction. Ok, so it’s not release date information but it is verifiable proof for the general public to see that both phones are loaded in their systems. Now let’s just see when we can actually get our hands on these…

AT&T Tilt 2 and Pure Priced

David K — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 15:36:49 +0000

We first told you about the Pure being loaded just hours ago and BGR is now suggesting pricing for it and the Tilt 2. The Tilt 2 will be $300 after rebate ($500 without a new contract) with the Pure going for ~~$200~~ $150 after rebate ($350 without a new contract). The pricing of the Tilt 2 is in line with other carriers but I have to admit it makes the Pure a little more attractive. What do you think?

UPDATE: The Pure is just $150 after rebate! Wow

AT&T Diamond 2 a/k/a Pure Loaded Into AT&T’s System

David K — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 04:56:52 +0000

Just the other day we revealed that the Tilt 2 was in AT&T’s system and now we come bearing more good news. The Diamond 2 has been loaded into AT&T’s system as well under the name Pure. There’s been lots of speculation over the name Pure and whether that would be the Diamond 2 or another HTC device (possibly the Snap or even an Android device). However, the model number on AT&T’s system matches what was found inside the leaked AT&T Diamond 2 ROM. Obviously, the fact that AT&T had a built ROM for the Diamond 2 is a good enough indication that it is coming to AT&T but this should advance that theory one step further. I guess the real question is if the Diamond 2 will be released before the Tilt 2 Of course, this causes a big dilemma – which to buy?