Yelp 1.0 on the Palm Pre.
(Credit: Yelp)
Yelp has been pushing hard to make its presence on smartphones known. In the last seven days, it has released a major upgrade to its iPhone application and has debuted native versions of Yelp for BlackBerry and the Palm Pre (Palm …
Originally posted at The Download Blog
Green is good. Red is bad.
(Credit: Google)
We’ve established that Google knows quite a bit about you, and sometimes that’s a good thing. Especially when Google plows some of that information back into new features.
Yesterday, my colleague Tom Krazit explored a new feature that’s part …
Originally posted at The Download Blog
A chief rival to Opera Mobile in the cell phone browser space, Skyfire has released a new version for Windows Mobile (touchscreen | non-touchscreen) and Nokia’s Symbian-run E or N series phones. Version 1.1 makes some minor, but still welcome, improvements to navigation and performance.
My favorite is that …
Originally posted at The Download Blog
(Credit: Corinne Schulze/CNET)On Tuesday afternoon, AT&T will release a software update for the RIM BlackBerry Bold that will bring several enhancements to the smartphone. Such improvements include the ability to manually choose between a 2G or 3G connection and added support for AT&T’s visual voicemail …
Originally posted at Crave
If your office has given you a BlackBerry for work purposes, you may soon be accessing your Google Apps Gmail, calendar, and contacts via the BlackBerry Enterprise Server.
On Friday, Google announced that some functionality in Google Apps, its suite of premium enterprise-level applications, will now give company-issued BlackBerrys some …
Originally posted at Webware
The last peep we heard about Fennec was in late June, when Mozilla updated its mobile edition of the Firefox browser for Windows Mobile phones. This week, the Firefox browser maker has released an updated version for the platform powering Nokia N800 and N810 Internet Tablets: Fennec 1.0 Beta 3. (…
Originally posted at The Download Blog
Google image search is no longer restricted to iPhone and Android phones.
(Credit: Screenshot by Jessica Dolcourt/CNET)
Last March, Google’s mobile team made it possible to search for images on your iPhone and Android phone. On Thursday, they rolled out image search for feature phones; that is, for
…
Originally posted at Webware
Finally, a polished Web gateway to the BlackBerry App World.
(Credit: Screenshot by Jessica Dolcourt/CNET)
No matter how much you enjoy perusing BlackBerry apps with your device in-hand, it’s a likely bet you’d rather browse on the big screen when you’re sitting in front of your …
Originally posted at The Download Blog
This week, Vlingo, makers of a freemium mobile voice prompt application for BlackBerry and iPhone, released versions of its Vlingo software for the BlackBerry Curve 8520 and Tour.
With it, Curve and Tour owners can join their BlackBerry brethren in searching the Web, launching applications, and dialing with their voice. …
Originally posted at The Download Blog
At the end of July, a small start up called 3jam introduced a virtual phone service that takes on Google Voice. While each is a beta-phase call-forwarding service, it became clear after dozens of calls, text messages, and voice mails, that there are important differences between the two, both on paper and in real-world testing.
First, 3jam’s public beta is broadly available to all takers. Google’s, on the other hand, is in invitation-only closed beta. 3jam’s costs an extra $5 a month to use (for a 12 month contract), and that’s not including a premium SMS plan for those wishing to surpass the monthly 40 U.S. domestic text message limit. However, it can port your cell phone number and has an emphasis on group communications, which we’ll talk about later on. Google Voice, on the other hand, won’t yet let you hang onto your cell phone number, which means friends will need to call some new digits, but it is currently free for domestic calls (international call and texting rates will still apply).
It’s spelled out here in this inexhaustive features comparison chart.
| FEATURES | GOOGLE VOICE |
3JAM |
| Beta | Closed, invite-only; U.S. | Open; International |
| Cost |
Free |
$5/month and up |
| Keep cell number | Not yet | Yes |
|
Call forwarding |
Cell phones, land line, Gizmo VoIP | Cell phones, land line, one VoIP client |
| Call screening, blocking, recording, listening to a live voice mail | Yes | No |
| Customized voice mail greetings | Multiple |
One |
| Initiate a cell call from the computer | Yes | No |
| Initiate SMS from the computer |
Yes |
Yes |
| Visual voice mail | Machine-transcribed | Machine-transcribed |
|
Voice mail playback |
Phone, Web, e-mail file | Phone, Web, e-mail file |
| Free SMS | Unlimited domestic | Domestic: First 40 per month |
| Group SMS | No | Yes |
| Multiple phone lines per account | No |
Yes |
Does 3jam’s group advantage justify the cost? Should users hold out for Google Voice?
For its part, Google Voice, which grew out of the acquisition of Grand Central, offers casual users the stronger feature set of the two, with more sophisticated calling tricks–call screening, call blocking, and listening in on a voice mail as it’s being recorded. Like the visual voice mail service YouMail, it will also let you record personalized voice mail messages, but it’s geared toward groups rather than individuals.
…
Originally posted at The Download Blog