'Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) is apparently looking to integrate Windows Mobile more tightly with the Windows computing experience. The newly available Exchange Server 2010 beta has shed some light on an upcoming Windows Mobile 6.5 feature - the ability to synchronize and archive all SMS text messages on the Exchange Server! Never again will you have to worry about losing important text messages or having to scroll through endless text-convos just to find a phone number.'

The idea of being able to backup your text messages has been a very popular request I have seen throughout the years but I it makes me uneasy to think that any SMS messages that were coming into my Windows Mobile handset were being backed up on an Exchange server somewhere. Email, contacts, calendar appointments and tasks are one thing since I purposely use Exchange to route that information between the cloud, my device, and my various computers. My text messages however have nothing to do with Exchange and it is my own personal feeling that they never should. Any information that was ever of value that was sent to me via SMS - such as a phone number, appointment, or address - was something that I would take the time to put in the appropriate program that managed that information. If I did lose a text message it wasn't that hard to ask the sender to pound out another 160 characters so I could have that message again. Am I the only one bothered by this new upcoming feature? This also brings up another interesting question I have been thinking about for a while now – how much syncing is too much syncing?

'Spb Software, a leading maker of mobile software, releases Spb Mobile Shell 3.0, the next-generation user interface for Windows phones. According to Handango Yardstick, Spb Mobile Shell was the world's number one bestselling application of 2008 among all mobile platforms. Spb Mobile Shell 3.0 accounts for two different smartphone use scenarios: at work and at play. The application offers distinctive 'professional' and 'lifestyle' desktops, integration of picture contacts with Facebook, account-sensitive email indicators, handsome time and weather screens, widgets, responsive kinetic scrolling, signature 3D animation engine, and other appealing assets that change the way a Windows phone is used altogether.'

Spb Software has released v3.0 of its ever-popular UI for Windows Mobile, and it adds some impressive features such as widgets, Facebook integration, a 3D carousel with hardware acceleration support, and Professional and Lifestyle home screens. Interested in trying or buying? Head over to our affiliate software store. If you're a registered user of v2.x, the upgrade is available at a discounted price of $14.95, or free if you purchased it within the last 90 days.

'We are busy building the next generation features for Mobile Phone Backup. Completely re-engineering backup to make the most of the features offered in Microsoft's new Windows Mobile 6.5 and 7. We would like to invite you to take part in a massive prize contest we're calling the Sprite Backup 7 Feature Hunt. You can win some great prizes...'

The crew over at Sprite Software are busy working on the next version of Sprite Backup, and they're interested in hearing from users of their software about what feature they'd like to see the most in version 7.0 of Sprite Backup. That's it - talk about an easy contest! The contest starts today (April 21st) and goes until May 8th. The prizes? Two winners will get the first prize, which is a Touch HD! Five winners will get the second prize, which is a Bluetooth GPS, and 30 winners will get the third prize, which is an 8GB microSD card. Nice! Winners will be announced on May 15th. Jump on over to their contest page and enter now.

Last week a reader e-mailed me to ask a few specific questions about one of my previous articles. Amid a few comments about switching from Windows Mobile to other platforms, the pitfalls and the advantages, he asked about a feature I'd never really thought about. He wanted to know if there was a way to edit the call log on a Windows phone. Specifically, could he delete missed calls while still retaining calls he wanted in the log. I did a bit of digging and found a few demo applications that could dump the call log records into a database (from which you could edit them, however the original logs on the phone would remain unaffected), and a few suggestions on how to read the database off the phone (Which were way more useful for a developer than an end-user), but no one seemed to have any idea or simple program that would edit the logs directly (If someone knows of one, please share!).

This simple feature isn't something I think is planned for the future of Windows Mobile, and perhaps not something everyone would need. But then again, there are many features of my device I don't particularly need, but would be nice to have. Many of us install third-party applications in order to get these features, but perhaps it would be a good idea to start a 2009 edition list of the 'missing' components to Windows Mobile. What feature, ability, or tweak would you make if you had the ear of the Windows Mobile development team?

'Stephanie Ferguson, GM of Business Experiences at Microsoft's Mobile Communications Business is going to deliver the kick off launch presentation of Windows Mobile 6.5 on Monday, May 11th at 1:00PM – 2:15PM. This TechEd 2009 session focuses on one of the biggest launches in the history of Windows Mobile...'

Start marking your calendars everyone! May 11th is not that far down the road and on that date we will finally get a new release to Windows Mobile! Now the real question is - how long do we have to wait to get our hands on some of these new Windows Mobile 6.5 powered handsets?

'Yet released Toshiba TG01 and proprietary information in accordance with the Techblog, the Toshiba is expected to present two models of the TG series in 2009. The reason for Toshiba TG02 and Toshiba TG03 with touch screen 4.1-inch WVGA and analysis processor 1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon QSD8 × 50. The TG02 has a 3,2 Megapixel camera and is waterproof (!), While the TG03 has 5 Megapixel camera and 5.1-channel sound.'

The only thing I can say is...wow. I'm speechless. Apart from the L01 (which incidentally may run on a fuel-cell battery), all the others are the type of large screen, full featured devices that I've always envisaged as the perfect one for me. I'm further intrigued by the launch windows, which possibly intersects with that of WM7 - that makes the K01 MID doubly interesting with its capacitive screen. Kudos to Techblog for the scoop (translation here)!

'Yesterday I managed to get my hands on a pre-release version of the Diamond2 which I'm going to use to start off my review of the handset. This pre-release unit is final hardware but there will be a few more tweaks to the ROM before the final version goes on sale in the next few days. I've had the Diamond2 for less than 24 hours so far and I have to say that I like what I see. I'm happy that the back is now flat rather than angular like the original Diamond and despite the larger screen, larger battery and the inclusion of the MicroSD card socket HTC have managed to keep the overall size and weight down so that it's not much bigger or heavier than the Diamond and still retains the slim-appeal.'

Salivating over the forthcoming HTC Touch Diamond2? Then you'll enjoy this 18 minute long video that goes into great detail on this new device. I was shocked to see how quickly it booted up - evidently HTC has figured out a fairly major optimization here since it's still Windows Mobile 6.1, not 6.5. All in all, looks like a nice device - especially that screen resolution. Our affiliate partner Expansys is selling the Diamond2, Euro/Asia 3G frequencies, for $574.99 USD.

'But lo and behold, Samsung has stripped the new phone of its Omnia name, reverting back to the old number scheme that we loathe with every fiber of our being have all gotten used to. Thus, the Omnia HD (which just cruised past the FCC) is now the i8910.'

Interesting bit of news - at least it clears up some of the confusion. When news of the i8910 first came out, the Omnia HD moniker led many to believe (including us) that it would run Windows Mobile. That it would run on Symbian instead was a blow, considering the specs (720p video recording and playback, 8MP AF camera). Would this mean that the Omnia brand will continue to be extended? One can hope.

The I Started Something blog has run across a new job posting at MS that indicates Microsoft is getting serious about the Windows Update feature on a mobile device.

'Our goal is to enable customers to anticipate and enjoy a predictable stream of new and improved capabilities for their Windows Phone via a Device Update service that is worry-free and easy-to-use'

It is going to not only have to be as easy and worry free as the iPhone update mechanism, but as powerful as well. Apple has kept the iPhone users that originally purchased the device in 2007 up to date where the hardware allows, and the new 3.0 OS will still work on those original two year old iPhones with only minor limitations in capabilities. Contrast that today with a lot of Windows Mobile 6.1 devices that won't be upgraded to 6.5 due out this fall, giving their owners far less than even one year of having a device with the latest features.

The article indicates this feature won't be on 6.5, which may be true. 6.5 is probably too far along to have any major changes to it before the release date, so it may be 7.0 before we see this implemented.

SyncMate is a new and very simple synchronization tool by Eltima Software. It lets you synchronize Favorites, Contacts, Calendar, Notes in mobile device with their analogues Bookmarks, Address Book, iCal, Stickies on Mac OS. Share Internet, manage text messages and install applications to your device - all of that and much more can be done with SyncMate!

Want to sync folders, bookmarks, iTunes, and iPhoto pics from your Mac to your smartphone or pocket pc? Then today could be your lucky day. The fine folks over at Eltima Software are ready to give away SyncMate Expert licenses to two lucky Thoughts readers. How can you win you ask? Just let us know three features that Syncmate Expert has that are most important to you. You can link to their homepage here and a comparison page here. Then come back and post your three favorite features. The contest will end this Friday, April 17th at midnight PST. We will randomly pick two lucky winners Saturday, April 18th and notify them the same day. Good luck!

The Microsoft My Phone Beta contest is over! The contest was originally for two registration codes for Microsoft's latest mobile Beta program but luckily Jason was able to get a third code from one of his sources so we have three lucky winners to announce today! The triad of winners is rockcnu, jkovacs and leslietroyer. Congratulations to all of the winners! I want to thank everyone that took the time to send us their disaster stories and hopefully within the future we will not have to deal with annoyances like syncing errors.

'Twikini offers a powerful and efficient way to use Twitter on your phone. It conveniently updates your favorite feeds in the background, and leverages the camera, GPS, media, touch screen, keyboard, graphics and storage capabilities of your device.'

It is in public beta right now. It claims to be fast, and first impressions is that it is, something I've found other WinMo Twitter clients aren't at all. In fact, it is so fast, I have just uninstalled one of my other Twitter clients that took forever to launch and refresh the screen and statuses of my friends. It is a paltry 75KB download and works on all Windows Mobile 5 and higher devices, both Standard and Pro.

It has other features like TwitPic integration, post updates on location via GPS, tweet your current song details from WMP and more. Check it out. Did I mention it was fast?

ceSnipURL is a free utility to convert long URLs into short URLs, which comes in handy for sites like Twitter and Facebook where you have a very limited number of characters to update your status. It automatically uses URLs from the clipboard and once converted, puts them back on the clipboard so you can paste them into your app.

I know a lot of Twitter clients for the Windows Mobile already do this, but some of us prefer to use SMS and PIE for our twitter needs, so this allows us a quick way to shorten URLs before posting. I cannot tell from the site if this works on Standard or not. The screenshot is of a Pro (touch-screen) device. If anyone with a Standard device tries this, let us know how it works.

HTC has posted a ROM update for the Touch HD, which, alongside the usual batch of bug fixes, improves the performance of GPS and emergency call connections, and updates the connection setup database. It's a free download, although you will need to provide your serial number in order to gain access to it.

'A few weeks ago I purchased a HTC Fuze from my local AT&T store. For those of you who are not familiar with the Fuze, this is the HTC Touch Pro that is sold in Europe and Asia but includes support for the 850/1900Mhz bands that AT&T uses for 3G here in the United States. Given that there are a lot of reviews out there on the Fuze, I won't be doing one here on ClintonFitch.com but I am going to show you how to do a bit of tweaking to make the Fuze more responsive and add some features to it. This will be the first of a series of articles outlining applications and registry tweaks you can do to enhance the user experience on your HTC Fuze, HTC Touch Pro or HTC Touch Diamond.'

If you own a Touch Diamond or Touch Pro and wouldn't mind tweaking the appearance and performance of TouchFLO 3D, then take a look at the first part of a guide published by our friend, Clinton Fitch. It involves dipping one's toes in the registry, so as always, please be aware of the risks before proceeding.

'Why is Live Search for mobile so Loco 4 Local? Because we're crazy about getting you what you need to know now, no matter where you are. Whether you're craving crab cakes or mulling a matinee, Live Search for mobile makes finding practically anything in the area fast and easy.'

I really like it when companies can have a sense of humour about what they're doing, so this was right up my alley: the Windows LIve Search for Mobile team has created this Loco4Local site that has some hilarious videos that spoof some of the cheesy used car ads you might see on late night local TV. Great stuff!

Good news everyone! Yours truly has come into possession of two registration keys for Microsoft's My Phone Beta program! Since I'm such a nice guy I thought the best thing to do would be to give them away to our readers! For those of you that are unaware - 'Microsoft My Phone syncs information between your mobile phone and the web...' - Basically it can best be described as a very simple and easy to use cloud syncing solution for Windows Mobile handsets. Exchange services for the rest of us!To qualify to win one of these two never before used registration codes, all you have to do is post a reply telling us about a time when data syncing has failed you miserably. It can be anything; like having your phone stolen and not backing up your contacts or getting the phone number of an attractive member of the opposite sex seconds before your waiter spills a cup of water on your Samsung Blackjack... Whatever you can think of!The contest will be going on now until Sunday April 12th, 2009 at 11:59PM PST, at which time I will go through and randomly select two entrants to be announced Monday April 13th, 2009. As I mentioned before the winners will be selected randomly so unfortunately bribing me with cookies will do you no good - but you are more than welcomed to try!

My Matrix Pro Smartphone has 2, my Touch Pro has 1, and my T-Mobile Dash has none. What am I referring to? Hardware buttons that can be mapped to different features on a device (as opposed to those which are fixed in function, such as keyboards, power buttons, softkeys, etc..). Five years ago, it was pretty common to have 3-4 buttons on a device that the user could map to. Now you're lucky if you get one. While in many ways better touchscreen response or a full keyboard has reduced some of the need for these buttons, there are times I just wish I had a few more. So what's your opinion - more hardware buttons or is 0 the magic number?

picture source

'Microsoft Corp. expects several phones on the U.S. market to be powered by its Windows Mobile 6.5 operating system after it launches in the fall of 2009, according to a company executive. 'We will have over 10 phones available in the U.S. alone. We expect to see that grow,' said Robbie Bach, president of Microsoft's entertainment and devices division said during his keynote speech at the CTIA wireless technology showcase.'

With all the talk of Windows Mobile 6.5 lately I find myself growing a little more excited every day. Unfortunately Mr. Bach did not mention how long it will take to have over 10 devices running Windows Mobile 6.5 available here in the United States. I'm also curious as to how many of those devices will be running the Windows Mobile 6.5 Standard platform. It is, however, nice to see Microsoft starting to gain a little momentum moving forward in the 'Smartphone Wars' after such a long period of being stale and feeling dated.

'Celio Corp, makers of the REDFLY Mobile Companion, today announced a public beta of the new REDFLY Mobile Viewer PC software for Windows XP and Vista. The REDFLY Mobile Viewer is a software product allowing smartphone users to conveniently use their favorite Windows Mobile applications at full size on their PCs. To download the free beta, visit www.celiocorp.com...The REDFLY Mobile Viewer works with all current REDFLY-compatible smartphones. The software gives users access to all of the smartphone's applications and features via a Windows PC, including the ability to send and receive SMS messages and e-mail in a full-screen window. The REDFLY Mobile Viewer is a great tool for multitasking, allowing users to interact and use both the smartphone platform and the PC platform simultaneously via the PC.'

This is an interesting inversion of the basic RedFly concept: connecting a less powerful devices (the smartphone) to a more powerful devices (a laptop/desktop PC) rather than the concept of connecting the more powerful/connected device (the smartphone) to a dumb terminal. I haven't tried it yet, but it looks like it could be promising. Although it does beg the question of why you'd use Word Mobile on your smartphone if you had it on your laptop/netbook. Maybe it's more for the smartphone-only apps that benefit from the hardware in the smartphone (phone radio, GPS, etc.)?