Webware

(Credit: Google)

Before Wednesday, you could star a map as a favorite on Google Maps online, and you could star one on Google Maps for Mobile, but you could never connect the two.

A small but significant update that Google added to Google Maps for Mobile 3.3 now syncs your starred locations between the map app on your Symbian and Windows phones, and your online account.

To start your syncing, press Menu and then Starred Items. You'll need to log into your account from the Starred Items screen to start syncing favorite maps. If you're upgrading from a previous version of the maps app, you'll be asked if you'd like to sync your favorites. Say yes.

Then, you're able to mark your favorite places in one location and have it surface in the other, as long as you remain logged in. This type of syncing is ideal for quickly locating that dinner spot you're headed to, or for pulling up driving directions to or from a starred location. Sure, it might make you lazy, but it'll also keep you from wasting precious time first looking up a location and then seeking directions or a phone number.

You can download Google Maps for Mobile by pointing your mobile browser to m.google.com/maps.

Right now I'm Web surfing with a browser that's sleek and fast. It has Speed Dial thumbnails to quickly load a favorite Web page and preview thumbnails to help rotate through open Web pages by sight. The app I'm wielding sounds a lot like Opera 10, Opera's desktop browser (Mac | Windows), or even the recently released Opera Mini 5 beta for Java phones. But it's not.

I'm navigating the Internet from a 4.6x2.2-inch screen belonging to a Nokia N97 smartphone using a prerelease version of Opera Mobile 10 beta for Symbian Series 60 phones. Opera Mobile 10 beta is available as of Tuesday morning, Central European Time.

Opera Mobile 10 beta previews tabs in a flashy new design.

(Credit: Opera Software)

What's new? The tabbed browsing treatment and speed-dial thumbnails you see when you load the browser anew or launch a new page are the spotlight-grabbing features. The entire interface, in fact, gets a fresh coat of paint using the same brush that drew in Opera Mini 5 beta. The visual encore works. In looks alone, the inviting Opera Mobile 10 beta bowls over Opera Mobile 9.7 beta's design.

While the speed-dial thumbnails and multiple browser tabs were far more impressive in the comparatively resource-light Opera Mini 5 beta, a proxy browser, the design continuity we see in Opera Mobile 10 beta, a standalone Web browser, is a welcome refresh that also joins the two cell phone apps in a unified design philosophy.

Opera's 4MB version 10 beta browser retains many of the features from prior releases, like the password manager, and the abilities to zoom in and out, copy text, save images, download files, and open links in a new tab. Opera says it has improved the password manager in this 10 beta release, including better handling for multiple URLS for a single site, and easier management for deleting passwords.

From Opera Mobile 9.7 beta, the version 10 beta has carried over Opera Turbo, Opera's compression engine that uses Opera's servers to punch up performance (and deliver less detailed images) when the Internet connection is slow.

In addition, Opera claims that Opera Mobile 10 beta is twice as fast as its Symbian predecessor when it comes to downloads and zooming and panning.

Opera's Speed Dial and expandable search box make the jump to Opera Mobile 10 beta.

(Credit: Opera Software)

As a beta build, Opera Mobile 10 beta does have several bugs to work out. First, Opera Link, the bookmarks-syncing service available in Opera 10 desktop browser and in the stable builds of Opera Mobile and Opera Mini, is absent from this build (it's also missing from Opera Mini 5 beta.) Opera Link will return by the time Opera Mobile 10 leaves beta.

Other known issues include the virtual keyboard popping up even when you're using the physical keyboard, as it did in our tests on the Nokia N97. The beta browser is also known to freeze at times, and has only partial support for the IMEs (Input Method Editors) that make typing Asian languages like Chinese, Japanese, and Korean work. As a result, this beta build won't function on handsets with Asian language packs and won't render Asian fonts in this version, says Opera, but the input incompatibility should be fixed in the next release.

Opera Mobile 10 beta is available now for Symbian users on Nokia, Samsung, and Sony Ericsson smartphones running Symbian Series 60, 3rd and 5th editions. Try it by pointing the mobile browser to http://m.opera.com/mobile.

(Credit: Google)

Google released a new version of the free Google Mobile App for Symbian Series 60 (S60) phones on Monday. The update gives phone owners the ability to press the Talk button and speak search terms into the phone. While a new feature to the S60 operating system, users on other platforms, like BlackBerry and iPhone, have been able to turn speech into search results for some time.

The new Google Mobile App shows up as a shortcut widget on the Nokia home screen, which makes sounding out searches on those Nokia N and E series handsets faster than on other mobile platforms, where you must open the Google Mobile App to begin a search.

Whether you talk or type, Google Mobile App uses GPS or cell tower triangulation to fill in your location and find the closest whatever-it-is nearby. This is consistent with Google Mobile App for other platforms, though Windows Mobile is the only other one that also uses the home screen plug-in.

In addition to adding digital ears to search, Google has made them more global. Mandarin Chinese has joined Google's speech recognition database, so Nokia seekers can speak queries in English or in Mandarin. Google warns that the Mobile App is better at distinguishing certain accents better than others; a Beijing lilt may search more successfully than southern-flavored speech, for instance.

Mandarin recognition is currently only available for Nokia phones, but Google says in an official blog post that they're working to expand the capability to other mobile platforms, like Google Android and iPhone. Also, not every S60 owner can take advantage of the new Google Mobile App, only those running version 3. The app is not yet supported on touch screen phones, which run version 5 of the system software.

You can download Google Mobile App for Nokia S60 by pointing the mobile browser to http://m.google.com.

Article updated at 5:00 pm to correct mIQ media sharing details.

Best Buy Mobile's mIQ dashboard is easier on the eye.

(Credit: Screenshot by Jessica Dolcourt/CNET)

Microsoft introduced its My Phone service last week, an online dashboard for managing and sharing the contents of your mobile phone. We liked some aspects, and critiqued some others. Ultimately, we wished that Microsoft had teamed up with its Seattle neighbor, connected services startup Dashwire, whose legacy dashboard did much of the same thing as My Phone does now, but did it better. Dashwire has since turned its standalone product into a platform. Best Buy Mobile snapped up a license and is now offering its own sync-and-share service, called mIQ (short for mobile IQ).

I know what you're thinking: The T-Mobile Sidekick backup service just failed, and the blame is Microsoft's. Why trust its My Phone service at all? But backup isn't the point of these services. They're about management. Moreover, comfortably managing the contents of your smartphone from a screen and keypad that's larger than anything you can get on your smartphone. And if you delete a number or photo from the Web or phone, it's gone. Neither of these services intends to save it, but they do intend to make it available online.

So now that that's clear, it's time for a throwdown.

My Phone and mIQ both download small clients to the mobile phone. From there, they bidirectionally sync the phone's contents to an online dashboard. My Phone is limited to Windows phones, but mIQ is free for anyone with a BlackBerry, Symbian, or Windows phone.

Features

We'll say right off the bat that Microsoft's My Phone is richer in feature types overall compared with Best Buy Mobile's mIQ. ... Read more

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 you'll now be able to punch the "2" and "8" key on keypad- or keyboard-equipped phones to navigate up and down. Pressing the asterisk (*) will jump you to the joint address/search bar. Of course, this may not work identically on phones with nonstandard keypad arrangements.

Web surfers will also notice that Skyfire may now show a Web site's mobile version more often than before. Behind the change are new WAP features that detect mobile sites better. In addition, Skyfire's browser will zoom in on the page automatically, saving you a step. The new treatment won't work for sites, like Yahoo's mobile.yahoo.com, that use "mobile" as part of a URL intended to be viewed from the desktop.

Behind the scenes, Skyfire's mobile browser also received updates for Flash, QuickTime, and Silverlight, all which give the browser the edge in streaming videos. Other tweaks and fixes are designed to speed up the time it takes for a page to load, and quicken scrolling on Nokia phones. Skyfire's blog has a full list of changes.

Skyfire mobile browser is free to all users. You can also download it over the air by pointing a different mobile browser to http://get.skyfire.com. If you're an existing user who can weather a short wait, Skyfire will push the update to your phone. This should save you having to reconfigure all of RSS and social networking feeds.

Article updated at 12:15 am PT with a clarification on how mobile site detection works.

(Credit: CNET/Screenshot by Jessica Dolcourt)

Google Maps for Windows Mobile and Symbian Series 60 phones can plot you, your friends, and businesses on a map. Now it can also layer on transit lines, traffic, and points of interest that correspond to Wikipedia articles.

Google Maps for Mobile 3.2's new layers option for its mobile Maps is accessible by pressing the "2" key or by selecting "Menu" and "Layers." In addition to traffic and transit, Google opens the door to personal maps you've saved using the My Maps feature on Google Maps for the desktop. The latest version of the map app also adds to its approach to search results. In addition to a handful of points marked as red waypoints, you'll see many more small red dots that represent other applicable locations. These won't show up on the text list, but you will be able to tap them to access their Web site, reviews, and other practical details.

Users in the U.S. and China can furthermore browse popular search categories (like Restaurants) to cut down on typing time.

As good as Google Maps is, there are still areas open for improvement. We weren't able to input text into Google Maps for Mobile from our preferred keyboard on the Samsung Omnia. Reverting to the cramped default one diminished the experience and made typing a challenge. We'd also like to save new maps and direction routes to My Maps, and would like to interact with transit lines directly from the map, not only through the Directions menu.

Google Maps for Mobile 3.2 is available now for Windows Mobile and Symbian Series 60 phones. You can download it by pointing the mobile browser to m.google.com/maps. Release notes can be found here.

Fring's latest update for Symbian phones introduces the option of a merged buddy list to its mobile VoIP communication app (download links below). Merging eliminates the duplicates you often find when a contact appears for the same friend on multiple IM accounts. When you view a friend's profile after merging, Fring shows you which service your friend is signed into at any given time.

This bit of space-saving housekeeping isn't automatic, however. After highlighting the buddy's name, you'll need to select "manage buddies" and then choose to merge them. You'll need to seek out and select your friend's other aliases before saving.

Fring 3.40 also lets you update your profile picture, status, nickname, and mood from within the mobile application. All this occurs through the profile editing menu item in the Options list.

Friend suggestions are also new to the multinetwork IM and voice app. When Fring discovers that a contact from your address book or from one of its supported IM or social networks is also a registered Fring user, it will suggest you add them and will fill in their profile details. Fring's friend finder can be found in the buddy management menu in the program options.

While Symbian phones were the first to get Fring's new functionality this week, Windows Mobile and iPhone users can expect the same integration next.

Download Fring 3.40 from Download.com:
Fring 3.40 for Symbian 9.4
Fring 3.40 for Symbian 9.3
Fring 3.40 for Symbian 9.2
Fring 3.40 for Symbian 9.1

Read and filter RSS feeds, and update your social status.

(Credit: CNET/Screenshot by Jessica Dolcourt)

A little over a year after Skyfire began making a splash, the Silicon Valley startup has officially released version 1.0 of its free third-party mobile browser for Windows Mobile and Symbian phones. During its beta tenure, the newbie browser whipped up its fair share of excitement and kudos. Indeed, Skyfire has arrived at its first full release with a fairly fast and solid mobile browser offering. From a usability standpoint, its streaming video and social bent are Skyfire's strengths. Small, but significant navigation holes are drawbacks in what is an otherwise stable and serious effort.

While beta users won't find Skyfire 1.0 dramatically altered from version 0.9 beta, there are noticeable changes to the interface design from the first iterations. The lists of featured links that originally graced the Start screen have now been replaced by a customizable RSS feed. You can sort by filters and post article links to Facebook and Twitter. Separately, you can upload a new social networking status from the screen. The joint address-search bar has crept to the top, leaving more reading space. Video playback has become much smoother, too, since it was first introduced, though it still sometimes suffers from catches and varying picture quality (this isn't Skyfire's challenge alone.) Panning, zooming, and processing performance are neater as well.

In version 1.0, Skyfire has concentrated on the theme of picking up where you left off browsing. When you navigate away from a page or exit Skyfire--yet keep it running in the background--the browser will now remember your page position, returning you to your last zoom level and approximate location on the page.

Operating speed was another focus of the 1.0 release. Now when you load a page, you can click a link without having to zoom in first--a real benefit if high resolution or your own familiarity with a Web site makes zooming in before clicking a link an extraneous step. Likewise, you'll be able to enter a URL or search term into the search bar 2-3 seconds after the page begins loading, versus version 0.9 beta's 8-10 seconds of lag time before you could begin typing.

What's missing?

While Skyfire supports Flash and Silverlight plug-ins, it doesn't support those applications that require text entry. It likewise won't work for media players requiring the 'local storage mode,' as do Pandora, Rhapsody, and Netflix. Unlike Opera, it's lacking some niceties that make browsing life easier, like copy and paste, and the ability to search a block of text for a word or phrase. Copy/paste would have been useful for filling in a URL during testing when the URLs for several over-the-air downloads were not linked. There's also no way to cancel a page from loading in Skyfire 1.0 if you've changed your mind. It's not a deal-breaker by any means, but is a slight annoyance nonetheless.

Flash support enables streaming video.

(Credit: CNET/Screenshot by Jessica Dolcourt)

The Twitter and Facebook feed updates, while a nice addition, frequently cut off longer messages. Rather than reveal the whole message when you tap, Skyfire directs you to your contact's profile page. If your goal is to just read the comment and possibly respond, navigating around the profile page is overkill. Likewise, Skyfire's built-in reformatting engine needed to be taken in a few pixels on our Samsung Omnia. Version 0.9 did away with the SmartFit menu option of previous versions in favor of automatically refitting the screen width after zooming into a story. Instead of eliminating the need to pan, on the test phone, slight panning was a must.

Finally, having the virtual keyboard on a touch screen phone pop up when you tap an area of text entry would have saved countless steps while searching, commenting on Facebook profiles, and entering passwords.

For the most part, these minor drawbacks are the sort that Skyfire can fix in upcoming releases. In the meantime, what it's offered Internet-seekers is a strong contender to Opera Mobile 9.5 beta that's more engaging in terms of a superior video playback solution (Opera Mobile does not currently support Flash Lite natively, but is expected to offer Flash in the next release) and also better attuned to newsgathering and sharing on social networks. With these two features, Skyfire could wing its way into Opera Mobile's turf on Windows Mobile and Symbian phones. If it wants to maintain its position in the face of Skyfire's official mobile browser launch and Mozilla's impending one, Opera's response must at least match Skyfire's video playback and speed, plus overturn its own UI foibles.

Note: Skyfire 0.85 users and earlier will need to uninstall Skyfire before downloading version 1.0.

Related story: Leaked: Skyfire browser's BlackBerry alpha photos

The CTIA Wireless mobile phone conference this April may be much lower key in 2009, but that doesn't mean there won't be news.

In advance of the show, Opera Software announced on Thursday an update to Opera Mobile, its full mobile browser for Windows Mobile and Symbian phones (download current version). While Opera Mobile 9.7 is intended for Opera's enterprise level B2B clients, like carriers and cell phone manufacturers, the news still offers a glimpse of what's in store for the consumer download version that Opera expects to release "in the near future."

The most consumer-friendly feature, and the one that Opera sorely needs to excel on, is Opera Mobile 9.7's support for Web technologies like Flash and Ajax. In layman's terms, that means the browser will be able to better handle sites like Facebook and stream YouTube videos using Flash Lite. Video is huge here--while Opera is a dominant mobile browser, it has been slower building muscle for video playback, while rivals like Skyfire have made longer strides.

In addition to bringing on wider support for Web standards, Opera Mobile 9.7 will feature Opera Turbo, the Norwegian company's new compression engine. Previewed in mid-March, Opera says Turbo can squeeze down data by 80 percent, clearing through slow and stubborn network connections quicker. Also found on the back end, says Opera, will be the Presto 2.2 rendering engine, the same tool that brings Opera 10 alpha for the desktop its higher speeds compared to Opera's current desktop browser.

Lastly, Opera Mobile 9.7 boasts that it passes the Acid 3 test of Web standards with 100 percent, and that it supports Google Gears and the Open GL ES standard for graphics acceleration. The upcoming consumer version will share these upgrades, and in addition, is expected to have a new widgets manager that run independently from the mobile browser.