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About freakin time. The Sprint Touch (HTC TOUCH) update to Windows Mobile 6.1 has been released. This ROM update will install Windows Mobile 6.1 and enable both GPS and RevA data speeds. You can get the update directly from HTC here.

Sprint Touch with Windows Mobile 6.1, GPS, and RevA

Why update the ROM on your device?

The software upgrade posted below provides several key enhancements for your Touch:
Why update the ROM on your device?

The software upgrade posted below provides several key enhancements for your Touch:

1. Upgrades the operating system from Windows Mobile® 6.0 Professional to Windows Mobile® 6.1 Professional
2. EV-DO Rev. A functionality for faster download and upload speeds when utilizing data services wherever EV-DO Rev. A coverage is available
3. Advanced GPS functionality including the Sprint Navigation application
4. Adds the Opera browser
5. Adds a full Qwerty on-screen key Qwerty keyboard

If you looked at the HTC Diamond and thought “Nah, I need a keyboard”, heads up: this might be the phone for you. Featuring much of the same look and feel of the HTC Diamond, the HTC Touch Pro boasts HSDPA and HSUPA connectivity (up to 7.2 mbps - glorious!), the same 2.8 inch VGA screen as the Diamond, a 1350 mAh battery, 512 MB of flash ROM storage, 288 MB of RAM (what a curious number - why not 256 MB?), microSD expansion, GPS capabilities (no real GPS, only AGPS? Really?), built-in TV-out functionality, and a 3.2 megapixel camera. The full press release is below, followed by a bunch of images of this beautiful device.

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Engadget Chinese got their hands on an HTC Touch Diamond and compared it (visually) to the iPhone. HTC seems to be doing what Microsoft should have done a long time ago… making Windows Mobile fun, attractive, and easy to use. Plus the specs on this thing are wicked.

Comparison pictures:

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Yesterday at a press event hosted in London, HTC unveiled its latest Windows Mobile device, the diamond.

The Diamond is equipped with a beefy 528 MHz processor, 4GB storage inbuilt, HSDPA, FM Radio, 3.2MP camera. Unlike the other “Touch” GPS built in and working out of the box. Check out the overview of the device:

The Diamond runs on Microsoft’s Windows Mobile 6.1, Microsoft latest version of Windows Mobile. Unfortunately Microsoft hasn’t made many great improvements to the user interface of Windows Mobile, so what HTC has done is build in applications and customizations to work around the wonkiness of WM.These customizations are called TouchFlo 3D which adds the following sweetness to the device:

• Rather than having to initiate it with a swipe, it replaces Windows Mobile’s standard Today screen
• TouchFLO 3D also appears to be very well integrated in the OS. It’s less of an add-on and more of a new philosophy towards Windows Mobile. For example, the 5-way is also touch-sensitive so you can rotate your thumb around it to zoom in and out. It also demonstrates the power of Windows Mobile’s data structure — TouchFLO 3D has previews of emails, allows you to examine your pictures, and plays your music directly within the interface.
• TouchFLO 3D tech is also built-into a custom build of Opera 9.5. But get this, no matter what your zoom level is, the text automatically wraps to the zoom. This is in contrast to the iPhone’s browser, which sometimes is unable to get the text to wrap properly.
• TouchFLO 3D is, in fact, 3D in its animation effects. The Touch Diamond, unlike previous HTC devices, appears to be fully hardware accelerated and uses that power to full effect.

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Spb’s Mobile Shell is a must-have for Windows Mobile users. It’s design improves the use of Windows Mobile smartphones dramatically, as well as adding some much needed eye candy. You can check out my review as well as how you can customize it in my previous post Customize SPB Mobile Shell 2.0.

Version 2.1 contains mostly bug fixes in this new release, although there is a new data connection indicator on the Professional Now Screen, along with support for voicemail, hardware keyboards, and 320 x 320 screens. If you’ve got v2.0, this is a free update.

What’s New:

• Data connection indicator on the Professinal Now Screen

• Voicemail support

• 320×320 screens support

• Hardware keyboard support

• Stability bug fixes

Product page: http://www.spbsoftwarehouse.com/products/mobileshell/

Electric Pocket, of Smartphone fame for the popular ringtone manager Ringo has just released a cool application for Windows Mobile and Blackberry phones. Findme lets users share their current locations automagically and securely with their smartphone WITHOUT the need for GPS. You can then “tag” your location with home, work, school, etc and it will automatically update your Facebook profile with your location.

According to their website: “You are in complete control of what your friends see - “At home”, “In the Office”, “Playing Soccer”, “Walking the dog”, etc. If you haven’t named a place your position will just show up as “Unknown” - and you can always “Go Dark” if you dont want to be seen.  If you want, you can add additional location information like zip or post code to a favourite place so FindMe can show your friends a map or directions to where you are.”

There really isn’t much to say on it as the program itself is pretty basic. In a nutshell, what you do is install a tiny application on your Windows Mobile device. This application grabs information about the cell tower that you are connected to and allows you to assign a tag to that location. Then the application uploads your current location to Facebook which in turn allows all of your friends to see where you are. The only downside of this application that I can see is it will make a bit harder to hide from those individuals that you do not want to hang out with.

FindMe works with all Mobile phones. It does not require GPS or additional hardware. Automatic operation is currently available for BlackBerry and Windows Mobile Smartphones and in progress for Symbian and Palm OS. If you’re a Facebook addict then check out FindMe by hitting up the download to play around with this simple, yet fun, program. 

I found this over at WMExpert (ya… they really are the experts over there). The one thing I REALLY miss from my Treo 650 is the threaded SMS. It’s mind boggling that Windows Mobile doesn’t have this baked in by default (unless you’re a Windows Treo user of course). So… codyppc over at WMExperts posts on how to install threaded SMS on Windows Mobile. Get the full instructions after the jump.

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The following is a repost from WMExperts and details how to get the most out of your Windows Mobile battery life.

No matter how big the battery on your phone, you’ll always want to get a little more life out of it. Lately many phones - especially Windows Mobile phones - have been shaving their batteries down to achieve better form factors. So this guide, Part IV in the series (the rest are here), will tell you the tips and tricks you need to know to max out the battery life on your Windows Mobile smartphone.

The following may sound like a obvious statement, but it is important to have this line of thought when optimizing your phone to save battery power: In order to increase your battery life you need to decrease the power used. There are many things you can do to decrease the power used. Some of the steps may be changing the default settings, including possibly tweaking the registry of your phone, while others may included adapting some of your habits while using your phone.

The first step in increasing your battery life is to identify the most common sources of battery drain and take steps to minimize their impact on the life of your battery per charge. When I am talking about battery drain or conservation issues, there are a lot of little things you can do that make a HUGE difference. My goal is to provide the most comprehensive list of battery saving tips you have seen in one place before. Now lets start looking at these power hungry culprits that will suck the life right out of your battery and the steps we all need to take to limit the drain on our battery as much as possible. I have divided this up into 4 sections including Connections, Usage Habits, Tools, and Advanced.

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Okay, this one is for all you folks out there who own a Windows Mobile Pro device that doesn’t have the word “Treo” on the front (since those lucky ducks have it built in). Basically, this little trick from no2chem and stroths at PPCgeeks will change your default and lumpy 10% battery increments to the much more accurate and cool 1%.

So basically instead of going from 80% battery down to 70%, you can see your precious battery trickle away at 77%, 76%, etc. Very cool.

It works on my SprintTouch and I’ve read it works on the Mogul as well. It will probably other work on other WM devices. Since it’s a .cab installer, if there are any problems you should be able to just un-install under your Remove Programs area.