Tag Archive: Barcelona

Microblogging service Twitter has been aiming at mobile phones since its inception—in fact, the service’s infamous 140 character messages stem from the limits on text messages sent from mobile phones. But while devices like the iPhone and other smartphones have long had “native” Twitter clients that let users send and manage tweets, ordinary phone users have been kinda stuck with sub-standard (and often costly) text-message based tweeting.

INQ Mobile wants to change that, announcing plans to offer a mass-market phone with a built-in Twitter client…and that client would pull and send tweets via the Internet, rather than using text messages.

Of all the manufacturers expected to debut Android handsets at this year’s Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, the Chinese manufacturer Huawei may have been one of the least expected. Nonetheless, the relatively little-known (but enormous) company worked its way to prominence on Monday by showing off a prototype of its upcoming Android handset.

The slate-like phone on display drew obvious inspiration from the iPhone in its external styling, but Huawei offered very few details on what’s inside. The company, which offers its handsets directly to cell carriers who often brand them as their own, says it plans to launch two to three Android handsets this year. The as-of-yet-unnamed one on display at MWC should be commercially available by the third quarter of 2009.

After months of silent toil in the kitchen, Microsoft is almost ready for users to dig into its latest iteration of Windows Mobile: version 6.5. At the first day of the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Microsoft officially debuted the new operating system.

Among the new features Microsoft promises on Windows Mobile 6.5 are an updated graphical user interface that offers “dashboard-like experience to items such as new e-mails, texts, missed calls and calendar appointments.” It has also been tailored more toward operation with fingers, as opposed to previous versions which were originally built for use with a stylus. An updated version of Internet Explorer and built-in Flash player will also make it easier to browse the Web, and the new My Phone functionality shown last week will make it easier to backup data.