Third-party apps to run on the Pre, PalmOS apps expected as well

Palm have still got to release their Pre, but they are already cooking some third party applications. Support of Palm OS apps will also be added via a software emulator, running on the Pre's new WebOS.

Well, it didn't take much time, did it? Palm have still got to release their Pre, but they are already cooking some third party applications and have taken care that there would be many more by releasing their Palm WebOS Mojo application framework and Mojo SDK.

As a way of promoting their new SDK, Palm are demonstrating some of the first third-party applications developed with their Mojo SDK. You can check those on a video, that's been shot at CTIA Wireless 2009 by PreCentral.

You can also check an official demo video of some of the new thrid party apps in action by going to Palm's website right ere.

Quite unexpectedly, Palm also broke the news that they will be providing a software emulator for WebOS that will allow older Palm OS apps to run just fine on the Pre.

The emulator is called Classic and will be developed by a third-party company. More info about it can be found here.

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CTIA Wireless 2009

The BlackDot awards committee, a US subsidiary of the popular European telecommunications award fund, officially announced the 2009 award-winning list. One of the most coveted devices this year made an appearance in the highly prestigious nominations ceremony.

The BlackDot awards are an annual event at which the best wireless devices get nominated and voted in various categories by a board of industry professionals. There are a lot of categories covering various gadgets, but we'll concentrate only on the ones that feature mobile phones.

The BlackDot best mobile imaging award surprisingly goes to the iPhone 3G. According to the John Nash, chairman of the jury, "the iPhone 3G is actually a quite capable cameraphone given there is enough light. There are some excellent examples proving its capabilities."

Apple iPhone 3G

Speaking of imaging capabilities, the Samsung Omnia HD has also snatched one of the awards - it heads the Creative naming category with its superscript naming, which is shared by quite a lot of the latest Samsung phones. Its first and second runner-ups are the HTC Touch Cruise 09 and HTC Touch Diamond2, which are best described as... sequels.

Samsung i8910 OmniaHD • HTC Touch Cruise 09 • HTC Touch Diamond2

Motorola A3100 is among the winners as well, obviously displaying supreme command of the touchscreen realm, and has been picked to rule the Best touchscreen phone category. As Barry Allen, a jury member, commented "Motorola's heavily modified WinMo interface has created a true iPhone killer."

Motorola A3100

After some heavy user input, the BlackDot awards jury voted the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic the most reliable handset on the market - with the Blackberry Storm being a close runner-up. "Both devices are some fine examples of how a mobile phone should offer its users unsurpassed performance 24/7 - day-in and day-out." - said John Garlin, member of the jury.

Nokia 5800 XpressMusic

Sony Ericsson W705 has also scored a nice one by snatching the "Original design award". "You rarely see such a nice combination of both straight lines and round design elements as in Sony Ericsson W705. The jury has been overwhelmed with the roundish control elements that seem unique to the W705." - commented another member of the jury.

Sony Ericsson W705

Toshiba TG01 has obviously been hand-picked to win the Compact design category award.It's got a notable low profile and you'd barely recognize it as a mobile phone due to its impressive size.

Toshiba TG01

And finally, the Top all-rounder award goes to Nokia 1202. "The Nokia 1202 is the pure essence of mobile telecommunications. Plus, you can rarely find a phone that cheap that has 10 features the new iPhone 3.0 software doesn't have" - commented John Nash, chairman of the jury.

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Blackberry App World is Now Officially Up and Running

Research in Motion's take on delivering mobile applications straight to the device, cunningly called BlackBerry App World, has finally opened doors to the public today at the CTIA Wireless 2009 in Las Vegas.BlackBerry App World is no different from any other app marketplace - you can browse through lists of various applications, read their summaries and download them straight from your Blackberry.To gain access to the Blackberry App World, you need to download the application from here or here. Payments for the paid applications are processed via PayPal so you need to have a valid account there.The BlackBerry App World support handsets with BlackBerry OS 4.2 or higher.

The BlackBerry App World

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CTIA Wireless 2009 welcomes the slim HTC Snap Smarthphone

Today HTC announced a spanking new Windows Mobile 6.1 Standard handset - the HTC Snap. The slim QWERTY-equipped bar is the first of its kind for the company since the S630, back in 2006. A plain no-nonsense handset, the HTC Snap offers upper mid-range functionality in a 12mm slim body.

HTC Snap

The HTC Snap runs on a 528MHz Qualcomm MSM 7225 CPU and has 192 MB of RAM. It sports a 2.4" landscape display of QVGA resolution and a 2 megapixel camera. Network connectivity is well covered with quad-band GSM support and dual-band UMTS (with HSDPA).

There will be two versions of the HTC Snap as far as 3G bands are concerned. The EMEA variation will operate on the 900/2100 MHz frequencies, while the US one will support 850/1900 MHz and will be called HTC S721.

Some of the other notable features of the HTC Snap include GPS with A-GPS support, Wi-Fi and a microSD card slot. The list of extras is completed by Bluetooth v2.0 and a trackball for the menu navigation.

The HTC Snap will start shipping in UK and US (where it will be known as HTC S721) this summer but its price is yet unknown.

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