A piece of PDA software which entered the market only a few weeks ago, and sadly left a few days ago, piqued my entrepreneurial curiosity.
Starbrite Solutions (http://www.starbriteltd.com), a small UK-based software company, recently released pPod, a music player for the Pocket PC. The software closely resembled the design and function of Apple Computer’s iPod.
Starbrite’s iPod look-alike music player stirred some excitement, but was pulled for legal reasons.
Hats off to Starbrite, I thought! After spending £300 on an iPAQ, I can’t bring myself to spend another £200 on an iPod. Starbrite had engineered a Pocket PC software solution with the look and feel of the iPod. I was lucky enough to download a copy of software before it was pulled from shelves for legal reasons.
The pPod interface was similar to the iPod’s, with songs arranged in a series of menus, which could be browsed by artist, album, and genre. It is a good interface to use—very easy to browse and select songs. However, unlike Apple’s iPod, pPod only supported MP3 files. It could not play music files in Apple’s digital music format (AAC) or Windows Media Audio (WMA) formats.
Unfortunately, Starbrite received a letter from Apple claiming the software was “a pass off” of the iPod and infringed on its trademarks. Starbrite made changes in the interface and renamed the program pBop, but Apple wasn’t satisfied. Faced with the prospect of an expensive legal battle, they were forced to remove it from their virtual shelves.
What’s next for pPod? I wouldn’t be surprised if the software reappears a few months down the line in some altered form. My suggestion: Starbrite and Apple should team up and release it together—with AAC and WMA support. I’ve set up a discussion area in the PocketPC Life forums (http://www.pocketpclife.co.uk/forum). Let me know what you think.
New Orange Phone Edition device
Orange (http://www.orange.com), the UK’s largest wireless service provider has just introduced its first Pocket PC Phone Edition device, the SPV M1000. This device is based on the latest Phone Edition reference design from Taiwan contract manufacturer High Tech Computer (HTC), and is similar to O2’s HTC-manufactured XDA II. Technically, this is not a “Windows Mobile Smartphone” but a Bluetooth-enabled Pocket PC with an integrated tri-band (900/1800/1900 MHz) GSM mobile phone.
The SPV M1000 is the first Phone Edition device offered by Orange in the UK.
Like the XDA II, the SPV M1000 runs the Windows Mobile 2003 for Pocket PC software. Like other Pocket PCs, it has a touch-sensitive screen and comes with a full set of applications that help you manage your data and synchronize with your home or office PC. These include mobile versions of Outlook, Excel, Word, and Internet Explorer plus a whole host of other useful accessories including Windows Media Player.
It’s about the size of other standard Pocket PCs, measuring 130x70x18 mm (5.12x2.75x0.70 in) and weighing 190 g (6.7 oz). It incorporates an 88.9 mm (3.5 in) diagonal, 240x230 pixel touch screen that displays 65,000 colors.
The M1000 has a 400MHz Intel XScale processor and 128MB of RAM. This can easily be expanded with SD/MMC memory cards. In addition to GSM/GPRS, the device also provides Bluetooth and infrared capabilities as well as SMS, e-mail, instant messaging, Web browsing and fax support.
The M1000 has an impressive talk time of up to 3.5 hours, standby time of 6.5 days, and Pocket PC usage time of up to 12 hours (manufacturer’s estimates). Unlike most Phone Edition devices, the M1000 and XDA II have an integrated VGA camera, so you can take pictures while you’re out and about.
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