19-Apr-2024 20:23 GMT.		 UNDER CONSTRUCTION
Anonymous, there are 10 items in your selection
[News] AmigaDE on SmartPhoneANN.lu
Posted on 23-Apr-2002 15:12 GMT by Luca Diana10 comments
View flat
View list
Microsoft and Sendo, the UK-based makers of the upcoming Z100 smartphone, have unveiled the first applications for the long- awaited device. Games are seen as key to the platform's success
Read the Press Release Microsoft is giving the first glimpse of the applications for its Smartphone 2002 handset at the Microsoft Mobility Developer Conference in London this week, with a heavy focus on gaming. Sendo, which is manufacturing the Z100, the first Smartphone 2002-based device, on Tuesday announced a wide range of games for the device, as well as productivity applications. Sendo also said it will sell a foldable keyboard for data entry.

Several publishers will provide games for the Z100 at launch or shortly after, Sendo said. Versaly will provide "The Untouchables Pin Ball", Mobile Scope will provide several games, Terra Mobile-iobox will offer Midway's "Defender", Ideaworks3D will publish "Rebound!", and Pixel Technologies will publish a suite containing chess, draughts, poker and other games.

Hexacto, the US-based developer behind "Defender" and "The Untouchables Pin Ball", plans to release 20 titles for Smartphone 2002 this year, including wireless-enabled multiplayer games, according to Sendo.
Sendo said it has licenced technology to bring Amiga Anywhere games to the platform. The Java-based Intent platform from Tao Group supports Amiga games as well as games designed for the Java Mobile Information Device Profile.

On the business side, the Z100 will sport viewers for popular Microsoft document formats including Word, Excel and PowerPoint, as well as non-Microsoft formats like Adobe's PDF (Portable Document Format).
The handset is to ship in European countries some time in the second quarter of this year and in the US in the second half of the year.
The Z100 is to be the first device on the market running the Microsoft Smartphone software. It will offer email, Web browsing and other handhed computer features in a compact mobile phone form factor. Samsung is another key Smartphone 2002 player, and plans to market a Microsoft- based smartphone near the end of this year. Sendo's handset weighs 99 grams and claims to be the smallest and lightest GPRS tri-band smartphone. It has a 65,000-colour TFT display and uses the 900, 1800 and 1900 GSM bands, allowing it to function in Europe, Asia and the Americas. Among its PDA-like features are Web and WAP browsers, digital music player, USB, IrDA and serial connectivity and a Multimedia Card/Secure Digital Card slot for memory expansion. Like many of the upcoming handsets announced at last month's CeBIT, the Z100 supports Java for downloadable games and other software.

The phone includes an unspecified amount of RAM and 32MB of Flash memory, and runs on an ARM9 core-based processor from Texas Instruments. Sendo estimates it will cost about $399 (£279) with operator subsidies, or $999 without subsidies.

Sendo started shipping more conventional mobile phone handsets in May of last year, with a focus on the European market. The company's experience with European networks is mainly responsible for the earlier introduction of the Z100 here, Sendo said. Microsoft owns a stake in Sendo, but the phone maker says it isn't influenced by the software company's agenda. For example, Microsoft opposed the use of Java, which is made by rival Sun Microsystems, but Sendo says it included Java because of demand from network operators.

The main competition for Smartphone 2002 is the Symbian OS, which has been around in handsets from Ericsson and Nokia for more than two years. However, the lack of wide GPRS data coverage has kept such devices from gaining traction so far.

AmigaDE on SmartPhone : Comment 1 of 10ANN.lu
Posted by amigammc on 23-Apr-2002 13:15 GMT
Sorry, I incorrectly reported the article as a Press Release.
AmigaDE on SmartPhone : Comment 2 of 10ANN.lu
Posted by priest on 23-Apr-2002 13:30 GMT
How come we have not noticed this before:
http://www.sendo.com/news/newsitem.asp?ID=55
Last month, Sendo also licensed Tao’s Group intent ® multimedia Java platform, which opens the device up for Java J2ME MIDP compliant applications and titles from the well-known, vast Amiga entertainment catalogue. Amiga Anywhere enables applications to run on a broad range of processors or operating systems including Smartphone 2002 and Sendo’s Z100.
AmigaDE on SmartPhone : Comment 3 of 10ANN.lu
Posted by Troels E on 23-Apr-2002 13:43 GMT
In reply to Comment 2 (priest):
We did notice it, well at least some of us did:-)
I know it was posted somewhere, on some Amiga news site.. can't remember which one though.
AmigaDE on SmartPhone : Comment 4 of 10ANN.lu
Posted by Graham on 23-Apr-2002 14:32 GMT
Hah! At that price it will be the XBox of mobile phones...
Also Intent is not Java based, it just has a Java to VP translator that allows it to run Java applications.
Amazingly, people only want a couple of things from a mobile phone:
- make calls
- make text messages
Games on mobile phones are great for the young market. But then the price they are pitching it at is more at the corporate market, where email apps, etc, would be more useful!
Graham
AmigaDE on SmartPhone : Comment 5 of 10ANN.lu
Posted by priest on 23-Apr-2002 14:42 GMT
In reply to Comment 4 (Graham):
Perhaps you should read the press release and then post.
"...wide range of games for the device, as well as productivity applications. Sendo also said it will sell a foldable keyboard for data entry. ..."
So it might be same or better caliber device than Nokia Communicator + better Microsoft app support + more games perhaps.
IIRC, my communicator (100% for work use) cost $999 ... oops, identical price...
AmigaDE on SmartPhone : Comment 6 of 10ANN.lu
Posted by William F. Maddock on 23-Apr-2002 15:09 GMT
While it might work for corporations, I think I'll pass on a $1,000 telephone. ='D
AmigaDE on SmartPhone : Comment 7 of 10ANN.lu
Posted by Joe "Floid" Kanowitz on 24-Apr-2002 00:41 GMT
Some people have money to burn. ;)
Apparently the RIM Blackberry is the most popular (dedicated) pager/email device in the US at the moment, and I just saw a banner advertising it at $350 with a service contract. Sprint is selling Samsung's Palm phone for $500 now, and Kyocera's uglier variant is down to $150- but a few months back, I think I saw a price closer to $700 for that brick, and people were buying them..
$350 for something that integrates a really capable PDA and a phone isn't bad at all. Look how much iPaqs run!
Personally, I'd still hold out for a Symbian version (and a job to pay for it), but for people who actually want the functionality, it's not a bad deal. The US doesn't get the benefit of Europe's more legal/convenient used phone market; these things will be a big hit here in a year or three, once they're discontinued and the carriers cut their loss by handing them out for $100 with a plan. (As seen in the fate of that Kyocera...)
AmigaDE on SmartPhone : Comment 8 of 10ANN.lu
Posted by sembazuru on 24-Apr-2002 03:57 GMT
In reply to Comment 7 (Joe "Floid" Kanowitz):
Actually I'm using my Kyrocera (QCP-6035, their 2nd Palm SmartPhone) to reply. (In responce to a previous post about what people want a cell phone for, I find the biggest thing I use the Palm side of this phone for is Internet connectivity.) I'm one of those early buyers, but the highest subsidized cost (i.e. buy it with a plan) that I ever saw was $500USD. I was comefortable paying that because I looked @ the price of a comperable Palm with a modem card that also included voice functions, and this single package solution was very competitive.
If I'm thinking of the same Samsung Palm-phone, I prefer the layout of Kyrocera's offering. The Samsung model doesn't have a flip, so when using it as a phone one's cheek is pressed against the screen getting cheek-greese or makeup all over the display. But that is my personal opinion.
(Time to end this message before my hand cramps writing in Grafiti... (-; )
AmigaDE on SmartPhone : Comment 9 of 10ANN.lu
Posted by dakang on 24-Apr-2002 06:14 GMT
In reply to Comment 4 (Graham):
I am guessing that you may be American. I say this because the european market is certainly NOT wanting 'just' calls and SMS'es. Europeans (and poeople in the East) are demanding more and more from their phones. It just has not taken off in American so much. I was reading an article in Business Week which basically said that (rightly or wrongly) that the idea of using phones to send and recieve email is very alien to most Americans.
On the other point about the cost without subsidy, you'll find that most phones cost this much. Even a humble Nokia 3210 cost 600-700 dollars when it was first relased. Most people buy a contract though and can then get the phone for about a 10th of that price....
Is it me or has Amiga Inc achieved a HELL of a lot in only 2 years?! From near death to shipping on a MS Smartphone and various PDAs... great work!!!
The only thing IMHO which will keep Amiga Anywhere fighting off the growing competition is:
*continuous development of Intent by Tao and thenIMMEDIATE updates to the AmigaSDK APIs by Amiga.
* The Quality of the apps produced by Amiga PDA Developers.
Unfortunately I'm a cisco/ms techie not a devloper, so just let me know when I can do something... ;-)
.dakang
AmigaDE on SmartPhone : Comment 10 of 10ANN.lu
Posted by Joe "Floid" Kanowitz on 24-Apr-2002 07:29 GMT
In reply to Comment 9 (dakang):
>I was reading an article in Business Week which basically said that (rightly or
>wrongly) that the idea of using phones to send and recieve email is very alien to
>most Americans.
...If by "alien," you mean "hideously expensive," then we're guilty. ;) (It does seem to be getting better now, slowly. Two years ago, it was about $0.50/message or $2/email-or-HDML page on Sprint, IIRC. For $10 more each month, you could have 100 SMS-type messages or 500 nights and weekend minutes, so think about the value proposition: $10 to inconvenience everyone you know, or $10 to actually use your phone longer...)
Look out, though; we might get http://arstechnica.com/reviews/02q2/qualcomm/1xEV-1.html first...
Anonymous, there are 10 items in your selection
Back to Top