There is some buzz lately about T-Mobile’s new MDA Compact IV that is supposedly being released in Europe. The details are scarce but promising and a quick look at the picture and anyone can see it looks incredibly like the Shadow. No official word on if it is coming to the US but we can only hope. Here are the specs I could find and I am sure more are to come so stay tuned.

Rumored Specs:

• 3 Megapixel Autofocus Camera - Even better pictures!

• 4GB Internal Memory - Ready for music and movies right out of the box

• VGA Screen (640×480) - Imagine the beauty of your videos on this one!

• GSM/GPRS/EDGE

• Triband UMTS/HSDPA up to 7.2Mbps - That’s pretty damn fast, I would have to see this in person

• Bluetooth 2.0 - Good to know

• Wifi b/g - Always a plus

• GPS is rumored - If this is the Shadow 2, then it BETTER have GPS. I see no reason why any Windows Mobile phone shouldn’t be rolled out without GPS nowadays

 Sources: Engadget has some more photos of a plastic model here and here. The image above is from CDRinfo.com. More info at PhoneMag as well.

 Bluetrek is setting to release a very handy Bluetooth Headset + USB Memory Key + Direct USB Charging Device soon. It’s called the Bizz and takes two things most of us have and combines them in a wonderful package.

The Specs:

• 7 hours talk time

• 10 days standby

• Interchangeable color plates

• USB Flash memory device and microSD card reader (memory from microSD card up to 8GB)

• High Speed USB 2.0

• Charges headset via USB

• Optional Car Charger

• Supports SDHC microSD

You can watch an informative video about the Bizz here.

Without a doubt, Skyfire is in demand. Over a week ago I downloaded my beta copy and have enjoyed it ever since. It does break my heart a little that not everyone can enjoy it yet. However my hopes were lifted with this recent email concerning Skyfire and the beta program. Hopefully this will left your hearts as well.

Straight from the Skyfire Office:

“Here’s the status of our private beta program.  As you know, we have quite a demand for the beta and sign ups beyond what we can support today.  On February 8^th, we invited a batch of the sign ups to download Skyfire beta 0.5 based on the chronological order in which they signed up.  We purposefully kept the number of those first downloads to a manageable number so we could finesse our systems before we increased the pool.  We’ve taken the time since February 8^th to work out any kinks in our system — nothing of significance, but the normal stuff that comes up when you go live the first time.  We needed this time to fine tune the download process, support, etc. and assess our infrastructure relative to real users.

After this period of tweaking and assessing, we are in a position to invite more people to download Skyfire. Very soon, we will invite another batch of people to download in a first signed up, first invited basis. That’s not to say, we can invite every beta sign up to download immediately – the invitations will continue in a measured pace to meet the significant demand for Skyfire. Next week, you will see our external messaging to beta signs up in this regard – blog updates, email blasts and website messaging.  We appreciate that you point your readers to our sign up page as that’s the best course of action to get into our private beta program.  However, it’s safe to say that there is a wait as we continue in a measured pace.”

So you heard it here. Up until this point every reader of AllShadow.com should already be signed up on the beta program’s sign up page. If you aren’t then you need to get over there and get your beta on. As you can see they are proceeding in chronological order of when people signed up. Do you want to be the last?

For awhile I have been wanting to provide a more inclusive guide to the Windows Mobile Standard Shadow than just the front page here. If you look to the right in the menu, just below ‘Ask Mike’ you can see a link that will take you to the new page ‘68 Things‘. It is meant as a primer for the new user and a Table of Contents for our How-To’s. I don’t expect it to stay 68 things forever, but instead I expect it to grow over time.

You might notice that not every item has a link. That is intentional and is a preview of some of the How-To’s to come.  It is real fun being able to make these How-to’s and write informative articles as I learn along the way as well. So if you have questions about something do these steps in order to find the best results faster: use the search function up top, use the search function in the forums, if you haven’t found an answer yet the best place to ask one is in the forums as more fellow Shadow owner’s visit there on a regular basis. Remember, AllShadow.com is mobile friendly so be sure to save a bookmark on your phone as well.

Enjoy the super list!

The more I use Skyfire the more I like it. I keep giving myself reasons to use it. Did you know it was Valentine’s Day? Yeah! So I used it to check movies on Yahoo’s Full Movie site instead of the mobile site. I also showed my brother his company’s website on the browser. And then… Read Full Entry

I finally had some time to sit down and update my Shadow. I documented the process so if you haven’t already done it, here is a handy little guide to help walk you through it. Read the entire article before beginning.

Read Full Entry

I have been lucky enough to be included in the closed beta of the new Skyfire Browser. Before I opened the newly installed browser on my windows mobile standard smartphone, I honestly didn’t think it would be as cool as it turns out to be. Watch the video below to learn more:

 EDIT note: This video is also available on YouTube

If you are a Boingo Hotspot Subscriber you will be pleased to know that they have finally added support for Windows Mobile 6 devices. Boingo provides unlimited PDA Wifi subscriptions for around $7.95 a month and has thousands of access points worldwide with over 5700 in the US. The Shadow is listed as a supported device and all Windows Mobile 6 devices do require a client application download to access the service.

It might be helpful to check the access points in your area. If the T-Mobile Hotspot plan seems pricey for the number of points you now have more options. If you don’t frequent Starbucks that often then Boingo might be the way to go for you.

Torch Mobile recently announced the Iris Browser for Windows Mobile 6. Which means it will work on the Shadow. I haven’t had a chance to go through all the features and to see exactly how compatible it is with the Smartphone platform. The .cab file download is about 2MB and the install size is about 5MB.

 It promises full web page like viewing on mobile devices. A quick look at the specs didn’t sow mention of Flash support but it supposedly gives more customisation including tabs and a mouse cursor.  I wanted to let you all know as soon as possible but in the last few minutes I have had to play with this it does seem to deliver on the full web page rendering.

If you do download and install this, you might not want to select ‘Full Screen’ as the soft keys disappear and don’t seem to want to work anymore.

More to come later as the situation unfolds…

An insider tip says that T-Mobile is finally saying the next gen network they have been working on forever will be going live in the third quarter. Specific details are scarce but one can speculate that major metro areas will more than likely be the release point for this network. Of course all the current handsets will still work so you won’t have to buy a new phone to use the network.

On the other hand, the ability for current handsets to take advantage of the higher speed data rate remains to be seen.

A supervisor at T-Mobile just sent me an email detailing some additional features in the most recent update ROM for the T-Mobile Shadow. It’s great to know that T-Mobile listens and cares about the community and aims to correct problems we have. Read the full article for more of the changes/updates/features in the new ROM: Read Full Entry

Before you go clicking on and updating your Shadow please understand some things. There aren’t many software improvements in this update as far as I can tell. It is more of a fun update than anything else. If you do decide to update your Shadow with the new ROM update be advised you will completely erase all information from your phone and will be starting over from scratch. That being said, perform a complete and full synchronization of the Shadow with your PC and even take a minute to write down what you have installed yourself and any hacks you have done so you can restore these faster.

What the update includes:

1. Five free ring tones from popular movies and musicians.
2. Two free full length songs.
3. An assortment of free phone wall paper images.
4. Audio Postcard, a fun new myFaves connecting experience.
5. Enhanced myFaves and menu graphics.
6. Improved text entry experience.

With that being said you can go here for the update.

EDIT: You can also discuss this with other Shadow owners in this thread in our forums.

 The major players are on the stage now, with releases ’sometime soon’ for most, and the mobile community has only to wait to catch some browsing goodness.

 SkyFire promises a mobile experience similar to the desktop, is light on the CPU as it renders on the server side. That is the downside though. Someone can easily have access to what you are viewing. So for those with privacy concerns, this might not be the browser for you.

 Opera has Mobile and Mini. Mini requires Java on your device to use and can be buggy because of this implementation. Mini also uses server side rendering. The current version of Opera Mobile is nice with the Tabbed Browsing and other features, but doesn’t pack enough punch for me to shell out some dollars for it. The upcoming version is positioned to change my stance though. With desktop-like browsing accomplished all on the device this appears to be the winner for me, but we will have to wait and see.

 As of right now Mozilla’s Mobile Firefox looks like it wants to fight but no solid release date is in site. The super old version of it was nice to play with but had way too many bugs to be useful. The new version is a completely new beast and has one major advantage over SkyFire and Opera Mobile, it’s free. The downside is that it is open source and sometimes these projects take way too long to come to fruition.

There are other 3rd party browsers and plugins for PIE that enhance it’s functionality but none that complete the experience.

 If you want to stay on track with Skyfire, sign up for notifications at their website.

Opera has a nice page about the upcoming Opera Mobile 9.5 and provides a sly download link for the current version 8.95 if you haven’t tried it out yet.

If you want to keep track of Mobile Firefox or even contribute to the project a good place to start is their Project Page. There are meeting minutes, bug tracking and to do lists galore for the devout.

Stayed tuned into AllShadow.com for full coverage of this war as it pertains to Windows Mobile Standard/Smartphone and the T-Mobile Shadow.

Long time contender Opera is setting to release Opera Mobile 9.5 which promises a slew of useful features. The video below is shown on a Pocket PC so no word on how it will look on the smartphone/windows mobile standard platform. The application is feature rich and seems to be worth the money they usually ask for it. Maybe they will see an increase in sales finally.

A quick list of features in Opera Mobile 9.5:

• Faster - 2.5x faster than PIE
• New Rendering Engine
• Widgets - fully functional and useful
• Tabbed Browsing that we all love
• New User Interface
• Zooming
• Panning
• Page overview
• Autohiding menus for more screen real estate
• Download manager
• Save/images images from website
• Save page for offline browsing
• Password manager
• AJAX support along with comprehensive standards support
• Flash Lite 3.0

One thing I am really looking forward to is the device side rendering. Opera Mini is nice but the rendering is performed server side so a 3rd party has access to what you are seeing, which is how the SkyFire browser does business.

If you want to know more about it check out their product page for some specs or watch the video below for a preview of what lies in store:

Austin Whitelaw points us to a preview video put out by the creators of the browser themselves.

 Enjoy!