HTC and One & Co, a design firm got merged in Dec 2008. The acquisition proves to be quite a success, says Gartner, “The pairing has helped HTC compete with powerhouse brands like Apple and Samsung.” The ‘people-centric’ approach is said as the substance of HTC’s innovative designs.

Have a glance at what forbes has to say:

The acquisition

Ideas can flow in either direction–from HTC to One & Co or vice versa. Once an assignment is identified, One & Co gathers its 18 employees for a brainstorming meeting.

Android and Windows

Consistency is most important within a particular product line. HTC has two: Google Android and Windows Mobile phones. Its Windows Mobile devices come in dark, glossy finishes to appeal to a professional audience, while its Android phones often sport a playful "chin" or angled base. Those characteristics will stay separate, says Zellweger, meaning no chins for HTC Windows Mobile phones.

A high-end design

"People who want a certain value can buy an LG or Samsung phone," says Zellweger. "We have to make sure our design is strong enough to justify [a higher] price tag." Lately, that has meant small upgrades like making the glass screen on a phone fit even more snugly into its case.

Via Mobiletechworld via Forbes

I am very sure that most of the old Windows Mobile users must have heard at least once about the Wisbar Advance app. It is a wonderful app that skins the top bar and bottom bar of your Windows Mobile device.

Other than its capability to skin your device, I found that there are a number of things that make this app even more useful. Let me tell you how it helps in improving my efficiency:

1. Multi-task like your PC:

Sadly, Microsoft still believes that there is no for a task manager for Windows Mobile and this forced HTC to bundle one with their devices. Unfortunately, HTC’s task manager is weak at managing tasks as it lets you to switch between tasks from the today screen only. I do not think it is true multi-tasking as one should be allowed to switch between the apps from any app, not only from the today screen.

Wisbar Advance lets you switch between apps just the way you do it on your PC. As seen in the following screenshot, you can see that I am running Resco Explorer and if I want to switch to that app, all I need to do is tap on the icon. That is how multi-tasking should have been implemented in Windows Mobile

2. Do more with the top bar

Without Wisbar Advance, one cannot assign multiple functions to the start button or to any button on the top bar. But, with Wisbar Advance, you can assign any application or any item from the control panel to any particular button of the top bar.

3. Change system font easily

Although Microsoft has started using new fonts on their desktop OS, but they still continue to use old fonts on the Windows Mobile devices. I am using Segoe UI font on my HTC DIAMOND and it looks great.

How to find and install Segoe UI font: Google for it and install the font in the \windows folder of your device (using Activesync) and reboot your device.

NOTE: this is NOT a sponsored article although we won’t mind if they pay us something ;)

PS: You can find tones of theme at Wisbar forums. Check them out at this link

[Wisbar Advance official homepage]

Skyfire is an excellent web-browser, which uses its own servers to compress the web data before sending to our devices. This results in faster loading times and less load on the CPU of our devices. It has now finally come out of beta and has hit version 1.

Press release:

Skyfire Launches its 1.0 Version with Over One Million Users, Making it the Fastest Growing Downloadable Mobile Browser in the United States

The 2009 People’s Voice Webby Award for Best Mobile Application is the only mobile browser to bring the full PC Web to phones with a variety of new features and improvements

Skyfire, the makers of the samename PC-like browser for mobile devices, is announcing the launch of its 1.0 version now available for free download at get.skyfire.com. Over one million consumers have installed and used the Skyfire browser in just under five months, making it the fastest growing downloadable mobile browser in North America. This demonstrates the explosive consumer demand for exact-PC like full internet browsing on mobile devices.

Skyfire 1.0 delivers the PC web, real fast

Skyfire remains committed to providing everything the PC web has to offer in a mobile experience with blazing fast speeds. For the first time, consumers can use their phones to watch any web video and live events, stay connected with friends, share web pages instantly, and use the full-featured PC versions of their favorite websites. Skyfire is the only mobile browser to support popular web standards and plug-ins such as Flash 10, Silverlight 2, Ajax, Javascript and more, so the rich media on websites work on phones just like the PC. Known for its speed, Skyfire launches quickly and loads web pages quicker than other mobile browsers.

Skyfire users can customize the start page with RSS feeds from their favorite websites. In addition, they can integrate their Facebook and Twitter accounts to import status updates and tweets, and easily publish their status to these networks. Skyfire is the only mobile browse to share and publish any web page to Facebook and Twitter networks with one click. For an example of how Skyfire works, watch this video.

What’s new in Skyfire 1.0

Improvements specific to the Skyfire 1.0 release include enhanced navigation, zooming and interaction as well as faster launch, power optimization, and new search functionality. Having previously delivered rich media and text readability on a small screen, the focus of this latest release was helping users get to the content they want more quickly.

As the new version starts-up, users can type a search or URL in the Superbar even while Skyfire is connecting in the network. After a web page loads, smooth scrolling and zooming – similar to an iPhone – helps users navigate the page more quickly. Likewise, now users can click on links on the first page load without having to zoom first. Please refer to the Release Notes for specific details about Skyfire 1.0 features.

Tremendous growth and engagement during Beta

“We were absolutely floored by the initial response to the Skyfire Beta,” said Nitin Bhandari, CEO. “We knew people wanted the PC web on their phones and this was clearly confirmed in the significant user growth and engagement during our beta period. We achieved our goal of delivering both a better and faster mobile browsing experience. However, bringing it to over 1M consumers exceeded our expectations of a beta, especially since they were all acquired organically by buzz and word of mouth. As we experienced explosive growth, we also experienced significant uptake in user engagement. People were using Skyfire more often and more people were making Skyfire their default browser – for all of their mobile browsing, not just video consumption.”

Unique user activity – Doing things no other mobile browser can do

Skyfire users are different than iPhone and Opera users because they can watch video, and tend to watch a lot of video on their phones – something not possible on other browsers. They watch video on the PC version of websites such as Hulu, but also video embedded and shared in Twitter and Facebook updates Users can watch TV shows anywhere Real-time access to your Facebook and Twitter feeds from their friends. The also watch video on news sites and experience browsing and video in one experience, vs waiting to click through to a separate application.

There is also high engagement with watching live streaming events such as the Barak Obama Presidential inauguration and Summer Olympics during the beta period. Skyfire users are active on websites that don’t work on any other mobile browser. Consistently, the top websites used on Skyfire are the top websites used on PCs – such as the full-featured Hulu, YouTube, Facebook, Myspace, Google Docs, full-featured Gmail, and professional sport leagues’ full websites. Giving a significant installed base a better browser Skyfire runs on more than 70% of the worldwide installed base of smartphones, based on figures from a March 2009 Gartner report. These include smartphone devices made by HTC, LG, Motorola, Nokia, Palm, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, TMobile, to name a few, and newer models with VGA and WVGA screen resolutions all running on Windows Mobile or Symbian platforms.

These consumers now have a mobile browser that gives them an iPhone-like browsing experience but more, since Skyfire offers Flash 10 and Ajax. With the Skyfire 1.0 release, this large installed base can get the PC web on their phone with a simple to install, free download. Poised for massive growth The smartphone market is forecasted to be larger than 400M installed base by 2010, and almost 4B total mobile devices. The smartphone segment is growing even in the recessionary climate. Mobile data revenue was $32B in revenue in 2008, with a 26% ARPU growth. As a browser that delivers the PC web, Skyfire has much to gain from this growth. Additionally since Skyfire handles much of the processing work on the server-side, the browser reduces carrier bandwidth – making it not only good for consumers but mobile operators as well.

“As web content continues to include more Ajax applications, Javascript, video, Flash 10, and web pages double in complexity every 12 months, there will always be a gap between phone and PC capabilities. PC web progress will not slow down for the mobile industry to catch up,” said Bhandari. “Skyfire’s architecture keeps pace with web technologies and seamlessly bridges the gap. Using Skyfire, consumers continue to get their PC web on their phones, no matter how complex a website.”

To learn more, visit www.skyfire.com.

The workshops will be held at the Verizon Wireless Communications Store, 1244 U.S. 31 North, on the following dates and times:

Thursday, May 28, 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. (Windows Mobile devices only)

If you live in US and new to Windows Mobile then we recommend you all to attend these workshops.

Reservations are required by registering online at http://workshop.wds.vzw.com. Seating is limited.

For more information, visit Verizon Wireless

The browser was is getting fiercer every day. The NetAcceler Mach5 promises to provide the best web browsing experience to the user.

Mach5 Web for Mobile enables mobile users to take the full PC web browsing experience to their mobile devices. Featured websites such as YouTube, Facebook, Google Maps, YouKu, YP Map and many other featured sites with Flash animations and videos, AJAX, JavaScript, ActiveX and more, are easily accessed. Video Clips on YouTube are full screen supported.

With the latest and unique remote browsing technology, Mach5 Web for Mobile requires just minimal bandwidth to retrieve FULL web content. Other features such as view and save Text and Image can also be supported by Mach5 Web for Mobile.

Learn more about it here

[via solsie]