Having handled more handsets than a Carphone Warehouse salesman on a Saturday morning, we were overcome with just how much stonking new software was on show at this year’s Mobile World Congress. From genre-defining operating systems to all-new apps, the Barcelona show had it all.
Want to know what our hottest picks are? Course you do. Hop in now and we’ll give you the lowdown on the five best apps and software we caught a glimpse of last week.
Windows Phone 7 Series
Microsoft grabbed all the headlines with Windows Phone 7 Series. The leaner, meaner OS is a complete rebuild of the old-school, ageing Windows Mobile, replete with Bing integration, Live Tiles for social networking and web feeds and multitouch support so that pesky stylus is a thing of the past. And then there’s Xbox Live on board too. The only worry? We don’t know exactly when we’ll see the Big M’s new creation hit the shelves.
MeeGo
Maemo is dead. That was the message from Nokia and Intel, who together outed MeeGo, a new operating system bringing together Maemo and Moblin. Why’s it so special? Well, it’s not just for phones, with the Finnish phone fanciers talking up its ability to kick it on netbooks and even in-car systems. Nok clearly reckons this is something to batter Google Chrome OS, as well as give the Apple iPad some healthy competition. But like Windows Phone 7 Series, release details remain sketchier than an artist’s notebook.
BBC News and Sports Results iPhone apps
The Beeb’s in a spot of bother about its ever-wider web experiments, but that didn’t stop Auntie’s digital guru Erik Huggers outing two new iPhone apps in Spain. BBC News and BBC Sports Results are the first official add-ons from the BBC and deliver slick access to the latest happenings and footie scores using carousels and are designed to be used one handed. The best bit? Huggers told us Android, webOS, Symbian and Windows Mobile versions are all incoming too.
Google Goggles Translate for Android
Google Goggles is Android 2.0’s best futuristic feature, searching the web just by scanning a snap of whatever you want deets on. Google Goggles Translate, though, is even cooler. Using optical character recognition (OCR), it turns photos of text into a Google search, which it then translates into your language of choice. Can’t work out what road signs say? Snap them with your Android blower and let Google take care of business.
FLO TV for Google Chromium
Working on a Quanta smart-book packing Google Chromium, FLO TV not only brings telly to a micro laptop. It also pulls in real time Twitter feeds about what you;re watching, so you can mouth off about the football match you’re gawping at with likeminded sports fanatics. But the ultimate trick is that this is delivered over the FLO TV network and not over 3G, so you don’t need a web connection for it to play nice. The only niggle? There are no plans as yet to bring this to the UK.
