There seems to be no shortage of Instant Messaging apps in the Android market these days. A simple search will come up with apps like eBuddy, Meebo, IMO, IMEasy etc. Well, IM+ is yet another instant messaging app. IM+ from Shape Services has to be the most extensive messaging app that I have had the opportunity to use and believe me, I have pretty much tried them all.

IM+ is an all-in-one Instant Messaging solution. One of the greatest features of this application is that there is no longer a need to be running multiple chat applications at the same time. Everything you might need is right there in IM+, all wrapped up into one well rounded application. It is a simple idea but very well executed in IM+. If you are the kind of social butterfly that enjoys chatting with several friends or co workers at one time, then this app is essential for you.

For those who are coming from the iPhone, you will know that IM+ is one of the most popular IM apps in the Apple App Store. It supports Twitter, Facebook, Skype, push notifications, and many more unique and useful features. So how does the IM+ for Android stack up against the competition? Can it stand out in a somewhat crowded corner of the market? Let’s have a look, shall we?

After initial install, the first thing you’ll want to do is to add your IM accounts. Current networks supported by IM+ include MSN, Skype, Facebook, AOL, Gtalk, Yahoo, Jabber, ICQ and mySpace. There is no Twitter support for the Android version of the app yet, despite it being available on the iPhone version.Once you have all of your IM accounts setup and configured, you will find all of your contacts listed in a single window. In this list, an icon identifying the network each user is on will appear next to each user in the list. Keeping it clear who’s on which network.

User Interface
In my honest opinion, IM+ Probably has the nicest user interface of all of the IM apps. The contact list fills up the whole screen, without wasting any space with useless designs or borders. Another plus, is that the font size is big enough to read with ease and the thumbnail pictures of your contacts are crisp and clear. Any incoming chat will be moved to the top of the window to make it easy to access. If the app is not active, you will also receive a notification in your status bar.

Chat Interface
Each conversation is well arranged and also color coded for easy navigation. For MSN Live Messenger, you can even start a group chat. This is one feature not available in most IM apps. It also supports a good range of emoticons.
Another outstanding feature of IM+, is how you can set your visibility for each account. For example, you want to chat with your sister on Facebook but aren’t crazy about the idea of chatting with chatty Aunt Kathy on AOL? IM+ lets you control which accounts are running and who you want to talk to.
Also a great and original feature I liked, is the ability to view and export your History log. As someone who switches between different computers and mobile devices, I hold conversations with different people at different times, on different devices. In order to track the conversation, I have to sync my history logs so they appear on all the devices and screens that I am using. Most mobile IM apps don’t have a history log, let alone the ability to export them. With IM+, you can easily export the history log to, let’s say a Dropbox account, and access it from your desktop at any time.

Some features and Settings:
Set a custom status
Many IM apps only come with the usual “Online” and “Away” status, but IM+ comes with “Online”, “Away”, “I am here”, “Invisible”, “Offline”. What’s even better, is you can create your own custom status very easily within the app.
Create your own custom message templates
Another great feature would be that IM+ allows you to create custom message templates that you can use at any time (such as, “I am busy now. Talk to you later”).

– Whether to show offline contacts
– Change status
– Show or not show the current conversations
– Whether to show groups
– Whether to show the date and time before each message
– Send messages using the “enter” key
– Whether or not to show the icon IM+ in the notification bar
– Whether to display notifications of messages received in a small window at the bottom of the screen
– Enable or disable the vibrate mode and / or audio notifications for new posts
– Activate the “Text to Speech”
– Enable or disable the battery saving function. A message that if you enable this feature, you will be disconnected when unit goes into standby
– Long press on a contact: delete, block and / or rename the contact, view conversation history and view the contact info

Usefulness:
Nowadays, it can be a complex task to chat and stay in touch with each and every buddy, pal, or friend, with them each using a different IM or chat application to stay connected. IM+ brings all these and more into one application, saving you the trouble and device’s resources of having to run multiple programs to stay in touch with everyone.

Ease of Use:
IM+ is pretty effortless to use and to setup. You simply connect to your accounts, select your contacts and you can begin chatting right away. It also allows you to handle multiple chats on different accounts at the same time, saving you the hassle of switching between different applications for each conversation.
The user interface is laid out very well. It makes sense to use and therefore is very intuitive to operate. It gives you direct access to what’s important for usage and doesn’t complicate things with unneeded settings and options. I would say that a lot of time was spent designing how this app can bring all of the important features of a good chat or IM client to you, in one small, easy to use, application. To switch between your contacts, chat streams and accounts, you just simply slide from side to side. The overall experience was very good. No bogging down and no major glitches that I experienced.

Pros & Cons:

Pros

• All IM chats in one simple application.
• Easy to use interface.
• Smooth, intuitive UI
• Group Conversations on Skype and MSN.
• Can run in the background.
• Good range of connection options.
• Status settings.
• Geolocation.
• Handles all major IM and chat accounts.
• Custom notification settings
• Newly added support for image and audio sharing.**

Cons

• Well, I had just a couple cons originally. However, by the time I was done doing this review, my biggest con was taken care of with an update from IM+. You can now share images and audio files within the application, something that was not possible before. Now if we could just see other file types added to this feature, I would say there is nothing left out.

IM+ is available in the Android market in both the Free and Pro version. Both versions are essentially the same except that the free version is ad-supported and the paid version helps support the developers and helps keep them motivated to bring us such great software.

Changelog

Version 4.1
• Contact list search
• Photo and sound files sending
• Multi-accounts for Facebook
• User interface improvements
• Customizable chat font size
• IM+ auto launch upon Android device starting
• Emoticons disabling
• Chinese Traditional localization
• Many bugfixes, tweaks and overall improvements

Is IM+ the application for you? If you like chatting on multiple platforms, this app could save you a lot of time and aggravation trying to manage multiple chats with different friends on different messaging platforms. IM+ is quite simple to use and a pleasure compared to most other messaging apps I’ve used. So, if you are the type that likes staying in touch with your social network accounts and chats on your handheld, IM+ is the must have application for you.

Shape Services

IM+ Pro

IM+

There are many GEEKsters out there looking for some numbers from MS to help them make a decision on their next smartphone. Judging by some of the numbers released by MS, things are moving in the right direction. The number of developers downloading the needed tools to develop apps are great considering this is a new platform.

What’s very interesting is the number of apps MS has released does not include the lite versions, ebooks, wallpaper and the apps that have multiple languages count as 1. We all know that the Android and Apple market counts each one of these apps as a seperate app.

Last year many were calling WP7 the new Kin. The numbers are proving many of the nay sayers very wrong.

What do you GEEKmeisters think about this development?
What will the other platform fans say?
Inquiring GEEKS want to know..

Read more here: Intomobile

Apple is facing major supply issues with the new iPad 2, with some customers having to wait 4 to 5 weeks for delivery. Apple has had shortage issues in the past with the second generation iPhone 3G for more than a month and up to 3 weeks on the Iphone 4 according to reports from NPD Group.

According to Stephen Baker, an analyst with retail research firm NPD Group, compared the shortage to the iPhone 3G situation. Most customers would rather hold out for the second generation of the product after the flaws have been resolved on the first generation as was the case with the first iPhone.

According to Brian Marshall of Gleacher & Co., the shortage is due to the “tremendous demand” for the Ipad 2. Rhoda Alexander, an analyst at IHS iSuppli, agreed with Marshall and added the disaster in Japan is not effecting delivery of the iPad 2. Alexander also anticipated these issues when they heard only 100 iPads would be available in each store.

Marshall also finds it interesting that Apple has not released sales figures on the iPad 2 since launch. Typically Apple likes to show those numbers off, such as it did after launch last year when 300,000 were sold on the first day of sales.

According to Reuters, the launch of the iPad 2 will be postponed in Japan while the country focuses on recovering from the recent disaster.

Did Apple announce the iPad 2 too early because of the XOOM announcement? Is this why they are having supply issues?

Tell us what you think about this situation

read more at Computerworld

Sprint recently announced a new Total Equipment Protection application that is very useful for smartphones if you pay for the TEP insurance plan. If you lose your phone you can locate, lock, clear and restore it all with this application. To give you peace of mind you can restore your information once you recover your handset so don’t think everything is gone forever. This is something Verizon and AT&T have already been successful with so maybe Sprint will be as well.

We haven’t found it in the market yet but you can click here and download it and then place it on your phone. Sprint says it should be showing up starting today for those who pay for TEP.

The application is free and does work with Android and Blackberry devices, again only if you pay for the $7.00 a month TEP protection.

Take a look at the Press Release below:

OVERLAND PARK, Kan.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–The cost to replace a lost mobile device is usually the least of a wireless customer’s worries, especially if he or she is protected by Sprint’s Total Equipment Protection, which provides coverage against loss, theft and damage. The bigger nightmare is the thought that a customer’s personal contacts, photos and other private information could fall into the wrong hands. To help alleviate those fears, Sprint (NYSE: S) customers needing to track down a lost device and protect their personal information can do so now with the launch of a new application called Total Equipment Protection App.*

Sprint customers with Total Equipment Protection will be able to access the new application, beginning today, at www.sprint.com/protection, where they will benefit from the following features:

* Locate lost device by sounding an alarm on the smartphone even if in silent mode, doing a real time locate via GPS technology, or viewing the smartphone’s location history on a map via a Web Interface
* Remotely lock their smartphone
* Erase contacts in the address book on a lost smartphone
* Backup, manage and restore contacts

“Anyone who has lost a phone knows that their personal information is possibly just as vulnerable as if their computer was hacked,” said John Carney, senior vice president of consumer marketing for Sprint. “Now, Sprint customers have peace of mind knowing that their personal and private information is safe. TEP and this accompanying application is a safeguard for customers who want protection from not only loss, but misuse and unauthorized access.”

The Protection App is included at no additional charge as a benefit of Total Equipment Protection plan, which is $7 per month, per line of service. It is available to customers with phones using BlackBerry and Android mobile platforms. TEP customers download and install the user-friendly application at www.sprint.com/protection. Privacy protection is included with the Protection App. Each time the smartphone’s location is requested by the Web interface, an SMS text message is sent to the smartphone notifying it has been located.

Do you currently pay for TEP and own a smartphone? Go on and download the application and let us know what you think. Of course, we know you may not make a claim today but you can at least tell us how much you like the looks, features, etc. Are you with Verizon or AT&T and use their similar apps? Let us know! Leave your comments in the box below.

Source: Engadget via Sprint

Hey guys. Tony here bringing you another video review for WP7. This time we take a quick glance at the Twin Blades side scroller and the classic game of Pac-Man. If you have an app or game you would like me to review for WP7 or Android, email me at anthony.pollard@staff.ppcgeeks.com.

.

Courtney1985 here, just saying be sure to hop into our forums and discuss this game. It looks very addicting and I must say, I can’t wait to try it out! What about you?

Let’s face it: The stock browser on your shiny new Android device lacks…a lot. Well, let’s go ahead and fix that, shall we?

Get It!

You can visit this Appbrain Link or scan this QRcode to get Dolphin Browser HD from the market:

So go ahead and download it. Hurry! You’re missing out!

Now That You’ve Got It

Alright. You have, by now, gone to the market and downloaded this baby. Now it’s time to fire it up. On the first run of the app, you’re going to be confronted with a welcome screen:

After the welcome screen, Dolphin HD Will take you through a small intro that shows you some of the features and basic usability tips. You can’t use the browser without going through this, so I won’t bother showing you the screenshots. Once you get through the intro presentation, you will be looking at the dolphin start page:

Good times. Let’s take a look at some of the features.

Some Of The Features

Bookmarks and History

One of the things that always peeved me about the stock browser was how it handled the history and bookmarks. It was just a little bit cumbersome and awkward. You had to hit all those buttons and go through those menus, making selections all willy-nilly, but none of that matters now! Dolphin has made a much better experience for this situation. With the page all the way zoomed out (or scrolled to the far left of the web page you’re on), swipe the screen to the right (past the realm of the webpage). BAM!

It’s just better. If you want to add a bookmark (assuming you’re wanting to add the page you’re currently viewing), just click that star right there. Easy-Peasy. It’s so simple, in fact, that i have nothing more to say about it.

Multiple Tabs(Windows)

You have been given the ability to view up to 8 different web pages simultaneously. That’s probably quite few more than you should need but it’s always nice to know that you CAN. You have probably noticed, by this point, that you have a tab bar up on top of the page. Click on that big ol’ plus sign. Well done. You are now the proud owner of 2 tabs. In addition to the tab bar interface, Dolphin has given you a much more “Impress your friends”ish option. Remember how we slid the page to get to the bookmarks panel? Same thing, other side. That’s your add-ons panel. We’ll cover the add-ons later. for right now, direct your attention to the downward arrow at the top right. Pull it down.

This way, you can see a preview of the page you’re switching to. It is, admittedly, a laggier way of doing things. In my experience, this window switching panel is pretty jumpy, even on my Evo. It’s definitely not bad enough for me to quit using it though. Look at how cool that looks.

Add-ons OMG!

This is pretty huge. Dolphin HD has support for a whole bunch of add-ons. Swipe left to open up that panel we talked about earlier. Yeah, that one. You can click the puzzle piece at the bottom to get to the main add-on screen.

Now, in my screenshot, I’ve already got quite a few installed. They have a huge range of functions and I’m not even going to attempt covering them all here. Just click the “Get more Add-ons” button and go nuts. Seriously, there’s a ton of them.

Gestures

On the bottom left of the browsing window, you’ll notice a picture of a hand. Tap it. This is your gesture area. You can click the gear on the bottom right to see what gestures are built in, or you can make your own custom gestures that can perform a wide array of functions. I made this one:

Which ended with my browser doing this:

Cool. Go nuts on this one, too, because this is a really quick and infinitely useful feature. Sometimes it will have no idea what gesture you’re trying to do, but you’ll eventually get it. It works for me most of the time.

Under the Hood

I won’t go through all of them, but you get a lot more options to play around with in the settings menu. Like, A LOT.

Play around with it. Dolphin browser does a lot and the best way to learn is to play.

Now I’d like to take a moment to talk about

Your New Favorite Dolphin HD Add-on

You may have noticed the PPCGeeks icon in my screenshots or when you were looking through the add-on gallery in Dolphin. If you haven’t already installed it, you’re fired. Just kidding. But, seriously, get out of here.

The add-on gives you access to the PPCGeeks RSS feed so you’ll be able to read my posts ANYWHERE (and posts from the other awesome writers for PPCGeeks, I guess ;)). To use it, install it like any other add-on. Then, go into the main add-ons window and click it. That was easy.

->

Immediately, you will be transported to a dream-world of magic. A place where you always know what’s going on with the mobile device world.

The End, You Guys

Thanks for reading, and I hope it helped! I definitely recommend Dolphin HD and the PPCGeeks add-on. Download and try it yourself! What do you have to lose? Nothing, that’s what.

So you have decided to download the Windows Phone Developer Tools in order to start developing applications for Windows Phone 7. You spend hours upon hours coming up with the greatest app ever developed to date. You decide to release it as shareware with the best licensing key algorithm that no one could ever crack. You start up a new website, spend hours making it look professional, and once you are happy with it, you decide to finally post your application. Within the first hour, 3000 people have downloaded your application, so figuring that 5-10% of those people will register the application; you start doing the math, and realize that it was all worth it. [Ed’s Note- Some MightyMike Rom’s experience 3ooo people downloading per second.]

The next day you decide to do a Google search on your application to see if Google has indexed your site correctly, but to your surprise, the top hit is a crack for your application. How could that be? You have spent way too many hours coming up with algorithms that would make NSA jealous for it all to be for naught.

This could and has happened to a lot of developers out there, but how does this happen? Well, this has to do with how Microsoft Visual Studio compiles .Net applications. In .Net applications, they are not really compiled to what you and I would consider a true .EXE file; instead, they are compiled to Common Language Infrastructure (CLI). So what is CLI you ask, CLI is a byte-code, like Java uses, so when you run the .Net application, it first uses a Just In Time (JIT) compiler to compile it for the computer or device it is being run on.

So know you’re asking, what’s wrong with CLI code? Well, with the correct application you can re-create the original code from the CLI. The code turns out to be very close to the original, with only minor differences. The application in question is .Net Reflector.

Your next question is why anyone would use this for good and not evil. Well, I had made quite a few changes in a program I maintain while deployed, compiled it, installed it on many machines, but forgot to back up the changes. My laptop was stolen after that, so I figured I had lost all that hard work, but I still had the install file. While developing ZURN for MightyMike, I was having wait cursor issues, and started researching why; well it had to do with the JIT compiler compiling the program prior to running. I kept reading about it, found .Net reflector, but that didn’t help me with Zurn at the time. However a few months later, someone needed me to fix a few problems in my application, so I had to go back to an earlier version, made the changes, but then remembered .Net Reflector, so after a few hours, I had all my other changes back in. It really was a life saver for me.

Now, how can you protect yourself from this very thing if you’re a programmer? Well, there are other applications for just that, they are referred to as Obfuscators. What they do is go through the CLI code, and rename every function and variable to simple names. For example, if you have a function called HelloWorld(String strText, String strTitle), it might change it to A(String a, String b). This does not change the actual function; it just makes it really difficult to follow. A really good example of one of these programs is Obfuscar, and it is open source, which always makes me happy.

Apps, apps, apps! With Google’s recent announcement that the Android Market has reached 38,000 applications, I decided to find out how many applications are in each of the major smartphone app stores. Remember that these figures are only for the number of applications in the official application store and do not include the total number of applications for a platform.

With no surprise, Apple leads the count with just shy of 160,000 applications at last count, while the aforementioned Android Market has 38,000. Claming a distant third in this size-only contest is Blackberry’s App World, which has 6531. Symbian is fourth with just over 3400 apps while following behind in fifth is the Palm App Catalog with 2169 applications. Falling dead last is Windows Marketplace For Mobile, with only 840 approved applications. For posterity sakes, the morbid Palm OS App Store has 2393 applications.

If the non-approved applications were to be included, my best estimate is that Apple would still be leading, with Android, Windows Mobile and Symbian vying for second place, and the rest of the field falling well back. It will be interesting to see if Apple can maintain this gargantuan lead as Android’s growth has been absolutely torrid. Also, will the paltry number of 840 increase to several thousand with the looming Windows Phone 7 launch later this year? Only time will tell!

Please note that for the Microsoft, Blackberry and Palm OS figures, I used a calculator to add up the total as they each give a break down of how many applications are in each genre, but not the total amount of approved applications. Also, as these stats are not officially given by the various companies, they are what I have found to be the most reliable count.

Special thanks to Mr. X, Mikee4fun, and psycho_maniac for helping with this post. Image from thewebsquad.com.

Looking to develop applications for Windows Phone 7 but not sure of where to start? Microsoft recently released several free resources that will help any aspiring  app developer start in the right direction. With Windows Phone 7, XNA, Silverlight and .NET are the supported runtimes that developers will be working with.

The current list of WP 7 development resources are:

• Visual Studio 2010 Express for Windows Phone 7 Series (Link)
• Windows Phone 7 Series eBook (Link)
• Windows Phone 7 Series Developer Documentation (Link)
• Windows Phone 7 Series Icon Pack (Link)

Additional Windows Phone 7 developer documentation can be found here while the main portal for Windows Phone 7 platform development is located here. Now get to building those great mobile applications!

Source- Mobile Jaw

There are two ways you can access Sly Dial. The first, which is free* but ad-supported, is by calling 1-267-SLY-DIAL (267-759-3425). A short ad will play once you are connected and then it will ask for you to input your victim’s contact’s phone number, after which it will connect your call. I tried it several times and every time it worked, connecting me to the voicemail prompt quickly.

The second way you can access the service is through the SlyDial Application. They currently have apps that work on the iPhone, Blackberry, and Windows Mobile.

I was able to review the Windows Mobile version of this app. There are two versions for Windows Mobile: Touchscreen and Standard (non-touchscreen). Both are compatible with Windows Mobile  5 and 6. I have received confirmation from MobileSphere that the  SlyDial application is also compatible with WM 6.5.

After installing the .CAB, I opened the application up. Minimalistic interfaces that get the job done without clutter are something I really enjoy, and this one is simple and easy to use. To note, I am using this application on my Touch Pro2 and, as you can see in the image, the words are readable, but blurry. I hope that they release an update that make viewing on a variety of screen resolutions clearer.

SlyDial worked flawlessly, as I was able to connect directly to my contact’s voicemail when selected from the contact list in the application. In all, it took 10-15 seconds to go from the contact list to the voicemail prompt. Of course, results will vary if you are in a poor coverage area.

SlyDial will work in the U.S. for most carriers, but it will not connect to someone who has a prepaid mobile phone (Virgin Mobile, TracFone, etc.), does not have voicemail on his/her phone (like Zach Morris), their voicemail is full, or if they have a third-party voicemail service (e.g. Google Voice, Youmail).

While this application is not freeware, the service itself is free. Is SlyDial worth purchasing? Personally, I would say yes because I have difficulty remembering numbers  which complicates dialing in. For others, the call-to service may suit them just fine. So readers, what do you think of this application?

Below is the blog post by the Google Mobile team. You may download the .CAB here.

As told by the Google Mobile team-

Google Maps for mobile has long allowed you to add stars on a map to mark your favorite places. You may have noticed a few months ago that Google Maps for desktop browsers introduced the ability to star places as well. Unfortunately, there was no way to keep these starred places in sync with Google Maps on your phone. With today’s release of Google Maps for mobile 3.3 on Windows Mobile and Symbian phones, you’ll now be able to keep the starred places on your phone and on your computer completely synchronized.

For users upgrading from an older version of Google Maps for mobile, you’ll be asked, when you log in, whether you’d like to synchronize your existing starred items with your Google Account. This means you can preserve all the work you’ve put into customizing your map on your mobile, and have it show up, conveniently, in Google Maps in your desktop browser.

Source- WMExperts.com

Microsoft has offered some clarification on this issue:

Quote:

In the vast majority of instances where an application is removed from Windows Marketplace for Mobile, users of this application will continue to be able to use these applications on their phones. In the rare event an application from Marketplace exhibits harmful behavior or has unforeseen effects, Marketplace has the capability to remotely uninstall these applications. While we hope to avoid this scenario, we will make refunds available in such cases.

As part of their upcoming launch of Marketplace for Mobile, Microsoft will be including a kill switch. However, unlike Apple, who has a similar tool for their App Store, Microsoft is removing the application from the phone if the application becomes unapproved in the Market.

In the past, any application downloaded to a Windows Mobile phone would continue to be there, regardless of the application. It was possible for the creator to kill the application if they so chose, but it was common knowledge that the user who downloaded that application still had the rights to use it.

While any user or developer who goes through Marketplace will agree to such a feature when they accept the EULA, this will create some serious questions when a paid-for app is wiped clean. Will a user who paid for an app receive a refund if their application is wiped clean? Will the developer or Microsoft be responsible for the refund?

Source: Geekzone.co.nz via msmobiles.com