Wireless Archive

While it's been a low-level grumbling for years, the issue of Flash on mobile devices (and particularly the iPhone/Touch/iPad ecosystem) has reached fever pitch over the past few weeks, with Steve Jobs as self-appointed Flash basher-in-Chief. The OSNews crowd, that is, dyed-in-the-wool technologists have, by and large, not been big fans of Flash, with its spotty availability and performance on alternative platforms, resource hogging, and instability. And though it's quite useful for web video and other specialized interfaces, it drives the tech savvy crazy when it's used for utterly superfluous multimedia bling. So we've had a lively discussion of the pros and cons of Flash, and whether device users should be free to make their own decision about whether it's worthy to install on their iPads. But we're leaving out an important detail. As Daniel Eran Dilger, a Flash developer, points out, almost all the important existing Flash infrastructure won't work anyway. Update: A worthwhile rebuttal to this point of view.

As promised, a write-up about Notion Ink's Adam. Yes, it's yet another tablet, and yes, there's only so many ways you can build a tablet, but this one is special: it has a much-vaunted Pixel Qi display, a type of display that is supposed to herald the coming of the Unicorn of Plenty. All hype aside, this is a pretty cool piece of technology.

Only a few hours left to go until the big Windows Mobile 7/Windows Phone Series 7/whatever announcement by Microsoft at Mobile World Congress, but shots of what is supposed to be the new UI have already leaked - and it looks refreshingly different from the barrage of iPhone copies we've been seeing the past few years. Microsoft's press conference starts 15:00 CET.

Hand-held devices could soon have pressure-sensitive touch-screens and keys, thanks to a UK firm's material that exploits a quantum physics trick. The technology allows, for example, scrolling down a long list or webpage faster as more pressure is applied. A division of Samsung that distributes mobile phone components to several handset manufacturers has now licensed the "Quantum Tunnelling Composite". The approach could find use in devices from phones to games to GPS handsets.

Symbian has completed the process of open sourcing its entire code base, in advance of its June deadline. While the release is ahead of schedule, the first phones - expected to be out early next year - will hit the market more than two years after the first Android phone became available. The code is expected to become available on the Symbian developer page on Thursday.

During the iPad presentation, I was rather perplexed by Apple's claim to be the largest mobile device company in the world. Apparently, I wasn't the only one scratching his head, as Nokia itself, and even the Financial Times, is calling Apple out on its juggling with figures and definitions.