Mobile Phone News

It’s certainly not the first app Microsoft has crafted for the iPhone — the Bing app has been alive and well for a while at this time, among others — but you could argue that this is a pretty important one. Windows Live Messenger has just launched for iOS, and it’s Truly a bit more than your basic IM app with support for some manner of social service aggregation, media-rich status messages, Hotmail integration, and even built-in photo effects. Many folks will want an IM client that can span a bunch of services at once — but if you’re a Windows Live fanatic stuck in an iPhone world, this should be just what the doctor ordered. Let’s hope the experience is just as good on Windows Phone 7, right?

You probably won’t hear Microsoft lauding this thing too much — it’s got bigger fish to fry at the moment — but Samsung and US Cellular have just teamed up to launch the i225 Exec, a simple Windows Mobile 6.5 Standard-based smartphone with a portrait QWERTY keyboard. It’s got a 2 megapixel camera and microSD expansion up to 32GB (assuming you can actually track down a 32GB SanDisk card), but otherwise, this is about as straightforward and basic as a modern smartphone can get — no frills, just straight-up touchscreen-free legacy WinMo action. It’s available right at this time for $99.95 on a new two-year contract after $70 rebate.

Samsung Exec launched for US Cellular, suggests WinMo ain’t dead yet originally appeared on Engadget Mobile on Mon, 26 Apr 2010 16:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Microsoft naturally spent the overwhelming majority of its breath chatting up Windows Phone 7 Series at MIX10 earlier this week, but buried beneath the fanfare was a little morsel for a distinctly different platform. That’s right, Symbian fans, you’ve at this time got a Silverlight runtime (for a few devices, anyway) some two years after Nokia declare that it’d be coming. Support right at this time is limited to S60 5th Edition — that is, touch-enabled Symbian devices — with both in-browser and standalone Silverlight apps available for the taking. It’s just a beta right at this time, so don’t have too much faith in the stability or feature-completeness of this thing — but it’s a start.

Silverlight beta comes to S60 5th Edition originally appeared on Engadget Mobile on Sat, 20 Mar 2010 16:02:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.