If you have ever used Adium X on Mac OS X, then its unlikely that you’ll be using iChat again anytime soon. Adium’s contact list modification capabilities are extraordinary, which makes iChat’s contact list look positively bloated. iChat Pro, a free list window mod for iChat, aims to fix that by trimming the fat off of the main contact list.

I installed it easily into Mac OS X 10.5.2 “Leopard” and started up with no problems. While it doesn’t make iChat work just like Adium, it does make the contact list far more manageable. Available free from Infinise Design.

written by Tyler Regas

This is one of the reasons for the change from PDA Handyman to MoboDojo. PDAs which are not also phones have been in steep decline for the last few years. Surprisingly, Palm has retained its top spot, though only as a vendor. Palm OS marketshare was a mere 36.2% in 2006, but jumped to 42% in 2007. Palm has offered the same models for the last two years, as well. In order of marketshare, the rest of the top five are HP at 24.8%, Mio at 12.3%, Fujitsu-Siemens at 4.3%, and Dell at 3.5%. All other vendors make up the remaining 13%. [Source: IDC]

written by Tyler Regas

LapWorks has announced a pair of new lappy stands for people on the go. Both essentially identical, the Envoy and Attache are designed to elevate both PC and Mac laptops to improve typing angle and raise the screen to eye level. The two stands feature integrated silent fans and four port USB 2.0 hubs. The Attache adds an aluminum faceplate which acts as a large heatsink.

The two are available now. The Envoy is ready at US$49.95 while the Attache goes for US$69.95. Take a closer look at the site, as well. It has a bevy if info on ergonomics. Don’t quibble. Just do it. Its your health at stake. The Dojo cares. We do.

written by Tyler Regas

I have to say, the Mobile World Congress in Spain has really grown up to be a big, strapping lad, and nVidia is a big part of that right now. Sadly, nVidia is only playing with Microsoft, so the other kids will just have to wait their turn. nVidia is now pimping their APX 2500 Ultra-Low Power GeForce chipset for Windows Mobile devices. What you see to your left is nVidia’s reference platform, a development mule designed to allow developers the tools they need to get it working.

Now lets look at the specs. The chipset is designed to run optimally in WinMo. Get this: nVidia is saying the chipset can enable a handheld device to display 10 hours of 720p video. That’s 1280×720. It can also handle HDMI, composite, and S-video outputs, as well as external monitors up to 1280×1024. For 3D acceleration, we’re talking OpenGL ES 2.0 and Direct3D Mobile support and programmable pixel, vertex, and lighting shaders. Finally it can encode and decode H.264, MPEG-4, decode WMV, AAC, AMR, MP3, and WMA, and can handle 12MP camera sensors.

How many of you wanna bet that this means XBOX Mobile before this time next year? At the very least, an announcement. As for availability, they are sampling now and will be entering full production by the end of the second Quarter this year.

written by Tyler Regas

If you’ve been waiting for this one, wait no longer. Head on over to your Software Update tool and download it now. This update includes various fixes and improvements. The big players in 10.5.2, however, are hot ones. First, the Menubar no longer has to be transparent. Second, you can now have your hierarchical Dock folders back. Third, there’s now a Time Machine icon for the Menubar. Nifty!

written by Tyler Regas

Wow! Didn’t see that one coming. Microsoft is apparently acquiring Danger, the designer of the HipTop and its software, more commonly known as the T-Mobile Sidekick. Danger originally designed the HipTop platform and operating system as a way to reduce carrier costs and ease development times for hardware OEMs. What started as an exclusive deal with T-Mobile turned into an “only carried by T-Mobile” deal. Now, Microsoft is acquiring Danger in order to improve their stakes in the mobile device game.

Combine this with the fact that HTC is making more touchscreen devices and SonyErricson has finally jumped onto the WinMo bandwagon, and you have a pretty clear idea that Microsoft is not happy with its lot in life. The Zune is an outright failure and people generally can’t talk about WinMo without describing the horrors it visits upon them. Meanwhile, Palm hasn’t offered up a new OS in 4 years and RIM can’t keep its network alive. Doesn’t anyone here see Apple’s iPhone marketshare growing this year? Not if The Scourge of Redmond can help it!

written by Tyler Regas

HTC, clearly burned out from their stellar product naming sessions for the Touch, Touch Dual, and the Touch Cruise, has announced the P3470 for Europe this year. Hmm. This here is a Windows Mobile 6 powered device with a 2.8″ “flat” touchscreen featuring HTC’s TouchFlo technology. I’m not sure what they mean by “Flat” but I’m sure it’ll be cool when we get to touch it. Otherwise it features a 200MHz TI OMAP processor, 256MBs of Flash ROM, 128MBs of RAM, Bluetooth 2.0+EDR, a 2MP camera, a microSD memory expansion slot (with a 1GB card in it), has integrated GPS, and works on the 850/800/1800/1900 GSM/GPRS, and EDGE networks.

The integrated SatNav (just GPS to us Yanks) uses Tom Tom maps, so it should work quite well. The maps are included on the included microSD card. Orange will be rolling it out in the UK, France, Spain, and The Netherlands later this month for €449. Not bad. Not bad at all, if it weren’t for WinMo. Sorry, Statesiders, no word on a US launch.

written by Tyler Regas

No, its not the latest Bruckheimer “Dramaction” film, its RIM’s US Blackberry services going off-line… again. Here’s CNN covering it. There’s really not a lot to say about this. Especially if you use a Blackberry.

written by Tyler Regas

In case you hadn’t noticed, the Apple iPhone has already had a significant impact on the mobile industry, and the new SonyEriccson Xperia X1 is a clear example of that. This sexy, sleek, curvy device to the left is a touchscreen beast, for sure, but it also hides a full QWERTY keyboard. The other interesting aspect of this handset is that its SonyErricson’s first handset which runs Windows Mobile, in this case WinMo 6. I have a problem with that, but we’ll just have to see.

For specs, the X1 features a 3.2MP camera with a dorky “Camera Light” instead of a flash, a 3″ 800×480 touch display, and optical joystick (?), Bluetooth, unspecified WLAP, an FM radio, integrated Java, aGPS functionality, and a gaggle of WinMo applications. It also comes with something Sony likely developed for it called XPERIA Panels, which is likely the interface you can sorta see above. SonyErricson says it will be available worldwide by mid-2008, but didn’t offer pricing. It will work on GSM/GPRS, EDGE, UMTS, HSDPA, and HSUPA networks and will ship in black and silver.

written by Tyler Regas

DLO is now offering their new functionally named Portable Speakers for iPhone. There are two unique aspects to these speakers, one which is helpful, the other which is not. First, in a  helpful sense, these new US$49.99 speakers make the speakerphone function work a lot better. This is likely due to the TDMA blocking capability of the kit. Second, the unhelpful part, it closes up like an egg. Hmm.

written by Tyler Regas