MeeGo is a Linux-based environment designed for netbooks, tablets, smartphones, and other mobile devices including in-car infotainment systems. The netbook version is already available for download and we’ve seen the tablet and automobile user interfaces. But we’re just starting to get an idea of what MeeGo will look like on phones, now that the MeeGo team has unveiled a set of design principles.

Nokia posted some sample images on its blog today, although it looks like some of these have actually been around since July.

Phone makers may customize the user interface, and there already appear to be a couple of different themes available, but the images give an idea of how users will interact with their phones. For instance, there’s a lock screen which shows you the date, time, as well as status notifications about unread email messages, text messages, or IM notifications.

There are two ways to switch between running apps. You can either use a carousel view or a grid, as shown in the center and right photos above. There’s also an app launcher which can display up to 12 apps at a time on a 3 x 4 grid, and developers can customize the size and shape of icons.

You can find far more details at the MeeGo Handset UI guidelines page.

via Engadget

Twitter for iPad

Twitter unleashed its official application for iPad, which is really just a rebranded version of Tweetie, a Twitter client that Twitter bought in April, 2010. When it comes to Twitter apps, there is no shortage of competition on the iOS – plus there are all kinds of web interfaces that work with Twitter. For Twitter to have an official branded application, the app better be good. As mainly a TweetDeck user myself, I quite liked what I saw from the Twitter app.

You’ll find useful options like Timeline, Mentions, and Lists on the left. The right pane displays whatever option you pick. The interface is similar in the landscape mode – the right pane just becomes a centered pane with a gutter on the right side.

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Sometimes you need to access files or programs on your computer, but you don’t want to leave your cozy spot on the couch. That’s where remote desktop apps such as RemotePC Lite come in. RemotePC Lite is a free iPad app that allows you to control your computer and access files over a local network connection.

In order to use the app, you will have to sign up for a free account with RemotePC, run the server software on your Windows or OS X computer, and install the iPad app which will let you remote control your desktop computer.

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There’s still no official Skype client for Google Android, and Skype has pulled its Windows Mobile client. But Verizon Wireless does offer a version of Skype for Android and BlackBerry devices on its network. Now Skype and Verizon are pouring salt in the wounds of poor schmucks like me who are using T-Mobile or another network.

Skype and Verizon will start offering a Skype mobile app for the BREW feature phone platform. These are phones that offer some of the features of a full-blown smartphone, but without the huge catalog of third party apps.

Supports phones will include the LG enV Touch, LG Chocolate Touch, and Samsung Reality. Users can make free calls over Skype and calls don’t count against your mobile minutes — as long as you’re calling other Skype users. users can also make international calls at Skype rates instead of paying Verizon’s international long distance rates.

You can grab the new Skype app for supported devices by using the Verizon Get it Now service or texting SKYPE to 2255 on your phone to get a download link.

via jkOnTheRun

Windows Phone 7 may not have support for Flash or HTML5 at launch, but it looks like you will be able to watch YouTube videos using some sort of YouTube app. A former Microsoft employee posted a picture this week which showed icons for apps in the Windows Phone 7 Market testing zone. And one of the apps is clearly labeled YouTube. The picture was later removed, but nothing ever truly disappears from the internet.

Of course, it’s also clearly labeled “Music Hub Add-On,” which may mean that it’s not a full-blown app, but rather a tool that you can use to add YouTube content to the existing Windows Phone 7 Music hub.

Other apps in the testing zone include a few games, a Yelp application, RSS reader, shopping list, stock, and weather apps.

via Engadget

We knew it was coming, but I still can’t help but be a little blown away that there’s no an app that will let you play classic Playstation games on a Google Android device. PSX4Droid is now available in the Android Market for $5.99.

Scan to download

Bear in mind, this is just an emulator. In order to run the games, you’re going to need a valid Playstation BIOS file and a way to get get ROMS for the games you want to play. There are a few different methods for doing this — ranging from downloading illegal files from the internet to ripping files from your own Playstation discs. I have a feeling that the PocketISO tool used for the FPSECE Playstation emulator for Windows Mobile might be useful.

Update: XDA-Dvelopers has a good tutorial on how to make the emulator work and how to get ROMS to work properly in the emulator.

PSX4Droid features on-screen controls, support for using the trackball as a directional pad, and the ability to use a WiiMote as a remote control if you connect it over Bluetooth. You can also save game states, which is a lot easier when gaming on a phone than hunting around for a save point in a game and missing your bus stop.

The app supports Android 2.1 and up.  You’ll also probably get the best results on a newer phone with a 1GHz or faster processor and decent graphics.

You can check out a few videos of Final Fantasy VII, Warcraft II, Ridge Racer, and Crash Bandicoot, and other games on Android devices after the break.

via Android Central and Engadget

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Mozilla’s Firefox Home app is now available for download from the iTunes App Store. Firefox Home isn’t a full blown web browser for the iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad. What the app does is give you mobile access the bookmarks, history, and currently open tabs from the desktop version of Firefox.

In order to sync your data, you’ll need to install the Firefox Sync add-on to your desktop browser. This will let you sync your bookmarks, passwords, history, and other preferences across multiple instances of Firefox on a computer or mobile device (although the password sync doesn’t work with Firefox Home… yet).

Once you’ve got Firefox Sync installed, you just download and install the free Firefox Home app for your Apple mobile device, login with your Sync credentials, and your data should appear automatically. If it doesn’t, you can hit the settings tab and click refresh.

Now for the strange part. Even though Firefox Home isn’t a fully functional web browser, it does let you visit web pages. It’s just that typing a URL into the location bar will only bring up items shared in your bookmarks, tabs, and history. You can’t visit a web site that isn’t already stored in your personal data. But as long as you’ve bookmarked a page on your desktop browser, you can render it in Firefox Home without using Apple’s Safari web browser. If you’d prefer to use Safari, you can always click a button to open the same page in Safari.

No, I don’t have any idea why Mozilla included that functionality either. But they did.

I’m hearing reports that Firefox Home is currently only available in the US version of the App Store.

Firefox Home isn’t a perfect solution for synchronizing your data between devices, but it does provide iPhone users with a way to take PC or Mac browser information with them on the go. Of course, another way to access your desktop browser preferences on a mobile device would be to use the Opera browser on your computer and Opera Mobile or Opera Mini on supported mobile devices, since Opera’s mobile browsers are full fledged web browsers which also happen to be able to sync with the desktop version.

Mozilla is going all out on the mobile front this week. On Wednesday the company submitted Firefox Home to Apple for inclusion in the App Store. The app isn’t a full-fledged browser, but it brings your Firefox bookmarks and browser history to the iPhone. And now Mozilla has also released Firefox 1.1 for the Nokia N900 smartphone running Mameo Linux.

To be honest, Maemo is an all-but-dead platform, with Nokia and other smartphone makers moving on to MeeGo. But Maemo was the first mobile platform to get a version of Firefox, and the Android version of Firefox is still in the pre-alpha stages.

In the meantime, by looking at Firefox 1.1 for Maemo, we can get a pretty good picture of what the full version of Firefox for Android will eventually look like.

The latest version comes with a number of new features including:

• Automatic updates of add0ns
• Autocomplete and other form assistant improvements
• Use the phone’s volume keys to zoom
• Save web pages as PDF files (making it easier to email pages to your desktop for printing)
• Improved Site Menu
• New context menus for opening links in new tabs and saving images
• Support for portrait and landscape mode
• Ability to “forget” passwords for web sites

You can find out more about Firefox 1.1 for Maemo in the release notes. You can download the app from a Nokia N900 by visiting Firefox.com/m/. There are also builds for Windows, OS X, and Linux if you want to try out a development version of the mobile web browser.

via Stuart Parmenter’s blog

The MeeGo project has released the first batch of source code for the MeeGo Handset experience. MeeGo is basically a set of Linux tools that are optimized to make Linux work well on mobile devices such as netbooks and smartphones. The first version of MeeGo for netbooks was released a few months ago, and now its time for smartphone developers to get in on the action.

MeeGo 1.1 for smartphones won’t officially be available until October. Today’s release is targeted at developers. But even if you’re not planning on building a Linux-based operating system for phones, today’s release means that you can finally get an idea of what a handset running MeeGo might look like.

The release includes MeeGo APIs and reference apps and user interface elements including a Home Screen, Lock Screen, app launcher, virtual keyboard, status bar, phone dialer, SMS app, web browser, contact manager, and photo viewer.

MeeGo is optimized for devices with Intel Atom Moorestown-based chips, as well as the ARM-based Nokia N900 phone/mobile internet device.

You can check out a video overview of the initial build of MeeGo Handset after the break. And you can see more about how the user interface will work at Meego’s UI design guidelines page.

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Hackers have been customizing smartphone firmware for years. After figuring out how to gain root access to a phone, you can go in and modify key files, unlocking certain settings, adding software, or making other changes. These so-called cooked ROMs aren’t for everyone. You’ll invariably void your warranty if you install one on your phone (or rather, if you get caught installing one). But the benefit is that you can do more with your phone that you would if you stuck with the software that shipped with it.

Unfortunately, some of those cooked ROMs include proprietary software, which kind of makes them lawsuit-bait. So it’s not surprising that shortly after starting a web site for users looking to download custom ROMs for Windows Mobile, Google Android, and other phones, the guy who started Shipped ROMS got a cease and desist notice from HTC, a company that makes a large portion of the phones that hackers have been offering custom ROMs for.

sA few weeks have passed, and it turns out that Shipped ROMS doesn’t have to remove all of the custom images from its site. HTC just wants it to remove Test and Carrier files, which were developed for T-Mobile or other carriers.

In other words, HTC doesn’t have a problem with hackers offering custom disk images based on the company’s software. The only thing HTC doesn’t want is for people to illegally distribute software that belongs to T-Mobile or other carriers.

And in other, other news, it means that Shipped ROMS is still active, and the site is one of the best places to find alternate ROMS for your phone.