The concept I’d seen was the next step in travel “on the edge”. According to MobiMate, i10 would be the perfect virtual travel agent. At the core of the system would be a dedicated Worldmate servers that would accept traveler’s itinerary confirmations from airlines. The idea was that a simple forward of an e-itinerary would automatically add the flight into your Worldmate LIVE plans, eliminating the hassle of having to enter in flight details into your calendar in the process. Once i10 would “know” where you are, it could track your flight’s status for you, and notify you of changes in real time via a “push” message to the i10 client.

Unfortunately, at the time,  i10 wasn’t available at all, and was still in the planning/alpha stages. And so for the next year or so, I relentlessly hounded the Worldmate PR rep (who by the way deserves serious kudos for her forbearance and patience) for the Worldmate i10 Windows Mobile client availability. Since then, it’s undergone a name change (it’s now Worldmate LIVE), and some slight cosmetic facelifts, but thankfully, it’s core utility hasn’t been compromised in any way. After playing around with the Windows Mobile client for a while, I can attest that my initial wow reaction hasn’t diminished with usage, as is so often the case with many wowser concepts that simply don’t convert into bottom line productive applications.

I’ve split up this review into two sections- one focusing on the PC/Online sections of WM LIVE, and one focusing on the Windows Mobile side of the WM LIVE system. The truth is, however, that the LIVE system is meant to be used as an integrated system- without the mobile side of it, all it really is is a glorified online trip planner. The review was conducted on a Vista Ultimate (SP1) PC using Outlook 2007 (SP1) and a Samsung Blackjack II running WM 6. Below is the PC/Online section. The mobile section can be viewed here. For the purposes of the review, I’ll call the Worldmate Live system “WML”.

The first step is getting your travel itinerary to WML. This can be done in one of three ways. Number 1 is for those trips where you either don’t have or can’t access the airline confirmation email. Number 2 requires Outlook and an itinerary email, and Number 3 requires access to the email, but is email client generic- that is, you don’t need to be using Outlook.

As far as the automated conversion that the WML servers perform from airlines, when I tested I got a 100% accuracy result; in other words, the system gave entered in the correct travel details for the flight I was on. It’s important to note, however, that this is to be expected- unlike a voicemail, where I’d accept 90% accuracy, I do not want to headed to airport for my flight a day early, or worse, late! According to MobiMate, the system can process XX? amount of e-itineraries from various airlines and travel providers, like Orbitz.com and other travel agents/web booking sites.

1) Go to the web section of WML and manually enter it in. While a fairly straightforward process, once you get used to the ease of the Worldmate Outlook plugin, it seems to be a downright laborious task. The web interface is clean and Web 2.0ish, with a nicely done Ajax page.

2) Use the WML plugin for Outlook (2003/2007) and simply click on the forward button. This is obviously the way to go, but as noted above, requires both Outlook 2003 or 2007 as well as having the actual e-itinerary from your airline.

3) Forward the confirmation to a user-specific XXXXXX@worldmatelive.com address. This is your personal Worldmate live address, and is essentially what the WML Outlook plugin above does for you- it forwards the airline itinerary to that address.

Once Worldmate Live has your travel deets, (as long as you’ve created the “Trip”), it will match up the flights that you send it and add them to your itinerary.

A trip can consist of various parts, like

A while back some Microsofties hit upon a cool idea. Why not create a mobile application that allows users to quickly “zoom” in and out of sections, or “tiles”- essentially widgets-, which can be interactive games, infoapplets, and advertisement/store sections (Nokia Widsets anyone?). A public SDK would allow ISV’s and third parties to independently develop tiles, and users could then share apps amongst themselves. Sort of a Facebook for mobile content kind of concept. After the three founding fathers (John SanGiovanni, Jim Cooley, and Dr. Ben Bederson, with Eric Hertz as CEO- Wikipedia) duly created and began their own startup based on this interesting idea, they proceeded to build a clunky, albeit good looking application, and named it ZenZui, later to become Zumobi.

For those who care to know, the below review was conducted on an HTC TyTN II running Windows Mobile 6.1 and connected to an HSDPA AT&T Wireless connection. As of 04/11/08, this was the latest build of Zumobi available to the public. I should note over here that WM 6.1 is still quite new, and most apps haven’t been optimized yet for it, although I don’t imagine that it would run any faster on a 6.0 device.

The sign up process is par for the course; a simple page for your basic info (Country/Email/Password/Mobile Phone #) which sends a unique SMS download link to your phone (as of now only Windows Mobile supported- Blackberry/J2ME coming soon).

This leads you to a small .CAB download, which will install after download (provided you tick off the appropriate check box when prompted for the download). You can also go to get.zumobi.com for a quicker download process. So far, no egregious errors on Zumobi’s part. After installation, Zumobi kindly inserts itself into the main Start list, which is tick off number one in my book, although not a major issue. I can understand the reasoning behind this- many users may want the application listed there, but lack the technical know-how needed to add/remove apps from the main Start list.

FYI: The process to add/remove apps from the Start list is-Start/Settings/Menus/Check the boxes desired/OK on top right.

From here on in, however, it’s all downhill. First off, Zumobi has an inordinately long startup period- 30+ seconds just to get to the main launcher screen, before any of the tiles loaded! And, although long startup times for applications can be excused in specific instances, like resource intensive Tomtom (10+ sec.) or Internet intensive NewGator (10+ sec.), 30 seconds to startup is simply inexcusable. According to Zumobi, however, there is an updated version in the works (definitely needed) that should speed things up considerably.

Secondly, Zumobi shamelessly shuns the conventional Windows Mobile UI softkeys, and covers over the bottom of the screen with it’s own three key bar. Obviously, the middle option (in the screenshot below a “0 Menu” option) is inaccessible with the physical softkey buttons, but worse off, the two side options (Message Envelope and ?) don’t map to the softkey hardware buttons either! Ridiculous! It worth it to note that users who have access to a number pad will be able to use it to control Zumobi; for example, the Cingular 3125, Asus P527, and other Blackberry style phones with QWERTY keyboards on the face are included. It isn’t really fair, however, to apportion a great deal of blame to Zumobi for this, since they did have a good reason for the WM deviation- the reason is that Zumobi wished to design one standard UI across all platforms, and since no single OS is designed the same UI-wise, they had to standardize themselves.

Glancing at the 16 icons immediately available on the main screen, the top left icon seemed like an old friend, and I thought- “Ah, at least these guys are throwing us tech-types a bone with an Engadget feed”.

And indeed, after tapping on the Engadget icon, Zumobi zooms the screen (hence the term Zooming UI used to describe Zumobi) in to the 4 icons located in the area tapped. In this case, it brought up Engadget, AccuWeather, Stock Quotes, and I-5 Northbound. Without question, the Zumobi has nailed the zooming aspect- it works without glitches, is visually pleasing, and quickly and easily takes you to where you need to go. Moving right along, I tapped on the Endgadget link, which did, in fact, bring up an RSS listing of 8 news items. The only problem was that they were over 4 months old! I’m not sure if this is a Zumobi issue or an Engadget one (perhaps the tile’s feed links to an outdated feed), but either way, it shouldn’t be there if it’s so out of date.

UPDATE: 1 Day after complaining about this issue to Zumobi, it was fixed! At least they’ve got a quick turnaround time:)!

A quick perusal of the other tiles revealed that not all of them suffered such serious sounding symptoms as the outdated Engadget feed. Some were actually quite useful (for instance, the AccuWeather one), some were oddly location specific (Seattle’s I-5 traffic status- apart from Seattlites, who cares?), and some were mildly entertaining (although I lost 3000 some odd virtual dollars in four hands of Blackjack).

The true promise of Zumobi, however, lies in it’s sharing potential. After signing in to Zumobi’s web portal from a PC browser, you can select from a gallery of over 150 tiles. After choosing a tile, it is sent to your Zumobi Inbox, where it awaits your validation on your mobile phone. The 16 tiles mentioned above are the maximum- any additional tiles will need to replace one of the existing 16. Once a tile is live, aside from using it, you can also send it along to another Zumobi user.

Another interesting angle to Zumobi that will interest all you TechCrunch startup types and mobile advertisement followers is the advertisement banners space on the bottom. Occupying about 20 pixels, it’s tinny enough to not distract, but just large enough to unjarringly draw your eye. Below, see the Delta advert underneath the AccuWeather tile to understand what I mean.

I have to admit that I was almost certain that the link would simply take me to Delta’s site, but no- the below surprisingly useful (for Delta flyers) site is what launched in IE Mobile.

In conclusion, I suppose my main issue with Zumobi is it’s overall clunkiness. I can’t take waiting for apps to load, and the UI deviation from the Windows Mobile standard also kills me. Menu navigation as a whole isn’t all that impressive, especially for a UI centric program, so I need to knock Zumobi there as well.

The good news for Zumobi is:

Widgets or tiles or gadgets or widsets or whatever you call them are really starting to take off. I agree with Sue Schmitz who says about widgets that “…there are a vast variety that will appeal to the broadest set but adds a level of customization that is unique to the user”. Just take a look at Vista’s SideBar (currently a whopping 2169 gadgets). Indeed, the recently announced Sony Ericsson XPERIA X1-take a gander at this video towards the second half- had enthusiasts in a tizzy over the nature of the “panels”-read, widgets- that were so prominently featured in early shots of the device. And let’s not forget good old Pocket Express from Handmark, which, although of somewhat older looking UI, also features that same widget type of interface. Unfortunately, a good application requires more than just eye candy.

All in all, I am a major fan of the Zumobi concept- allow developers and third parties to easily create content for mobile users to easily share.

The bad news is:

Unfortunately, I don’t think the concept, in it’s current stage, is ready for prime time- yet. Hopefully, as Zumobi gathers steam and moves ahead, it will mature to a more easily usable iteration. For the most part, I must agree with Russell Beattie on his blog- although I believe that there is hope for Zumobi. I think it’s there is hope if the clunkiness would be smoothed over, and assuming it could be opened up for more powerful capabilities.

For more screenshots of the application in action, take a look at the msmobiles.com VGA screen tour of Zumobi.

One final shot lifted off of Zumobi’s Press Dep’t. section online: (Note the fake upperbar:).

I still remember when I first heard about beta availability for the first commercially supported Palm OS emulator created for Windows Mobile-StyleTap. To be sure, there were at least two other Palm emulators (freeware/abandonware at that point) out then, but nothing stable. StyleTap, at the time, offered a simple solution for running Palm OS only applications on a Windows Mobile device- or at leat in theory. In practice, I found the low-res only environment (on most current WM devices with QVGA screens) to be ancient looking for my tastes. Additionally, earlier editions of StyleTap were plagued with innumerable bugs. In all honesty, I haven’t tried out their latest build, but that’s for a good reason, which leads me directly into my next point…

For Windows Mobile, StyleTap is really irrelevant at this point. Many years ago, when Palm was still the king of third party applications choices, this was important. Many highly useful and critical applications were either nonexistent for WM, or too basic. Obviously, however, this has changed with the surge of WM vs. Palm OS over recent years.

Clearly, StyleTap has recognized this, and has moved into a space where there may still be a market for the vast library of Palm OS applications still out there. S60, a platform based on Symbian rarely seen in the USA (only two S60 v3 devices ever launched here on a carrier), doesn’t have anywhere near the library that WM or Palm does. For this reason, it may prove successful. I do, however, have serious doubts as to the commercial viability of launching an emulator on a non-touchscreen platform designed to emulate a touchscreened platform. That isn’t to say it hasn’t been done- in fact, StyleTap has done it before, on Windows Mobile Smartphone.

Let’s just say, however, that the limited paces I put StyleTap through on Smartphone left me less than awed…and with good reason. It’s understandable complex to port UI, navigation, and other design elements onto completely different hardware (like touchscreen/no touchscreen). The bottom line is that I’m quite hesitant about the potential for success of such a product. That said, the more software the better, so good luck to the StyleTap folks!

Should you wish to signup for the S60 beta, more details can be found here at the StyleTap blog.

Mashable has 45 different goodies to make you more mobile, listed here.

This list is a little old, but I just recently came across it, I haven’t encountered some of the tools mentioned there myself.