A new Myspace mobile site at http://m.myspace.com launches today, formatted for iOS, Android, Palm and “select Nokia and BlackBerry devices.” It channels Myspace’s recent focus as an entertainment destination, with features emphasizing music and celebrity news and access to video content, but no music streaming.

An overdue iPhone app update is also set to arrive “in the coming weeks,” Myspace said. The company’s existing iPhone app hadn’t been updated since January 2010, and doesn’t include push notifications, instant messaging or status updating, according to vocal user complaints in the iPhone app reviews section. The new app will indeed include all those features, said a Myspace spokesperson.

Mobile user interface master Matias Duarte has left Palm and evidently hired on at the most obvious of places: Google.

Duarte, who led development of Palm’s webOS UI as the company’s senior director of human interface and user experience, has jumped ship, Palm (PALM) confirms. And while the company refuses to tell me where he’s going, multiple sources say it’s Google (GOOG), where he’ll presumably be working on Android, the company’s open-source platform for mobile devices–noncompete clauses permitting, of course.

Duarte’s departure is a significant loss for Palm and new owner Hewlett-Packard (HPQ), which has said it plans to “double down” on webOS. His prowess with user experience and information design is well known in the industry. Before Duarte landed at Palm in 2007, he was design chief at Helio. And prior to that, he led the team that created the Danger Hiptop mobile device. When Palm announced the Pre at the Consumer Electronics Show in January 2009, it was Duarte who introduced the design of webOS.

So, as I said, a real loss for Palm as it heads to its new home at HP. And a bittersweet moment for Duarte, who had great hopes for Palm’s reinvention. As he wrote in a 2009 blog post: “When I started in this field, the Palm V was the unquestioned leader in mobile devices. To this day I believe it represents one of the best consumer electronic products ever created. I always aspired to match Palm in simplicity, usability and design–so now that I’m here, I feel like a kid who’s just been handed the keys to Daddy’s convertible.”

Looks like you’ve got the keys to the Segway now, my friend.

Google and Duarte have not yet responded to requests for comment. I will update here if they do.

UPDATE: Google confirms that Duarte has joined Google as User Experience Director for Android. The company declined further comment.

That’s not to say it’s a particularly good or bad idea to hire a former Dreamworks and Wal-Mart (WMT) exec named David Porter (pictured here) as vice president of retail stores to create Microsoft-branded stores–or as the company announced yesterday, “to create a better PC and Microsoft retail purchase experience.”

While Microsoft (MSFT) sells most of its consumer products via big-box retail stores like Best Buy (BBY), and the retail market for just about everything is weak, Apple (AAPL) has definitively proven that a well-designed retail store can be a powerful marketing tool.

The visually stunning and infectiously fun Apple stores, in fact, have been an important part of its recent surge in mainstream consumer appeal, becoming hubs of activity and even social life in its mostly big-city locations.

In fact, that was just the idea behind microsoftSF, which was located in San Francisco’s Metreon Sony Entertainment Center.

The huge 8,500-square-foot store, with 160 Microsoft products and related software and hardware from 30 partners, was billed in a June 1999 press release as “an interactive, hands-on retail environment in which people of all ages, from all walks of life and at all levels of technological expertise can explore the benefits technology can bring them. Far more than just another computer store, microsoftSF is a showcase for the latest technology from Microsoft and the hardware and software companies with which it collaborates.”

The microsoftSF store, which I visited several times (but bought nothing, although I was mostly a PC user at the time), was very attractive and the only such store in the world, with a “Road Warrior” arena, a lounge, a gaming area and more.

Said the press release: “To make all this possible, microsoftSF deploys Microsoft Windows and more than 100,000 feet of copper cable, 60 Sony PCs, 18 laptop docking stations, four dual-processor servers powered by Hewlett-Packard Net Servers, a Cisco Systems network, and an array of hidden audio speakers that create 16 individually controlled sound zones.”

And Microsoft CEO (then President) Steve Ballmer weighed in enthusiastically:

“We are delighted to be able to showcase in this one-of-a-kind retail environment the entire range of Microsoft software and hardware, as well as the technology of other companies who share the vision of how the PC and the Internet can empower people any time, anywhere. San Francisco and the Silicon Valley are home to the world’s largest and one of the most sophisticated high-tech audiences, so this was the natural place to create this site–dedicated to showing, in an interactive environment, the way technology can enhance our working, learning, living and playing.”

Not so much, as it turned out. The store closed in 2001.

But that does not necessarily mean that the new and much expanded efforts will have the same experience. The Metreon, which was sold off by Sony, was an odd mall then and still is, although its movie theater is successful.

And, in this effort, Microsoft will have control of the whole enchilada.

Plus, if well done, it is not such a bad idea to have a place–perhaps only in highly-trafficked locations in big cities–to show off its consumer wares, especially its popular Xbox 360 and other products (please, not the Zune!).

More importantly, given the disaster that has been the Windows Vista experience, it is probably a good idea to have a place to get people interested in Windows 7, especially its touch capabilities, when it rolls out this year.

Also, I still like the Surface interactive table, even if it is mocked in a popular video as a “big-ass table.”

Of course, only Apple stores have done well so far in this genre, as everyone, from Gateway (GTW), Sony (SNE), Nokia (NOK), Helio and Palm (PALM), has had rough retail experiences.

So, Porter certainly has his work cut out for him, at least judging from the press release from Microsoft yesterday:

“Defining the time frame, locations and specifics for planned Microsoft-branded retail stores will be Porter’s first order of business. The purpose of opening these stores is to create deeper engagement with consumers and continue to learn firsthand about what they want and how they buy.”

Said Porter: “There are tremendous opportunities ahead for Microsoft to create a world-class shopping experience for our customers. I am excited about helping consumers make more informed decisions about their PC and software purchases, and we’ll share learnings from our stores with our existing retail and OEM partners that are critical to our success.”

He’ll have to wait to see if the second time is a charm.

“Additional steps” in this case is a euphemism for “more layoffs to come,” as the company will also “substantially reduce its presence” in Atlanta and Pasadena, Calif.

What this all means for EarthLink’s already faltering municipal Wi-Fi effort remains to be seen. As Om Malik notes, its future is, at best, dubious. EarthLink’s “MuniFi experiment hasn’t gone according to plan, even though the company was successful in signing up quite a few cities for MuniFi networks,” Malik writes. “But EarthLink’s San Francisco effort, for example, is mired in a political morass. The Arlington (Va.) and St. Petersburg (Fla.) MuniFi networks are currently on hold. We are being told that Don Berryman, who used to run the MuniFi business, left the company three weeks ago. More importantly, the company is carrying the costs of Helio, an expensive MVNO effort. Helio, after starting out with $440 million in backing from SK Telecom and EarthLink, recently raised another $200 million ($100 million each from the two partners.) Will EarthLink follow through with this (and future) investments, remains to be seen. Helio is estimated have $40 million in operating costs, not an easy pill to swallow considering that the company continues to lose subscribers in its core ISP business. EarthLink is between the rock and a hard place: If it gets rid of those money-losing businesses, then it is left with a business whose growth engine is negative.”

Some devices, like Treos and full-size BlackBerrys, opt for the larger size and the keyboard, while others assume you’ll peck out email or Web addresses on a phone keypad.

I’ve been testing a new $295 smart phone from Helio, an upstart company based in Los Angeles, that provides an elegant solution to this design problem. It’s called the Helio Ocean and it can look like either a standard voice phone or a keyboard-equipped email and Web device, depending on which way you open its unusual two-way sliding mechanism.

The Ocean also has some very nice software touches to complement this clever hardware design.

It isn’t as slender as some of its competitors and it has a few downsides, but the Ocean is an innovative, thoughtfully designed smart phone that advances the state of the art. It goes on sale over the next week or so at helio.com and in some retail stores later this month.

Helio not only designed the Ocean, but the phone works on Helio’s own cellphone service, which runs on Sprint’s network at broadband speeds. It lacks Wi-Fi wireless networking.

Plans with unlimited data access range from $65 to $135 a month, depending on the number of voice minutes. For $145 a month, you can get unlimited data and minutes.

When closed, the Ocean is just a roomy screen with some buttons at the top and bottom of a black rectangular body with rounded corners. If you hold it vertically with the screen in portrait mode and slide the screen up, a standard phone keypad is revealed that you can hold to your ear when making calls, just as on a standard voice phone.

If you turn the Ocean horizontally so its screen is in landscape mode and slide it up, a full typing keyboard is revealed that puts you in a comfortable position to compose messages and surf the Web. All the main functions are available in both modes and you can use a headset in either mode.

The software is smart, too. When you physically switch the Ocean from one orientation to the other, the screen display switches between portrait and landscape modes automatically. If you answer the phone while in horizontal landscape mode and you aren’t using a headset, the call automatically is placed in speakerphone mode, because it would be clumsy to hold the Ocean to your ear in that configuration. If you slide the keyboard closed and switch to vertical mode, the call continues and the speakerphone is automatically turned off.

When closed, the Ocean looks a bit stubby but it’s actually slightly smaller in every dimension than a Treo 700 — although it gets larger when the keyboard is exposed.

Voice calls were clear and crisp, and the speakerphone function worked well. It was easy to add numbers to the address book.

From the main screen, you can just start typing anything and the Ocean will either search your address book for the characters you type or initiate a Web search. Web-search results are presented in multiple search engines, including Google and Yahoo, Amazon and Wikipedia, which are arrayed in tabs.

I found the keyboard easy to use and was able to attain good accuracy on it while typing with my thumbs. However, the space between the top row of keys and the bottom edge of the screen is a bit cramped; it took some adjustment to thumb-type well on that row of keys.

The Ocean comes preconfigured for all the major consumer email services, including Yahoo, AOL, Hotmail and Gmail. You can manually add others. The Ocean also supports Microsoft Exchange email.

Unlike a Treo or a Windows Mobile phone, the Ocean doesn’t allow editing of Microsoft Office documents. You can only view them as text files and, in my tests, even that didn’t work. Helio plans new software that would allow the documents to display properly.

Similarly, the Ocean works out of the box with a variety of instant messaging services, including AIM, Yahoo and Windows Live Messenger. It also has multiple media functions. It sports a two-megapixel camera with flash and decent built-in software for displaying photos, and playing music and videos. It also accepts memory cards for expanded storage.

You can simply plug the Ocean into a Windows or Macintosh computer and drag photos, songs and videos onto its internal memory or memory card, if they are in a supported format. But in my tests of this, some photos wouldn’t display properly and none of the album art showed up in my MP3 songs. Helio says the album art will show up if you use synchronization software on Windows, instead of simply dragging the files over.

Despite some limitations, the Helio Ocean is an impressive device that’s fun to use.

• Email me at mossberg@wsj.com. Find all my columns and videos online free at the new All Things Digital Web site, http://walt.allthingsd.com.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20070510/helios-new-ocean-has-a-clever-design-for-phone-and-email/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20061115/desktop-free-google/ http://allthingsd.com/20061115/desktop-free-google/#comments Wed, 15 Nov 2006 00:01:00 +0000 Walter S. Mossberg and Katherine Boehret http://solution.allthingsd.com/20061115/freeing-google-from-the-desktop/ Google has been branching out from its search-engine roots to offer a variety of Web-based applications. Some of these, especially Gmail and Google Maps, have been well received and are quite popular on computers. Now the company wants us to use these and other applications away from the computer, too — on mobile devices.

This week, we put Google’s suite of mobile programs through the ringer to see if we might let it infiltrate our on-the-go lifestyle as easily as we’ve let Google search become an everyday part of our computer’s browser. Google offers five Web applications for downloading onto your mobile device including Maps, Gmail, SMS, Search and News.

We focused on the first three programs to see how they would fare on a tiny device with a smaller screen that demands more scrolling to view information that is normally contained in a single screen on a computer.

Overall, we were pleasantly surprised by Google Maps for mobile, Gmail for mobile, and Google SMS (Short Messaging Service), a system that uses text messaging to find answers about certain topics. The programs are visually attractive on smaller screens, and didn’t require much practice, catering to people who want quick assistance without much fuss.

And Gmail for mobile lets you open attachments containing photos, Microsoft Word documents and PDFs — a capability typically only found on Treos, BlackBerrys and Windows Mobile smart phones, not cellphones.

Google Inc. isn’t alone in this field. Many companies, including its rival, Yahoo Inc., make mobile applications for cellphones, and this category is likely to keep growing.

We used three mobile devices for our Google tests: the $80 Samsung A900M cellphone from Sprint, the $225 Samsung Drift cellphone, from a new phone carrier called Helio and the $400 Palm Treo 700p with Verizon service (all prices include two-year contracts). Your cellphone carrier must use Java programming language to work with Maps and Gmail for mobile; Verizon does not. The Treo works with Google Maps for mobile but not with this new Gmail version. Any phone with text messaging capability can use Google SMS.

These Google mobile applications are free to download, but your cellphone carrier may charge you for Web browsing or text messaging, depending on your plan.

To download any of these applications, you can go to www.google.com/mobile and enter your cellphone number, triggering the site to send a text message to your device with a URL link for the program you want to download. Or you can enter the URL (found on the Web site) into your cellphone’s browser. We tried both methods with success, downloading Google Maps for mobile in 10 seconds during one test.

Our Sprint Samsung A900M came preloaded with Gmail for mobile, so we quickly entered our Gmail username and password to get started. In seconds, our screen was filled with up to six emails at a time, each clearly divided by lines. Each email’s subject, sender and date were visible on our tiny screen, written in a legible font that didn’t seem squeezed. New emails were listed in bold type.

We used the phone’s directional buttons to scroll up or down, highlighting and selecting emails to read them. Each email read much like on a computer screen, but (thankfully) without the advertisements that Gmail usually lists along the right side of a computer screen.

Email attachments were easy to open and read; we opened a Microsoft Word document and a digital photo in JPG format, the photo was shrunk to fit onto our phone’s screen so we didn’t have to scroll. Attachments can’t be edited.

You can perform every action in Gmail for mobile that you can in regular Gmail, including replying to and starring emails, searching through messages, reporting spam and archiving. We searched through emails for the word “Walt” and quickly got a list of relevant emails, and an email that we sent from the phone was received on the other end in seconds. Tasks performed in Gmail for mobile automatically synched with our Gmail account.

Google Maps for mobile was familiar and simple. After downloading it and opening it on our cellphone, we entered our ZIP Code and a map of Washington, D.C., appeared on the entire screen. A list with Find Business, Find Location and Directions options helped us narrow our search.

The select button on each of our devices zoomed in on the map, and scrolling around with directional buttons moved the map accordingly. We quickly switched between map view and satellite view, the latter showing us detailed aerial shots of our tree-filled neighborhoods. A Show Traffic option color-codes highways in 30 major cities to show how fast the cars in that area are moving.

We searched for our local Four Seasons hotel by typing “Four Seasons” into the Find Business section of Google Maps for mobile. Nine results were returned, the second was the hotel. The hotel’s address, phone number, parking fees, room rates and acceptable credit cards were also listed.

The Helio Samsung Drift cellphone comes preloaded with Google’s Maps for mobile, and also has built-in GPS capability. This feature lets you press “0″ when using Google’s mapping program on your phone; a tiny circle marks where you are on the map.

The Google SMS mobile tool is fun to use, and doesn’t require a download. We just sent questions via text message to GOOGL, or 46645 on the numeric keypad. Various data can be retrieved including local listings, weather, sports scores, trivia, movie times and translations.

We asked for George Bush’s age and got the 41st president’s birthday sent back in a text message a second after our question was sent (June 12, 1924, if you’re curious). While on the way to an Irish pub for dinner, we typed in the slightly odd name of the place and its ZIP Code (RiRa 22201) and got a local listing response, including the address and phone number for the two RiRa Irish Pubs in the area.

Sometimes we had to rephrase our inquiry to receive a helpful Google response, and if you don’t have text messaging included in your phone’s plan, this could get costly. But as we used Google SMS more, we got better at asking questions the right way.

If you use a computer every day, chances are good that you’re spoiled by being able to retrieve helpful data within seconds, thanks to the Internet. Google’s mobile applications give you that convenience on the go, in a way that doesn’t leave you missing your computer.

Email: MossbergSolution@wsj.com

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