Xperiancers

Two new UIs available

// May 5th, 2009 // 2 Comments » // X1 NEWS

We posted earlier about Pointui’s free Xperia panel version of their Home 2 interface – well, now the pro version is available. As there’s no trial, I haven’t tried it out but judging from the release notes it goes someway towards fixing the issues that made me give up on the free version. I still think its the best looking of all the Xperia interfaces, but, lacking the ability to use the keyboard to search through your contacts makes it impossible for me to use it as my day to day home screen.

Unlike…

SPB shell 3.0, which came out last week. I downloaded the trial version and have since become a massive convert. It’s impossible to compare it to the free panel version which comes with the Xperia as it does so much more, including, incorporating a similar 2.0like interface which it refers to as the “professional” desktop. A vertical swipe down the touch screen switches between the professional and lifestyle desktops  (professional = does lots,  lifestyle = looks good,) and I genuinely do use both, (primarily because the widgets on the lifestyle desktop provide great access to programs.)

I always thought that, if I found a really good UI, I would use panels less, but this hasn’t been the case with SPB. As it replaces the traditional winmo home screen, it doesn’t use up one of the assignable panel slots so I can still use my standard panel layout (media panel, evernote skype, cnn, facebook, radio, on the road and the fish.)

There are way too many features to go through them all here but you can download a 15 day free trial if you’re interested or read the excellent review posted by xperiancer.

Xperia Certification Program

// March 27th, 2009 // 1 Comment » // ANNOUNCEMENTS, DEVELOPERS, PANELS, X1 NEWS, XPERIA X1

Introducing Xperia Certification Program, specifically for the Sony Ericsson Xperia X1 phone.

It is designed to set highest standard for your applications and allows you to use the “Certified for Xperia X1″ logo in your marketing materials.

As a part of the program, Xperia Panel Certification is the process of certifying that your Xperia Panel has passed performance and quality assurance tests, fulfilling the requirements according to Sony Ericsson’s Xperia Panels certification requirements.

Completing this new Certification Program and having your Panel certified allows you to participate in any Sony Ericsson promotional activity and to use the “Certified for Xperia X1″ logo in your marketing materials, amongst other.

For more information visit Xperia Certification Program page.

Vildan

4 new panels announced today at MWC

// February 16th, 2009 // 8 Comments » // PANELS, X1 NEWS

We’ve got 4 new panels – Skype, CNN, On the road, and Mytopia, coming to the X1. They are being unveiled today at MWC and after a period of testing should be available for download on the /fun section of the Sony Ericsson website. So what do they do?

Skype: See at a glance which of your contacts are online, easily call or instant message them in “just a couple of clicks,” and as far as I can tell from the pre-release material, there’ll also be some kind of graphical customisation using evening, daylight, or event based effects.

CNN: Live news sport and weather direct to your phone and access to i-report (CNN’s citizen journalism tool.) You can browse news by category, tell it what you’re interested in and get it to send you local news based on your phone’s location

On the road: a driving panel. gives you big touch buttons and simplifies call handling / media streaming / GPS tools.

Mytopia: Gives you access to the online bingo and poker games on mytopia.com

These will all be made available for download as well as all the shortlisted entries to the content awards.

I’ll update this as soon as I have more information, pics etc…

Sam

UPDATE: image courtesy of omio – also worth checking out there is a video of the CNN panel in action

SPB Traveler wins panels competition

// February 9th, 2009 // 3 Comments » // PANELS, X1 NEWS

Sony Ericsson announced the winners of their content awards for 2008 this morning. You can see all the other winners on the content awards site but the prize for the best new Xperia panel went to SPB software for the SPB traveler panel.

The panel uses the internet connection and the GPS on the X1 to provide you with a number of useful travelling tools including a currency convertor, flight search, multi time zone diary and a phrasebook. For more information check out SPB’s website.

Update:

The nominees were:

Evernote

Ping.fm

Mobisystems (English to Japanese dictionary)

PlusFourSix (for their work on 3 sweden’s operator panel)

Xperia Software Update

// January 30th, 2009 // 10 Comments » // X1 NEWS

We’ve had a couple of comments on the site regarding a sporadic Bluetooth problem with the phone. This is just a quick post to say that as far as we can see, they are fixed in the new ROM which you can download from the Xperia support site.

The new ROM (version 1.02.931.3) speeds up the load time, updates the 3D drivers, adds a Google search bar to the default home screen and  fixes the problem with Bluetooth. (note: as we’ve not had any problems with Bluetooth here, I can’t guarantee that this is right, but according to reports elsewhere, it is.) For a fuller review of what the software update does, check out this fansite for the most in-depth review of the software changes.

(image courtesy of pocketnow.com)

iPlayer coming to the Xperia

// December 11th, 2008 // 3 Comments » // X1 NEWS

A new portal from the BBC iPlayer team is set to go live by the end of next week which will add iPlayer compatibility for the X1, the C905 and the Omnia. We’ll update this as soon as it’s live but in the mean time, (and quite co-incidentally,) the beeb are running a day dedicated to the inner workings of the iPlayer tomorrow, it will be documented largely through twitter and we though thought you might be interested. We’ve got a tweetscan running in the sidebar and if anything of particular interest pops up during #iplayerday, we’ll update this post.

Update: forgot to mention that this is a UK only service.

Spb Software releases Xperia panel screen shots

// October 23rd, 2008 // 11 Comments » // ANNOUNCEMENTS, PANELS, X1 NEWS

The guys over at Spb have released the first full version of their Spb Mobile Shell panel. The official announcement is here. Importantly, they’ve also released a number of screen shots to show you all how it looks. (the pics are on our images page but if you don’t have the required flash player check out our flickr stream)

I’ve just installed my version and, as someone who hasn’t used Spb much before, I’m mightily impressed. It’s quick to load, easy to operate, it looks great and it’s free – so it ticks all the boxes as far as I’m concerned.

You can download it here from the Sony Ericsson site.

Update: pocket pc thoughts is also covering this, read more here.

Update 2: Just had an email from Yaroslav Goncharov, the product manager for Spb Mobile Shell. In his words:

“Spb Mobile Shell is a means to a de-cluttered device and finger-friendly menus and an immensely popular program. We think that the custom Spb Mobile Shell panel goes especially well with the Xperia X1. The Panels interface feels like it was created with the developers in mind, from the start. It was a very good decision to reuse the standard interface of Today Plug-ins, which makes for a comfortable application migration, taking up minimum resources and leading to a good ROI in development. The panels are absolutely an exceptional opportunity for developers, especially taking into account the X1’s on-device portal, which will help to further promote quality Windows Mobile software in this competitive market.”

New X1 reviews out

// October 13th, 2008 // 19 Comments » // X1 NEWS

If you still have some burning questions about the X1, check out this new review on Tracy and Matt’s blog. It has answered some of the questions we have been noticing in your comments, so it could prove pretty useful.

Also here is a review by Paul O’Brien at Modaco, which interestingly has also recently set up a dedicated X1 discussion area.

Chris

Xperia Q and A part 2

// October 6th, 2008 // 90 Comments » // X1 NEWS, XPERIA X1

The last Q and A we did sparked off loads of new questions so, over the weekend I caught up with Magnus and we’ve gone through the main themes. The answers are as follows:

X1a / X1i differences: The X1a will be sold in the US, Latin America and Australia it differs from the X1i in its network configuration and the video support (it is 24 fps instead of 30). Contrary to some rumors, both versions have a front facing camera.

Keyboard layouts: A few people picked up on the fact that the X1 product site features two different keyboard layouts – this is due to regional differences. England uses Qwerty – EN, France uses Azerty, Germany uses Qwertz etc…

Screen Orientation: there is no button officially assigned to change the screen orientation but it is possible to assign one of the soft keys to do this is you want to.

SAR value: Venus max SAR value (of use case of UMTS+ BT turned on) is 1.47w/kg.

US release date: This will be announced by Sony Ericsson US on Nov 3rd

Most of the other questions can be answered by downloading Sony Ericsson’s white paper on the X1

Thanks,

Sam and Magnus

Xperia X1 is officially launched

// September 30th, 2008 // 100 Comments » // ANNOUNCEMENTS, PANELS, X1 NEWS, XPERIA X1

Today is the official launch date for the Xperia X1 and I just wanted to confirm to everyone that it has launched as planned. Units have left the factory and are on their way to the shops in the UK and Nordic markets where they should be available in the next week or so.

The new X1 product site is also live and has some consumer videos demonstrating some of the X1’s strengths, including a look at the panels and how you can personalise your X1. Other videos cover mobile internet, the wide VGA touch screen, the arc slider qwerty keyboard, camera and video recorder, MP3 player, Google Maps and assisted GPS. There’s even a video about how you can use the X1 to make and receive calls!