The Pocket Phojo Blog » 2009 » December

Eye-Fi Pro Updates/Free Phone Setup/Windows Mobile 6.5

Paul Nolan — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 13:04:51 +0000

Many improvements have been made to Phojo 6 since the initial release, including testing on Windows Mobile 6.5, and the Toshiba TG01. Release 429 is currently available to download from the regular download link at idruna.com, and release 430 is just about to go out for Touch Pro 2 support. For US based customers, we are willing to setup your Eye-Fi Pro cards for free, you just pay to ship your phone and Eye-Fi Pro card to us, and pay for shipping back again, please contact me for details.

If you have been considering buying the Eye-Fi Pro card to transmit images from your camera to Phojo via WiFi, now is a great time to buy as they are currently on sale for only $100 at Amazon.com (normally $169):

They are also now shipping in the UK! For only 100 pounds, darn that incredibly strong dollar. At least your $99 Phojo 6 upgrade will be cheaper in real terms.

New Phone Recomendations: Toshiba TG01 and Verizon Touch Pro 2

Paul Nolan — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 11:58:40 +0000

If you live in a country that has more than 12 trillion in government debt, you`ll want to skip to the next section, as the new top phone for Phojo is only available in Europe, and will not operate at high speeds in the US due to using the wrong HSPA frequency.

The Toshiba TG01 has a 1Ghz processor, a gorgeous 4.1″ WSVGA screen, etc. etc., all very nice, and a big improvement over practically every phone shipping. The main feature as far as Phojo is concerned though is the return of the USB Host Port. This means you can plug your phone directly into your camera. Transmitting images in real time, as you shoot, can be as simple as connecting your phone, and pushing the protect button on the back of your camera. This completely eliminates the need for a Nikon WT WiFi transmitter. If you are going to plug something in via USB and attach it to your belt, you might as well make it something that can transmit via WiFi AND 3G. Note that Phojo v6 has the ability to allow the screen on the camera to stay on for the Nikon D3 and D300, normally on Nikon cameras this turns off when connected to a computer. The TG01 has also been tested with the Eye-Fi Pro cards, so you can have one camera attached via USB, and another camera connecting via WiFi. You can also attach a USB card reader, allowing you to ingest full size CompactFlash or SD cards. The HTC HD2 appears to be the closest competitor to the TG01, but the TG01′s USB host feature adds so much flexibility and power that I don’t see why you would want to use any other phone.

If you live in the US you can start reading again now. My new recommendation here is the Verizon HTC Touch Pro 2. You can see why I specifically recommend the Verizon version in my video below. It doesn’t have USB host, but you are not likely to ever see this feature over here, if you want to connect directly to a camera via USB, you`ll want to look at IRES running on a UMPC or Netbook. It might not have a 1Ghz CPU either, but it does have a nice big screen, a nice big keyboard, and a nice big serving of upstream bandwidth, 70KB/s worth.

Video of IRES Transmitting 2.8X Faster than FTP

Paul Nolan — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 11:01:02 +0000

IRES can do a lot of things, but one of the least appreciated features is just how fast it can actually send files compared to FTP. By using finely tuned advanced networking techniques especially designed for mobile phone networks, IRES can achieve speeds almost triple what you would normally get. Seeing is believing, so I made a video of Phojo running on the AT&T Touch Pro, the Verizon Touch Pro II, and the Sprint Touch Pro II. On AT&T IRES achieves about double the speed vs FTP, on Sprint a little bit less than double, and on Verizon, almost triple the speed! The different between the slowest case, sending a file via FTP on AT&T, and the fastest case, sending a file via IRES on Verizon, is huge, 12KB/s vs 70KB/s. If you watch the last section closely you can see the Verizon phone sends almost a megabyte before the AT&T phone can even get up to full speed. Now, your results may and will vary due to how close you are to the cell towers, and in AT&T's case, how many people are using their iPhones at any given moment. In my experience, the Verizon results are pretty typical. AT&T is a lot more variable, enough to cause a lot of frustration. I can't comment on Sprint as I haven't used it as much as the others, but I did expect it to be faster.