Updates Galore: Windows Live, Google Maps, Skype, WM 6.1

This week’s column highlights significant updates to several of the major free applications/services for Windows Mobile devices — Windows Live services, Google Maps, and Skype. Plus, I’ll point you to a page that lists devices that have received Windows Mobile 6.1 upgrades.

Windows Live Services for Windows Mobile

The trend these days is web applications — full-featured applications that you access via the web and that reside not on your computer or device but on servers. Google and Microsoft are competing head to head in this arena.

Microsoft’s suite is known as Windows Live, and happily, many of these are now being made available on mobile devices — and called Windows Live services for mobile. Many of the mobile services are also available as downloadable apps. Wikipedia gives a good overview of Windows Live offerings, and a table that indicates whether the mobile services are available as web services, downloadable apps, or both.

Microsoft recently released a significant update to Windows Live services for mobile, some of which are new to this version and weren’t in the recent beta. According to the Windows Live Team Blog, the new and updated mobile web services include Windows Live Home, Photos, Profile, People, and Spaces. These complement their existing mobile services, like Hotmail and Messenger.

Check out the blog posting for more detail. And to access these services, point your mobile browser at mobile.live.com. If you use the web-based versions, it's pretty simple: there’s no software to download — you simply use these services via your browser.

Note that these services may not render correctly if you’re using a browser like Opera, which isn’t recognized as a mobile browser, but of course will work fine in Pocket Internet Explorer.

Google Maps

Another major tool that’s free is Google Maps. The recent news is that Google has now added Street View to the Windows Mobile version of the software. As you likely know, Street View lets you access actual street-level photos to help you orient yourself when you’re looking for places or businesses or getting directions. It’s a pretty neat concept: you search for something in Google Maps, get directions, and then see how to get there via the full-screen panorama images along the way.

To download the latest version, point your mobile browser at google.com/gmm. For more information, visit the Google Maps for your phone page.

Skype 2.5 Beta for Windows Mobile

Skype, you likely know, is the most popular voice-over-Internet application. You can connect computer to computer (or device to device) for free, and can call regular phones and receive calls from regular phones for a very low price. The newest version of Skype offers improved sound quality, better stability, and a more familiar user interface.

Download for free from the Skype web site.

Windows Mobile 6.1 Upgrades

Pocket PC Thoughts recently put together a list of devices that are eligible for upgrades to Windows Mobile 6.1.