At last, long gone is the reign of single-platform instant messaging apps (see BBM, the more recent FaceTime, etc) - or dodgy/late mobile versions of the most popular IM apps (see Yahoo Messenger, Skype, etc) - or even bulky third-party apps that aggregate all of your IM services. For some reason, no one had managed to produce a fully-functional cross-platform mobile IM app - until now.

If you've ever received some seemingly spammy message from one of your friends saying something along the lines of "I've started using WhatsApp and it's great" - you shouldn't have deleted it. Because WhatsApp is actually the first one to actually work (in a very BBM-esque manner).

• it works on every major mobile platform: Android, iOS, Symbian (for Nokia) and BlackBerry OS - I haven't heard of a Windows Phone 7 version yet but I'm sure it's bound to happen pretty soon
• it actually works between these platforms, whether you're exchanging text or photos, videos, sound clips or your location (Symbian doesn't do the last three yet, but that may be due to OS limitations)
• no need for another ID - your username is your phone number and it just cross-references with your phone book to put together your contact list (and thus only people who have your number can see you in their WhatsApp contact list)
• they're very well integrated with each platform
• the developers are very active (I use the Android version and there's an update at least every week)
• it's quite efficient in terms of data traffic - I've been using it heavily for about two months and it has only generated about 35mb of traffic (this includes file exchanges)

Give it a spin now, it's free (update: except for iOS, no surprise there)...

The Android mobile OS is quickly on the rise and that's a fact - but due to a combination of slightly flawed hardware and cocky developers, the Android Market (its application marketplace) is seriously being set back.

"A2SD" is an informal abbreviation for "apps to SD card", born out of some device manufacturers' peculiar decision to allocate very limited internal storage space to recent handsets. Until late Q2 2010, only manufacturers and the people behind the OS itself were to blame, as even though all Android handsets come with memory expansion slots, applications could only be installed to that very limited internal memory. Then Android 2.2 (Froyo) was released and its most significant upgrade addressed just that - it started allowing installations to the SD card.

There was only one slight catch - applications cannot be installed to the SD card by default - developers must opt in to allow their applications to be moved.

So when my HTC Desire got its update in no time (let's remember that it was the first device after Google's own Nexus One to receive that update), I instantly had a go at moving my apps over to the card. I couldn't. At first I thought it was a glitch, but quickly learned of the aforementioned rule - so I assumed it was a slight delay, that it would be just a matter of time until each developer updated their apps to allow this "A2SD". And I waited. And waited.

And then it hit me: you see, when you move an application to your SD card, you won't be able to access it (or have it run in the background) while your device is connected to a computer (be it in 'sync' or 'storage' mode). Some developers were honorable enough to leave that choice to users - so kudos to the likes of Foursquare, Flixster or ZXing Team (the people behind Barcode Scanner).

Most, however, seem to be too arrogant to do so and must somehow believe their apps are truly essential to any user - and to make matters worse, in many cases they also try to enforce obnoxious file sizes. A perfect example (and the catalyst for this hate post) is Skype for Android, which was launched earlier today. I tried to ignore the fact that until now they've been keeping Android users completely in the blue, making the app available only to a privileged few who just happened to be on a network that stuffed the company's pockets for some sort of exclusivity deal (while the iPhone app has been around for ages). Anyway, I install it - and it instantly eats up 14MB of internal storage space, with no option to move it over to that spacious SD card. I instantly removed it and gave it a one star rating on the Market, and won't consider reinstalling until they fix this - even though I do regularly use (paid) Skype Services.

Developers (big and small) are shooting themselves in the foot. Android learned from its mistakes and so did most manufacturers (most Q3-Q4 handsets now have much more generous storage space) - so why oh why am I still noticing apps with scores of desperate comments containing the words "a2sd please"?

As HTC promised, my unlocked Desire received its over-the-air Froyo update earlier today.

This is HTC's first official Android 2.2 (with Sense) ROM - here are my first impressions:

• It's just so much faster: everything loads much quicker and that's that. They're saying it offers a 2-5X performance improvement - sounds about right.
• Improved Gmail: for me it's probably the most important app (it even beats the actual phone function) - labels now stand out, it's easier to manage multiple accounts, slightly improved UI. "Talk" app has been updated as well.
• Tweaked HTC Sense: it borrows the updates we spotted on the Wildfire (such as the Facebook-enhanced call screen), but also has some new native apps (App Sharing, Flashlight, Videos, Wi-Fi Hotspot). I also noticed some updates in the "Messages" app.
• Device search: when you press the Search key now, it takes you to an updated Nexus One-ish search screen - which doesn't quite work the way I had expected it to...
• Better app management: probably the best thing about this release is a feature (dubbed "A2SD") that enables you to save applications to the SD card instead of saving them to the Desire's limited internal memory - I'm still figuring out how to move everything over, but I'm sure I'll work it out eventually.

That's my take on it - here's another nice review.

By the way, this is a 90MB update - and since you don't have the A2SD feature yet, you may want to make sure (and I didn't) that you have at least 25MB of internal storage available before running the installation.

A lot of people keep asking me whether the HTC Desire is actually worth getting. My answer is YES. Because Android is arguably the future of mobile platforms and the Desire is just the best Android phone out there (the HTC EVO doesn't count, it's not available in Europe).

I've been into online notebooks for quite some time now, mostly because I find it very convenient to have quick and easy mobile access to the notes I create on my laptop. I've mainly been using Evernote, which I still find to be the best one out there (and I'm not the only one, apparently). There's only one nasty problem with it - try looking up these notes when there's no coverage or you just don't have mobile internet access right then and there. You can't - or at least I haven't figured out a way to do it.

Enter Springpad, which does give me offline access to my text notes - that's about all I use it for (I still use Evernote for the rest), but to be fair it does have some other nice features as well. It's definitely worth checking out!

For some reason, until now Mozilla has been quite shy in the mobile browsers segment (even though Firefox is among the leading browsers in the world). We kept hearing about Fennec, but now they have released a very early pre-alpha build for Android and I played with it a bit on my HTC Desire (they only tested it on the Motorola Droid and on the Nexus One) - here are some thoughts:

• a great UI: just as you would scroll all the way to the top of a page to see the URL bar in a regular browser, if you scroll all the way to the left you see your tabs and to the right you see the browser control buttons (bookmark page, back, forward, settings)
• add-on support: even this build has it, although I've had compatibility issues when trying to install one of them
• no multi-touch support (at least on the HTC Desire)
• it has that nice AutoComplete History feature we're used to on Firefox
• it also has the identity information feature
  
• it's pretty quick for an early version
• oddly enough, hitting the "Menu" button on the device doesn't bring up any kind of menu
• it comes preinstalled with an integrated Twitter search feature

That's about it - it's going to be interesting to see Fennec evolve as a mobile browser - do remember that right now, unlike PCs, mobile phones don't let you choose your default browser and use the preinstalled one to open any links from other applications.

I switched to Android about a year now - not that I condemn the iPhone in any way, I just see myself as more of a power user and Android fits that profile much better. So even though the Market still has a long way to go, I'm putting my growing pains of an early adopter aside and jotting down a few reasons for which I think it's the future:

• it's much more developer-friendly - none of that approval hassle
• it's customizable - smartphone designers can improve the OS (like HTC does with HTC Sense)
• it has had multi-tasking features from the very beginning
  
• it's growing like crazy and now there's a device for literally everyone
  
• Google is actively looking to port the big iPhone apps through its Android Advocacy Group and it's offering free phones to these developers
• it offers out-of-the-box syncing with your Google account - you can have all of your contacts, email and calendars downloaded from the cloud to your new phone in minutes - and there's also Google Talk
  
• there still are some cool Android-only apps, like Google Goggles as far as I know (plus others)
  

I had the opportunity of playing around with the Legend, HTC's new Android 2.1 smartphone with that gorgeous unibody design. Here are my thoughts on it:

• it has an overall amazing feel - it's just one of those phones that make you smile when you pull them out of your pocket
• it's sporting Android 2.1 - but with the new and improved HTC Sense experience, which makes everything a lot more pleasant (from overall contacts syncing to the fact that it goes silent when someone calls and you turn it face-down)
• very good battery life
• it's a big experience upgrade, even compared to the HTC Hero (which was named Phone of the Year 2009 by the GSMA and is overall a great phone)
• I'm looking to buy a phone and it's a close call between this one and the HTC Desire

Here's a nice presentation video: