Hi Jeff, Many thanks for keeping me and the rest of the board up to speed on new mobile phone offerings of interest. I keep looking for the holy grain, a GSM phone that will work anywhere in the world, can be tethered to my computer to act as a 3G modem (with mgfr support), and which also has a good small screen and keyboard so it can be used to check e-mail and online stuff (like ActiveCaptain!) when no computer is handy. I've read your Mad Mariner series and have done a good bit of other research, but looks like I'll still have to wait awhile. Or am I missing something obvious? Thanks again for serving as the T&T mobile communications point man geek for all of us! --Milt Baker, Nordhavn 47 Bluewater, Solomons, MD Jeff wrote: Over the last few days, two major announcements happened in the mobile phone world: 1. The Palm Pre was released. 2. The next iPhone was announced - the iPhone 3GS ("S" for speed).

> I keep looking for the holy grain, a GSM phone that will > work anywhere in the world, can be tethered to my > computer to act as a 3G modem (with mgfr support), > and which also has a good small screen and keyboard > so it can be used to check e-mail and online stuff > (like ActiveCaptain!) when no computer is handy. > Basically, you can do all of those things today on Windows Mobile. For some reason, WM devices get no respect! I think that the real question here is, how do I get an iPhone to do all of these things. According to Gartner, a major industry polling organization, the following sales were made of phones by operating system in 2008: Symbian: 72.9 million RIM (Blackberry): 23.1 million Windows Mobile: 16.5 million iPhone: 11.4 million Linux: 11.2 million Palm OS: 2.5 million Others: 1.5 million Source: http://tinyurl.com/dmcuhk - table 4 Windows Mobile significantly outsold the iPhone in 2008. Blackberry and Symbian blew the iPhone away. And yet, everyone is vastly more familiar with the iPhone and just needs to have one. If they fix the tethering issue, it's almost perfect for our trawler use. Until then, there really are other alternatives. ==================================== Jeffrey Siegel M/V aCappella DeFever 53RPH W1ACA/WDB4350 Castine, Maine www.activecaptain.com The Interactive Cruising Guidebook Our cruising blog: http://takingpaws.blogspot.com ..