The general release of the phonethemes format follows a successful field trial involving 350 European consumers using a range of Microsoft Mobile smartphone devices on operating a range of mobile networks.
The new phonethemes format enables another step forward in mobile phone personalisation by allowing multimedia assets such as video files or high quality animations to be permanently resident on the main screen of the device. The new phonethemes can also integrate phone skins and ringtones to ensure a consistent look and feel around the house style of a brand. A designer can therefore change the colour schemes of screens as well as the resident home screen and menu windows. Free examples of the new mobile phone products can be previewed and downloaded from www.phonethemes.com.
Phonethemes construction
A phonetheme encapsulates multimedia content from traditional video, still and audio formats into a proprietary format that is suitable for transmission over mobile networks by being efficient in terms of size. PhoneThemes CTO Jim Hunt said, “We were so frustrated by the lack of asset protection for multimedia content in the mobile world that we made a strategic decision to develop our own systems. We believe that copyright owners now have a chance to securely access the mobile services market without the threat of viral distribution and no remuneration.
The phonetheme is also independent of relatively expensive platforms such as Macromedia Flash and allows a multimedia interface to be permanently resident on the mobile device without unnecessary consumption of power resources. A phonetheme can also integrate phone skins and ringtones to ensure a consistent look and feel around the house style of a brand. A designer can therefore change the colour schemes of screens as well as the resident home screen and menu windows.
Mobile device support
PhoneThemes supports the two main ‘voice centric’ operating systems for Smartphones: Microsoft Windows Mobile 2003 for SmartPhone and Symbian Series 60. These types of device predominantly use a traditional telephone keypad interface. Phonethemes can also operate on Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs) using Windows Mobile 2003 for Pocket PC. Visit www.phonethemes.com for a fuller list of mobile devices that currently use these operating systems.
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