Kyocera Echo, Jibe Social Messenger App, Jibe Mobile Platform, dual touchscreen smartphone, Jibe 2.0 Social Messenger App, social messaging application
Kyocera Communications, Inc. today announced that the Kyocera Echo, the first dual-touchscreen smartphone, will come preloaded with a customized version of the Jibe 2.0 Social Messenger App – a new social messaging application that allows users to post and share media and status messages, and view friends, newsfeeds and comments across their current social networks. Users also can see who is online and chat with their friends from the application.
“We’ve designed Echo for an entirely new experience for smartphone users, incorporating the most used and valued features into this innovative design,” said Yasuhiro Ohishi, vice president of sales and marketing at Kyocera Communications Inc. “Jibe’s Social Messenger makes Echo the ultimate mobile social media tool.”
The Social Messenger application is built on the award-winning Jibe Mobile platform, which brings together social media, real-time messaging, contacts and content services into an easy-to-use developer platform. The platform decreases time to market for developers creating the next generation of connected and social apps. Jibe earned the “Best Rich Communication Suite Mobile Client” award at GSMA’s RCS Dev Challenge during the Mobile World Congress trade show held last month in Barcelona, Spain, by showcasing its next-generation connected address book, with real-time mobile messaging, file-sharing and video sharing features.
“We are excited about the power and potential the Kyocera Echo brings to app developers and to Sprint customers,” said David Owens, vice president-Product, Sprint. “Kyocera not only delivers a groundbreaking new form factor, but through partners like Jibe Mobile, also delivers a new user experience that dynamically connects the social lives of our customers.”
Jibe Mobile’s platform brings together social media and instant messaging to simplify mobile conversations and sharing across multiple social and content networks including Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Google Talk, YouTube, Flickr and Picasa. The Jibe solution provides customized news feeds and media channels with interactive sharing, allowing users to read, post, share messages and chat with just one application. News junkies can post content and status messages to multiple SNS (social network services) feeds with a single action. Users can also view friends’ posts and social activity from various services on one application, filtered by a person or service, and use Jibe home screen widgets to keep their social lives at their fingertips.
The dual-screen capabilities of Kyocera Echo make posting status messages easier with a dedicated screen for the keyboard, providing more room for text entry at the top of the device. Browsing through newsfeeds is more convenient with twice as much room to view messages, comments and other social messages.
The Jibe solution provides customized news feeds and media channels with interactive sharing, allowing users to read, post and share messages and information with just one application. Messages can be posted and comments added to multiple SNS (social network service) feeds with a single action while friends’ messages from various services can be combined and filtered by time, person or service.
“The Jibe Mobile platform allows developers, OEMs and carriers to bring a new level of app to market, simply and quickly,” said Amir Sarhangi, CEO of Jibe Mobile. “Echo is the perfect showcase for rich apps like Social Messenger – a remarkably innovative handset that gives the user a real social experience.”
Kyocera Echo launches April 17 by Sprint for $199.99* with a new two-year service agreement or eligible upgrade. Beginning March 26, consumers can visit www.sprint.com/echo to ‘ReserveNow’ and be among of the first to get their hands on Echo. Through the reservation process, customers will be able to reserve their devices online, pick them up in a Sprint Store, and receive the full retail experience, including Sprint’s ReadyNow service. In addition, Sprint customers visiting the Echo site will also have the opportunity to win an Echo in the ‘Duel for Dual Sweepstakes.’ Beginning March 15 customers can use their ‘sharp shooting’ skills to compete against others to win their first dual-screen smartphone.**
Kyocera Echo – the first dual-touchscreen smartphone
Echo features two high-resolution 3.5-inch WVGA touchscreen displays connected by a patent-pending “pivot hinge” that enables the displays to operate independently, side-by-side or combined to form an oversized 4.7-inch (diagonally) integrated display. Kyocera Echo’s second screen provides the ability to do two things at the same time in Simul-Task Mode – send an email on one screen while surfing the Web on the other, watch a video on one screen while texting on the other, comparison shop online with one Web site on each screen, and so much more.
In its closed position, Kyocera Echo is a pocket-friendly, single-display smartphone. When opened, Kyocera Echo reveals a revolutionary new platform for wireless multitasking and gives customers a new way to experience Android. Its innovative hardware and optimized software enable unique 4-in-1 versatility, allowing consumers to use the touchscreens in four ways: Single-Screen, Simul-Task, Optimized and Tablet Modes.
Beyond the dual touch-screen innovation, Kyocera Echo features the Android 2.2 operating system and has access to more than 100,000 apps in the Android Market. Operating on Sprint’s nationwide 3G network and Wi-Fi (802.11 b/g), Kyocera Echo also can become a Wi-Fi hotspot and support up to five devices. It features corporate (Exchange ActiveSync) and personal (POP & IMAP) e-mail, IM (Google Talk), text messaging, a media player with a 3.5 mm stereo headset jack, stereo Bluetooth 2.1 (+ EDR), and a full HTML Web browser with Google Search. Echo has 1GB of onboard memory and supports microSD cards up to 32GB.
