However, this flawed pool does show the current problem with WinMo (not just 6.5) – the platform is both great and awful, depending on what area you are looking at. So much potential, so much freedom, so many problems…

When I took out my Windows Mobile 2003 Smartphone to play some tracks on a camping trip after the batteries died out on the radio, people were blown away. They couldn’t believe at all the things it could do. Now all of them have an iPhone.

I’ve been using Windows CE since the days of the 1.0 on my Velo1. Now I have a hacked Tilt that I’ve set up to my liking but it’s still frustrating when things stop working. Now Microsoft is adding swipes and taps just for the sake of swiping. I want a d-pad and buttons and I want images that aren’t blurry when I browse the web. Everyone that wants an iPhone has an iPhone so stop trying to copy it. In fact, everyone I know that tried to deal with WinMo gave up with version 5. Why did it take until 6.1 to add message filtering and threaded sms?

I remember going through a friends photos on their iPhone. It turned out it was her Picasa Web Albums. The photos were full screen and would rotate to fill the screen just like local photos. The user experience is just fantastic. On WinMo, the pics are tiny and blurry and Microsoft’s own Live services don’t offer anything better.

I don’t see any compelling reason to upgrade to 6.5 devices and 7.0 is coming out in 2010 because they need the time to try to copy the best features of the iPhone, the Storm, and the Pre. I thought MS was trying to merge both platforms and make the touch devices more one hand friendly. Where are the d-pads on the new devices?

Plus, the icons are still completely inconsistant and confusing in low-re.

People keep asking for some huge change but these same people will tear down Microsoft for incompatibility and other “atrocities”. So, it’s the same blessing/curse that MS has to deal with. Lots of choice and lots of headaches.

Personally, I’d love to see them start from scratch (even though it makes no business sense) because there are so many great hardware products on the WinMo side that just seem to be hampered by the clearly aging OS.

The whole platform just needs a major rethinking. A unified app store (a la Apple), an easy development process (a la Palm pre WebOS), open architecture (a la Android), and better application of the increasingly popular touch-type interfaces are all necessary for Microsoft to become relevant again. Here’s hoping for WinMo 7.

I have an ATT Tilt, HTC phone, and I switched to ATT to get this phone because Verizon, my former carrier took forever, to put out new phones and took forever to update the OS after an update was put out by the either Microsoft or phone manufacturer. The carriers then often take months to “test it on their networks” after the updated is released. If there is actually something worthwhile in a new update, the user has to go find a way to hack their phone to install the update because it will be months before the carriers roll it out to their customers. In some cases, the carriers don’t update the OS and force their customers to purchase new phones if they want the latest version of the OS.

So, it seems to me that Microsoft, the handset manufacturers, and the carriers need to find a better way to work together to get a new or updated OS on phones of the users faster.

HTC phones are beautiful, but HTC refuses to sell in the US, even expansys gets all their HTC stuff from over the pond at prices that are outrageous. Can anyone justify $700+ for an unlocked Touch HD when a 32GB iPhone 3G sells for under $300. Or $650 for an unlocked Touch Pro when Sprint gives you almost the same device for $299.

I feel service providers also share part of the blame, especially here in the US, since you just cannot get a “vanilla” device from them that hasn’t been otherwise hacked, butchered or dumbed-down to work only on their network.

On a final note, T-Mobile for example still sells the aging Wing from HTC, a device that’s already been superseded by the tytn, tytn 2, touch pro and now the touch pro2. Can you really get what you want out of Windows Mobile when even the carriers are so lousy to refresh their product lines?

People complain about Windows Mobile all the time, but most of them can’t even mention more than one reason why Windows Mobile ’sucks’ in their opinion. That’s because, as I said, there’s nothing wrong with Windows Mobile. Yes, it does lack smooth scrolling and pretty design, but that’s about it. The list of advantages is a lot longer.

So, what’s wrong with Microsoft (imho) and why am I looking forward to the 3rd gen iPhone?

I’t because of Microsoft’s ‘ecosystem’. MyPhone, Live Mesh, Foldershare, Skydrive, Windows Live Mobile… can you already notice the problem there?

Microsoft is wasting their time and energy creating more and more unfinished, redundant, hard to use, hard to understand products and services that are of no use for the consumer, because noone is able to figre out what the services actually do, which service to use and how to make it work.

Apple is delivering one useful, (almost) complete, easy to use service, MobileMe, that makes using the iPhone fun and delivers a whole new experience of cloud computing (especcially as a Mac user).

Google is delivering a useful, complete and easy to use set of services that integrate well with any mobile device, are easy to understand and easy to set up.

Microsoft delivers Windows Live for Mobile, which seems to be useful at first sight, but lacks essential features like calendar synchronization. Instead of going the logical way and completing the feature set of Windows Live, they release one more service, MyPhone, that backups anything but does not do synchronization. They’ve got Foldershare, Skydrive and Live Mesh and none of those redundant services delivers a complete set of features.

What a waste of time!

It’s not Windows Mobile itself that’s broken, it’s Microsoft, the company. Honestly, one should think that they must have learned how to structure and organize products and development after the Longhorn desaster. But they’ve learned nothing.

They do (struggle to) keep up with today’s developments. Windows Mobile and their services are competitive. But that’s not enough. As the biggest software company in the world whose name always stood for innovation in the past, keeping up with others is just not enough. I’m not disappointed about Windows Mobile, I’m disappointed about the company founded by a guy who always had great visions of the future, the company that fails to keep up with other people’s innovation though being ten times bigger that those other people’s companies.

That more than anything else speaks to how seriously Microsoft is taking the smartphone market – I don’t think we would have seen this release pace before the iPhone. Nor would we have seen the support of custom UIs ala HTC. I wouldn’t be surprised if Windows Mobile 6.5 made it easier to skin the OS. Of course, it still “isn’t fast enough;” but we always want these things to be faster, and I’m willing to wait for Windows Mobiel 7.0 to see if they can accomplish a “decent comeback.”

In terms of 6.5, it’s a “good” update. The interface changes are sorely needed, and bring Windows Mobile into 2008 (if not 2009/2010). Does it go far enough? No, but we never expected it to.

Right now, I wouldn’t buy a Windows Mobile phone, because both the iPhone and Blackberry are more compelling. But Microsoft has shown a willingness to invest a lot of money in “strategic” targets, and I think mobile definitely qualifies. Microsoft, I think, doesn’t want to be the next IBM, and so is pouring money into areas that could marginilize it. Google shifted the focus to web search; Apple has expanded it to include mobile.

like others will say, just lipstick on a pig.

just my $.02

the mda frustrated me so bad. i was finally able to get it to work but that involved me hacking a imate rom and then making my own custom ext rom (this should not be required to get a wm phone to work as it should).

wm needs to really step it up; microsoft has banked on the fact that the powerusers of the world love wm but lately the power users are getting sick of the full time job of maintaining a device.

i love HTC phones but loathe ‘their’ version of windows mobile. the touchflo ui looks great but performs like crap when i used on an HTC Touch.

anywho.. i’m just rambling and may be hating on Windows Mobile just because i have to support a device called the Treo 700W/700WX.

I think it was a bit selfish of you and James to make use of the new Reply buttons first Great new addition to the site guys.

Like, how about an article mentioning Spb Mobile Shell 3.0 or Pointui Home 2 or I dunno any one of the 3rd party apps that bring useful touch-functionality to Windows Mobile? PocketInformant? Agenda One? What have these folks been doing lately for Windows Mobile (and others)?