[jimtravis]

I find it interesting how many are already burying WM even though it sold many more licenses than the iPhone sold devices since the iPhone was introduced. Yeah, it is nice to finally have a SDK, but the iPhone firmware available to run true 3rd party apps is at least 3 months away. There may be great apps available for the iPhone in the future, there are already great apps for WM now.

I respect other posters' opinions about liking the iPhone's interface, and disliking the WM interface. I did not buy an iPhone because it was missing too many features that are critical for me in a smartphone. I did buy an iPod touch so I could get extensive time using the highly advertised multi-touch interface. I know many like the multi-touch, and are excited over the only true multi-touch gesture, the pinch zoom. Personally, after using finger scrolling, and pinch zooming extensively, I dislike them. For me, finger scrolling is designed to impress, and is not the fastest way to scroll. I'll take a navigation control, and/or a page down button any day. In addition, with text zoomed to a readable level, you are scrolling every 12 lines or so, and the scroll finger is covering the reading area. Pinch zooming seems cumbersome, and again designed to impress. I realize many have different opinions, I respect your opinion, please respect mine.

I have used Opera-Mini 4 with IBM's JVM on VGA, and QVGA WM devices as well as Safari on the iPod touch. After extensive use, I believe Opera-Mini 4 does as good a job as mobile Safari displaying full internet pages, and the navigation controls on the WM devices make it easier to scroll/pan the page than the finger navigation on the touch. Opera-Mini does a better job than Safari in displaying some older, single column webpages. With some single column pages, Safari does not respond to the double tap zoom, and you have to pinch zoom to enlarge the text to a comfortable reading size. Problem is the page does not word wrap after pinch zooming, and you have to horizontally scroll to read each line which gets old after about 2 lines. If you are using Opera-Mini 4 on the same page, it too may require horizontal scrolling when set to normal view. However, Opera-Mini has a mobile view setting. If you go into settings, check mobile view, and refresh the page, you can now read the single column page at a comfortable text size without the horizontal scrolling required by Safari. The enabling mobile view causes a word wrap on the page. The webpage developer can include a Viewport metatag that will cause Safari to display fewer words per line, but most older, single column pages will never have the new metatag added. Hopefully, Apple will add a similar mobile view setting to Safari in a future update.

I have tried numerous virtual keyboards in addition to the keyboard on the touch, and just don't like them. I want a device with a physical keyboard.

CorePlayer is an excellent media player that natively plays more codecs than the iTunes/touch combination. If it's not mp4 or h264, a long conversion is usually needed for the touch. With CorePlayer, most codecs play fine without conversion. Since I have so many gadgets, I store most files on NAS drives. With WM and built-in file explorer, transferring files to/from NAS is painless. I also regularly stream video files from the NAS drives to CorePlayer on WM, which is not possible with the touch.

Finger navigation is receiving quite a bit of hype since the iPhone was introduced. Finger navigation is nice on the iPhone/touch, but I have been using finger navigation with my WM, and Palm devices for years. It may be easier on the touch/iPhone because of the larger icons, and increased spacing between menu entries, but it is not new. I rarely use a stylus with my devices. I also find it is easier to do one handed navigation with WM than the touch. I hold the WM device in the palm of my hand, select icons/menu items, and use the navigation control with the thumb/thumbnail on the same hand I am holding the device with. I have found it very difficult to do one hand navigation with the touch, partly due to the extremely slippery back on the touch.

When applications are available for the iPhone, I'll check again, but for now, WM is the best platform for me. Yeah, Apple has all the buzz, and hype. It is hard to go one night watching network TV without seeing at least one iPhone commercial, and more than likely, a Macbook AIR, or iPod commercial. When is the last time you saw a commercial for a non-Apple phone or media player on network TV? Apple did the same thing with the original iPod. Non-technical people equated portable music with Apple exclusively because Apple was doing all the music player TV commercials, and outdoor advertising they saw. When it came time to buy a player, they did not think of anything but iPod. Congratulations to Apple for an extremely successful marketing campaign. Unless the other manufactures start a successful TV advertising campaign, non-tech consumer will think the iPhone is the only mobile device that can do things like internet browsing because they only see mobile internet browsing in the Apple commercials.

I know many have different opinions, and I respect that. Just wanted to post an opinion that has a different take on the iPhone, and Apple hype. This post reflects my personal opinion like every other post on the net, and is based on my needs/wants for a device which may be different than your needs/wants in a device. BTW, I own many Apple products, and Apple stock, so I am not an Apple basher. Competition is good, and all manufacturers will offer better devices when there is credible competing products.