First, a quick introduction. My name is Howard and I'm one of *many* developers on Windows Mobile (specifically, the phone related features like dialing/incoming call/call history, etc...). I've been on this team for about 3 years now, and spent about 5 years helping to develop Visual Studio prior to that. I've read PocketPCThoughts for many years now, as I was a PocketPC enthusiast well before joining the team (it's actually what convinced me to change teams). That being said, I haven't participated in the forums at all, but having seen this thread tonight, I felt like I wanted to chime in. I can't (and thus won't) discuss or respond to speculation on anything related to any Windows Mobile release past 6.5, but there are some comments in here that I absolutely can address, and would like to. So, any comment on this thread that I'm able to respond to is below (where #n refers to the individual post I'm responding to):
#1:
Windows Mobile (both Standard and Professional) have had the ability to delete individual Call History entries (as well as clear the whole log in one fell swoop) for many releases. I'm not that familiar with the add-on's that OEM's are adding (like HTC, Samsung, etc...), but I can tell you that the Windows Mobile OS ships with the base ability to do this already. You just have to make sure that you're not in SmartDial when trying to delete the entries. See my response to #13 for better clarification.
#2:
"2. The ability to categorize and filter my email" - I guess I'm not clear on what you're looking for here, The mail client has the ability to instantly filter email as you start typing... maybe this is not what you're referring to by filtering?
#11:
"working automatic screen/button locker" - Unfortunately, it seems that we never exposed something like "Lock"
as a configurable action for buttons. The two-step solution that I've always used for this scenario is to hit the hardware END key (which immediately jumps you to the Today screen), and then tap the "Device Unlocked" homescreen plugin to lock the device.
"Also what about export/backup of call logs and SMS/MMS messages" -- We have that now thanks to MyPhone. See here for more info: http://blogs.msdn.com/windowsmobile/...-my-phone.aspx
#13
"a. Better call log management" - I'd like to hear more about your scenario. It sounds like you're referring to the Call History application. There are actually 3 ways to view the Call History information on the device.:- The Call History application (Start->Call History on WM Standard, TALK->Call History on WM Pro) - This will give you a complete view of all the phone events that happened on your device without any filtering applied (although you can apply a filter to view just the Missed calls or just the Outgoing calls, etc...)
- The "Call History by Caller" view - This is seen if you "action" (with the DPAD), or tap, on an item in that view. It filters out the calls and only shows you the call history entries that were to/from that number or contact. Again, in this view, no duplicates are removed, as it was expected that you wanted to see every call.
- "SmartDial" - This is what you see when you hit the TALK button or run the Phone application. The list that you see there is actually a merged list of all your device contacts, SIM contacts and favorites, and then Call History at the top. In this view, we remove all Call History duplicates.
When this was designed, our expectation was that the majority of users would initiate calls from SmartDial, and would just use Call History for reference and occasionally initiating a call. I'd like to better understand how you are using your phone, and why Call History better meets your needs than SmartDial (with the exception that it doesn't remove dupes).
#24
"2) Much better finger friendliness" - I believe that Windows Mobile 6.5 definitely makes us friendlier to those fingers.
"4) Notification API's so that ..." - I'd be interested in hearing more about your scenario here to get a better idea of what you're asking for.
"7) much better dialer with support for switching between multiple calls and design for conference calls" - We support multi-call swapping, as well as conferencing those calls and separating them out again (via the Private menu item). What is it about the current design that you find to be lacking or frustrating? How frequently are you doing conference calls on your device, and handing multi-call situations? I'm not trying to be flip here at all...I'm trying to get a better handle on your scenario. In my 10 years of owning a cellphone (3 of which were Windows Mobile), I never once made a conference call. I only started making conference calls once I joined that team, and that was merely when testing code changes to ensure that they didn't break that feature.
#26
"My brother loves movies and wants his phone to use GPS to pick the closest location and then tell him what movies are available. Great for a city ones not familiar with." - That's precisely the kind of scenario that the free "Windows Live Search" application solves. You can get it from here: http://loco4local.com/