Brighthand's Overview of Windows Mobile 2003 Second Edition

[Jason Dunn]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://brighthand.com/article/Overview_of_Windows_Mobile_2003_SE' target='_blank'>http://brighthand.com/article/Overv..._Mobile_2003_SE</a><br /><br /></div>Ed Hardy over at Brighthand has done something I haven't had time to do yet: publish an overview of Windows Mobile 2003 Second Edition. It's a great article and a worthwhile read. Get to it!

[pdaisdead(2)]

"Microsoft has not made the myriad of other changes to the operating system people have been hoping for, like the ability to easily shut down running applications" ROFL!!!!!!!!

Maybe they spent all their time trying to figure out how to get alarms to work!!

There's hope though:

"Those hoping for these improvements will have to set their sights on the next versions of the operating system which is expected to be called Windows Mobile 2005".

Man......way to stay competitive MS!

[luiskim]

something i've been wondering for a while now... if i install WM2003SE (once it's released) on my iPAq2210... that does mean i'm gonna be able to use VGA resolution? or do i have to buy a PPC with a VGA screen?

[Fishie]

something i've been wondering for a while now... if i install WM2003SE (once it's released) on my iPAq2210... that does mean i'm gonna be able to use VGA resolution? or do i have to buy a PPC with a VGA screen?

Im pretty sure that if you want VGA you need a VGA screen.

[NeilE]

You definitely need a VGA screen. All devices that have a 2003SE upgrade available will be able to take advantage of the portrait/landscape rotate, but for VGA you need a device like the Toshiba.

[Ed@Brighthand]

something i've been wondering for a while now... if i install WM2003SE (once it's released) on my iPAq2210... that does mean i'm gonna be able to use VGA resolution? or do i have to buy a PPC with a VGA screen?
You aren't the first person to ask this question and so I actually covered it in my overview of WM 2003 SE. While you can change the resolution of a traditional CRT, there's no practical way to do this with an LCD.

Some technologies like ClearText try to simulate a higher resolution through sub-pixeling, but I think that just makes fonts look blurry.

The good news is I'm expecting several VGA models to hit the market in the coming months, including the ASUS MyPAL A730 we already know about. I have my fingers crossed one of them will be a clamshell model with a decent keyboard. If so, I'll have found my next Pocket PC.

[Scott R]

Posted this at Brighthand and repeating it here...

These improvements are nice, and I'm hoping that HP offers an upgrade for my h4155 (and sooner rather than later), but it amazes me how MS still doesn't "get it" in terms of usability. Not only did they not fix some of the usability problems that have plagued the PPC OS since the beginning such as:
1) Having a tiny round "OK" button in the top right while having normal/better sized and placed rectangular "Cancel" buttons.
2) No built-in task switching or ability to kill tasks.

Fortunately, the first one could be fixed by developers simply ignoring MS' screwed up usability guidelines, and the second one can be fixed by installing one of several utilities (I use the freeware PocketNav).

Now, they've introduced a new usability problem: You have to go into the Settings panel to swtich between portrait and landscape mode? You've gotta be kidding me. I don't see why some developer shouldn't be able to develop a small hack to put an icon on the title bar to handle this, though. Hopefully, that will happen soon. But how could they not think of this? Unbelievable!

I'm not surprised that there isn't more meat behind the other new features, though I would have liked to have seen PIE get multi-window support. I suppose I'll have to keep using the freeware ftxPBrowser for that.

Scott

[thunderck]

Come-on HP post my 2215 update..quickly...quickly move it along :D

[bridgecrosser]

The only thing that really excites me about 2003 SE is what Pocket Informant is going to do with it (Thanks, Alex). Sony has been doing most of what SE will do for quite a while. I guess I have another long wait (2005) before I replace my iPAQ h5450. I guess I really expected more this time from the folks at Microsoft Windows Mobile Team.

[joelevi]

... though I would have liked to have seen PIE get multi-window support. I suppose I'll have to keep using the freeware ftxPBrowser for that.

Scott

Scott, we can't even get tabbed browsing in MSIE on the desktop, let alone on the Pocket PC! :evil:

Have they fixed the "WM2003 Startup" problem that so many 3rd party developers have tackled?

Have they added ctrl-b, ctrl-i, ctrl-u shortcuts in Pocket Word?

Have they enhanced the ability to open web popup windows in the current PIE window?

Have they fixed the WM2003 alarms problem?

(crossing fingers)

[Rob Alexander]

These improvements are nice, and I'm hoping that HP offers an upgrade for my h4155 (and sooner rather than later), but it amazes me how MS still doesn't "get it" in terms of usability. Not only did they not fix some of the usability problems that have plagued the PPC OS since the beginning

Well, you have to figure this is just a matter of perspective. I'm sure they spent tens of thousands of dollars hiring unusability designers :silly: to tell them how to design these things, and no pissant little group (i.e. all of them) of mere customers is going to convince them to back off and change it. You can't be trusted to close your own applications and you should be ashamed for wanting to try. If you persist in this reckless behavior, then MS is certainly not going to be a party to it. :bangin:

The more important issue is... will the new 480 x 480 mode work in both portrait and landscape? :lol:

[gorkon280]

I bet some of the LCD's ARE VGA. Whose to say that isn't possibly yet they are driving them at 240x320 by default. Wonder if PPC techs found the spec on some of the other devices LCD's.

[JonnoB]

Come-on HP post my 2215 update..quickly...quickly move it along :D

You can get your 2215 flashed with WM2003SE here at MDC by HP on the exhibit floor, but you will encounter bugs and will lose BT functionality. HP will not commit to having a WM2003SE update for any of its current products... but I bet they will. They are also flashing 41xx devices too.

[Scott R]

Further raining on this parade...

A while back I played with the trial of Nyditot. I tried switching to landscape mode and found it to be rather unusable for a reason which this release does not look like it addresses. The problem was that on the PPC (vs the Palm OS, for example) there's the Title/Start bar at the top and the application menu/input method switcher bar at the bottom. In just about all apps, both are visible. When switching to landscape mode, both are still visible and still positioned in the same locations (top and bottom of screen) which eats up a lot of screen real estate, leaving the center portion very very squashed. On the Palm OS, not only is one of these bars more often hidden, but with the advent of portrait/landscape switching, one of these bars is now moved to the side when in landscape mode.

I really have to wonder just how useful landscape mode will be for 320x240 devices.

Scott

[jfreiman]

Come-on HP post my 2215 update..quickly...quickly move it along :D

You can get your 2215 flashed with WM2003SE here at MDC by HP on the exhibit floor, but you will encounter bugs and will lose BT functionality. HP will not commit to having a WM2003SE update for any of its current products... but I bet they will. They are also flashing 41xx devices too.

Can anyone just enter the show floor or must you be an exhibitor or do you have to be a paying attendee?

I sure would like to stop by and get my 4155 flashed if it won't cost me anything!

[thunderck]

I'll have to wait for HP to hurry up and drag their feet. I would love to be astonished. I realize the incentive is for getting se on *new* hardware so I can understand the delay. I just hope it is not latter than most. I don't want to be signing a petition 0X .

[thunderck]

Oh ya I'm on my way from the east coast. :wink: Be there in a jiffy. 8)

[dmacburry2003]

I'm sooo freaked out 8O

What if they don't release Windows Mobile 2003 SE for my 1935??? I mean, it does only have 16 MB of ROM and HP would have to take out some of the features (like Pictures, MS Reader, Terminal Services Client, etc.).

Unless it is just like a ROM update....

Well, I'm all hyped about SE but if they don't release it for your bottom of the line device then what is there to think?
The 1935 is discontinued as well, so I don't really think that they will care to update it, unless they feel that they really need to fix the alarm issues that they *apparently* have never heard about :evil:

[JonnoB]

Can anyone just enter the show floor or must you be an exhibitor or do you have to be a paying attendee?

I sure would like to stop by and get my 4155 flashed if it won't cost me anything!

I believe there is an exhibits only pass you can buy... but they do check badges at the door. Moto MPx200 users can get flashed to 2003 for free here too (along with Axim users at the Dell booth). As for HP devices, it is only the 22xx and 41xx devices that are being updated. I suspect that older 19xx devices including the 194x won't be updated. I could be wrong - no one has said anything to me either way.

[jfreiman]

Sounds cool.

I'm going to hop onto MUNI and be there in a few.

If the pass is too costly, I'll just head over to Central Computer and get somthing fun - no time lost.

[Janak Parekh]

Now, they've introduced a new usability problem: You have to go into the Settings panel to swtich between portrait and landscape mode? You've gotta be kidding me.
I've heard someone say it's mappable to a hardware button. I'm sure there will be free hacks to add this functionality to the start bar...

I really have to wonder just how useful landscape mode will be for 320x240 devices.
We'll see, but seeing as how the MPx will use this mode heavily out-of-the-box, I think you'll be pleasantly surprised. I'm already seeing developers build solutions to take advantage of the width when they don't have the height.

--janak

[Prevost]

Posted this at Brighthand and repeating it here...

These improvements are nice, and I'm hoping that HP offers an upgrade for my h4155 (and sooner rather than later), but it amazes me how MS still doesn't "get it" in terms of usability. Not only did they not fix some of the usability problems that have plagued the PPC OS since the beginning such as:
1) Having a tiny round "OK" button in the top right while having normal/better sized and placed rectangular "Cancel" buttons.
2) No built-in task switching or ability to kill tasks.

Fortunately, the first one could be fixed by developers simply ignoring MS' screwed up usability guidelines, and the second one can be fixed by installing one of several utilities (I use the freeware PocketNav).
I think this must be handled by the OS by itself, too.

Now, they've introduced a new usability problem: You have to go into the Settings panel to swtich between portrait and landscape mode? You've gotta be kidding me. I don't see why some developer shouldn't be able to develop a small hack to put an icon on the title bar to handle this, though. Hopefully, that will happen soon. But how could they not think of this? Unbelievable!

Scott
Perhaps they should buy a Tungsten T3 to find out how to do it right. Sorry guys, I know you'll always say Palm OS is a "piece of ****". Flame me now if you want.

[Prevost]

OK, now in a more positive tone, let me ask something.

I read that it will be possible to adjust font sizing in the Settings Menu. But, how is the adjustment to be made? Are they going to render images using more pixels for each "pixel" of the image? Or, will they do it by changing the total pixels visible, as we do with our desktop screen?

I'm afraid this last one could be the way, for it would then mean we'll need to work in 320x240 res, defeating the purpose for the VGA support.

I'm not so good in technical English, so I hope I made myself clear. :oops: :mrgreen:

[Prevost]

OK, let me know if I'm wrong, but I guess I got my question answered with the very first screenshot posted by Janak in the "Screenshots..." thread.

Yeah, I use a Palm...

And, yeah, the screenshot's looking good.

Really looking good.

[Scott R]

Prevost, I think the idea is that when you change the system font setting it will affect the "system default font." Basically, any app that uses the "default font" will use the size that you've set. Apps where the developer specified a specific font will use that font in the size the developer specified (for better or worse). When "done right" this should mean that you can set the system font to the size you want it to be for easy tapping (or if you're a sucker for punishment and want to maximize screen real estate can set it really tiny) but each app may then show the "contents" of the window in a smaller font and, perhaps, allow you to resize the font used within those contents for that app.

Scott

[Prevost]

I think I got it.

Guess most of app developers use the Windows default fonts. At least, in my desktop work, I have never found any app using any different font. So, this will work fine as far as I see.

Concerning "contents", I understand that the adjustment you talk about is of the "font point size" kind as in Word, for example. Would we have WYSIWYG capabilities?

If so, then WM SE is doing certainly some fine things. Still, it is Windows and that makes it "heavy" for things like personal customization. Comprehensive settings, but a bit hard to choose to my tastes, particularily being used in a handheld.

[Janak Parekh]

Prevost, I think the idea is that when you change the system font setting it will affect the "system default font."
I'm not sure about this. It might work more like the DPI setting in Windows, where most of the system fonts are scaled appropriately and the definition of "12 point MS Sans Serif" is different than it would be at a lower DPI. We'll see.

--janak

[Prevost]

Prevost, I think the idea is that when you change the system font setting it will affect the "system default font."
I'm not sure about this. It might work more like the DPI setting in Windows, where most of the system fonts are scaled appropriately and the definition of "12 point MS Sans Serif" is different than it would be at a lower DPI. We'll see.

--janak
I understand you too, Janak.

Although I don't see too much difference between your opinion and Scott's. I think that if it's gonna be achieved as you say, it might be also effective and should work fine for menu fonts.

But, I wonder if this method could affect WYSIWYG capabilities of our work in, let's say, word processing. Any clues?

After all, there COULD BE a drastic difference...

[jonathanchoo]

Looks promising. Some PocketPC users in the past has mocked Palm's decision to keep square resolution, now they are getting it too.

What I need to see change is the shortcuts on PPC's launcher need to cache the icons from programs played on SD cards. I hate it everytime I reset my PPC and need to wait 3 minutes for the launcher to load my games folder icons. I use a Panasonic 256Mb so its quite bearable. I remembed on my e310 using a slow Toshiba 128Mb and its slow.

PPC OS also needs to give up control to the user. Its quite a frustrating user experience. On PalmOS, once you are in a app, you are IN the app and stay in until you tap the home launcher to exit. No other apps in the background running (such as ptunes) tries to take over.

Improve bluetooth support please. Put in something equalvelant to Palm's connection and network applets. I find the whole PPC2003's connections setting even more difficult to get a grip with compared to WindowsXP.

They should also support 320x480 display as the displays are probably cheaper. Give the manufacturer choice just like on the PC market. It would be a good middle ground for those who could not afford making/buying VGA PDAs. 240x320 is too pixelated, 480x640 is too expensive. Get it?

Landscape support is good but I totally dislike it being in an applet. Hopefully someone will integrate it into a pop-up launcher like WisBar to give us on the fly switching (like on Palm Tungsten T3). Microsoft was mad not to integrate the feature atleast on the status bar.

In landscape input pop-up based on the screenshots seems to be coming from the 'bottom' and not the side (ala T3). Not so sure its a good thing since your screen will be squashed into half. But I will reserve my judgement on that until I see more screenshots.

Multimedia framework? Any improvements? Because from my experience with the h4150, PalmOS has overtaken PocketPC in multimedia. MMPlayer on PalmOS can play 420x320 DivX 15fps 1200kbps without skipping. PocketMVP on my h4150 can barely play 240x320 DivX 15fps 600kbps and dumping out half of my frames. Pretty dissapointing. I hope Microsoft will improve multimedia support and encourage development of plug-in codecs for their Media player. However seeing how they are obssessed in promoting the WMV format I doubt that would happen with this or the next release.

[joelevi]

... though I would have liked to have seen PIE get multi-window support. I suppose I'll have to keep using the freeware ftxPBrowser for that.

Scott

Scott, we can't even get tabbed browsing in MSIE on the desktop, let alone on the Pocket PC! :evil:

Looks like I may have to eat my words about tabbed browsing... Don't know if it's a plug-in, but take a gander:http://www.ppcw.net/images/column/ozup/19.gif

[JonnoB]

Can anyone just enter the show floor or must you be an exhibitor or do you have to be a paying attendee?

I sure would like to stop by and get my 4155 flashed if it won't cost me anything!

$75 for a one-day exhibit only pass.

[JonnoB]

Now, they've introduced a new usability problem: You have to go into the Settings panel to swtich between portrait and landscape mode? You've gotta be kidding me. I don't see why some developer shouldn't be able to develop a small hack to put an icon on the title bar to handle this, though. Hopefully, that will happen soon. But how could they not think of this? Unbelievable!


Actually, the way MS designed the landscape mode, you have to specifically tell the OS that you support it or else it won't switch. This is different than the e805 switcher. Also, an app can use an API to switch modes on its own. I am going to head into a session on GAPI in relation to screen rotation and resolution. This will be interesting.

[ctmagnus]

Looks like I may have to eat my words about tabbed browsing... Don't know if it's a plug-in, but take a gander:http://www.ppcw.net/images/column/ozup/19.gif

That's MultiIE, a plugin for IE. ;)