WM5 is a disaster: horrible, horrible, horrible!

[lokiloki]

Why did MS choose to dumb down this OS and make it so much worse than the previous incarnation?

1. Cannot schedule ActiveSync. As a result, this screws up my computer big time... I get many, many emails, and my home computer literally locks up when a sync tries to update itself with 100s of new emails. Also, if I am deleting emails on my system, it sllllooooooows everything down because after each deletion, everything lags until JasJar (JarJar) updates itself. STUPID. (And why the hell leave the Schedule button there, but greyed out, if you can NEVER use it?!?!)

2. Bottom menu-bar replaced by simplistic, overly large blue bar that has only 3 options on it. So, in Outlook for example, the Send/Receive is no longer on the bar... you have to click on Menu first... this basically makes every action you want to do in a program require an extra step or two. Why did they do this? Is there anyway to overcome it?!

3. Bugs and bugs! An example: create a pop3 account in Outlook. Set it to auto-connect every 5 minutes or so. Let it do that for a little bit. Now go back in and uncheck the auto-connect button... guess what, it might show itself as unchecked, but it will continue to auto-connect over and over, draining the battery. The only way to overcome this is to delete the pop3 account.

[Don't Panic!]

A bit melodramitic there lokiloki. I don't see those problems as equating to a disater. The issues you raised are not anything new in the PPC world. They've happened before and were addressed in a timely manner by MS.

[jlp]

I agree that #2 is HORRIBLE and cumbersome. This is absolutely ridiculous. For the sake of so-called making it simpler and one hand operated, 1) you loose precious functionalities 2) the fact you have to navigate cascading menus and press multiple choices COMPLETELY NEGATES THE "ADVANTAGES" OF ONE HANDED OPERATION AND STILL REQUIRES THE USE OF THE STYLUS!!

In fact I bet most of the time you'll get too darn nervous trying to operate your d@m device one handed and end up pulling out that stylus ANYWAY.

I bet these stupid guys never even tested the thing in real life situations!!!

They thought: the wave of the future is smartphone so let's merge the PPC/Smartphone OS. Only when one handed operation is the only option with smartphones IT IS NOT ADAPTED TO PPC usage patterns!!!

Don't you hate the lacking WM5 (aka WiMp5 :razzing:)!!

http://www.cabinet-sante.ch/divppc/flexwallet06-wm03-wm5.gif

[aroma]

COMPLETELY NEGATES THE "ADVANTAGES" OF ONE HANDED OPERATION AND STILL REQUIRES THE USE OF THE STYLUS!!

Huh? How does this completely negate the advantages of one handed operation? With the inclusion of the new soft buttons, I can now actually hold my PPC in my one hand and navigate through the different options and menus in my software simply with the buttons at the bottom of the device. Effectivly enabling one handed operation.

[DaleReeck]

Actually, WM5 I'm OK with. It's ActiveSync 4 that I think has become horrible.

[Don't Panic!]

It's ActiveSync 4 that I think has become horrible.Nothing new about that particular issue. My company is about to switch to Exchange so this issue will become more relavant to me as time goes by. I've only been using activesync for files, favorites and Avantgo personally. Those functions are working okay. The e-mail issue is truly a problem though to a lot of folks. Let's hope AS 4.1 when it is finally released addresses that problem.

[PetiteFlower]

Huh? How does this completely negate the advantages of one handed operation? With the inclusion of the new soft buttons, I can now actually hold my PPC in my one hand and navigate through the different options and menus in my software simply with the buttons at the bottom of the device.

Because supposedly the advantage of one-handed navigation is that it's faster and simpler. These stupid soft buttons make navigation take LONGER and make the same operation require 2-3 times MORE TAPS/CLICKS then the way it was before. So I don't see where the advantage is. I'd rather use the stylus or my fingernail and only have to tap once to perform a function then to have to navigate through 3 or 4 layers of menus to do something like switch from agenda view to month view in Calender.

As for activesync scheduling, I suspect that the schedule button is still there because this feature is still isn't development and just wasn't ready in time for the release. I'm sure it will be implemented in the next version.

[biglouis]

Anyone reading my other posts will know that as a long suffering user of MS products there is no love lost between myself and them. I actually cheered during southpark the movie!

However...... I really quite like the new softkeys. Does this make me a bad person?

To be fair, I am using an i-mate K-JAM where the ability to softkey with one hand is very useful.

BIG QUESTION: where in hell is the 'NEW' softkey? I even bought the upgrade to Tweaks2Net that allows you to set softkeys but where do I find the NEW one?

LouisB

[jlp]

COMPLETELY NEGATES THE "ADVANTAGES" OF ONE HANDED OPERATION AND STILL REQUIRES THE USE OF THE STYLUS!!

Huh? How does this completely negate the advantages of one handed operation? With the inclusion of the new soft buttons, I can now actually hold my PPC in my one hand and navigate through the different options and menus in my software simply with the buttons at the bottom of the device. Effectivly enabling one handed operation.

I think you don't even realize in your own sentence the implications of the keywords here: "navigate", "different", "optionS" and "menuS"

That means that WiMp5 users need to do multi-steps actions to do what WM03 users only need ONE SINGLE STEP TO PERFORM!!!

THIS IS HOW IT COMPLETELY NEGATES THE "ADVANTAGES" OF ONE HANDED OPERATION !!

Carefully observe these screenshots :
http://www.cabinet-sante.ch/divppc/flexwallet06-wm03-wm5.gif

How many steps are involved to create a new card?

WM03:
1. press icon on bottom bar (first one after Tools)

and that's it!!

WiMp5*:
1. press menu button
2. press to scroll down relevant menu
3. navigate to New card
4. press button to create new card

That's 400% more steps!! How's that for de-evolution :evil: ??

*I extrapolate from what I observed on a WiMp5 device as I have neither FW06 (but I DO own FW05) nor (fortunately :twisted:) a WiMp5 device, but I think it's quite accurate, at least it's a good illustration of the horrible weaknesses of WiMp5!!!

WiMp5 HAS to have horrible limitations as it only has an aweful button bar with NO MENU ITEMS WHATSOEVER (just a Menu button to popup menu items, thus requirering an extra step) and NO SHORTCUT ICON WHATSOEVER thus requirering MANY extra steps.

THIS IS HOW IT COMPLETELY NEGATES THE "ADVANTAGES" OF ONE HANDED OPERATION !!

In fact it even makes it WORST!!

I just wish it was possible to disable this d@m BUG, I mean feature :twisted:!!!

[Janak Parekh]

I just wish it was possible to disable this d@m BUG, I mean feature :twisted:!!!
I think I heard that programs can choose to use the old-style menus (but, most are converting to the new softmenu design). In addition, in the FlexWallet case the left item could have been changed to be "New".

I guess it depends on your use case scenarios. This mechanism becomes much handier for Pocket PC Phones more so than regular Pocket PCs.

--janak

[kaitanium]

o no im afraid of upgrading due to the many complaints everywhere

[airconvent]

if its so painful, then as an enhancement, they should make it compulsory to have an option for the "classic" look. for me, I am still insisting in using the win98 theme for media player (windows classic) ! :lol:

seems to me its better for the rest of us to wait for WM5 Service Pack 1 (or worse..WM6!! ) :lol:

[aroma]

Because supposedly the advantage of one-handed navigation is that it's faster and simpler.

I would think the advantage of "one-handed navigation" would be able to operate the device with one hand. (i.e. Holding the device in one hand and navigating using your thumb ont he buttons at the bottom, as opposed to having to use the stylus on the screen.) This can now be more easily accomplished with the soft buttons.

[aroma]

That means that WiMp5 users need to do multi-steps actions to do what WM03 users only need ONE SINGLE STEP TO PERFORM!!!

THIS IS HOW IT COMPLETELY NEGATES THE "ADVANTAGES" OF ONE HANDED OPERATION !!


Don't get me wrong. I'm not arguing the fact that it my add extra steps to perform the sames steps (this would party be affected by how the application designed). The point is, the advantage of "ONE HANDED OPERATION" is not so much to be able to perform the operations as quickly as you could with a stylus, but to allow you to perform these operations with "ONE HAND". You can now perform these operations holding the device in your hand and using your thumbs on the hardware buttons.

[jlp]

I really don't get it: why in the world one would want to use a device just with one hand while needing to take more time and more steps to perform things... unless you only have one hand!

((But I doubt it is the case for more than a tiny fraction of a single percent of WiMp5 users.))

I'd get my stylus out every time instead of fumbling with the cursor taking too much time and steps!! But that's just me 8).

If only programmers would offer the choice, I wouldn't mind... to each their own. What I hate is to get imposed on an aweful choice!!

[Janak Parekh]

I really don't get it: why in the world one would want to use a device just with one hand while needing to take more time and more steps to perform things... unless you only have one hand!
Try using a Pocket PC Phone with one hand, and you'll quickly see why.

--janak

[Andy Whiteford]

The problem here is the one handed operation in general is more suitable to a phone style of device. A Pocket PC is quicker to access using the stylus and having multiple buttons a single tap away is more convenient than cascading menus. I'm all for the option of either on a Pocket PC but not being forced to use one method. I guess it will eventually become the norm and people will overlook this but it is a frustrating threshold while the OS's are all brought into line and the Pocket PC user in my eye is worse off.

[Scott R]

I think that MS made a poor decision in their usability guidelines (requirements?) here. IMO, these WM5 devices should have had a dedicated app menu button because you will very often have a need to access additional functions not visible on-screen. What I found with my brief bit of playtime with a WM5 device (the PPC-6700) was that most apps ended up dedicating one of those soft buttons for opening the app menu. So, if 90% of apps are going to use the button for that, a better approach would have been for devices to have a dedicated app menu button. Then, you could free up that soft button for a different commonly-used (for that particular app) function.

But I think that these WM5 devices would be better served without the soft buttons at all. Consider the Palm OS Treo 600/650. In Blazer, there is a row of icons which offer you semi-quick access to about five different functions. You press the spacebar to bring the blue focus ring in and out of that area and then use the D-Pad to navigate to the function you want. On WM2003SE (and prior) devices, apps would often have a similar row of icons (as jlp pointed out and his screenshots show), except that you'd tap on them with your stylus. IMO, they should have kept that concept the same in WM5 and ditched the two soft buttons which now afford you only two easy-access functions (versus five or more) for the same amount of [now-wasted] screen real estate. They could have followed the Treo's example by having the spacebar (or some hard button) quickly toggle focus in and out of that region.

I think the driving factor for them doing what they did had a lot to do with them wanting to converge the Smartphone and Pocket PC GUIs to allow developers to make a one-size-fits-all GUI. The end-result is a dumbed-down interface that now requires more steps to do things.

Here's an idea I'd like to see a developer try (or once I get more time to play with my VS.NET 2005 beta - if it hasn't expired yet - I'll try it myself)...I'm wondering if you could create a WM5-compatible app with an old WM2003SE-style feature-rich toolbar but still catch the hard button press of one of the "soft menu" hard buttons. The next step would be to then highlight the icons/menus in that toolbar area and allow you to move the highlight via the D-Pad. This would probably require some clever programming which would defeat much of the value of the drag-and-drop toolbar controls that MS gives you with VS.NET 2005. But perhaps someone could build a custom control to do this sort of thing. Then users could have the best of both worlds.

[pocketpcadmirer]

jlk wrote "That's 400% more steps!! How's that for de-evolution ??"

I do agree to u on that point..microsoft should have thought those soft buttons only in case on their smatphone line. It just doesnt make sense on a touch screen devise

Sunny

[ThePocketBlog]

Seems it would make sense to be able to toggle between old style and "one handed" mode.

[Darius Wey]

Seems it would make sense to be able to toggle between old style and "one handed" mode.

I assume you're talking about the soft keys? It is possible to switch between modes, but not as a system-wide implementation. Developers can tweak their programs to revert back to the old pre-WM5 style of buttons, but this is a program-specific change.

[PetiteFlower]

I bet it's only a matter of time before someone releases a tweak for the built in calender app to go back to the old style of menu...

At least that's what I hope....