[Torque]

I haven't used the iPhone so I can't comment on it's usability, interface, or it's stability directly. I can say that the out of the three Windows mobile devices I've owned and used, two were pocket PC's that never had to be hard reset or soft reset despite numerous application installs and uninstalls. The Refurbished Blackjack I've been using for over a year has only recently developed problems that weren't related to the WM OS. It's hardware related. It doesn't crash or require soft or hard resets. Since Apple has only one phone and they control the hardware and software, that can't really be compared to the dozens of devices and OEMs producing WM Smartphones, none of whom even operate the same way despite the common OS. Apple will fix the problems with the iPhone and Microsoft had better develop a better user interface and user experience with Windows Mobile 7 next year when my 2 year phone upgrade is due, or they will lose me to "another mobile OS vendor" if I can get a better user experience, WiFi/Bluetooth, replaceable battery, and a built in keyboard (not saying no vendor names... LOL)

[Torque]

I haven't used the iPhone so I can't comment on it's usability, interface, or it's stability directly. I can say that the out of the three Windows mobile devices I've owned and used, two were pocket PC's that never had to be hard reset or soft reset despite numerous application installs and uninstalls. The Refurbished Blackjack I've been using for over a year has only recently developed problems that weren't related to the WM OS. It's hardware related. It doesn't crash or require soft or hard resets. Since Apple has only one phone and they control the hardware and software, that can't really be compared to the dozens of devices and OEMs producing WM Smartphones, none of whom even operate the same way despite the common OS. Apple will fix the problems with the iPhone and Microsoft had better develop a better user interface and user experience with Windows Mobile 7 next year when my 2 year phone upgrade is due, or they will lose me to "another mobile OS vendor" if I can get a better user experience, WiFi/Bluetooth, replaceable battery, and a built in keyboard (not saying no vendor names... LOL)

[alese]

I have only used iPhone a few times for couple of minutes, so I can't really compare the two systems, the one thing I can say is that iPhone's UI is incredible compared to WM even the new Touch Diamond while nice can't compare.
So I guess iPhone is nicer and it's browser is much better than PIE, although with new Opera Mobile and new VGA devices WM is better for browsing.

As for stability, I can't say much about iPhone, but saying that WM as system is unstable out of the box is simply not true. It can be that some devices have HW problems that make them unstable - I know my iPaq 3870 was such a device, that managed to hard reset on me few times without any reason. But out of 7 Pocket PC/WM devices that I used since 2000 none of them needed daily resets even after I have loaded all my programs - I use quite a few 3rd party apps and I usually do quite a lot of customizations on my devices. Sure I have to reset here and there, but once every few days is not much of a problem and not much different than most "non dumb" phones out there regardless the OS.

Oh and my HTC Advantage (X7500) is running just great with custom 6.1 ROM, no resets at all, great browsing, incredible little MID...

[khoss]

Originally Posted by alese

I have only used iPhone a few times for couple of minutes, so I can't really compare the two systems, the one thing I can say is that iPhone's UI is incredible compared to WM even the new Touch Diamond while nice can't compare.
So I guess iPhone is nicer and it's browser is much better than PIE, although with new Opera Mobile and new VGA devices WM is better for browsing.

As for stability, I can't say much about iPhone, but saying that WM as system is unstable out of the box is simply not true. It can be that some devices have HW problems that make them unstable - I know my iPaq 3870 was such a device, that managed to hard reset on me few times without any reason. But out of 7 Pocket PC/WM devices that I used since 2000 none of them needed daily resets even after I have loaded all my programs - I use quite a few 3rd party apps and I usually do quite a lot of customizations on my devices. Sure I have to reset here and there, but once every few days is not much of a problem and not much different than most "non dumb" phones out there regardless the OS.

Oh and my HTC Advantage (X7500) is running just great with custom 6.1 ROM, no resets at all, great browsing, incredible little MID...

I don't know how you do it. So far I didn't see anybody say that WM is unstable out of the box. What I said was that WM would run out of resources and need a reboot while the iPhone 3G would need a reboot do to instability. Quite the opposite. But .. WM needs far more reboots. An hour on the web and the resources are usually down to about 3 MB. I can use an iPhone all day like that. Of course these are heavy graphics but still .. Having to track the memory and decide if you need to reboot before you start a task lest it freeze on you (like making a purchase) is a pain. I have never had a WM device that didn't need at least one reboot a day. Yes, I use them quite a bit but the only people I ever saw who didn't need to do this were pretty light users (phone calls and occassional non-communication apps). How you've manged is beyond me :-(
Regards,
Kurt

[alese]

Originally Posted by khoss

I don't know how you do it. So far I didn't see anybody say that WM is unstable out of the box. What I said was that WM would run out of resources and need a reboot while the iPhone 3G would need a reboot do to instability. Quite the opposite. But .. WM needs far more reboots. An hour on the web and the resources are usually down to about 3 MB. I can use an iPhone all day like that. Of course these are heavy graphics but still .. Having to track the memory and decide if you need to reboot before you start a task lest it freeze on you (like making a purchase) is a pain. I have never had a WM device that didn't need at least one reboot a day. Yes, I use them quite a bit but the only people I ever saw who didn't need to do this were pretty light users (phone calls and occassional non-communication apps). How you've manged is beyond me :-(
Regards,
Kurt

Well some people were complaining of resetting their device daily without anything installed...
As for resources - I have HTC Trinity (P3600) phone that has 64Mb RAM and true it's a pain to use with new Opera Mobile Beta or with iGO navigation, because it tends to run out of memory. But I don't use any of them all daily (browsing sucks on qVGA and I know how to get to work and home without GPS navigation - I tend to use Advantage for browsing and multimedia stuff) - so when I use this applications I usually end up doing reset - but normally during the day I use my device for mail (exchange sync), outlook (pocket informant), notes (PhatPad), reference (List Pro, EWallet), maybe reading some things on the go... I never run out of resources and I use it a lot (20% or less battery at the end of the day) with bluetooth and 3G always on.

[whydidnt]

Originally Posted by alese

As for resources - I have HTC Trinity (P3600) phone that has 64Mb RAM and true it's a pain to use with new Opera Mobile Beta or with iGO navigation, because it tends to run out of memory. But I don't use any of them all daily (browsing sucks on qVGA and I know how to get to work and home without GPS navigation - I tend to use Advantage for browsing and multimedia stuff) - so when I use this applications I usually end up doing reset - but normally during the day I use my device for mail (exchange sync), outlook (pocket informant), notes (PhatPad), reference (List Pro, EWallet), maybe reading some things on the go... I never run out of resources and I use it a lot (20% or less battery at the end of the day) with bluetooth and 3G always on.

But isn't disappointing that 10 years after release, you still can't use a device built on the WM OS without having to worry about running applications such as this and having to reset? To me the hardware/software should have resolved past this point. It SHOULD be mature and stable, but really isn't.

[Cybrid]

Stability? iPod Touch? Nope. I've had spontaneous Safari closures. All sorts of other wierdness.

Instability? HTC Touch... Like a rock! Of course it helps that I have 66% of 128Mb RAM free.

Here's whats happening. 64Mb RAM devices are under resourced = instability.

128Mb Devices run much better. Is that suprising?

Now a device with 128Mb RAM, 32Gb of storage should run just as well? or better? I seem to remember an earlier post re: 700Mb a OS cache.
D'you think that would cure most instability? Stares intently at Khoss
Yet in reality. I managed to get BlackSOD's, where the app closed and home screen didn't load.

Edited to clarify.

[Torque]

Originally Posted by whydidnt

But isn't disappointing that 10 years after release, you still can't use a device built on the WM OS without having to worry about running applications such as this and having to reset? To me the hardware/software should have resolved past this point. It SHOULD be mature and stable, but really isn't.

One thing I love about my Blackjack is that I actually have to remember to go into task manager to shut down the multiple programs I've opened that are all running in the background since Windows Mobile doesn't really shut anything down. I've never had to reboot or reset because of multi-tasking. Can the iPhone do that?