Microsoft (and some of their partners such as HP) has been overly obsessed with the "Enterprise" market for mobile devices. This is a) a highly dubious move, since there are only so many uses for such devices in the enterprise other than as executive toys, and b) just really, really boring.
When a new release of Windows Mobile is, er, released, there's a good chance we'll get whatever business says it wants (the necessary sucking up to Gartner), but what about what consumers want?
In the early days of Windows Mobile new versions of the OS tended to bring clear improvements and new features that were useful to *everybody*, but in recent years we've seen entire releases devoted to incremental improvements to Mobile Office (or whatever it's called this week) and improved Exchange integration. These are worthwhile things to have, but what's in it for the people who don't have Exchange and find the idea of using Office applications on a QVGA device faintly absurd? In short, what's in it for the consumer?
The Pocket PC showed how shortsighted Palm were with their conception of the PDA as little more than a mobile Filofax, by putting a real computer in people's hands...and then unfortunately Microsoft decided to treat this fundamentally personal device (anything I can put in my pocket is personal) as a beige box.
I think for Microsoft to truly build excitement around the Windows Mobile platform again they need to step back and take a real good hard look at the needs of mobile users today. Now what I am not suggesting is for Microsoft to decide "People like the iPhone, lets copy that!" That would be horrible. If Microsoft really wants to jump back in the game they would go and seriously study their users and make solutions that fit their habits or needs.
I would kill for a phone that was specialized for left handed use. That is a need that a 1/10th of the population has that is never addressed. This couldn't be done with a Smartphone but with a device with a touch based interface this would be a trivial accomplishment and could just create a default theme that caters to left handed individuals. I know this is a pretty ridiculous example, but if Microsoft stepped outside of the box and really set out to tackle all of the little annoying problems that plaque mobile device users around the world as well as made their devices more consumer friendly and easier to use and navigate, I would be incredibly excited.
I have helped at least 10 people make a switch from a dumb phone, or palm device to a windows mobile phone. The problem is that I have just grown tired of it. I don't think it crashes, or is unstable. I think over all its a pretty stable system, I have very rarely had problems with it. Its just that its boring.
When I read this I had an interesting thought. The only time I get excited about Windows Mobile in a real bone-stirring way is when I'm showing someone new to the world of converged devices just how many features it has, and how it can interface with the world around it. Even after the release of the iPhone I find that my Windows Mobile phone can still engender a "wow" experience from a dumb phone user. It's the converged users out there that are majorly disillusioned in my opinion.
__________________ Jon Westfall
Contributing Editor, MS MVP, MCSE, Ph.D., and More.
Sadly at this point I'm pretty sure I'm going to go T Mobile, HTC Dream, and Android. Yes its new. Yes it will probably be glitchy. But frankly its something that actually gets me excited. MS has sat on their thumbs for too long. Sadly I'm done waiting.
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PDA History: Palm Pilot 5000 -> Apple Newton 2100 -> Casio E-11 -> iPaq 3650 (64MB Upgrade) -> iPaq 3700 -> Casio EM-500 -> HP Jornada 568 -> HP iPaq hx4705 www.spreadfirefox.com
Well as a previous WM user with an iPhone... WM has all the features I want (including a few missing on the iPhone) except a good browser. I love safari on the iPhone, and I can live without flash.
Even so the UI of the iPhone is a winner. It's designed to be finger based and all the touchscreen WM devices I've used still liked the stylus. Looking back the "take the stylus out" point was a huge barrier to usability,the next biggest was the "slide out the keyboard" point.
My favourite phone was the Cavalier, not a touch screen device, but easy to use and almost everything I needed.
So to get me excited about a WM device again:
Don't cut any features
Make the entire UI finger based at a deep level
fix PIE
fix sync so it "just works" (Apple has a way to go on this one)
keep the stuff that's way better then the iPhone: pocket outlook, office, device support (bluetooth etc)
Have a solid HAL (or whatever) so you (Microsoft) can upgrade my OS and core apps (Live, Outlook, Office and PIE) without having to go out to all the OEMs
Actually that last one would probably get me really excited. My Cavalier will only get 6.1 if the xda folk get it going. Oh and I realise it's probably too big an ask, but I can dream
actually, i think the WM UI is pretty good for its intended purpose. It is bad if you want a finger friendly UI, but that was not the intention. WM is about showing as much info as possible, offering as many functions as needed and having it accessible by hardware keys/keyboards and a stylus. pointing with a stylus is more precise, hence the controls can be smaller, hence you can fit more info on the screen. the iPhone gets away easier with it, because of the bigger screen, the simplified functions and by showing less info on single screens. compare the iPhone calendar to a powerful PPC alternative like Agenda Fusion or Pocket Informant.
for a device with keyboard and a small screen, WM has a pretty nice GUI.
Pretty soon, you won't need to compare the iPhone calendar to Pocket Informant, as it's about to be released for the iPhone. From the early screenshots, it looks much nicer than the WM version. Easier to work with. Sometimes less is more, that lack of screen clutter sure has customers backordering iPhones.
When Microsoft PPC's first came out, they weren't phones, but PDA's. They added in phone features later. Then they enhanced the mixture into PPC 2003, WM5, WM6, etc... It wasn't written from the ground up as a communications device, nor has it yet been completely rewritten to be one. WM Standard is more in that direction. I don't think the love will be there until WM7, at which point many of us will probably max out our credit cards
Quote:
Originally Posted by kanzlr
...compare the iPhone calendar to a powerful PPC alternative like Agenda Fusion or Pocket Informant...
Pretty soon, you won't need to compare the iPhone calendar to Pocket Informant, as it's about to be released for the iPhone. From the early screenshots, it looks much nicer than the WM version. Easier to work with. Sometimes less is more, that lack of screen clutter sure has customers backordering iPhones.
I too was excited to hear about Pocket Informant on the iPhone, until I read that neither it, or any other 3rd party app, can access the iPhone's calendar database. No integration with the built in calendar or Exchange makes a replacement PIM as much use as a chocolate teapot.
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