12-10-2007, 04:00 PM
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Contributing Editor Emeritus
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 8,228
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What Is Wrong With Windows Mobile Converged Devices
Don't get me wrong. I love my HTC Wizard, though it is getting a bit old and there are some really nice looking devices out there now. I love the ability to have email pushed to me via Exchange. I love to watch movies and TV shows on my device when traveling. I also enjoy reading on the device.
 What I don't enjoy is that all of these features don't really play that well with each other. One of my daily rituals is to wake up before everyone else, grab a cup of coffee and read my bible for a while. About three years ago, I stopped doing that with my Pocket PC. To be sure, I still use Laridian PocketBible quite a bit, mostly for research and when traveling, but in the mornings, I can't concentrate for all of the popup toast telling me I have another new message. Many of my co-workers are in time zones that make emails from 4-7am pretty common. I don't want to turn my phone off, I want those emails coming in, and I just don't want to be notified of every one of them at that time of the morning. So I actually went out and purchased a paper bible to match a translation I have been using on my Pocket Bible for several years. I got another one for Christmas this year, and right now, I have to admit that paper feel has something about it lacking in the digital version.
I like listening to Audible and music in the car through a cassette adapter, but I don't use my Pocket PC for that anymore. Again, three years ago I got a converged device, loaded up Audible and away I went, just as I have been doing since 1998 with one device or another. About a week into that, I got a phone call while driving. I just about had a heart attack, soiled my pants and had a wreck when it rang through the car speakers at the phone ringer level. I don't do that anymore. I purchased an MP3 player for my in car listening pleasure.
I have largely moved away from ebooks too. eReader Pro is better than ever, as well as free, and I still use it for some light reading, but again, I got sick of popup toast on various emails coming in, both on personal and business accounts during the weekend or during lunch hour when I like to take a few minutes out and read.
And forget about watching a movie or TV show unless you are on a plane and the cell radio is turned off. The popup toast totally disrupts the movie playback. I resurrected my old HTC Universal, sans SIM card, for my TV viewing pleasure.
I can't use my phone for an alarm clock either. It will ding all night as various emails trickle in from around the world or from automated reports shot out at 2am. I could turn the radio off, but one of the things I do when I get up is do a quick scan of my emails while the coffee is brewing. The radio would take a while to come on and then four email accounts would need to be sync'd, three of them manually as they could take an hour to do it themselves. By the time it was all downloaded, the coffee would be done and my morning ritual would be disturbed.
While I won't explicitly say this is a Microsoft design flaw, they are complicit in my frustrations. First of all, the Pocket PC, otherwise known as Windows Mobile Professional (the one with the phone and touch screen), doesn't even have profiles. There is no meeting mode, no outdoor mode, no "leave me alone mode." At a bare minimum, WinMoPro should have 6-7 profiles, something Windows Mobile Standard, or the SmartPhone, has had since inception. And for the love of all things digital there should be an "Alarm Clock" profile that silences everything but the alarm itself. But it should go further. Much further.
There should be an API that other apps could tap into to turn off email notifications, or at least the popup toast. I have no problem with the ding, or the little envelope in the title bar, but I don't need to be told six times in half an hour I have 19 unread emails, oh wait, 20, no, 21 unread emails in my Outlook inbox. Applications like eReader, PocketBible and other reading applications should have a setting to stifle the popup toast.
Applications like Windows Media Player and Audible should be able to tap into an API that temporarily mutes or significantly reduces the volume of any and all reminders, phone calls and notifications - again, user configurable with simple checkboxes in those apps.
Some of these APIs may exist, others may not. I have no clue. I am not a developer, but I know none of the apps I have ever used make use of any feature like this. Microsoft should expose these APIs then make it part of the logo process. You have reading applications - you should allow the user to stop the toast. You have a media application? Audio apps should suppress the noises and video apps should also suppress the toast.
Perhaps someone else out there has a converged device that does all of this. I don't know, and honestly don't care. I don't use Windows Mobile because I like the OS. I like it because it is insanely versatile and runs some applications I literally have been using a decade now. But with that versatility comes a responsibility on the platform designer to look at all of these functions and make them play nice with each other. It wasn't a problem 7 years ago as few people had a converged Windows Mobile device, but today it is as almost anyone buying a WM device has a phone built in, with the exception of the few Windows Mobile Classic devices.
I used to be a two device guy. I had a Pocket PC and a phone. Now I have a converged device, and I am a four device guy. My MP3 player handles Audible and music, my Universal handles video, and my trusty old iPAQ 2215 is my alarm clock. I am sure some consolidation could be done. I need to look into a media device that will do movies and music that I like, and it won't begin with an "A" and end with an "pple" either. I could use my Universal as an alarm clock I guess, but it is a bit big for that and difficult to hit that soft button when it goes off.
At best, I see myself going down to two devices assuming new media players can be alarm clocks, but all that said, I still will have my paper books and bible. If the platform took care of much of what I taked about above, then I could become a one device guy. How about you? I suspect 90% of you are on a converged device, and I'd bet you have the same issues or similar issues where the promise of convergence hasn't lived up to your expectations.
Ed Hansberry is a long-time Windows Mobile enthusiast and Microsoft MVP.
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12-10-2007, 04:22 PM
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Contributing Editor
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 1,389
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most of your issues seem to stem from your "popup toast". Why not just disable it?? go to the new email notification and simply uncheck the "Display message on screen" option. Poof.. toast gone. The mail icon will still show at the top for the screen. even the sound will play if you still have that box checked. Just no toast.
Phone profiles? Well there are several good programs out there to take care of this. Spb phone suite, SBSH Phoneweaver, that other one that has been around for ever (phone alarm?)
As for the ringer volume.. that can be adjusted separate from the ppc volume.. That or turn up the media player and pocket pc volume and not your car stereo volume.
Sure, maybe you have to put a little effort in on your part but to me it is worth it so i can carry only one device.
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12-10-2007, 04:30 PM
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Ponderer
Join Date: May 2004
Posts: 53
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Heres another example:
I was on a train and wanted to play with TomTom and my GPS, so I politely put my phone to silent before I started it up because there were a few people sleeping near me. Yet as soon as TomTom started the voice shouted out "YOU HAVE REACHED YOUR DESINATION" at full volume. I was soo embarrassed!
Cross-app integration is a hot issue on converged devices. Android has classes for supporting it, so the functionality is there if devs choose to use it. I'm using an iPhone now and and its flawless in terms of this issue with all the built in apps. I haven't had any problems with 3rd party apps yet but most are pretty basic, e.g. my ebook and pdf readers can't really behave badly. On windows mobile with .NET CF there is a new library which lets you hook into system settings to watch for changes and set things, of course you can't guarantee every dev uses this functionality. And it doesn't exist for native C++ apps.
__________________
WiFiFoFum Pocket PC Wardrivingwww.Aspecto-Software.com
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12-10-2007, 04:34 PM
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Intellectual
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 127
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Maybe a bit - OT
Ed, just wanted to say that on PPCT I'm a closet Christian and for the most part I am. I'm happy to answer questions but I don't push anyting on anyone nor do I put myself above others instead I seem to be below them most of the time which is just fine.
I wanted to say that I love reading your messages and updates on the tools available to us. I like knowing you've got that angle covered and will let the rest of us know about new things in that share of the market. AWESOME STUFF!
So I just wanted to write to say thanks and keep it up! It matters!!!
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12-10-2007, 04:35 PM
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Ponderer
Join Date: Mar 2002
Posts: 55
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<Sigh> Nothing is perfect. There is always something that we wish we can have (or other vendor/device offers).
My company supports Blackberry, and Blackberry only - Not even Blackberry-Connect (software Blackberry) devices, so I can't use my HTC Wizard for company e-mail.
Does anybody know how to set up my Wizard so that it will sync with the cell towers the local date and time, like my cell phone did a long time ago?
Sorry about the complaints...
Dave
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12-10-2007, 04:42 PM
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Thinker
Join Date: Jul 2006
Posts: 357
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Why don't you have a schedule set for the push email via Exchange? You can set it to turn on by itself only between certain times. Also, you can easily toggle this on/off from the Communications manager. When you're reading something just press the button to shut off push email. When you're done, turn it back on. Do you really want it to automatically decide when you want to see push email and when you don't? I don't think you do.
And yeah, there are plenty of 3rd party profile programs. Often there's one included by the OEM these days.
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12-10-2007, 04:50 PM
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Thinker
Join Date: Nov 2004
Posts: 429
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I recently got my first converged device, an iPaq 6945. For the most part I'm happy with it. I don't have a data plan, however, so email notifications aren't a problem for me. Since gmail rolled out IMAP, I've largely given up using Flexmail 2007, until it starts archiving deleted messages on gmail's end. I just use gmail in PIE to check new email when I have a wi-fi connection.
I use Pocket E-sword for Bible. I tend to use my video iPod for multi-media content, even though I have a 2 Gig mini-SD card in the iPaq. I haven't adopted ebooks yet. For reading content I tend to take public domain works from Manybooks.net and run them through Repligo. I've been slowly working my way through War and Peace.
Your needs of course are far different from mine, as you apparently use your Pocket PC a lot more for business. Do you really need the push email, or could you change your email habits to actively downloading messages when you have time to deal with them?
__________________
Current devices: iPhone 3G. Previous devices: Samsung Epix and 1st gen 32GB iPod Touch BlackJack II, iPaq 6945, iPaq hx4705, Dell Axim x30 high, iPaq 3765.
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12-10-2007, 04:59 PM
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Theorist
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 267
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Ed,
For the most part, I agree with, and love to read, your rants on the failings/flaws of whatever has made you angry. However, this time, I think you've brought this on yourself. In some cases, as the saying goes, you can't have your cake and eat it, too. Your biggest problem seems to come from the need to always have email running with notification. As mentioned, there are several ways to disable this or schedule it for certain times of the day. Even if you had a separate email device, having it on all the time would still create all the pop-ups/notifications. The only difference would be the pop-ups wouldn't be on your phone. You could also choose an ebook device for reading, which would eliminate the pop-ups while reading. I've done this -- AT&T 8525 and an iRex Iliad. The Iliad was a necessity after I went converged and didn't enjoy reading with Mobipocket on a QVGA screen (I had an iPAQ 4700 before). These issues very little, if anything, to do with WM. They are the result of the device choices we make and the compromises which come with them.
For me, a converged device with a 5 inch 800x480 screen would be ideal, but many would complain about the size and weight (again a choice, not a WM issue) and all would probably complain about the battery life, since driving the screen would take a lot of power. Don't forget the horsepower necessary to drive acceptable graphics on the larger screen.
These are technology constraints, mostly independent of WM. Don't get me wrong, WM has a lot of flaws, but I think you're issues are related to device technology.
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12-10-2007, 05:18 PM
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Magi
Join Date: Dec 2007
Posts: 2,124
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See, I'm finally thinking about getting a smartphone (Motorola Q9) since I'm up for the Verizon discount in 2 days, and I'm looking for a phone that can browse the internet better then my Razr. My current job has stupidly strict internet filters and I can't handle it! But I can't see giving up my Axim (X50V) for it. I can't see enjoying games as much without the touch screen, or ebooks on the nice big hi-res screen. I *might* switch over my calender, but then again I might not. So I think that even with a converged phone, I'm still going to be a 3-device-gal (phone, PDA, and media player) just because the separate devices do different things well.
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12-10-2007, 05:58 PM
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Intellectual
Join Date: May 2006
Posts: 237
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by daveshih
Does anybody know how to set up my Wizard so that it will sync with the cell towers the local date and time, like my cell phone did a long time ago?
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I was hoping to find something like this too, but have not been successful.
I've been kicking around the idea of writing a little utility that will set the time from the built-in GPS clock...
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