Pocket PC 2003 Wishlist

[marlof]

<a href="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=31347#31347">http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=31347#31347</a><br /><br />WillyG from Norway has started an interesting thread on his ideal set of specs for a future release of the Pocket PC OS, dubbed Pocket PC 2003. Take a look at the thread, and see if you agree with his wishes. If you know more, just add wishes of your own. I know the people at Microsoft do read Thoughts...

[Jonathan1]

*sighs* I don't even bother with these lists anymore. I got so hyped for Pocket PC 2002. Thought it was going to be the update that seriously kicked the crap out of Palm. That MS was going to give us something as evolutionary as the original Pocket PC system. Update to Word Excel! Addition of Access and PowerPoint! Then I got my bubble burst big time. If 2003 is good so be it. If it’s a massive revamp of the Pocket PC OS so be it I will be pleasantly surprised. If its not I think it will be time to look at those Sony Clie lines. At least there is some forward momentum there. :?

[dbrahms]

*sighs* I don't even bother with these lists anymore. I got so hyped for Pocket PC 2002. Thought it was going to be the update that seriously kicked the crap out of Palm. That MS was going to give us something as evolutionary as the original Pocket PC system. Update to Word Excel! Addition of Access and PowerPoint! Then I got my bubble burst big time. If 2003 is good so be it. If it’s a massive revamp of the Pocket PC OS so be it I will be pleasantly surprised. If its not I think it will be time to look at those Sony Clie lines. At least there is some forward momentum there. :?

*****I agree....I just don't care anymore unless there are major overhauls. I'm not mocking the current OS (except that there is no XScale support for these new PDAs)...but all of these "improvements" really don't make a difference to the majority of people. Come to think of it, has there really been a major release of something really cool in recent months? I remember when PPC first came out...there was something new all the time (pockt-tv, new media player versions, pocket divx, remote control software etc..) It's a dull PPC world these days...

[Paragon]

Make it modular, so that when you first set it up you can decide what "parts" you want installed. Do I want Word, and Excel or not? Maybe not since there are third party apps with full features. Maybe instead I would like to load PowerPoint. This would leave room in ROM for much fuller applications such as Internet Explorer, Windows Media Player, and a larger File Store with the ability to save the registry setting for things in file store (I know that is more an OS operation)

As well making it modular would make upgrading units like the 3600 Ipaq much easier,or at least give the inividual the chioce of what they want to include.

Dave

[Timothy Rapson]

Make it modular, so that when you first set it up you can decide what "parts" you want installed. Do I want Word, and Excel or not? Maybe not since there are third party apps with full features. Dave


Sounds good to me. I never used 3/4 of the software in my Ipaq ROM. Could have used the space for other stuff.

[Timothy Rapson]

The one thing that drove me from PPC was lack of stability. How about before it ships any PPC model is sent to Timothy Rapson with the basic apps only. If I lock it up once in a week, it goes back into the oven until it is done. Phones, EPOC devices, and Brother Word Processors don't have to be reset regularly just to keep working. I can stand add-on apps crashing. If they don't work I can just not buy them. But built-in apps? No excuse.

Bluetooth in every device. If they made it standard it should cost less than $10 per, maybe far less. Set it up so you can synch and print directly with any bluetooth desktop or bluetooth printer.

Standard power and sync. This is such a mystery. Every desktop has USB, Serial, Parallel and other ports. You don't need to go to your OEM or wait for your OEM to get peripherals. All it really would take is a standard USB port on the bottom for power and sync. Is this so hard?
Casio had this almost right. All it needed was for Microsoft to make it standard. I don't know why this wasn't standard in CE originally. Other PDAs are all just as goofy.

Let Dell sell all of them for $199 :twisted:

[David C]

Well, I think the current PPC are pretty good. Has most of the thing I wanted, and allows you to add more if you want. The flashable rom is good too if a manufacture decide to make their own version of the PPC with tweeks.

But the most important thing that is missing is native driver support. This goes for varies CF and PCMCIA card support. Since alot of manufature do not want to make driver for PPC or don't know how, native support is very important. This is good also if you forgot to charge your PPC, especially on trip, at least when you plug your PPC back in, you won't loose the ability to use let's say your modem or networking card.

The things I want native supprot for are:
Wlan cards
Serial CF card, such as the socket WWEB cards
Modems
Networking cards
Keyboards, especially the upcomming "Microsoft" Bluetooth keyboard.
More bluetooth profile
Removable storage, like CD Burner and Zip disk

[Rob Alexander]

*sighs* I don't even bother with these lists anymore. I got so hyped for Pocket PC 2002. Thought it was going to be the update that seriously kicked the crap out of Palm. That MS was going to give us something as evolutionary as the original Pocket PC system. Update to Word Excel! Addition of Access and PowerPoint! Then I got my bubble burst big time. If 2003 is good so be it. If it’s a massive revamp of the Pocket PC OS so be it I will be pleasantly surprised. If its not I think it will be time to look at those Sony Clie lines. At least there is some forward momentum there. :?

Well it's not like they listen to us anyway. Remember back when PPC 2002 came out? We all griped and complained, and Jason and the others said several times something like 'yeah, we complained about that one' or 'yeah, we suggested that' bit they didn't listen. They like for us to think they're listening, so they run a few of us up there form time to time and put on a little dog-and-pony show.

If we happen to actually want something they are doing anyway, then they act like 'see, we hear you'. But if they weren't planning to do it anyway, they sure as heck don't add it for us. (You're just power users... you don't count.) Just the number of features they went out of their way to remove (that we wanted) between PPC 2000 and 2002 should be all the evidence you need for that.

So I basically agree with Jonathan. They can do whatever they want and I'll decide when it gets here if it's worth buying. But I've had enough of these 'tell us what you think' games. Heck I can't believe I got suckered into it again last week. It's just like PT Barnum said, except that we're all suckers sometimes.

[Pony99CA]

They can do whatever they want and I'll decide when it gets here if it's worth buying. But I've had enough of these 'tell us what you think' games. Heck I can't believe I got suckered into it again last week. It's just like PT Barnum said, except that we're all suckers sometimes.
If that's a reference to Mobius, next time you get invited, just send me the ticket, OK? I'd love to get a free trip to Redmond/Seattle, a free Pocket PC Phone Edition, a free ViewSonic Pocket PC and a free SmartPhone.

Heck, since you haven't actually gotten the ViewSonic Pocket PC or SmartPhone yet, just give them my mailing address, OK? :-)

Steve

[Rob Alexander]

They can do whatever they want and I'll decide when it gets here if it's worth buying. But I've had enough of these 'tell us what you think' games. Heck I can't believe I got suckered into it again last week. It's just like PT Barnum said, except that we're all suckers sometimes.
If that's a reference to Mobius, next time you get invited, just send me the ticket, OK? I'd love to get a free trip to Redmond/Seattle, a free Pocket PC Phone Edition, a free ViewSonic Pocket PC and a free SmartPhone.

Heck, since you haven't actually gotten the ViewSonic Pocket PC or SmartPhone yet, just give them my mailing address, OK? :-)

Steve

It's just a reference to how little MS listens to its users on these sites. So why in the world should we waste our time compiling all these lists of things we'd like to see in the next version? We'll get whatever they want to give us and all the wish lists in the world won't change that. (For those not convinced, I have two words for you... close button.) :wink:

On the free stuff, I'll bet Jason could buy lots of trips to Redmond and every new PPC that ever came along with what he spends running this site for a year. So, yeah, it's free in a way, but not really. It's good that MS recognizes people like these who do so much to promote their products, but I think I'll pass on the "free" stuff; it costs to much. :lol:

[yubee]

I think many of the "features" listed by everyone are good ideas. my wish list is just one item and it's a very general marekting thing, not a feature, to wit:

Pick one:

- Market the Pocket PC devices in the consumer channel instead of just the power user / early adapter channel so that the user base expands, there is more call for better 3rd party applications, there is more available development money, etc., etc., etc..

OR

- Make concessions on the software as a consumer product and focus the features you include on the wants and needs of the power user / early adapters.

The issue I have is really that, in general, the user base is not a "consumer" base, but the "product feature enhancements" that the manufacturers seem focused on, are consumer oriented features.

If you bring together a focus group of the "power user" circuit and say, "Look at this, guys, we've added enhanced supermarket shopping list features, Excel for soccer coaching upgrades, and totally stupid proofed the Interface!", you're just asking for a response of "Hey...ummm...how about some DHTML support in pIE?" and things along those lines.

By the same token, if you get Catherine Zeta-Jones Douglas to say, "Stop! Instead of waking up and driving to the datacenter you can now use your PPC to administrate your server remotely without ever changing out of your PJs.", the consumer is going to sigh a collective, "Huh?...WTF?"

So my wish list is...PICK ONE!

Either market the Pocket PC to the masses and give me all the benefits that come with the product being a mass market product, OR design it for the niche power user and focus on including features that make it more useful to us. But stop adding the ability to show video of my kids or maintain my grocery list and them marketing it to me as a techie.

Just my two cents.

[Barbay1]

Market the Pocket PC devices in the consumer channel instead of just the power user / early adapter channel so that the user base expands

Thats sounds like a good idea. I would also like to confess that I unwittingly "sold" a couple of low end Palms because I managed to get people interested in PDAs all right, but being first time PDA users, they weren't interested in spending the kind of money up front for the cadillac of PDAs. Some believe they only need basic PIM features. (I never said I was a good sales person.) :wink:

Not in any particular order...

1) Repeating alarms

That's what a PDA is for! There should be better support for reminders and nagging!

2) Faster handling of PIM applications

I would like to see instantaneous opening and display of contacts, tasks, and appointment info. If not instantaneous, the faster the better!

3) Opening two windows and allowing cutting and pasting between them

I wish ListPro would allow me to open two lists at the same time.
Maybe a built-in Seymour?
A cutting and pasting utility like ScrapPanel (Burr Oak SW) would be neat too.

4) Backup support to CF/SD/etc.

Backing up via ActiveSync works, but it is very slow and I can't affort to do that every day. Something like Pocket Backup would be good.

5) Voice control

Especially "Next page", "Previous page" voice control for MS Reader. It could be good when your hands are not free, or too messy. This is an optional feature -- but it's cool if there's memory for it.

6) More memory

I like the idea of modular installation, because it is hard to foretell whether some features will be favored by techies only or a more general consumer. (For myself, I use everything once in a while, so my Pocket PC will be bursting at the seams -- when are the 128Mb Pocket PCs coming out?)

7) Wireless

I also think the wireless market ought to be a lot bigger than it is. I was first interested in the Pocket PCs because of it's promise in wireless capability, but the infrastructure support isn't really there. Not to mention the confusion of different standards. Too bad I'm in the Los Angeles area -- it's so spread out that it makes things even more difficult.
All the Pocket PCs should be ROM upgradeable (if they're not) so we can easily switch to the latest and greatest wireless standard.

Built-in as-many-wireless-standards-as-you-can-support is cool, but I also worry about security -- is there a foolproof way to turn my wireless Pocket PC off so I am convinced that no data is leaking? I like built-in, but -- unless there's some built-in provision -- I like removeable sleeves more because then I'm sure what my Pocket PC is not doing!

And because I haven't tried very hard to find a forum for this, I'll post it here -- my wishlist for LA wireless:
1) Make LAX (Los Angeles airport) wireless capable. I really wish we had something like the airport in Minneapolis -- practically 802.11b by every gate!! &lt;-- drool
2) I also wonder whether we could put some sort of wireless capability along the Green/Red/Blue metro lines. At least the commuters and tourists could enjoy the Internet while they're riding the metro ...

[JornadaJ]

Personally, I think I'd like a little more stability. For some reason, my Jornada 568 seems to slow down more and more, even when I reset it. Maybe it's just me.

Pocket Access would be 'ver-ah nice, yes, ver-ah nice, indeed.'

I have a lot of ideas I'd like to see from the hardware side. No 'sleeves,' built-in covers, more scratch-resistant screens. I've said it before, and I know I'm apparently the only one that wants it, but I miss the heavy case my old 548 had.

Another thought...I'm not trying to get on anyone's case, so please don't take offense. I just find it amazing that here we are, myself included, griping about wanting faster processer speeds and better software and more software. But these little computers that we carry in our pockets are more powerful than the roomfulls of computers that sent men to the moon and back.

[WillyG]

...please don't take offense. I just find it amazing that here we are, myself included, griping about wanting faster processer speeds and better software and more software. But these little computers that we carry in our pockets are more powerful than the roomfulls of computers that sent men to the moon and back.

OMG I DO take offence of that 8O :wink:
Actually thats quite an interesting thought. Makes me wonder if man actually was on the moon :)

[iPAUL]

Fix the bugs in MS ActiveSync!!!

8O

iPAUL

[Evee Ev]

howabout less soft resets for the iPAQ! that would be less on all of us.

[Coralie]

howabout less soft resets for the iPAQ! that would be less on all of us.
amen, brother! :rock on dude!: