How Do You Dial 1-800-FLOWERS?

[Janak Parekh]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://blogs.msdn.com/windowsmobile/archive/2007/02/06/how-do-you-dial-1-800-flowers.aspx' target='_blank'>http://blogs.msdn.com/windowsmobile...00-flowers.aspx</a><br /><br /></div><i>"Say you’re a business that sells flowers over the phone. And say that, while picking a phone number for your business, you’ve got the choice between 1-800-356-9377 and 1-800-444-4444. Which do you pick? You’d pick the first one, because, while 7 seemingly random digits are hard to remember, the fact that they spell “FLOWERS” isn’t. Unfortunately, on some of the more prominent Windows Mobile devices, it’s pretty hard to dial 1-800-FLOWERS. This entry will attempt to explain why."</i><br /><br />Another insightful article from Mike Calligaro of the Mobile Devices team, talking about how QWERTY-only devices complicate matters when you're trying to dial a "text" number that corresponds to the letters on a traditional phone pad. It's worth pointing out that this is a problem on other platforms as well, such as RIM's Blackberries. My solution on most Pocket PCs has been to summon the touchscreen dial pad, but of course that's clumsy <i>and</i> not supported on Smartphones. I'm glad to see, therefore, that Microsoft's working on making WM smarter in this regard.