Windows Mobile Still Lacks Polish?

[Ed Hansberry]

<a href="http://www.smartdevicecentral.com/article/Analysis+Windows+Mobile+Still+Lacks+Polish/215593_1.aspx">http://www.smartdevicecentral.com/article/Analysis+Windows+Mobile+Still+Lacks+Polish/215593_1.aspx</a><br /><br /><i>"Despite its current sales lead, the lack of synergy between Microsoft and smartphone manufacturers leaves the Redmond firm vulnerable to competition. During my recent review of the HTC Advantage, something became clear about Windows Mobile-based smartphones: The OS needs plenty of work, yet device manufacturers are looking the other way."</i><br /><br />This article goes on to talk about a few issues the author has with Windows Mobile 6, providing some examples of slow video performance and the age old problem of losing some formatting in desktop documents. While I think some of the points are valid, others show he is using the wrong tool for the job, expecting a phone to perform at the same level as a desktop machine when it comes to manipulating data. I also think the comment "In fact, Windows Mobile 6 is the Windows Vista of smartphones: an unwieldy, bloated, and slow mess of an operating system" shows his true colors. I half expected to find him substituting a dollar sign for an "S" when typing out MS or Microsoft. :roll:

[cgavula]

I think the author's bigger problem was with the fact that HTC advertises the Advantage as a mobile office solution, when, in fact, it really isn't. If there's misinterpretation of what the true device capabilities are, then, in this case, HTC may be partly to blame.

Having said that, I've felt that the memory management changes introduced with WM5, along with the slower processors introduced for the sake of convergence, have conspired to make WM devices feel slow and bloated, so I can understand the author's point, even if he doesn't seem to grasp the actual reasons. WM hasn't really felt "snappy" since many iterations back (maybe PPC 2002). It would be nice if Microsoft could improve the responsiveness of the OS and application launch speed.

--Chris

[Ipaqian One]

As much as I really find my T-Mobile MDA very useful, I agree with the author. If one goes to either MS or HTC's sites describing the capabilties of WinMo there is NO up front clear mention of the problems users will have working with Office Documents (Lost formats, strange on screen formatting on WinMo depending upon how it was formatted on the desktop machine and I thought I was the ONLY one who was having the Pocket Excel Date change problem - this one can be catastrophic when receiving documents from other parties that are related to business matters).

These random and somewhat unpredictable issues instill a lack of confidence in the end user for using these devices as a DEPENDABLE tool for a mobile office. Don't get me wrong as I use mine day in and day out for running and managaing business and personal affairs via email, calendar scheduling, (via Agenda One which is way slower to open than Pocket Outlook's calendar on my device but way more informative, customizable and easier in which to schedule), viewing both Word and Excel Docs, browsing (a WHOLE lot) and RSS but there are a number of features out of the box that the user has to learn to avoid using through trial and error simply because those certain features are either cumbersome, unpredictable or undependable. I have rectified a lot of the OS's (and my hardware's) shortcomings (at least in my opinion) with add on's (Smartskey, PIEPlus, Agenda One, Resco File Explorer, Battery Pack Pro etc...) but I think MS would see an even faster adoption of the WinMo OS if more of these capabilities were built-in to their devices. (Yes, I know in terms of hardware that the the MDA Wings and/or HTC Kaiser are later generation but no 1700 Mhz for T-Mo yet...) The Excel date change bug I have not found a fix for yet though...

I wouldn't quite call it the Vista of Smartphones as actually my Vista experience has been good thus far. I just wish Microsoft would follow around for a week a group of people from all walks of life that use WinMo devices and get a better feel for various user's needs and issues to iron out these bugs and shortcomings that have been around for several OS versions.

[Deslock]

I think some of the points are valid, others show he is using the wrong tool for the job, expecting a phone to perform at the same level as a desktop machine when it comes to manipulating data. I also think the comment "In fact, Windows Mobile 6 is the Windows Vista of smartphones: an unwieldy, bloated, and slow mess of an operating system" shows his true colors. I half expected to find him substituting a dollar sign for an "S" when typing out MS or Microsoft. :roll:
It's being advertised as "a powerful mobile office device that lets you work wherever and whenever you want" that can "connect to your office, watch videos or listen to music anywhere". But it doesn't play full-screen videos smoothly and when editing Office files, the author found that it messed up dates and formatting and didn't retain tracked changes.

If you think only some of his points are valid, then which ones are invalid? Obviously we shouldn't expect mobile devices to do everything a desktop can, but shouldn't a $900, 0.75 pound "mobile office device" be the appropriate tool for simply watching videos or editing Office documents?

[RogueSpear]

I'm likely going to be getting an AT&amp;T branded TyTN II (Tilt I guess they're calling it) whenever that comes out. It will be replacing an old but perfectly functioning iPAQ 3975. I'm thrilled to be getting a device that's a little smaller and has all sorts of integrated features (particularly Bluetooth 2.0, WiFi, GPS, etc), but realistically speaking the progression of WM devices has not come all that far from my 3975. Especially if you consider "technology years" to be like "dog years" - consider where desktop CPUs, graphics card GPUs, hard disk capacity, flash memory capacity, heck even wireless ethernet and Bluetooth. Look at the progression of all of these technologies since I got my 3975. Now look at the progression of WM devices. Other than integrating more and more things (and nobody can seem to do it right anyway) it hasn't MOVED at all.

Can someone please explain to me why it is that you can fit 4GB into a microSD card (which only costs ~ $50) yet they can't seem to find the room to stick a meager 8GB of flash right in one of these devices? Cripes they got everything other than 802.11n and WiMAX in these things now.

On to Windows Mobile itself. This is a perfect example of how monopolies suck. I swear if it weren't for the Mac we'd all still be stuck in Windows 95. Microsoft needs the threat of someone taking the spotlight in order to get off of their content little rear ends. Hopefully they'll steal a good idea or two from the iPhone rather than attempt to back port the Software Protection Platform from Vista.

[JesterMania]

Well, here's my take on the article.

First of all - let's talk about the Office document editing capabilities. They (HTC/Microsoft) are advertising the device as being capable of editing Office documents and I don't find any real discrepancies there. The author argues how his documents don't look the way it does on the desktop. Buy a brand new PC and install nothing but the OS (let's say, Windows XP) on it and try to open a Word document with the included WordPad. You're not going to get 100% compatability/accuracy either. You will go and buy Microsoft Office - so why expect 100% compatibility from a Pocket PC Phone? I don't really remember HTC/Microsoft promising full compatibility/functionality. If you prefer a high-level of compatibility, spend some money and buy SoftMaker's TextMaker (Word), PlanMaker (Excel), and Conduits' Pocket Slides (PowerPoint) - just as you would on a PC. :wink:

Let's talk about the author's comments on video playback. Here I don't disagree with him but I wish he would be much more specific on the details of the video (resolution and codec used), as well as which media player he used. If he can play the exact same video (unmodified) on his Archos 604 than kudos to that. But I also hope he realizes that there are alternate software which are known to greatly enhance the speed and compatability of video playback on Windows Mobile (TCMP for playback and Lathe/PocketDivXEncoder for resizing/encoding).

All in all, I think it is a pretty high-level article that is really bound to cause much debate among the more technical readers.

[twpd]

The article is bang on IMO. I've been saying for a few years on and off now. There's little difference outwardly between all the WM o/s's in their various flavours. Still the same clunk gui, still the same bugs, still the very limited functionality. Office on the move? Don't make me laugh. I've yet to see a compelling reason to upgrade from my Dell Axim x50v. Which in itself is no more functional that my old Ipaq 3660. Jeez...even the hardware specs have hardly moved on it 5 years.

[Darren Behan]

My two cents:

Vista - Pretty good; some highs, some lows but generally fine (on a new machine).

WM6 - Again, pretty good; some improvements over WM5 and fairly stable on it's own (though it doesn't feel like a full version upgrade; more like WM 5.1).

Mobile Office - Office 5 had more functionality and ran on slower processors 10 years ago. While my expectations (and needs for that matter) are not that high for a handheld, I expect at least that sync'd documents don't get 'unformatted'. I'm not really sure why you couldn't display/edit what you can on the handheld and leave the underlying file in tact. Seems to me that would be a reasonable compromise.

WMDC - A giant leap backwards. Truthfully, the experience could hardly be worse short of it not working at all.

1) It is terribly unstable; connecting every two or three tries (assuming I don't have to reboot my PC and/or reset my device first).
2) It randomly deletes partnerships and will also randomly decides that I no longer wish to sync Calendar and/or Contacts and/or Tasks with no notification while maintaining the partnership.
3) I have to use my XP machine for ROM updates.
4) Etc.

I have to fool with this stuff at least 3 to 4 days a week and it is getting less and less worth it. Activesync 4.5/WM5 wasn't perfect by any means but very rarely if ever had these problems (at least for me anyway).

My results may or may not be typical but in my mind it would have been more aptly named WMDC ME for all the 'upgrade' that it's been.

I've always been a staunch supporter of (and admittedly occasional complainer about) PPCs since they first came out. It's just gotten absurd now. I'm pretty technically savvy, too, I can't imagine what a nightmare this must be to the casual user.

There have been enough cycles to get this right and it's worse than ever. Show me an unlocked iPhone with GPS and I'm out.

db

[Mark Larson]

I agree with the author and I haven't even read the article. MS has sat on its ass for too long.

#1 Mistake - assuming that people are too dumb for "smart" phones and only marketing to businesses. I know plenty of people who had enough cash for a RAZR when it came out, they could have bought a WM device with the right impetus. Look at how many people bought the iPhone at $600.

The OS itself is hardly different from four years ago - the last innovation was HTC substituting 2.8" screens for 3.5" screens to make devices a bit more portable. Look at the iPhone and how it manages a 3.5" screen in the same space as a 2.8" HTC Elf.

I feel like the platform hasn't really progressed since the time I bought my first windows phone, and I'm bidding adieu to it because my dumbphone does more and is faster and more stable. The only reason I'm using (and hating) my Q is because I need to have it active for a rebate.

[RogueSpear]

I'm beginning to reconsider that Tilt purchase now. Maybe I'll just stick with my 3975 and upgrade from my SE 710a to a newer SE model.

[LarDude]

I believe there are a lot of unreasonable expectations posted here. Why is everyone complaining? I think we should all be thankful that MS and its partners have managed to "shoehorn" so much hardware into such tiny devices!! Now you want to *USE* the devices too?!? Really, such ingrates! Why can't everyone just be happy to show off the "potential capabilities" of their WM devices, instead of wanting to carry out practical everyday tasks??

Personally, I *EMBRACE* the clunkiness of my HTC Wizard. Sure, my friends may have already started and finished their phone calls or text messages on their RAZRs, while I'm still struggling to reboot my Wizard because it decided to go for a crap (again). But then I get such satisfaction when they ask what I'm fiddling with, and I get to show them my "Windows Mobile" (holy Halo-like music plays) device! And then I get to demonstrate "all the potential capabilities" of the Wizard...

Who needs an iPhone...Not Me!! I'm sticking with my Wizard!!......but that's really only because I paid $900 for an unlocked unit shortly after they first came out...

[Mark Larson]

I'm beginning to reconsider that Tilt purchase now. Maybe I'll just stick with my 3975 and upgrade from my SE 710a to a newer SE model.

The more these devices evolve, the more they stay the same. HTC and MS have fallen into a kind of symbiotic relationship, both only upgrading when the need demands it.

Reminds of Intel without AMD to keep them on their toes. Instead of getting 3.5mm jacks on our devices, we're getting ever more arcane connectors. Now you need to plug in, what, two or three connectors to use a stupid pair of regular headphones? :|

Instead of screen technology moving forward, we've been stuck at 65,000 color QVGA screens for years. In that time, the computer world has moved from the 17" 1024x768 CRT standard to 19" 1440x900 widescreen LCD with zero lag and no flicker. Processors have gone from Intel to AMD to Intel to AMD and back to Intel again.

There is no reason for this ennui other than the fact that HTC is making lots of bank by providing incremental upgrades. A very "scratch my back and I'll scratch yours" situation.

And while I acknowledge that SP Thoughts, PPC Thoughts and Zune Thoughts are MS-centric, its time to acknowledge that MS can, in fact, do wrong.

[lanwarrior]

The author maybe right in some sense due to the issues that have been plaguing WM devices as long as I can remember:

1) Memory leak
Even my brand new HTC Mogul running WM6 Pro is LOSING memory every hour! There has been discussion about this from HoFo to XDA Developer and it's confirmed to be M$ issue.

2) Slow OS
The Palm, heck even iPhone is faster, hence makes it usable for the "average" user.

But alas, who we are to complaint about these to the big bad M$?

[virain]

Yes, I agree WM OS hasn't lived up to most of our expectations all this years. Who should we blame? Big Bad MS? Manufacturers? Users? I guess all of the above, and this is my take on it.
1) Microsoft- from the begginig MS treated WM as an ugly duckling. It was something it "had to do" not to be left behind the competition. Real effort was towards UMPC market. And I guess MS was very surprised by the WM success, so ONLY now it looks like it start paying some attention to this platform. That's why HTC had to come up with its touchflow. So far all upgrades were done to please mostly OEM's and it's own technologies s.a. MS Exchange, not end users WM6. Let's see what WM7 will bring to us.
2) OEMs Manufacturers- Well these guys think to cut production costs, while increase final sale price to consumer. WM6 is faster then previos windows, let's save money on processors! Forget Intel PXA 520 let's do TI OMAP 750! And in real life, if OMAP may work well for "dumb" phone, it doesn't have enough power to handle needs of smartphone user. This is just one example. And I guess they do read these topics and finaly realized that if no changes will be introduced they will loose their customer to other options such as iPhone, Nokia, SE, etc.. The way I see it, HTC Tytn II is an apex of today's WM devices. From this point on something should change for better, or WM market will die out like dinosaurs. Specially as todays "dumb" phone can perform pretty much all most popular functions of it's "smart" brother, but has more appealing form factor. Does a touch screen REALLY makes smartphone "smart"?
3) Users- well, sometimes we expect from things we love more, than they can give us. We see slick RAZR, we want our WM take the same shape, iPhone thouch screen interface, why don't we have it here, in WM? Cool keyboard from Sidekick, how come MS didn't think about it first? SE P series have cool anymated icons, must have it here! Let's face it, MS can't please everybody, so MS is gonna do what MS is doing the best, look at the market, competition, see what's working and what's not and make adjustments based on it. And "things" such as languages, Office document formatings..., "don't let small things to bother you" that's what 3rd party developers are for. I don't remember when was the last time MS came up with something new and original in Mobile Device market. UMPC? It has a loooooong way to go to become a mainstream device. The way I see it, we will see some Windows Vista(XP) smart phone with VOIP before Q1's OQO's, Shifts will become a household names.

[lanwarrior]

Hey Virain,

For #1, I think MS has taken WM quite serious since WM2003SE, with the explosion of the iPAQ device. I remember back then that people know what an iPAQ is, as opposed to just referring a WM device as a PalmPilot. So that's like, what, 4 years plus that they have to fix the memory leak?

For #2, Slowness in Smartphone is expected I guess, but at least I want MS and the manufacturer to work together to fix this issue. The Nokia and Symbian OS was proof of this. I had different Nokia Smartphone before (N70, 7650, etc) and they are quiet fast, even with Opera running. Only hen Nokia try to cram too much (N95) that the OS begin to slow down.

All in all, many of my colleague that are "average joe" were hesitant to move to WM because of the above. MS is moving towards the right steps, but not fast enough.

[Deslock]

For #1, I think MS has taken WM quite serious since WM2003SE, with the explosion of the iPAQ device. I remember back then that people know what an iPAQ is, as opposed to just referring a WM device as a PalmPilot. So that's like, what, 4 years plus that they have to fix the memory leak?
WM is based on WinCE, which was initially developed in 1995 with consumer devices hitting production and availability in late 1996 and early 1997.

They had 4 MB RAM, ~44 MHz SH-3/MIPS CPUs, and grayscale screens. The consumer WinCE devices went through several name and formfactor changes: WinCE (name still used for embedded/business units), Palm PC, Palm-sized PC, PPC, etc. But like today's WM devices, the older WinCE units had Win32 at their core: DLLs, registry, same directory structure, etc (all carried over from Windows NT). Many of WM's problems have existed from the beginning.

[emuelle1]

I'm technically on my 5th device. I bought an 8125 and used it for about 24 hours when the camera button stuck and I ended up having to return it. I bought a 6945 instead.

Since my original 3675, I've seen small feature improvements, but nothing major. I definitely appreciate the persistent storage of WM5 and the Word Mobile replacement of Pocket Word. I can't say I've ever really been brave enough to try to work with Excel on one of these devices. Processors of non-phone devices have remained steady at 624 Mhz while phone devices hover from 200-520 Mhz. My 6945 runs at 416 Mhz.

I agree with previous posters about Microsoft's focus on business. I'm sure some businesses do use the Pocket PC platform but most of what I hear is about businesses banning the use of the devices by their employees. I have no idea who M$'s "business customers" are, but they along with the telcos seem to drive the Windows Mobile platform rather than the desires of people like us who buy the devices to use them.

I can't say I ever really took these devices seriously as an entertainment platform. I used to transfer podcasts to them to listen to in the car, but since I got my video iPod, I no longer have to worry about that.

[gammada]

After several years of using a Palm OS device, last month I finally decided to jump ship to the Windows Mobile world.

Little did I knew that my experience would quickly turn into an outright disappointment. I went for a HTC Touch Smartphone mainly because of the iPhone similarities -and the lack of availability of the latter in my country-.

I bought the device over the internet so I had no idea as to its size or build quality. The HTC brand was totally alien to me but I came away gladly impressed with the almost Apple-like packaging, the small footprint and the impressive spec sheet. From there, everything went downhill.

My first annoyance had to do with the performance. This OS is painfully slow! I know the Touch is only a 200Mhz device but my old Zire71 (144Mhz if my mind doesn't fail me) outperforms it playing videos in TCPMP and that with a larger 320x320 screen resolution. The Touch drops frames like mad and judging by other opinions here, I'm not alone.

After that, I discovered that in order to fully use all of the sync features, my contacts and calendar must have an Outlook counterpart on the desktop side. Sadly, Outlook is a mistake I refuse to repeat. Basically, your left with a nice brick if you're not using it -Palm lets you sync with outlook if you don't like their own app BTW-.

As for that Office issue, considering that MS is the same developer behind the Office Suite, it's almost ridiculous that their ppc app is not as fully featured or useful -not even in Professional guise- as other 3rd party apps. Back on the POS world, you get Dataviz Documents to Go for free with your device purchase and it does a much better job at keeping formatting and has lots more features for editing.

One of the reasons that convinced me to make the jump was the availability of PPC versions of many of the apps that I had on my Palm. But to my dismay, ALL of them are less developed or have less features!

Agendus is nothing but a bad joke of the Palm version; Resco Photo Viewer Pro doesn't let you create Slideshows with user-defined times (for each image), transitions, text and actions nor it includes as many effects and SplashID is a full version behind.

Furthermore, the PIM applications that I've tried so far, all share a thing in common: they're absurdly complex with cryptic GUIs and those different contact formats (Outlook, Windows Live and SIM) are driving me nuts!

In terms of the OS GUI, I really can't express an unbiased opinion because I'm too used to the old OS -don't like it much at this point, thou- but I really miss the status bar screen rotate, search and BT buttons. I hate the procedure I have to follow in order to change the screen orientation whenever I'm using PIE.

My only real gripe is that the 'close' button sometimes doesn't behave like that. Fortunately the HTC folks did something about it on my device. Can't imagine what it would be like on another brand.

Finally, the writing input is taking me more time than expected to master. Why in the world PPC devices don't have a sticker showing you all gestures?

What do I value out of WM6? WiFi and BT on a telephone package are a dream come true; The look of the OS in general is far more likable than the plain screen on POS; The HTC folks in particular are doing a great job enhancing the OS look+functionality; the way activesync lets you connect your device to the internet -while on USB cable- using your desktop connection sans any config is simply great!; the Today screen is pretty useful and nice without adding any launchers; I love the fact that PIE lets you load many pages as they come in the desktop -even if the usefulness of this is completely diminished by the silly screen resolution. Last but not least, I love the one-time only config for WiFi.