Windows Mobile Out of Place at Microsoft's Party?

[Jon Westfall]

It's been a week of technological upgrades for me in the Entertainment realm. Prior to Saturday, the last console system I'd owned was 8-bit Nintendo, my smartphone was my only music player that was updated (as I'd outgrown my 30 GB Zune and my 60 GB iPod's screen was just too small anymore), and my Toshiba laptop with Windows Media Center did very little media wise, save store my music and play it back via Windows Media Player. That changed with recent purchases of an Xbox 360 and a Zune 80. Now I'm looking at the smartphone and wondering why its implementation isn't up to par with these other two Microsoft products. And more importantly, what should be done about that! <MORE /><br /><br />As I write this, my Zune is synchronizing wirelessly. My Media Center PC is recording something or another, and my Xbox is cooling off after some GTA IV. The smartphone, a Pantech Duo, is faithfully waiting for email or urgent phone calls. In past years, it may have been able to sync over WiFi to pull the latest copy of my eWallet, although now I'm content to have a copy from a few months back on there. It also used to be loaded up with games, but my PSP can do that way better, so no games for the Duo. Why have I, a lover of convergence, found myself with a myriad of devices over the past year? Simple, my Windows Mobile phone simply can't be a jack-of-all-trades, even though it was designed (and sometimes marketed) as such. The Zune OS, or the Xbox 360 OS, in contrast, seem like they could be built onto endlessly though - and in a timely and cool fashion. <br /><br />I find it no coincidence that the smoothest Microsoft experiences I've had lately have been from technologies that didn't exist in 2000 - and certainly hadn't matured. The Pocket PC and Smartphone operating system of record, Windows Mobile, in turn based on Windows CE, was around back then - and in many ways, still harkens back to those days design wise. When I use a Windows Mobile device, I almost feel like I'm back in the late 90s, design and implementation wise. For example, the inbox feels very isolated from the rest of the OS. On the desktop I can drag an item from my inbox to the Calendar button in Outlook and boom - a new calendar entry pops up with the email as the notes. No such luck on the smartphone. I can also tell my Zune to sync wirelessly and after its set up, there is no fussing on the device - it simply connects to my computer wirelessly and syncs. No establishing connections in an archaic connection manager. In comparison, Windows Mobile can seem like the elderly man standing in the crowd at a Hannah Montana concert - out of place, out of its element, out of touch - in 2008. It occured to me tonight that perhaps we don't need upgrades to Windows Mobile - we may need a completely new product. Phune or Pbox or whatever you want to call it. <br /><br />Now this isn't saying that upgrades to Windows Mobile are not going in the right direction. I've seen a very promising direction, one that I can't talk about other than to say I'm happy with what I see so far. But maybe building onto an existing OS is akin to patching holes in a sinking ship. A new ship may be the best alternative. But in this case, a new ship would take way longer to build than upgrades to the existing one - but perhaps it could do it &quot;right&quot;. <br /><br />I'm 99% sure Microsoft won't abandon Windows Mobile and create a new phone operating system tomorrow - but if they asked you, would you tell them to?

[emuelle1]

I'd love to see a new operating system for the Windows Mobile platform. I'm disappointed at how slowly Windows Mobile has improved. Most of the enhancements we see come from 3rd party developers. I'd also like to see an operating system that is not at the mercy of the hardware manufacturers, who would rather see you buy a new device than release updates for the older ones. If I could just buy WM 6.1 and install it over the top of WM5 on my iPaq 6945, that would be great. Until then, I have to hope some kind individual on XDA-Developers will release a cooked ROM for my device.

[Dyvim]

I couldn't agree more. At this point, MS should just scrap everything and go back to the drawing board for its phone/PDA OS. Of course they would keep Windows CE to run various CE devices as that seems to be ok, but Windows Mobile itself is bogged down with over 10 years of legacy code and backwards compatibility issues, and IMO this hurts the end user experience and even in some cases cripples functionality (alarms still don't work? really?; no wireless sync via ActiveSync or WMDC when they used to have it 5 years ago? memory and multi-tasking issues that can prevent the core functionality (i.e. the phone) from being 100% reliable and always ready to go?).

I'm sure if they did a Zune phone or an XBox phone, it would come out being a much better consumer product than WM phones currently are, even though it might not be what so-called "power users" are after.

[alese]

I'm not sure they need to do completely new OS.
Most of the problems and gripes people and especially we have with WM are not related to the "core" OS - Windows CE but to Windows Mobile UI that sits on top of everything and the applications using the OS.

So in my opinion, what they should do is completely rewrite the WM "part" of the OS with proper UI and better integration between parts/applications and also better integration with other devices.

Where I see a problem is that Microsoft needs 2 years after the relaease of iPhone to do WM7 that was supposedly in development and demoed sometime before iPhone and is more or less a copy of iPhone's UI - with such "speed" and so much "innovation" it won't help if they do completely new OS, just a new UI or nothing at all...

btw. I'm not sure, but I don't think XBox or Zune have completely new OS - I would guess they have specific UIs built on top of some Win API, since they don't use Intel I would guess that the core OS is at least based if not entirely WindowsCE.

[blueboy]

I think it's safe to say there is nothing really wrong with the OS. In fact it seems quite powerful. Judging on what HTC has been able to do with it with the Diamond, there is a lot more that CE can do.

MS problem is there lack of dedicated resource to a project and this problem is now showing up in almost everything they do. Do they not have enough staff or what. All I hear from time to time is how the developers are now working on Vista, vs Media Center, vs office vs live. They need to bump up there staff and have dedicated people at each division. This is the primary reason they take forever to get anything out and most people are tired of waiting. IE on Windows Mobile is a joke and all you hear is we're working on something, get it out already, why are you taking so long.

They need to move faster and more effeciently. That's what Google has over them right now. When the android OS shows up, it's going to be trouble. To me, it doesn't look like much from the previews but with they way Google gets products out there, it will improve over a very short period of time.

[Stinger]

The greats thing about the Xbox 360 UI, from Microsoft's perspective, are that they got to start with a clean slate and they can totally ditch it for something new after 5 years when the 3rd generation Xbox comes out.

I think the Xbox team did a good job with the UI. They've made a UI for a games console, rather than trying to mimic the look and feel of Windows XP/Vista. The UI is getting more cluttered these days, as Microsoft add features, but it's still pretty decent.

The Windows Mobile team have a harder job. If they totally ditched the current OS then you're going to have a lot of upset developers and users. Even seemingly minor changes may results in a lot of 3rd party software breaking. On the other hand, Windows Mobile is really starting to show its age and Microsoft's developers appear to be struggling to innovate at the same pace as the competition.

I guess the ideal solution would be to create a separate team to work on a more consumer-focused phone. Just like the Xbox 360 and Zune, design everything in house and totally forget about Windows when designing the UI. Focus on a couple of key use cases, such as web browsing, IM, music and photos. Forget about 3rd party apps (for now) and forget about "enterprise". And make it sexy rather than serious.

Perhaps this is all possible now that Microsoft owns Danger?

[Rocco Augusto]

I'm still a firm believer that Microsoft should just take complete control of the Windows Mobile platform and indeed create a brand new mobile operating system. Right now the Windows Mobile world is to confusing. You have the Smartphone/Standard non-touch based platform and the Professional/Pocket PC touch based platform and both systems look remarkably different. It is just downright confusing to consumers - especially when you try to explain it to them.

What makes matters worse is when you have a customer more from one mobile platform to the other only to find out that they have to repurchase a majority of their old software applications and games because they are not compatible with this different OS. This happened to me more than once when I was selling phones.

This was one of the reasons I have been so excited about Photon for the past few years. We were suppose to finally see a merger of the two systems into one less confusing system. The less you confuse your customer base the greater the chance you have of selling more of your product. :)

[Jason Dunn]

If I could just buy WM 6.1 and install it over the top of WM5 on my iPaq 6945, that would be great. Until then, I have to hope some kind individual on XDA-Developers will release a cooked ROM for my device.

It frustrates me greatly that legitimate customers who would be willing to buy 6.1 instead get driven underground to illegal updates - all because Microsoft won't/can't provide the updates because of the structure they've created around the carriers, the OEMs, etc. :mad:

[Jason Dunn]

<more>In comparison, Windows Mobile can seem like the elderly man standing in the crowd at a Hannah Montana concert - out of place, out of its element, out of touch - in 2008.

Haha - best line I've read this week! :D
</more>

[r@dimus]

Considering that Microsoft has licensed ActiveSynce out to Apple for the iPhone, ported Live Messenger to the Blackberry, and has neglected so many aspects of the Windows Mobile devices (no fundemental changes to the UI, still stuck with paltry amounts of memory, features going missing, etc) I have to wonder how much of a priority Windows Mobile really is to Microsoft. It's like after they beat Palm in the PDA market they gave themselves a pat on the back, went to Disneyland, and stayed there a bit too long.

[Jason Lee]

You do need to keep in mind that the xbox and the zune are appliances. They are a one trick pony. Their UI was designed for one thing and one thing alone. My pocket pc is just that. A computer in my pocket. Honestly i think it does a very good job of that. If i wanted a one trick phone i would buy an iphone or a nokia.
I want a computer in my pocket not a little device with a nice flashy UI that does only what it was designed to do.

That being said... There is definitely a lot of room for improvement in the WM OS. Especially when it comes to the smoothness and general speed of the UI. Just take a bunch of 3 megapixel pictures and try to scroll through them using the default Pictures and Video program. It chokes hard core... Things like that are what bother my most about WM.

[Jason Dunn]

If i wanted a one trick phone i would buy an iphone or a nokia. I want a computer in my pocket not a little device with a nice flashy UI that does only what it was designed to do.

I guess we'll have to see what happens when developers start releasing applications for the iPhone, but even only looking at the core applications, the iPhone manages to balance functionality and slick looks pretty well. There are definitely things that Microsoft can learn from the iPhone...

...Especially when it comes to the smoothness and general speed of the UI. Just take a bunch of 3 megapixel pictures and try to scroll through them using the default Pictures and Video program. It chokes hard core... Things like that are what bother my most about WM.

...just like that! That's my #1 complaint about Windows Mobile devices today - they're sluggish, slow, prone to becoming unresponsive, and generally feel like a Windows XP computer running on 256 MB of RAM. :rolleyes:

[Sniff]

My feelings were mixed about Windows Mobile before reading your post.

On the one hand, I feel that they could have done so much more and dominated the mobile industry with this jack-of-all-trades if they gave it enough attention. It could have been the device for everybody, playing music, games, email, calendar, web browsing, Powerpoint presenter, calculator, etc, etc...

But on the other hand, it's SO "slow," after a couple days of use and opening and closing various apps. It needs a soft reset/reboot after about five days. After six months, it needs a hard reset...

I can't exactly say I never fathom the thought of getting rid of it entirely, but I was a big fan of it and kept that thought to a very very quiet squeak. But since the news of the Jesus Phone, the voice has been getting louder and louder; "this fr**king thing is so fr**king slow and unintuitive(in it's factory form)!"

And now after reading your post, I agree and acknowledge that maybe getting rid of it and building something new from the ground up might be the solution to my love-hate relationship with Windows Mobile...

[Damion Chaplin]

I had high hopes that MS would pull WM out of the gutter and make it a real OS that could compete with anything anyone threw at it. All you need to look at is the iPhone to see how abysmally short they've fallen from that mark.

I had to get rid of my ol' imate K-JAM because as a phone it just stank. It was a great pocket PC, but it seemed like it whenever I wanted (read: needed urgently) to make a phone call, it would bork out on me and I would have to reset it. All because I wanted to call a cab. That's why I finally settled on the smartphone (WM Standard): It was a phone first and a PDA second. Turns out I needed the phone functionality more than anything else I got from the PPC. So now here I am with my trusty (and awesome) Pantech Duo, drooling over the HTC Touch Pro. Do I dare go back to a PPC? Is WM6.1 really that much better than WM5 that I won't experience the same shortcomings? Well, I'll probably go back eventually, but right now I'm just a little gunshy from my prior experience.

So yeah, I'd say MS needs to start over. Stinger's right: Their original idea of trying to make it look and feel like Windows was a good idea, but it's time to ditch it. The iPhone may be based on OSX, but it looks and feels nothing like it. If Microsoft doesn't go back to the drawing board and give us a new and innovative operating system, they're going to find themselves playing "catch-up to the iPhone" until Ragnarok.

[kdarling]

Keep in mind that Windows CE 6 totally revamped the OS memory map, and got rid of many problems. It also has IE 6.0 on it.

Unfortunately, WM 6 was still baed on CE 5. The roadmap presented a couple of years ago was that WM 7, a major rework of WM, was to finally be based on CE 6.

When that happens, it should be a much better experience, especially with all the RAM now becoming standard.