10-07-2009, 06:14 PM
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Pontificator
Join Date: Feb 2002
Posts: 1,043
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I think it's time Microsoft either stopped including Pocket IE or re-wrote it from the ground up, with zero recycled code. I've been using WM6.5 since last spring (yes, it's that old - 18 months in development is not really accurate as since at least March there have been only minor tweaks) and have found every attempt at using PIE to be painful. The main problem is the lack of user control over zoom level on initial page load. A typical page is displayed with characters only a few pixels tall, completely unintelligible. Like this:
If the user must zoom in to read EVERY, SINGLE, PAGE, using a series of bothersome screen taps and slides (minimum of 3 operations, often 4 or 5), taking at least 5 seconds and often more like 20 as the page jumps around during loading of elements, this is simply too inefficient for actual everyday use. Pocket IE was more efficient under WM2000, plain and simple. By this vain attempt at emulating the finger-friendly behavior and zooming of the iPhone's browser, Microsoft has abandoned serious functionality. Oh sure, pages coded specifically for mobile browsers work okay for the most part... but how much of the web is composed of such pages? Other mobile browsers keep up just fine. Why not PIE?
And it's not just zooming which gives me a headache. If I wish to input an address manually, I must now tap a menu icon, tap the URL bar, then tap the Input icon because for some mysterious reason it no longer pops up automagically. What, am I supposed to *think* a web address into place there? And then there's the way Favorites are now less manipulable. Used to be a separate dialogue for deleting them. Now if one uses the PIE interface, thanks to the finger-scroll feature, one must tap and hold until the indicator (little circle of dots) has popped and vanished just to select a link without launching it, and only then can the trash icon be tapped to delete it. Integrating link management into the same page as link launching would be a bit more intuitive if tooltips worked, but alas they've been killed off so it's guesswork as to what some of the icons even mean. I could go on... but frankly Pocket IE has become so worthless it's not worth the time. I use NetFront and find it very much acceptable for heavy lifting, and Opera Mobile is okay for the odd bit of light reading where one needs no access to Favorites.
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Gerard Ivan Samija
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