Fixing Windows Mobile

I had some time to kill yesterday down in Palo Alto so I went to the Apple store and played with the iPhone (it's still great, despite being AT&T only) and then to the AT&T store to check out the Blackberry Bold (nice new UI but a little big) then to T-mobile to look at the Android again (it really needs some work.)

In my mobile phone travels I took a look at several phones running Windows Mobile, an operating system I have discussed in the past. I still struggle to see why Microsoft hasn't fixed the user experience and the odd quirks if they want to be truly competitive.

Microsoft is losing on mobile phones to Apple and Google and doesn't even come close to usurping Symbian's place. And as BusinessWeek points out "To keep up, it needs touch displays, mobile cloud computing, and its own app store." True, but it's hard to see how these additional features will address the basic problem that the operating system is underwhelming and occasionally downright terrible.

Microsoft has the assets to make a mobile vision reality, but it's hard to say what that vision consists of. The App Store has been the killer app for the iPhone, and Android has gotten a huge boost as part of the Google-verse. Microsoft could easily start to sway developers by connecting Windows Mobile with its Live services and development platforms.

In the meantime, Apple's iPhone will continue to undermine every other device maker and operating system thanks to it's simplicity and features. It's not a great phone, it is however a great mobile device.

This is not to say that building an OS for a phone is easy. Companies like Panasonic and Motorola have dumped tens of millions of dollars into mobile Linux with not a huge amount to show for it. Microsoft may be on the right track but Windows Mobile is off enough that most of the innovation goes unnoticed due the basic flaws.

Anecdotally, I have a friend who works for a company that requires their staff to use Windows Mobile and every time he calls me the phone reboots. It must have something to do with my open source voodoo.

Note: I use a Blackberry on Verizon Wireless.

[ekeefe41]

In what way does Android "Need some work"?
It is nearly on par with the iphone experience and is head and shoulders above the Blackberry & Windows Mobile..

I mean we are talking OS right? Because the G1 not having a old school headphone jack has nothing to do with the Android OS experience....

Please elaborate.

[daverosenberg]

Android will probably be very good in the near future. Right now the UI is weird and the G1 is weirder

[jinx101a]

His phone reboot everytime he calls you huh? Perhaps that's just his excuse for not wanting to talk to you anymore. "uh, ya, it was the phone".

[rapier1]

Dave: 'So I was just talking to Mabel and I says "Mabel" I says "Open source is the bomb. Nothing else is close. I mean, open source walks the dog! Its just...'
Friend: >>reboot<<

Seems like a defensive reaction.

[daverosenberg]

I like to think Windows Mobile knows how I feel about it and cuts me off. Totally fair

[forever4now]

2008 was just a warm-up year for Android. I think 2009 is when all the excitement will start...when all the other handset vendors start to release Android devices.

The Android Market is also suppose to allow developers to sell applications in early 2009, so there should be a major influx of currently iPhone-only apps to Android.

I can't wait!

[ncjudin]

I got rid of my T-Mobile Dash 10 months before I was contracted to, only because of Windows Mobile. I was tired of having to constantly kill processes and reboot. I paid a whopping $379 to T-Mobile to get the G1, and in the week that I've had it, I haven't had a single problem. It does have some UI quirks, but those are very minor, since the phone still operates without locking completely up.

[bill_fisher]

Wow. Truly astonishing. I understand we're all sometimes in a hurry, and don't have the time we'd like for fact-checking and investigation, but come on - this is posted in the "News" section.
"To keep up, it needs touch displays, mobile cloud computing..."
Windows Mobile introduced phone touch screens early this century, well before its competitors, and Live Mesh has just launched to a global beta.
Then there's this: "Microsoft could easily start to sway developers by connecting Windows Mobile with its Live services and development platforms."
Done and done. Ever heard of Windows Live for Mobile? How about Visual Studio and .NET?
I'm not sure where the impetus for blithely repeating this misinformation is coming from, but can we please get some basic research, please? I love OS wars as much as the next guy, but one needs to have a grasp of the basics before one joins the festival of bashing.

For some truly informed and balanced writing about the mobile marketplace, refer to Matt Miller's blog at ZDNET: http://blogs.zdnet.com/mobile-gadgeteer/
For a community actually interested in the real ins and outs of Windows Mobile, check here: http://www.windowsmobileconnection.com

[forever4now]

"Windows Mobile introduced phone touch screens early this century, well before its competitors"

I owned an Ericsson R380 with a touchscreen that came out before Microsoft's Pocket PC OS. I still have it, as a matter of fact. Microsoft was again playing catch up, like they always do.

People who are interested in the REAL smartphone history should check out Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smartphone

[daverosenberg]

That was a quote from BusinessWeek FYI

[stigmattaman]

@davrosenberg
I think their points are that in a 'news' story labeled Fixing Windows Mobile, there's absolutely nothing in the post that shows you've ever actually used one. WinMo has been atrocious in the past, but the 6.1 has fixed the vast majority of problems. My main beef with it is the cumbersome UI, but there are a lot of really good WM devices on the market today. Hopefully, the UI will be fixed.

Android's exciting, no doubt, but let's not annoint them yet. They have miles to go - need to develop more channel partners, resellers, and handsets need to get to the market. It also needs to get some enterprise support before it can be taken seriously as a major in the smartphone market. Eventually, I see it getting a sizable share in that ever-growing line of handsets that aren't really feature phones but aren't quite smartphones either.


(by the way, I am rocking a BlackBerry Storm and loving it - but I've had all the major OS)

[sselliotts]

Well, my respect for Business Week just went down the crapper. Windows Mobile needs "touch displays"?
Um, I have a 6 year old PDA running Windows Mobile 5 that has had "touch displays" since before I bought it, and Microsoft's mobile OS has had "touch displays" since version, what, one? And that was how long ago?
I have been writing my own apps for this PDA for as long as I have owned it, apps that all utilize "touch displays"
Why is it that whenever Apple does something it is suddenly new and has never been done before?
The apps I have written for my PDA blow anything you have on your P.O.S. iPhone away, especially with your, what, 400 MHz processor. My six-year-old PDA has a 624 MHz processor... and yet Apple is praised as being the most "innovative" company in the world. Unbelievable! How can there be that many willfully blind people in the world?
I can't think of another company in the history of this world that has taken its customers for a ride like Apple has.
I'm afraid I have to classify those who buy their junk with the type that buy a BMW thinking they have just purchased the finest piece of automotive machinery on the road but then can't figure out why it is in the shop 5 times for frequently than my Honda Civic which cost me about 1/3 as much!
Yeah, you people are geniuses!

[timster799]

I own 1st and 2nd generation iPhones before getting the Android G1 (got rid of it the same day), then purchased the HTC Touch Pro from Sprint. Nice plug-in on top of the Touch Pro, but below the surface it was the same Windows Mobile OS, totally underwhelming. microsoft is playing #2 with its mobile and its music player (zune).

[oohmyygood]

@sselliotts

I guess all the hundreds of thousands of ex-WinMo users (myself included) who have given up due to constant rebooting, application crashes, unbelievably cumbersome UI, not to speak of having to wade through umpteen menu option just to make a friggin phone call (it´s supposed to be a phone for crying out loud!), - well I guess we're just dumb-, Apple fanboys who accept anything from Steve Jobs' "reality distortion field".

It has nothing to do with the fact that the iPhone just works. Out of the box. Nor that it is a pleasure to use. Nothing at all.