Microsoft Windows Mobile Pocket PC, Pocket PC Phone Edition, and Smartphone
I’m trying to figure out what is the best Windows Mobile Twitter client for me. I wonder if touch (Professional) vs non-touch (Standard) WiMo phones have different best clients? The Twitter Fan Wiki has a bunch listed under…
Any opinions out there? What is the best Twitter client for a WiMo smartphone (non-touch) or Pocket PC (touch) in your opinion?
I can probably count the number of commercial apps I have kept up to date from 1997 on one hand. Let’s see: Microsoft Office (ok, that is cheating a little since that is one hand by itself), JASC (now Corel) PaintShop Pro, and, hmm, that might actually be it. If you know me or have read this blog in the past, you know there is one other app I have used for a long time: Ilium Software’s eWallet for Windows Mobile. In fact, Handheld PC Magazine (now Smartphone and Pocket PC Magazine) published my Top 10 Products list back in their July 1998 issue. And eWallet was my favorite app then (followed by Ilium’s ListPro) too.
Ilium turns 11 years old next week (Happy Anniversary!) and is celebrating by giving stuff to you! Head over to the Ilium Software Blog between June 2 and June 6 to learn how you might get one of their great anniversary freebies.
Here’s hoping Ilium hangs around for a long time because I’ve been using eWallet since version 1 and want to keep using it for many more years to come.
My old friend Frank McPherson appears to have had a bit of problem with his TyTn II (I’ve been having my own issues with my Dash). In his case, part of the solution was to upgrade to the just released Windows Mobile 6.1 for the TyTn II. You can check out his May 25, 2008 entries to get a bit more info about the TyTn II with WiMo 6.1 at…
FYI: WiMo 6.1 does not give Professional Edition (touch screen) devices a spiffy new look like it does with the non-touch screen Standard Edition. And, it doesn’t include the new improved Internet Explorer browser that was talked up a month or two ago.
The T-Mobile Dash running Windows Mobile 6 has one really annoying bug: Once you set the phone to vibrate profile, event notifications always vibrate even if the profile is set back to normal. However, there is a workaround if you use a Bluetooth speaker or headset. The Dash comes with Voice Command in firmware. If you set it to send voice notifications to the Bluetooth device, the darn Dash will still vibrate for event notifications, but it will provide a text-to-speech notification via the Bluetooth device.
I went on a rant a few months ago chiding Microsoft for their assumption that most of their Windows Mobile customers live in an IT Utopia where mobile devices are managed by dedicated highly trained IT mobile device support staff with exactly the right management tools. Well, according to this Information Week article…
Trouble Ahead: Most Companies Don’t Have A Mobile Device Management Plan
Not only have most organizations in InformationWeek’s recent survey of 307 business technology managers not adopted mobile device management strategies, most of them–52%–don’t even have plans to buy or implement tools that would help them corral proliferating wireless devices.
The article goes on to report: Those who haven’t adopted such products and don’t plan to cite three reasons: lack of need, cost, and complexity.
So, it looks like most of us, whether inside or outside the enterprise, are on our own when it comes to mobile devices.
I’ve spent the last few days using either a K-JAM or TyTn Pocket PC Professional Edition (Phone Edition) device. If you scroll down to the last couple of blog entries, you will know why: My T-Mobile Dash smartphone (Standard Edition) went bonky, froze on my this past Sunday, and went into a repeating boot cycle after putting the battery back in it.
After two days of using a Pocket PC Phone Edition, I remember why I switched from the more powerful touch-screen based device to the non-touch Smartphone. Both Pocket PCs are not huge compared to other touch-screen devices like the Universal or Advantage (great data devices). But, even the relatively small K-JAM and TyTn are huge and heavy compared to the Dash or many other non-touch smartphones. The need for two hands and stylus also became kind of annoying after having used a number of smartphones over the past couple of years (the SDA preceded the Dash I use now). One handed operation is the way to go when on the move.
That said, I hope we always have some kind of touch screen Pocket PC type device to carry around as an additional device. I use mine a lot as a sit-down data device and would hate to give it up for that kind of work.