Microsoft Windows Mobile Pocket PC, Pocket PC Phone Edition, and Smartphone
Google announced that a mobile-friendly read-only (ack!) Google Docs web access.
Head over to https://docs.google.com/m to view (but not edit) documents and spreadsheets on an iPhone (iPod touch), Blackberry, or Windows Mobile device. iPhone users can also view presentations (slide decks).
I recorded a quick and dirty 2 minute video demo and placed it on YouTube: Google Docs for Mobile Devices on an iPod touch.
Brighthand and ZDNet both recently had blog items commenting on Microsoft reorganizing the Windows Mobile group and focusing the division on Windows Live service. I’m a little worried about this me-too strategy that seems to follow on the heels of Apple’s iPhone (and to a lesser extent iPod touch). Windows Mobile’s greatest strength has always been the rich set of client software available for it that gave it a good disconnected experience. And, what about Windows Live anyway? It is a bunch of barely connected web services that doesn’t seem to have a strategy of its own. How can it be the basis of a Windows Mobile strategy?
I hope history doesn’t repeat itself. Take a look at the photo above. See that big white thing behind the T-Mobile Dash (Windows Mobile Smartphone AKA Standard Edition)? That is not a PC. It is an MSN Companion that like Windows Mobile was based on Windows CE. Its only function was to connect to the web (by phone line or Ethernet) and was based on Interent Explorer 4. It was barely web-ready even when it was introduced though I thought it was a good first start and used it quite a bit as stand up terminal for quick web browsing. The problem is that it was orphaned and never had more that 2 firmware updates (which took a month to roll out to customers). Today, with its lack of a modern browser, it is essentially useless. Even the first Handheld PC or the earlier MS-DOS based handhelds, on the other hand, are still useful with their built-in client applications and third-party software. But, try using a GPS in your current day Windows Mobile device with only Microsoft applications and no phone service (when you are out of a service area for example). Now imagine that there were no 3rd party client-side GPS applications. What would you do?
Microsoft’s strategies have not been firing on all cylinders for the last couple of years. Their stock price and the general reception of major products like Windows Vista (Office being a rare exception) are two prominent examples. I think Windows Live needs a strategy before it can be used a strategy for Windows Mobile. Microsoft should focus on the broken aspects of Windows Mobile like ActiveSync/WMDC (Windows Mobile Device Center), email, and Office Mobile before looking at Windows Live services.
I tend to listen to the podcast version of Leo Laporte’s Tech Guy radio program when I want to listen to something interesting while driving but don’t want to pay attention to very single word (which I tend to do when listening to something like the Security Now podcast). I have a backlog of these files on my iPod. Today, I was listening to Show 363 from June 23 and noted the segment about someone who has an old Jornada Pocket PC who can’t sync with Windows Mobile Device Center (WMDC) on Windows Vista.
The issue is that WMDC only supports devices going back to Windows Mobile 2003. The last Jornada model was a 2002 device. So, you can’t sync it on a Vista PC. The caller seemed aware of the issue and asked if a Windows XP virtual machine running on Vista might be able to sync with the Jornada if ActiveSync was installed on the Windows XP Guest OS. Leo correctly suggested using either VMware Workstation or Parallels Desktop for Windows. However, the caller asked if Microsoft Virtual PC (which is free) might work too. Leo agreed. Alas, that is not the case. Microsoft Virtual PC has virtually (pun intended) no USB device support. So, it wouldn’t see a Pocket PC or Smartphone and partner it to ActiveSync. VMware Workstation and Parallels Desktop for Windows, on the other hand, have pretty decent USB device support and should be able to run ActiveSync in a Windows XP Guest OS and partner with an older Pocket PC or Smartphone. I haven’t tested this myself. So, you might want to verify this using a 30-day trial before plunking down your hard earned dollars. I have VMware Workstation 6 though. So, I’ll get around to testing this idea one of these days.
FYI: You aren’t limited to virtual machine running on Windows Vista. If you use a Mac, Parallels Desktop for Mac and VMware Fusion have good USB device support too. The wrinkle in this story is Apple is releasing a major upgrade (Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard) next week Friday. All this should still work under Leopard. But, it wouldn’t hurt to check first. I’ve got my upgrade copy pre-ordered and plan to install it next weekend.
Viewings videos on ultra portable devices is nothing new. However, perhaps surprisingly, the oldest of the device families, Windows Mobile, falls far short of a good end-user experience. This is especially true for the under-powered (processor-wise) Smartphone (Standard Edition) where viewing anything except a video specially prepared for it results in a disappointing experience. For example try viewing a video podcast NOT specially prepared for a Smartphone. You will probably see what amounts to still images with a sound track.
The Pocket PC (Professional Edition) video experience is a bit better but still not good. Since Windows Mobile is not designed as a media device, you will find it does things like dim or blank the screen after a timeout period. Normally, this is fine since it is a battery saving feature. However, it is annoying to have to remember to change this setting everytime you watch a video and then set it back when you are done. On the other hand, the faster processors on the Pocket PC (compared to the Smartphones) lets you watch a wider variety of video files (including video podcasts). And, it is not often that you see someone showing a video on an external device connected to a Smartphone or Pocket PC. Despite what Microsoft might claim, these are not real media devices (see any WM5 or WM6 Playlists for example?).
The Zune does a better job since it is designed as media device. However, its non-intuitive user interface (navigation pad) makes something as simple as scrolling and selecting from a list tedious. Once a video gets rolling, it is a pretty good experience though and optional docks make it easy to connect to an external display.
The iPod touch has the best video and user interface I’ve seen so far. Its one drawback is that Apple decided that all 6th generation iPods require docks with a special chip for video playback on external devices. So, previous video docking solutions do not work with the latest iPod models.
The 5th (previous) generation iPods only had one model that provided video playback. But, it has a huge existing accessory infrastructure that lets you easily and relatively cheaply purchase devices to provide a larger video screen. For example, there are several portable DVD players with integrated LCD screens that also have iPod docs built-in. This lets you use the player to show and listen to videos on a larger screen.
For the moment, it is a toss-up between the 5th and 6th generation iPods. As soon as the 3rd party accessory market catches up (probably this holiday season or early 2008), the 6th generation will be the device of choice. It will be interesting to see what the Zune 2.0 delivers. And, unfortunately, my favorite overall mobile device family (Windows Mobile) is down for the count when it comes to Media playback.
The old Windows CE Handheld PCs had large (by today’s thumb keyboard standards) physical keyboards and a touch screen. They never caught on (even though I really enjoyed using them :-). The problem was that the touch screen were really just a substitute for a mouse and the need to pick up a stylus in between typing was annoying.
Following the lead of the Palm Pilot, Microsoft moved on to the Palm-size/Pocket PC and dropped the physical keyboard completely. Then RIMM’s Blackberry and Palm’s Treo showed that a physical keyboard was indeed a good thing but needed to be sized and designed correctly. Many current generation Windows Mobile Pocket PCs (Professional Edition) and Smartphones (Standard Edition) have physical thumb keyboards too. And, many of them are well designed (I particularly like the Dash’s and TyTyn’s).
Recently, Apple went retro and introduced the iPhone and iPod touch with touch screens that don’t need (or work) with a stylus and dropped the physical keyboard in favor of a graphical tactile-less one. On one hand, the finger gestures for viewing photos and navigating web pages works much better than stylus based Pocket PCs or keyboard based Smartphones. On the other hand, I guess I’m just one of those fumble-fingered people who prefers tactile feedback when typing (even thumb typing). I do think it is great that I don’t have to reach for a stylus to use the iPod touch. But, I really wish I had some kind of option (Bluetooth keyboard for example) for the iPod touch.
I was originally going to comment on the relative granularity differences between finger touch screens and stylus touch screens. But, I need to think that through a bit more. It just occurred to me that one of the original applications categories for the Pocket PC were little mini-PhotoShop type drawing apps. Yet, those never did become very popular. And, we don’t see that category heavily pushed or sold these days. Part of the issue may be the relatively small processing power on mobile devices (compared to desktops). But, I wonder if the digitization errors inherent in any touch screen might have something to do with this too. More later…
I think I’ve suggested manually clearing the Windows Mobile Internet Explorer browser cache once a week or so to help prevent what might otherwise be mysterious system-wide slowdowns on a Pocket PC or Smartphone. However, today I got another reminder of why I spend more time using Ilium’s NewsBreak RSS client on Windows Mobile than the IE browser.
When using IE directly, I am pretty careful to stick to mobile-friendly websites in my Favorites list. However, I clicked on a Reuters link in their RSS feed after reading a brief summary in NewsBreak which launched IE (this normal). This turned out to be a bad idea because the feed link led to Reuters normal website formatted for desktop PCs. WiMo IE couldn’t deal with what appears to me to be a decently designed web page for the desktop and froze my entire phone. I couldn’t even turn it off and had to pull the battery to reset my Dash. Upon rebooting, the Dash came up very slowly… more slowly than normal. So, I went to IE’s options menu and manually cleared the browser cache (about 2.5MB, large but not huge). This returned my phone to normal.
In comparison, I just brought up Reuters.com on my iPod touch Safari web browser. And, while it seemed to navigate that site much slower than other sites (there must be some Javascript whackiness going on there), the site didn’t blow up the browser or lock the iPod touch.