MobileViews Blog

Category: Smartphone

Windows Mobile Smartphone

  • Why it is Hard to ID the “Best” Mobile Device


    Just for fun I decided to score my iPod touch, TyTn Windows Mobile 6 Pocket PC, and Dash Windows Mobile 6 Smartphone on 10 features. The highest possible score is 3 and the lowest is 1. So, a higher total is theoretically better than a lower one.

    If you look at the scores, you might guess that I carry the TyTn Pocket PC around most of the time. Unfortunately, that guess would be wrong. I always take my Dash Smartphone out with me if I am only carrying one device. And, if watched me wander around my home, you would probably see me using the iPod touch.

    The reason is that the my unscientific scorecard did not place weights on the ranked features. When, I am running around town, the most important features to me around the voice phone, one-handed use, RSS reader, PIM, and Email. When I am at home the most important features are web browsing and reading (but not writing/responding to) email. Email is a tricky one because when outside of the home I want one device that I can use for both reading and writing email. On the other hand, when I am at home, I just need to be aware of email and can wander over to a desktop or notebook computer to actually compose a response.

    The Pocket PC (touch screen) probably trumps the Smartphone (non-touchscreen) with its unweighted score when outside of the home. But, once weight is placed on one-handed use and (a feature I did not rank) durability, the non-touchscreen Smartphone wins. I hated using my phone in the rain when I used a Pocket PC Phone Edition device. I felt that the touch screen technology was just too fragile. The Smartphone, on the other hand, seems to be tough enough for most outdoor weather conditions.

    The big problem with the iPod touch and iPhone for my personal use is that they don’t have a physical thumb keyboard. As, I’ve mentioned many times before here, I still can’t type comfortably on iPod touch’s screen keyboard. That is why I never use it to reply to email or tweet on Twitter.

    There is no perfect mobile device for me yet. So, I’ll continue to use a couple of best-of-breed devices in different situations for now.

  • Windows Mobile Owners Circle Changed Its Name to TotalAccess


    Microsoft changed the name of its end-user brand loyalty site from Owners Circle to TotalAccess. Some, but not all of the articles that Tyson Greer, Jason Dunn, and I wrote have been moved to the tips and tricks section of this site.

  • Silverlight Powered WindowsMobile.com Goes Live and Breaks Articles Links


    The Silverlight powered version of Microsoft’s WindowsMobile.com went live. But, in the process, it looks like a lot of links were broken. Jason Dunn, Tyson Greer, and I wrote a bunch of Windows Mobile 6 articles for Microsoft.com last year. All of these articles are still valid and apply to Windows Mobile 6.1 devices. If you search for any of our names, you will see links to these articles. But, all the links are broken. Too bad, there is a lot of good information for Windows Mobile device users that disappeared with these links.

  • If Google Gets Contacts Right, Watch Out!

    For years Palm OS users rightly criticized that Windows Mobile for needing far too many taps and scrolling to enter the simplest calendar event or contact information. Although it looks like Palm OS will join the ranks of Wordstar, Lotus 1-2-3, and CP/M soon, the criticism is still valid. It is still a giant pain to enter contact information in Windows Mobile. And, don’t get me started on the effort needed to enter simple calendar event information that falls outside of the rigid structure of the Windows Mobile calendar. For example, let’s say you arrive somewhere at 4:34 pm and need to come back 1 hour later to feed the parking meter some coins. Count the number of steps to set that event. Yes, there are third party apps that you can add to your WiMo device. But, still, this is stuff that should be easy to do right out of the box.

    If you want to get some people riled out, ask about setting calendar events for multiple time zones. For example, a person who lives in California sets a couple of local appointments for this week, a couple of appointments in New York the next, and Germany the week after that. It can get messy real fast unless you pay extreme attention to what you are doing with each appointment.

    One of the things I’ve found myself doing for the past year is entering appointments and other calendar events in Google Calendar first because it is so much faster to type 2pm Attend meeting XYZ than enter something on my Smartphone or Pocket PC. Of course, I am usually at a full size keyboard when using Google Calender, so that is a huge bias. I haven’t looked how Google Android handles calendar and contacts entries. But, if it half as easy as Google Calendar, Windows Mobile is going to have a huge problem on its hands.

    Microsoft needs to do two things. First, it needs to fix its Windows Live Calendar with its 20th century event entry form. Once it fixes it, it needs to be able to sync over the air with Windows Mobile devices.

  • Want to Try out the QIK Streaming Software? I Have 500 Invitations

    Have a Samsung or Motorola Windows Mobile phone and want to try out the QIK streaming video service? I have 500 invitations to give away. Here’s how to get one. Check the QIK phone compatibility list before asking for an invitation though…

    QIK sign-up and compatible phone list

    After you sign-up at the link above, send an e-mail to mobileviews(at-sign)qik.com. Type in the same phone number you used during the web sign-up process in the subject line. QIK will send an SMS message to your phone with the download link after you approved.

  • Windows Mobile and Google Android: Who Is the Customer?

    Yesterday I said that Windows Mobile’s real competitor is Google Android. WiMo has already conceded defeat to Apple’s iPhone in the consumer space. Why? How? You and I, as individual consumers, have not been the target Windows Mobile customer since 2003. As soon as Microsoft’s marketing became phone-centric, the target customers became enterprises running Exchange Server and the mobile phone carriers. Microsoft’s recent purchase of Danger (the firm that sells the youth-consumer-centric Sidekick phone) muddies the picture even more. How are Windows Mobile and the Sidekick related? They sure don’t share the same operating system or run the same applications. They have completely different market focuses. This can only serve to confuse their marketing efforts going forward.

    The big unanswered question is who is the market focus for the Google Android based phones? Unless it syncs with Exchange Server or Lotus Notes, it is not the enterprise (at least initially). Google’s multi-mode reference designs (touch and non-touch screen devices) may cause the same mind-share fragmentation that Windows Mobile’s touch and non-touch reference designs do. Given a variety of hardware vendors (again like Windows Mobile), it is hard to imagine that Google’s phone will directly compete or impact on iPhone sales. It will, however, have an advantage in the US by not being locked to a single mobile carrier (AT&T Wireless). My guess is that Google’s phone will take market share directly away from Windows Mobile and what is left of the Treo Palm OS based phones (are new Palm OS phones still around?). So, the follow-up question is: How much damage will the various Google Android phones cause to Windows Mobile smartphone sales? My guess is: A lot. If the Google-based phones are even half as easy to use as the iPhone, half-as compelling, and syncs reliably with the Google cloud services (calendar, contacts, mail, etc.), it will be a huge seller. Just imagine if Google adopts Apple’s Mac vs. PC ads and goes after ActiveSync/WMDC, the lack of media playlists, the slowness of going from app-to-app, and other WiMo weaknesses. It could get brutal in TV commercial-land.