“I have a huge list of all of the tweaks that have been done to the operating system but I’ll save that for next week. Also, if you’re wondering, you can expect Windows Mobile 6 devices in the marketplace worldwide by second quarter 2007.” More here (screenshots). Betas of WinMob6 also had integrated VoIP support via SIP in them, but it doesn’t seem that this was announced along the other features.
Windows Mobile 6 Officially Announced
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Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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What is the difference between these?
Also, what’s the future preduction for the fate of PocketPCs? Are they now dead? I’m more interested in the PDA functionality and like the bigger screens of hte PocketPC.
Standard is the non-touchscreen version, the one that’s called currently “Smartphone Edition”. And then there is the new version that now it’s called “Professional”, which is nothing but the version that’s currently called PocketPC Edition. Basically, they changed the names.
The pocketPC interface and platform is not dead, it does very well in the smartphone market. It’s just that very few PDA-only devices are released, you will have to buy a touchscreen WinMob phone to get it.
I want to know about any new power saving stuff and official updates for my device. I have heard about an unofficial flash for my device but I would much prefer a legit one.
There are no major OS upgrades for smartphones like it is for PCs. Nokia doesn’t do that either (you can’t go from S60 3.0 to 3.1 for example). Yes, there are smaller upgrades (e.g. from 3.0 to 3.03), usually that’s the exact same general version as the original firmware, but with some bug fixes.
However, usually except HTC, branding companies don’t offer full firmware upgrades. Only HTC does that, usually in an unofficial fashion (for example, if you have a Wizard-based PocketPC phone, there are leaked upgrades that you can install, but of course you will lose all the branding and support if you do so).
I have read so many comments with people who would be willing to pay for an update for their devices. It is such a waste of a perfectly good device (and money) to buy a new one.
I understand that is their plan, to get us to buy a new device, but crossbow isn’t THAT compelling.
Anyway, when a final release gets leaked I might think of installing it, there are only some pre-releases atm for my device that I wouldn’t bother with, just a bit too dodgy…
Edited 2007-02-08 08:54
You can’t just “install” a final release. It is not an OS that you can just install. Different models from different manufacturers use different, incompatible BIOSes and boot managers and hardware that drivers don’t always exist in the default OS.
As long as there is not a leaked version of the OS for *your* model, you can’t just install it.
The phone market is not the same as in the PCs. Phone manufacturers don’t even try to be compatible BIOS/hardware-wise with their competitors, and that’s why you need special builds for these models. This is not MS’ fault, it’s just how that market is.
Eventually, MS might decide to offer guidelines and hardware specifications so all PPC phones are fully compatible in the low-level code with each other, but honestly, I don’t expect this to happen, because CARRIERS don’t want this to happen. If every Joe User upgrades his phone and loses the branding and the specially-optimized/modified OS, this can only mean support headaches to the carrier, and trust me, they will fight really hard so you, the user, will never get generic OS upgrades.
Seeing as you mentioned HTC’s more open upgrade policy, i wonder if they’d release one for my 8500 or startrek or whatever it’s called in the US.
The look and feel is certainly fresher but i doubt it’ll add much value overall … superficially that is. Might be more stable/faster, etc.
As for push technology, orange has been offering imode with imail in belgium since (i think) 2002-2003, it’s been push from the start. Granted, the phones run a custom firmware.
– Kevin
I’m not a moron, I realise the limitations of windows mobile and the hardware it runs on.
I am 99% sure someone will release windows mobile 6 for the HTC hermes (my base device). There are pre-releases floating around but It’s dodgy enough flashing with an unofficial release let alone an unofficial pre-release.
Sweet…I can now watch my porn on my handheld with VoIP.
Why couldn’t they have used that graphic theme on Windows Vista? Windows Mobile 6 looks great, and since it’s for PDA’s, I would assume that it doesn’t require 2 GB of RAM and a dual-core processor just to launch the start menu.
Vista doesn’t require that either.
As a longtime S60 user, this could be another nail in Nokia/S60’s coffin.
When I look at “What’s new” with the new version of WM and see they’ve improved things like the email client and the web browser, it makes sense. These are areas that have needed improvement.
When I look at S60FP2 (which was just announced a few days ago), I see nothing like that. S60 still plods along with the same messaging client that was clunky and outdated 3 years ago… let alone today. Nokia gave the platform a great desktop browser.. and forgot the target platform was a mobile phone.
WM2003 sucked. WM2005 sucked less. WM2006 may be the edition where they get it right. It really makes me sad, in a way, because S60/Symbian had so much potential, and it’s just been wasted over the years and given the competition a great chance to catch up.
Actually, thats up for debate. A lot of WM2005 Axim users downgraded to WM2003 because the suckiness you mentioned ran in the opposite direction.
I’ve always said this about Microsoft. They don’t actually win, they just bide their time until the competition shoots itself in the foot.
Actually, it’s more like this:
1. Adopt you as their standard [Embrace]
2. Tweak your standard [Extend]
3. Mark your foot as deprecated [Extinguish]
well, if you look at the 2002 vs 2003, vs 2003SE vs the WM5 versions I still can conclude that MS so far hasn’t got it right at all.
Why would WM6 be any better? I never have seen such a bugridden phone as a Windows based one.
I now have my phone almost one year and next one won’t be a ‘smart’ one.
As a longtime S60 user, this could be another nail in Nokia/S60’s coffin.
Microsoft and other companies would love to be in that coffin.
What weak areas besides outdated default email client (which has nothing to do with OS quality itself, but a selection of bundled software) you see in S60? I think S60 evolve at a much faster rate than WM, it’s has far more licensees, so I fail to see why you are under impression it’s failing, when actually it wins.
Luckily for Microsoft, the S60 team at Nokia has a AK-47 pointed at their foot…
I am the owner of a Dell Axim x51v, probably the last ‘true’ PDA as I would expect anything newer will have a phone in it. Anyways, I can tell you as an OS, WM 2005 is a really bad one. Based on WM2005, I don’t expect WN 2007 to be better.
Here is just a sample of problems:
1) The Axim is really slow powering up, but it has a 628 Mhz ARM processor! How slow you say? Well, if I want to add a contact, between pressing the power button and being able to enter something often exceeds 15 seconds.
2) Bad battery life, about 3 hours of video or 3 days of light use.
3) The OS is really bad at basic things, most annoying is that when you close a program it is not really closed. This means you often have to check what is still running and kill it manually (Start, Settings, System, Memory, Running Programs, zzzzzz)
You would expect many OS related stuff to be standard but it isn’t, you have to buy it, like a decent Task manager, a decent Network explorer for wifi, a decent browser.
4) The good thing about WM is that it has multitasking, but the problem is that there is not really a common area on the screen that indicates status of programs in a consistent manner, and most apps have different interfaces even for standard stuff (Save, Edit, etc)
All in all, WM has to go much further to make it a good OS.
Related rant: It’s such a pity that Palm never came up with something decent. I think it would be possible to extend the Palm interface to multitasking using some tab based interface with a common area to manipulate the tabs. I wish they would settle on either Kobalt or Linux type OS and bought Styletap for compatibility with old apps.
Wondercool,
It’s slow because Microsoft decided to store important information (contacts, calendar, etc.) on the FLASH, not in the memory. This comes handy when you are losing battery power, and you don’t want to lose all your stuff, but the downside is that it’s a bit slower. I have O2 XDA EXEC (HTC Universal), but running on the USA T-Mobile, syncing to the work Outlook server, and I have about 400 contacts, and it’s a bit slow, but bearable. Not sure for 4000-5000 contacts….
This is the thread explaining why Microsoft decided to do so:
http://blogs.msdn.com/windowsmobile/archive/2005/07/14/438991.aspx
my HTC universal does not suck
1-in around less than 1 second and it is pxa270 520 MHZ.
2-around 5 hours of video.
3-that is a problem for geek people like you and me so we can install free light task manager like vbar. for regular user if the system need more ram it will kill some of the background tasks.
4-it will show last launched app in the start menu.
and in personal perspective. i do not prefer palm devices in general becuse it look outdated.
but it suck in 2 things for me you did not mention it can not sync with my ubuntu
and i really hate the idea of having to go to the top of the screen every time i need to do any thing related to multitasking.
Strange, I’ve tried to increase the score of three comments, but all happened to be Eugenia’s.
“Sorry, to prevent abuse, you cannot vote on administrator comments.”
It’s probably not a coincidence, but it’s nice nevertheless.
Edited 2007-02-08 20:51
Good points indeed, malkia and frozen5555 but don’t you still think they stripped Windows (2000 and XP) to make it easier to port programs but thought about the interface later?
Arguably the most important GUI widget of Windows is the taskbar. They just left that out of WM, but the rest still feels very ‘Windowy’. I still think the interface is a mix of (bad) ideas and there is no consistency.
Palm looks dated now I fully agree, but what I loved most was the ‘never save’ interface, a program just came back instantaneous. I don’t think this is possible any more with MP3 players and wifi etc. But, just imagine a central place (taskbar!) where you can manage your programs, and a major upgrade to Palm OS (using either linux or v6 palmos or beos tech) to bring it into the 21st century with old Palm support by the use of an emulator (Styletap + palm v3 technology?), while keeping long battery life (I think a week should still be possible). At least the palm interface was consistent and snappy.
All of these PDAs, which are based on MS OSs are not practical or reliable; and it would become unforgivable if you add a phone function to such an unreliable device; I had a lot of these gadgets and my brother have one from HP with a phone. And I become sad when I see him curse on it to allow him to answer the phone and it does not respond because the RAM is exceeded and even the applications he believe he closed are really not close so no freeing of memory happened; he used to reset his device every now and then to ensure sane functionality!
I tried to installed MS streets and trips for a region I live in and to install another mapping software Xmap from DeLorme and both of them are not reliable too because of the huge wait time it took the CPU to calculate the search results or to draw a route; and last but not least comes the most confusing and amature GUI that will end make you a fighter to use it.
I advice all who wants to really enjoy a PDA with a phone to wait tell Apple iphone becomes available as it is the only really well cooked device that you can depend on (forget about its internet capablity because its a joke too).
did’nt some company from northern california already announce windows mobile 6 like last month? or was it windows mobile 8… err.. 10?
at any rate…. i am sure the redmond cats are sweating!
Edited 2007-02-09 16:48