Posts Tagged ‘windows mobile’

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Finally a Windows Mobile handset I’d actually buy

Thursday, April 2nd, 2009

I popped by the HTC stand yesterday and had a browse around. I’m normally hugely pained by HTC — brilliant devices completely hampered by Windows Mobile. Admittedly v6.1 of the OS is an improvement — but it’s still fundamentally annoying. I can’t stand the screen build-out and the fact that it simply can’t handle doing more than two things at once.

I had a browse about the stand admiring the various Touch devices. Super engineering. I had a play with a few. I dragged my fingers across the interfaces and found them jerky and supremely annoying. If you switch EVERYTHING off on the handset and let the OS catch up, and if you do a proper flick of your finger so that the crippled UI can detect and process it properly, you MIGHT be lucky to get the UI to perform without having to repeat the flicks and without jerky animation. I don’t know why Microsoft can’t make it work as reliably as an iPhone touch screen.

All this thought went out the window when I caught up with the S743. It’s like a proper ‘phone’ with your normal mobile keys at the bottom — but with the now familiar HTC fold-out keyboard.

Have a look:

It’s quite thick:

But that’s because it’s hiding a nicely formed keyboard:

I was very taken with it — a normal handset, not tooooo big, but with a nice chunky decent and usable keyboard.

Using the device, the smaller screen seemed to make it a lot more reliable in terms of use — it’s not a touch screen, so you’re not having to rely on the hugely limited Windows Mobile OS to understand what you want to do.

It’s got some rather nifty features too. 3.2 megapixel camera, WiFi, HSDPA… Finally an HTC Windows Mobile handset I’d take a look at. Shocking.

Original post by Ewan and software by Elliott Back

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Posted in 44526 | Comments

Weird O2 XDA behaviour?

Friday, January 16th, 2009

A Friday puzzler for you… Can any of the big brains that read Mobile Industry Review offer any help to a friend who seeing some weird behavior on his Windows Mobile device?

A whole load of emails just ‘leaked’ from my phone to an SMS recipient,  impossible surely?! They were deleted emails (the full content)…  my deleted emails are set to auto-empty normally. The handset is an O2 XDA Orbit 1.

[For those not familiar with the XDA, it's a re-badged HTC Artemis (HTC P3300) also marketed by T-Mobile as the MDA Compact III.]

Apart from ‘never ever touch Windows Mobile with a barge poll’, can anyone offer any help?  Is this (could it be) a known bug?

I’m going to politely ignore the ‘human error’ option for the moment as this chap knows his tech…

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Posted in Annoying, Ben Smith | Comments

NSA-approved handset runs Windows Mobile

Wednesday, January 14th, 2009

Goodness me.

This is the phone that is apparently approved — or at least possible for — Mr President-Elect Obama to use.

You know how he’s ‘addicted’ to Blackberry?

Well, give him one of these and watch him become immediately un-addicted.

Windows Mobile. Total total unmitigated rubbish when you ACTUALLY want to use a device that can respond swiftly and immediately to your requirements.

Anyone who’s ever done a send/receive with their Windows Mobile device will tell you, it’s 100% rubbish if you do anything else other than wait for it to complete.

You can’t actually USE it. Because the OS is using 100% of resources to connect to your IMAP server and sod about downloading your email.

Add on a few more layers of security and geez, it’ll take years to do anything decent.

Still, the General Dynamics handset Secterea Edge looks pretty nifty.

Instead of $350, they’ve sensibly added a zero.

Well, it’s the Goverment, right?

So one of these babies:

… Will set you back $3,350. And, as ZDnet points out, even the accessories are stupidly expensive. ($100 for a cigarette-lighter charger).

Here’s a quote from the ZDnet piece:

The Sectera runs a mobile version of Microsoft Windows, including versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Windows Media Player. The NSA claims that the installed versions of Internet Explorer, WordPad, and Windows Messenger are good enough for data that’s classified at a level of Secret. Presumably the federal spooks have found a way to protect IE from the numerous security flaws that continue to plague the Internet’s most popular browser.

The NSA declined to comment on Monday.

You bet they are. They’re probably still waiting for the device’s little circle egg-timer thing to stop whirring.

Here’s the full image of the device:

Place your orders for the Sectera at the General Dynamics C4 site.

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Posted in Devices, Feature | Comments

The one good thing with Windows Mobile: ActiveSync

Friday, December 19th, 2008

That’s the one good thing with Windows Mobile.

ActiveSync.

Your contacts sync correctly.

Same with Nokia handsets running Mail For Exchange. It all just works.

Every since I arsed about trying to get Google, Plaxo, Apple Address Book AND Exchange to sync… big screw ups.

BIG BIG screw ups.

iTunes and Google repeatedly sync and create duplicates for some contacts.

A total sodding bind.

So much so that my 2,000 or so contacts are now 10,000… have a look at this:

Joy.

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Posted in Applications | Comments

Palm opens Software Store

Wednesday, December 17th, 2008

Palm has opened a software store with over 5,000 applications (around 1,000 free) these are mixed between PalmOS and Windows Mobile - so beating Microsoft who are planning to open the Skyfront Store in 2009. There are also more applications than in Google’s App store.

Is it too little too late though, Palm has been in decline for a while?

The store can be found here

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Posted in Mobile | Comments

Sony Ericsson announces SDK Beta for Windows Mobile

Friday, October 24th, 2008

It’s no little secret that both the Apple iPhone and Android phones have done exceptionally well in the markets. Their sales figures not only mean good business for their manufacturers, but they’ve been a boon for countless developers out there, whose apps can now reach to even more people through their respective application stores. We’ve already heard about the developer who made $250,000 in just 2 months of releasing his application for the iPhone.

However, if you’re a developer and if neither the iPhone OS nor the Android OS are your grounds, you need not worry. Sony Ericsson might just be the someone you were waiting for. After the much awaited launch of its XPERIA X1 handset, Sony Ericsson has now released a new Windows Mobile SDK version to the public. 

MobileCrunch has a list of the key features of the new SDK:

  • Compatibility with Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 - with predefined templates for greatest ease of use
  • Windows Vista OS support (adding to its support for Windows XP)
  • Built-in true Xperia X1 phone device emulator - allowing developers to run, test and debug panels locally on a desktop without phone hardware
  • Key mapping support in the device emulator
Is Sony Ericsson trying to gather some loyal followers here?

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Posted in Mobile, Mobile Development | Comments

Converting an application from Symbian to Windows Mobile

Tuesday, October 14th, 2008

Daniel caught me the other day. He’s a mobile developer working on some nifty communications services aimed at Ethiopians throughout the world.

He’s got some chaps to create a Symbian S40/S60 version of the service he’s aiming to launch — and is wondering how difficult it will be to convert the application to work on other platforms (e.g. Sony Ericsson).

What’s your view?

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Posted in Applications | Comments

Would you pay $15 for a Windows Mobile license?

Wednesday, October 1st, 2008

I certainly wouldn’t pay for Windows Mobile.

Not in it’s current state.

Microsoft is charging between $8 and $15 per handset for its Windows Mobile license fee.

Obviously there’s speculation — most notably in this piece from CNET — that this is now a rather strange position from Microsoft, given that Google Android is ‘free’.

The history of Windows Mobile, for me, reads like this: Shit, shit, still shit, rubbish, not bad, getting better, improving.

6.1 is a good improvement. Your handsets are far less likely to screw up in the middle of a call. But the OS is still far from what I’d term ‘mission critical’.

You can use your standard Windows Mobile handset in a mission critical manner. Just reboot it first. And be sure to remove every sodding application.

And make sure nobody calls you.

Don’t connect to the internet either. Keep your handset disconnected, so the OS doesn’t get confused when you have to make that important call.

So if I was at a mobile phone store and I’d just bought a handset and was then choosing my desired operating system, there’s no way I’d pay a premium for Windows Mobile.

I have a very particular viewpoint, though.

I have, unfortunately met many people sporting Windows Mobile handsets who love them. They look at me as though I’m some hilarious arse. They don’t care that you can often see the operating system working. You can see it thinking and struggling. That’s normal. And perfectly fine, as far as they’re concerned.

Hugely annoying for me.

But who am I to argue?

Is there a commercial imperative for Microsoft to offer Windows Mobile for free, now that Google’s Android is freely available?

No. Not today. Not yet.

Flood the market with 100 different, brilliant Android mobile handsets, all with Exchange support as standard… and that might need to change.

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Posted in Devices | Comments

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