Gizmodo
You may not remember this because the news came out during CES, but back in January there was a gigantic leak of Windows Mobile 7 details, including an Alaskan Senator's dump truck full of images. Brandon from Pocket Now recently got to SEE Windows Mobile 7 at a Microsoft MVP event, and while he thinks it's a fantastic OS, he's got a huge problem with the release date.
Based on what he heard at Microsoft, the target release date seems to be mid to late 2009. He's got no problem with the technology in WM7—he says it basically addresses everything wrong with WM6 today—but the fact that it's not going to be released until a year and a half from now is troublesome. How can Microsoft compete when the iPhone will already been out for two and a half years, and iPhone clones have been out for more than one? It's tough.
And it's not like Microsoft can do anything about it. After they finish the OS, they have to send it out to OEMs and carriers and third-party companies in order to test and embed and develop on it. That's the problem with creating only an OS, instead of making an all-in-one OS and hardware product. But that's where Brandon thinks Microsoft has bomb to drop.
There's a possibility that Microsoft will take the recently acquired Danger (the makers of the T-Mobile Sidekick) and put them to work on hardware made expressly for Windows Mobile 7. Just think about how well Apple's done by integrating software onto hardware they built themselves. The same could be true with Microsoft. [PocketNow - Image Credit]
Comments
Hand me a cigarette, because I just came.
@Bowler Hat: You came a little early.
@Bowler Hat: lol... just had the "ectoplasm" scene from the new south park episode
@itchytooth: Story of his life...
Couldn't MS make Danger an OEM for the general hardware/software platform and then just sell the kit to other companies that could add whatever else they needed?
OR They COULD just sell Windows Mobile 7 ALONE and figure a way to boot it to the iPhone, and convert all the fanboys using their own hardware!!
Nah.....But it would be tight to have it loadable onto any old device
thats always the problem with these techie types
the problem is its based on ce, they have to develop everything twice
Jesus Christ, when will they learn to do typography properly?
If this isn't a complete rewrite of their mobile platform, it's not worth your time.
Seriously, EVERYTHING in winmo 6 is broken or assbackwards in some way. No amount of fixes will ever get that POS into something workable.
I think WM6.1 is pretty good.
Things that could be improved - -
1 Better Bluetooth - just about all WM phones have pretty crappy BT compared to free cell phones - range, static, garbled - while they do work, just not as well free phones -discussed in many forums including MS's.
2. Better web browsing. The iphone is really great for web browsing although it needs flash.
3. Better battery life- part of the battery life issue is WM - I'm not saying this is all MS's fault but I think the OS could be tweaked to improve it.
On the hardware side I've gotten to use phones from other countries once in a while but I mostly have used HTC phones -
1. VGA - better for e-mail, web browsing, excel, pdfs - just better.
2. Include a flashlight - there are plenty of WM flashlight apps that turn your flash for your camera into a flashlight - very handy to have a flashlight with you at all times - far more so than having a crappy camera with me at all times.
3. Better battery life - ever wonder why iPhones have much better battery life even though they have a much higher res screen?
4. Better bluetooth - might be partially the OS - the widcomm stack sounds better than the MS stack but it also might be partially the hardware at fault.
5. BT 2.1 - better for battery life.
None of the issues I listed are so major that I will necessarily trade my HTC touch for an iPhone but I have to say WM is going to be playing catch up in a lot of ways when the iPhone supports exchange sync (of course the iPhone doesn't have the app base that WM has yet).
Finally something good from M$ft, cause am still trying to get the freaking song from my head
If Microsoft really wants to get something done and damn-good, they can.
Microsoft: The Freedom to Innovate (TM)
Or follow Apple. Whichever's easier.
Forgot to mention - although it isn't a major deal for me since it eats up my battery I don't use it but WM6 needs a decent audio player.
I can't imagine anyone compared the windows media player on their HTC phone and thought - gee this is nearly as good as the one on the iphone.
@Synthaxx: Yeah, it's a rewrite, based on Win CE 6, not 5.
@Synthaxx: MinMo 7 is a complete rewrite. That's why it's a big deal.
@Synthaxx: I don't think its too bad. At least all the apps I know run just fine (excluding the lack of Flash on IE, but that's a given).
One thing about Microsoft is that their development platform is untouchable. (either that or I'm just really used to Visual Studio; but then again, I really don't like Eclipse...)
Now as for Android, that may be something worth looking into.
Sadly, Microsoft will do just fine with the 2009 release date. Granted, I would already have a 3G iPhone, hopefully, but when that comes out, I may switch back.
its not like the next phone you buy will be your last.
For me, the biggest draw of the iPhone, when 3G comes out, is the larger screen, not all that finger flipping and rotating stuff. The form is right. Big screens is where it is at.
Now if the iPhone had a physical QWERTY, then it would be the ultimate device, but knowing Apple, the QWERTY would be a single button with QWERTY writen on it.
M
Huh, nobody has mentioned their ecosystem yet. I guess it doesn't rock anymore.
Jason, although I like your thinking regarding Danger hardware with WinMo...
... there's a pretty big problem with your logic: Danger is a software company and almost all of their IP is in the phone software and the background servers that deal with the data traffic. All "Danger phone" designs are outsourced, though the early phones had significant design help from Danger.
I personally like WM6, there are some problems with it, as do all OS's have problems, but I like the functionality it has, such as COPY-PASTE, something the "great" iphone still can't even do. I like my qwerty keyboard, 3g, basic functionality like copy-paste and 3rd party apps. Just wait 'till the Sony Xperia X1 comes out, that's going to be an awesome WM phone. I've got a Tilt right now, and I have to say I love it (except for the drivers for the GPU)
Upload a copy of WM7 to xda-developers and they can finish it in no time.
the UI looks pretty damn sweet, kinda wish my itouch looked like that.
The battery and signal meters at the bottom of the screen should double as VU meters for the tunes. :)
the ui looks pretty damn sweet
@BigDaddyM: 3G Iphone...... Someones been drinking to many "Rumor Mill"ers
remember Microsoft is building (or built) the new Zune factory next to the Xbox factory in China. Possibly they'll assemble the new Windows phone there.
Looks great to me, too bad about the wait though.
@BigDaddyM:
Makes me think of what Robert Cringely said: MS has billions of dollars in cash at hand. They can go through very long dry spells.@Heman:
ditto!
The UI looks great, but I'm going to assume that all handset manufacturers will continue to put the bare minimum resources needed to run the OS, making it seem buggy and slow.
Seriously, 90% of the WM phones out there are running on 64mb's of ram, which is just crazy.
@Heman: Totally, I have an HTC Tytn running Black Satin (custom WM 6.0) and it works great! Those XDA guys can do anything...
Please, please, please... As I have stated on another gadget site...
Use the acquisition of Danger to your advantage. Develop your own hardware that is the be all / end all convergence device. Cell phone, mobile media, gaming. You have the software ability between WinMo and Danger's OS. Now just contract with Nvidia to get some of the APX 2500 platforms to build the hardware off of.
I'm a fan of WM but I might have to get the 3G iPhone. It's either that or the Sony Xperia but since I don't text message as much anymore, I don't really need the keyboard.
@Heman: XDA makes Windows Mobile "Supreme" hands down.
*Proud to be a XDA-devs fan*
mid to late 2009 what what?
WM6 is such a steaming pile of crap I couldn't beleive it was even released a year ago or whenever I had my Tytn. Great phone, but the OS was so bad it was impossible to use seriously (and good god do I miss that 3G).
Some snazzy XDA-dev releases was the only thing that kept me from smashing my Tytn into the wall (some fantastic coders on that site - if you have WM6 do yourself a favour and check it out).
Microsoft is embarassing. I have a macbook pro now, and while Leopard has a few bugs and shortcomings, in terms of every day, in your face errors that kick regular users in the nuts, microsoft products have way too many flaws. What's the deal? Where's all that money going that's not going into R&D and coding?
Anyone else notice they spelled Internet Explorer wrong...Exlorer?
Anyone else notice that they spelled Internet Explorer wrong...Exlorer?
and...I suck at not double posting.
MS will just get another beat down by the DOJ if they release an MS phone running WinMobile.
@acaputo311:
That's the new mobile version, or as they're calling it, Internet Exlorer moble.
Yah, they should have bought HTC instead of Dash and again, big issue they are facing is getting stuff to market first with all these smaller companies able to do it quicker its hard for the boheamoth MS to get its act into gear.
So far, the leaked docs from MS say that WinMo7 will do motion-sensing by using a device's camera in a low power mode. This could mean that WinMo7 might come to current devices!
Pointui is proof enough that WinMo devices can have pretty interfaces.
hahaha microsoft is trying to compete by doing exactly what apple already has done. The tables have turned with apple being on top and microsoft scrambling now!
Absolutely beautiful! I really hope it does come.
I think I'll be willing to change my phone for 2009's christmas for this nice interface. I prefer symbian currently but this looks promising.
I am suprised that nobody has mentioned that if Microsoft comes out with their own phone months sooner than their 'partners' it will cause a HUGE problem with those 'partners'.
I don't think MS can have it both ways. They can either create OS and sell to hardware companies or they can sell hardware and software themselves. I guess the last place for their ex-partners to go would be to Android (or roll their own) if MS screws them.
darn - I left the R out of surprised.