Revisiting Windows Mobile
Today's column evaluates the latest version of Windows Mobile, the Microsoft operating system for handhelds and smartphones.
I've changed my mind about it over the years: Back when it went by the name of Pocket PC, I pretty much hated it, and my opinion didn't get much more positive in reviews of such subsequent releases as Windows Mobile 2003 or
Windows Mobile 2003 SE. ("SE," short for "Second Edition," used to be Microsoft's far-too-obvious way of identifying a new release as nothing special compared to its predecessor.)
But I was much more positive in this 2005 evaluation of Windows Mobile 5. It helped that the Palm OS grew stale over... you have to give some credit to the company that's putting any effort into software development.
This time around, however, I couldn't find much to be excited about. All the little things that I had thought Microsoft could easily fix remained unfixed--the lack of a memo-pad application on the smartphone edition of Windows Mobile being foremost among them. (The smartphone software, by the way, is now officially called the "Standard Edition"; the Pocket PC Phone Edition is now the "Professional Edition," and the plain old Pocket PC version--written for the handheld organizers that nobody seems to sell anymore--has been renamed the "Classic Edition." Confused yet? I am.)
Here's another example of a missed opportunity in Windows Mobile 6: When you're listening to a song, you can bring up a Properties screen that lists the artist, album, 1-to-5-star rating and so on--but the menu, instead of providing ways to edit any of this info, only includes one command: "Buy CD."
By Rob Pegoraro |
June 7, 2007; 8:49 AM ET
| Category:
Gadgets
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Posted by: Matt | June 7, 2007 11:18 AM
Matt,
First sentence,last paragraph:
"Here's another example of a missed opportunity in Windows Mobile 6..."
Try reading the whole article!
Posted by: jack | June 7, 2007 12:49 PM
"the plain old Pocket PC version--written for the handheld organizers that nobody seems to sell anymore--has been renamed the 'Classic Edition.'"
Huh, never figured HP for a nobody...they're marketing more than a half-dozen different models of PDA with no phone functionality for business and personal use. I like the iPAQ rx5900 Travel Companion myself, wish I had the money to get it to replace my old Dell Axim and GPS setup.
Posted by: 23112 | June 7, 2007 5:15 PM
When I download a song from WalMart to my PC and then download onto my Sumsung i730, I can not hear the song. Apparently, the software DRM thinks my phone is a computer. Oh Well. I had hope I could use the phone as my MP3 player.
Posted by: David | June 7, 2007 11:02 PM
The comments to this entry are closed.
Is there copy-paste yet? I'm running a Motorola Q with MS Windows Mobile 5. This was the most glaring omission from the version I have.
Does the new version have an identifier beyond "this time around" or "the latest version"? Why yes, I see at microsoft.com that it is called Windows Mobile 6. Pegoraro needs to go back to who-what-when-where-why school.