22 replies to this topic

[PaulOBrien]

We all knew it would happen, but now it's official... Microsoft is set to merge Smartphone and Pocket PC in the next major release of Windows Mobile, creating a single Windows Mobile operating system for all types of devices.

Development of the new operating system, codenamed 'Photon', is now underway... but what would you like to see from a unified operating system? How do you think such a move will affect the platform, userbase etc.?

We want to hear your thoughts!



P

[Pondrew]

I suppose I should be pleased at this and as you say it HAS been a long time coming. Strange thing though is having used Smartphone 2002 on to Windows Mobile for Smartphone 2003 & 2003SE before moving to WM2003SE for Pocket PC I've realised that each platform has it's own strengths and weaknesses. I'm just a little concerned that merging the two could lose some of those individual strengths.

Is the result of this going to be an operating system that is in effect a compromise? I would ask how succesful our members think Microsoft will be in keeping the best features and losing the weaknesses of each platform.

[w411y]

Moving from a smartphone to a PPC I seem to prefer the PPC format better. Better task management, better MSN, WiFi is great, huuge screen, internet explorer is better. Bluetooth is also better and Word and Excel are nice features.

What I do miss though is being able to get something up quickly by a touch of a soft key and a flick of a joystick. With the PPC however its a matter of whopping out the stylys or using your fingers which usually means you press the wrong button here and there. Another thing I miss is that the Multimedia album used to search in subfiles/subfuldors. I dont believe I have the ability to do this only in the Pictures album. But what if I want to find videos and sound files quicker?

Lets see how well they merge the 2
Does sound promising though.. although waitings always a pain

EDIT: Oh just read there is a significant improvement on battery life. Should be great as WiFi loves to eat my battery!

Edited by w411y, 08 December 2005 - 09:29 PM.

[muff]

great, another rewrite to my engine :roll:

but lets face it, we've known it's been coming at least

the frustration for developers is that there will no doubt be some even funkier screen res and control systems

[Cmcknz77]

Tell you what things are missing, all the things that Nokia phones have been able to do since the 8210 and further back...

Easily save, use and resend phone numbers that have been sent to you as or in a text message, also,
How come I can't send a contact to someone from my PPC or my smartphone as a VCard (or whatever is the industry standard recognised by nearly all the phone manufacturers) via SMS, MMS, Email or Bluetooth (or can I and have I just not figured out how to do it because I'm dumb)?
It's the only issue that I've had ever since moving up to a smartphonne or PPC...  I much prefer the flexibility of my PPC, but it should surely be able to do all the stuff a "regular phone" can do as well as stackloads more...

Or am I getting the wrong idea....

[ix666]

Why seperate handhelds and home computers OS? Merge them all.

I think with the way Longhorn scales to lower and higher power boxes should be extended to handhelds.

One OS for all the devices!

All programs I buy for home would then also work on my handheld.

Thats the real holy grail IMHO.

ix666

Edited by ix666, 09 December 2005 - 04:55 AM.

[Alex (nedge2k)]

One thing and one thing only, if there are still touchscreens....LEFT HANDED SCROLL BARS!!!

[Monolithix]

Photon rocks...

And thats all i can say before i've spoken to Paul and found out what he's been told!

[Disco Stu]

That would be photon, as in torpedo then.... :roll:  

[snoopdaco]

This is a highly requested feature I have seen and requested myself many times to Microsoft, yet Microsoft has never implemented it:

Synchronization with Public Folders in Exchange Server (for calendar & contacts), or at least that option to do so.

For those that use a personal calendar and a public calendar for company purposes and wish to synchronize their public calendar on their mobile device, this is currently not possible with the Windows Mobile 5.0 / ActiveSync 4.0 set.  One has to manually drag and drop items from the public folder to the personal folder and vice versa, which is not the type of synchronization I'm looking for.  It is possible to purchase a very expensive program (which will cost more than your mobile) so that you can synch a public to personal folder, which you can then synch the personal folder to the mobile ... but some of us don't what to
1) pay all that extra cash, and
2) have our public data in with our own personal folders as the "solution"

It is odd that Nokia has already figured this out, and it would be a wise move for Microsoft to do this. It is for this reason alone that I recommend all my clients to purchase Nokia devices.

[Taoski]

I suppose if it means that applications will work (automatically) via the different hardware platforms then great!

Up and downscale the graphics etc... would be amazing!

[TOPGUN1988]

sounds cool!!!
when is this expected? will it be free to download? no huh? is Windows Mobile 2002,2003 software for smartphone going to be supported by this os? Is this operating system going to be available for Motorola MPx200?
Will it affect battery life dramatically on smartphones?
Any previews on this anywhere?    

[martinot]

GREAT!

I have been waiting for this since day one. I really prefer the format and easy/quickly to access interface of SmartPhone, but lack the possibility to edit Office documents and run all the appplications written for Pocket PC.

As a newly started developer for Windows Mobile I also hate the fact I have to install two different SDK for SP and PPC, as well as to build separatly for them.

What I'm a bit worried about is that they perhaps will sabotage the great SP one handed interface in some way and that all phones would need to have a touch screen (hopefully they design Photon so that it can be used with or without a touch screen).

That worry aside, I see only positive things as both an end users (better software selection) and as a potential developer (one OS to support instead of two).

My only question; what took them so long?

Martin

--
http://martin.tornsten.com/

Edited by martinot, 10 December 2005 - 11:10 AM.

[JBW]

When using T9 it would be nice to be able to go and re-edit words.  Its fairly common for me to be typing away and realize I selected the wrong word a sentence or two ago.  It would be nice to not have to delete the whole word and start over.

~JBW

[evanh]

Hmmm ... my version string ....
Mozilla/5.0 (Photon; U; QNX x86pc; rv:1.7.3) Gecko/20040929 Firefox/0.10.1


Cheers,
Evan

[Alex_le_brit]

On e thing that would worry me with this would be all the redundant features that might just sit in the OS if used on a Smartphone. For a start unless the phones had touch screens too, then you'd have all that software just sat there eating up your meomry space, and who knows perhaps even slowing up your processor. Then unless it'll automatically upscale and downscale everything there's going to be all those graphics (I still remember fiding .gifs of a stylus on SMartphone 2002, which were obviously left over from the conversion to Smartphone). How many more of these features would be sat there but not useable.

So yes a commonality would be good, but only if there's no useless junk sat round in the phone doing nothing.

[Mirek2]

I would like it to update some apps (like IE or WMP), be faster, and be safer... Also, it would be nice to see some more disk space, but that doesn't depend on the OS... In other words, it would be nice to see this OS take some advantages from Vista and "Vienna".

[cmcfarling]

WM really needs to do away with NetBIOS networking. The whole Internet & Work settings concept is very confusing. MS needs to completely revamp this architecture and bring it up to Windows 2000 standards (yes,6 year old technology). All OS components need to operate in a NetBIOS-less environment. I'm stunned that this far into this products lifecycle that this hasn't been done yet. DNS/TCPIP is what everyone else in the world uses, including anyone running a Windows based desktop/server environment. The solution to many connectivity issues regarding WM is to setup a WINS server. That's ridiculous.

Get rid of NetBIOS and use strictly TCPIP with DNS for name resolution.

[unisoft]

I would like to see the ICONS SHORTCUT BAR that is visible at top of the today screen on SMARTPHONE ported to PPC version.

Also like the way the SMARTPHONE version stacks up missed calls, SMS COunt etc on Today screen rather than PPC addhoc way of displaying a CALL NOTIFICATION button.

Setting up Internet Connections could be improved - still cumbersome.

Also would like to see the WM5 bug banished with hard coded IP/DNS for Wifi that then affects 3G/GPRS internet with the famous "Locating..." message in Internet Explorer.

Would like to see a MOVE button in Internet Explorer for moving a Favourite to a sub folder. Would also like a tick option to say "Store Cookies, Cache and History on Storage Card".

Would like Ringtones to work from Storage Card in WM5 onwards.

Would like a built in GPRS/3G traffic monitor and monthly minutes counter that can be setup for peak offpeak, no of free minutes number of free texts. (I think this would make Win Mobile HUGELY popular when word gets round as an advantage over competitors)

Media Player to assume interface of an IPod (or Zune or similar !) so that jog wheel could be used by touchscreen and an option on this skin to lock its focus (except phone skin)

WPA2 Support

Ability to turn off recent start menu items and increase fixed start menu by more than 7 items.

Edited by unisoft, 29 September 2006 - 11:18 AM.

[adaptorix]

Have anyone screenshots of new OS?