Windows Mobile – Broken Beyond Repair

I have been using WM for nearly 2 years now. I started on WM5 and have been using WM6 for over a year now. I have had 2 different devices, both are PDA/Phone combination devices. The first was an HTC Wizard, and the second (and current) is an HTC Hermes.

I have loved these lil phones. They do literally anything and everything. Besides a phone and contact manager, you can surf the web, play games, emulate NES games, keep up to date on Weather, sports scores, RSS feeds, navigate using GPS, calculate anything you can imagine, take notes, photos, Exchange sync email, calendar, surf via Wifi, stream music and tv shows, or watch tv shows saved to your storage card…. etc… any way, you get the point.

These devices can do it all. If you want to do it, chances are some one out there has written a program that will allow you to do it.

But that’s where the glamor ends. Sure it may do all of these things, some of them well, some of them not so well, but it does not do them gracefully, or with ANY amount of style or intuition. The interface is a clunky disaster and navigating option menus and configurations is all but impossible at times.

I keep hearing about the upcoming WM7 and seeing screen shots of it… and everything I’ve seen from it looks like more of the same.

Microsoft needs to listen up and learn from the iPhone. They need to realize that the current state of the Windows Mobile platform is so beyond repair that they need to start from scratch and completely redesign the ENTIRE thing. The WM platform has not had any substantial changes since the Pocket PC 2002 days, which was launched in the Fall of 2001. Yes, that is nearly 7 years ago. A 7 year old OS. While it was amazing for it’s day, it is long past it’s prime. I grit my teeth every time I have to pull out my stylus. This is 2008. Why should I need a stylus to do ANYTHING?! I shouldn’t… there should be zero reason to ever need one. Yet MS is still trying to fix up this old worn, beaten up, clunky OS.

Here is a prime example:

Look at the close button.

Yup… it’s that tiny little X wayyyy up in the corner. Don’t kid your self, there is no way you’re hitting that thing with your finger. Break out the ole stylus and tap that bitch.

MS needs to scrap the entire thing, and in my opinion fire the entire WM team and start from scratch. Seriously… there are bugs in WM6 that existed in 2001. If you don’t believe me then you have never used your device’s built in alarm feature. It simply does NOT work. Either the alarm never sounds, sounds at the wrong time, or sets off multiple alarms at the same exact time. I mean seriously… 7 years and they still can’t even make the alarm system work right? The entire Windows Mobile staff needs to be fired. Microsoft needs to bring in 100% fresh people and 100% fresh ideas, rewrite EVERYTHING and not give a crap about backwards compatibility.

MS has gotten their asses handed to them on a platter by the iPhone’s OS. The thing is beautiful, easy to use, no stylus, and it simply works. I haven’t heard from anyone who has to reset their iPhone once a day because it locks up. Wish I could say the same about Windows Mobile. I know several people who have one and no one’s device works smoothly.

I don’t really know where I am going with this… I just wanted to post some of my thoughts on WM and it’s current state of disrepair.