Windows Phone 7 experience

wait a sec. I read slowly and appreciate the info you're providing, really appreciate it.

It *appears* my choice (well, stumbling on it is more truthful) of a winmo 6.5 phone was far better for my needs than getting another os or waiting for win7. I'm completely at home with 6.5 which, if I get your post, is a computer with an attached phone. I'm not comfortable with nebulous computing and the whole cloud thing is as nebulous to me as it gets. the whole apple thing is too command driven from the central politburo for my liking. scares me actually. as an example, I had all these weird apple format photos with weird extensions that I had no idea how to access.

A long time ago I remember telling a class software would be just another service in the 'near' future and since that didn't happen quickly I forgot about it. It appears it's been sneaking up on me and I hope there isn't a day where I have to go that route instead of maintaining autonomous control. oops. getting rambly and off topic.

I can fly like mad with my stylus input or my real hardware thumboard (my LG has both) but it does bite needing a stylus for input, but I wouldn't trade that for losing local control of my files. here' hoping my LG's last a long time before they die.

I think your preminition was quite right, but as you say it has just taken a little longer for SAS to catch on. Microsoft have held a long-term aim of porting Windows into a SAS system for at least most of the last 10 years.

I've used WinMo and Droid 2.2 and I found their experiences comparable. Droid looks more modern compared to the more dates WinMo interface and its apps seem to have had more thought put into them - one of the problems with stagnating WM anyway.

Hey don't worry wally I'm not done with the thread quite yet. The first two posts were quite long and focused on few aspects (altho very important ones, as PIM is the original PDA "killer app" if you will). So the last post I tried to include a few things more quickly so to not bore everyone I still have marketplace and Zune to talk about, but those will need to wait until I spend more time with them.

As for cloud computing, I think that is inevitable, and I was actually waiting for it to happen. I actually thought that HPC would become very useful because of cloud computing. For example in 2004 I said:

( http://www.hpcfactor.com/forums/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=288 )

Although turns out it didn't happen fast enough. I made that comment exactly 6 years ago, yet I'm still waiting for modern "smartbooks" that can do what I wanted; do "real work" on remote data. Currently Google's Chrome OS seems the next best candidate to run on future devices that could very much be like Handheld PCs.

Anyway, I feel that the cloud infrastructure has matured enough this year, and I no longer need to "bring the kitchen sink", either on my mobile phone or my laptops. I just need to wait for laptops to become "dumb terminals" to the cloud, therefore losing weight and size, and hopefully be returned to the HPC form factor

Edited by takwu 2010-12-22 11:24 AM

posting here becuase it's sort of relates....

I'm using my HTC SNAP ala 510 winmo 61 phone at the moment. I bought this phone on a lark early this summer. I got it cheap on a year plan but funny enough, it's not active yet. It's been used as a gps and media/games player instead. my ancient 6130 nokia is still active. but I digress.

In the last hour I've been sitting in my duaghters room watching her play while I play. I'm listening to music over my $3 bluetooth stereo headset (awesome one off deal!) while typing this on Opera Mini (both operas are AMAZING, fast/stable/featured) and making some calls using skype. (really regret ignoring it for so long) and lastly taking vids and pics of my girl when she does something cute. Oh, and I played a few games...
IMO this phone (and my LG IQ) hit amazing sweet spots for useability and performance. To think I replaced a gps (garmin venture cx, sweet unit), a camera, fuji 2mp (throwaway if it got wet etc), a hpc (generally a 720 or in later days my ipod touch), a cellphone (LG285 until I smashed it hence using the nokia clunk ) with a single 120 gram 528mhz $80 device.....well

It completely blows me away.

As I see things it only took 2? years for the convergence to materialize. Let me explain that. As I recall in 2005 ppcs peaked, great cameras, 3-5mp and gps both for <$200) surfaced, flash was cheap and growing and lots of phones were awesome (1.5 gen moto sp, treo 6xx series, hp 69xx) but there wAsn't a single killer incredibly unified device. Until the first Iphone.

Now 3 years later I'm using a year old phone as a total replacement (well, 95% is a realistic number) and for the first time in years I realize I'm actually excited about what's coming down the pipe.

Enough nonsense from me for now

In my opinion, Windows Phone is more like a last ditch effort to make Windows CE viable to the consumer, and it shows after travelling up and down our M6 motorway, they are willing to put a lot of marketing effort into it (marketing to such levels that Neither Handheld, Palm-sized, Pocket PC's or Windows Mobile devices have ever seen. In the last 5 years Microsoft has ever so slowly been losing marketshare in operating systems and web browsers.

As far as I understand, the term "last ditch effort" should be used when something is about to die and there is only enough resources to do one last thing to save it from dying. If this last ditch effort fails, there is simply no resources to do anything else about it.

First, WP7 or MS's mobile OS business is far from dying. Second, Microsoft has resources to do a million different things even if it dies. If Windows Phone 7 fails, MS has plans B, C, D, etc and more than enough power to implement them.

Anyway, Windows CE will remain viable to the consumer even if it doesn't experience a renaissance in the mobile device world. Remember, it's running in lots of places under the surface, from personal navigation devices to medical devices to digital picture frames to set-top boxes to home automation systems . . . the list goes on and on. Even the Sync voice-activated control system in some Ford vehicles here in the US is based on Windows CE.