As former Palm users (I had a Treo 600 at the time), we still remember Bill Gates and Ed Colligan taking the stage together at CES 2006 and showing off the first-ever Windows Mobile Treo 700. (Talk about cats and dogs living together!) Picture speed dialing on the today screen was an immediate sign that Palm was working their “secret sauce” (TM, TreoCast) magic to customize WinMo and give Palm users as much Zen as they could. It was equally evident when the razzle dazzle ended that Palm’s own PalmOS was reaching the end of its useful life and with Cobalt vaporizing, Palm needed something to pin their immediate future on.
A couple years and one long walk in the desert (TM, TreoCast) later, and now webOS is a fresh new take on the smartphone space, and Windows Mobile is the OS in danger of being left behind. Add to that Palm’s limited resources, and the focus makes sense. It’s also gutsy, going all-in on webOS, and Palm needs to be gutsy at this point. No better way to make people believe in your future than believing in it yourself.
In the video embedded above, which we’re offering now in tribute, we argued the Palm Treo Pro was neither a Palm, a Treo, nor particularly Pro (it was an HTC running WinMo with a tiny keyboard). Now maybe they’re a Palm with some new Apple blood and still stuck in tiny keyboard land, but give them a year or so of distance and pure webOS differentiation, and we’re excited to see where they go.
We sympathize with Windows Mobile Treo fans, but cheers Palm. Now bring the competition, Apple needs it, and Apple’s customers will benefit from it in the long run.
Check out PreCentral.net and WMExperts.com for ongoing coverage.
Microsoft has officially announced that the next skin point release for their handheld operating system, Windows Mobile 6.5, will launch on Oct. 6 and include App StoreWindows Marketplace for Mobile (catchy!) and MobileMeMyPhone services. WMExperts asks the impertinent question:
Will Windows Mobile 6.5 be available for any phones on that date? Will we see new phones released with WinMo 6.5?
We shrug in sympathy. Typically it takes a while to go from release to manufacturers to release to consumers. What benefits the split platform strategy has in consumer choice, it lacks in speed to consumer market.
When it does arrive, WinMo 6.5 will support both physical and virtual keyboards, no-touch and touch screens (resistive only?!), GPS, accelerometer, high res cameras, and likely spinning, multihued beechball wheels of wait (our Macs sympathize).
That the same company can ship the Zune HD before Windows Mobile 6.5, however, still puzzles us. That they’re arguably shipping both years too late to be competitive… well, that just frustrates us no end.
Throw a couple billion at Windows Mobile 7, would you please, and get her out asap?
According to sibling site WMExperts, Microsoft has released a developers guide for porting iPhone apps to — shock and horror — Windows Mobile.
Can’t blame them, though, 65,000 apps via a unified, on-device store, fart apps and rejected apps aside, is a huge competitive gap to make up, especially when your previous generation was stuck in a Windows 95-style user experience.
Selfishly, we hope the competition helps force out those fart apps and get those rejected apps back into Apple’s iTunes App Store where they belong…
In a write up nonchalantly titled “Lies, damn lies, statistics, and Apple…“, our good friend Phil Nickinson over at sister-site WMExperts rightly points out that Apple gave Windows Mobile a full on shunning during the WWDC 2009 keynote:
Windows Mobile isn’t even mentioned. Sure, Microsoft hasn’t yet launched its dedicated app store, Windows Marketplace for Mobile. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t stores from which to buy apps – ahem, here’s one – and it’s an insult to all of the developers of the20,000 Windows Mobile applications available.
Windows 7 did get a mention (and a ribbing, as usual, from OS X head Bertrand Serlet), but in the smartphone space…?
Nothing.
That might seem callous from Apple’s part — but here’s the worse problem for Microsoft: Windows Mobile was missing from a lot of post-WWDC analyst and media commentary as well.
Apple still owns significant smartphone mind-share and the Palm Pre has captured the attention of the blogsphere and, since RIM is holding fast, that’s coming at the expense of Microsoft (and maybe Android, which was last year’s next big thing).
Realistically, with so many platforms now, when someone writes “Apple iPhone and…” “BlackBerry and…” and now “Palm Pre and…” there’s only room for so many others in the sentence, and those places are becoming increasingly competitive.
With Windows Mobile 7 pushed out until 2010, and 6.5 not in consumer hands yet either, and with iPhone 3G S about to hit, things might not be changing any time soon either…
Welcome to 2009, where Microsoft will — at some point later this year or next — release versions of what Apple released in 2008!
Our frenemies over at WMExperts have the details, and we have the snide remarks:
SkyMarket looks to be the App Store done Microsoft’s way. Does that mean each app will ship in Home Basic, Home Premium, Professional, Really Professional, Ultimate, and 8 more server SKU’s?
SkyBox, which if MobileMe is “Exchange for the rest of us”, makes SkyBox “MobileMe for the same of you?”. We can only guess it’s a repackaging of Hosted Exchange and Live! services, so join in on the Sync Toy/Live Sync/Live Mesh/Azuze MPD-brandfusion. It will, reportedly, run on non-WinMo devices (which is actually a Very Nice Thing).
SkyLine, either a business version of SkyBox(!) or a Mobile clone of iDisk, depending on who’s reading the tea leaves.
Microsoft, like RIM, Google, and Palm have to go in this direction. Apple opened a floodgate with the AppStore, no doubt about it, so while we poke some friendly fun, we also hope this gives Apple more competition, like the new Palm Pre, so that Apple has to up their game and give us iPhone faithful more functionality faster than we might otherwise get.
Anyone racing to pick up an HTC FUZE and try it out?
Join us for the second of two special Smartphone Round Robin Roundtables! This week, Casey, Kevin, Rene, and Dieter discuss the final two devices in our Smartphone Round Robin: the T-Mobile G1 and the the HTC Fuze. Plus, they answer your questions live!
What thinks noted Windows pundit Paul Thurrott, who has made a side career absolutely annihilating Windows Mobile as of late? As much as he loves Vista and Windows 7 and everything else Microsoft (Internet Explorer rightfully excluded), and as much as he bashes and baits all things Apple, iPhone user Thurrott has been saving his most impassioned rants of late for Windows Mobile. The latest?
Yep. [News that Windows Mobile 7 may not hit the market until 2010] is bad. Microsoft is working on a number of things before that major update, Windows Mobile 7. These include a new version of the WM version of IE, called Internet Explorer 6, and a new Windows Mobile platform called Zune Mobile that includes Zune functionality. But it’s not happening quickly enough.
Really? 3+ years after Steve Jobs hit the stage at Macworld 2008 and pulled the original iPhone from his pocket isn’t quickly enough? That’s how long it takes to even begin a response? “Pink” aside, is there no sense of urgency in Redmond? No desire to step up their game in the face of the iPhone walking in, stealing their mind share, and smacking around their market share?
I wanted to at least mention one thing I found vaguely alarming. When asked about the success of the iPhone and how that impacts Windows Mobile, I was told that the iPhone “validated” Microsoft’s approach. That’s some weird combination of revisionism, wishful thinking and, perhaps, delusion.
Another analyst deflating missive from everyone’s favorite mythical Mac pundit, the Macalope. This time, the horny headed one explains why there’s no Flash or Java on the iPhone:
Uh, because they blow?
There’s more to it than that, of course:
And here we have the real issue. Sure, the iPhone could run Flash, but — particularly given the already unoptimized state of Flash on OS X — it would probably have to run some stripped-down, crappier version of Flash.
For the full story behind the various procs and cons, check out the full article, and also take a look at the Macalope’s weekly column for the latest Windows Mobile CES news — which makes TiPb wonder if Ballmer is picking his code names from Lady Marmalade these days…
Join us for the first of two special Smartphone Round Robin Roundtables! This week, Casey, Kevin, Rene, Jennifer, and Dieter all come together to discuss three of the Smartphone Round Robin devices: The iPhone 3G, the Treo Pro, and the BlackBerry Bold!
Last week both CrackBerry.com and WMExperts found themselves on the cusp of major releases — the BlackBerry Storm, BlackBerry Bold on AT&T, the HTC Fuze on AT&T, not to mention a few others on the Windows Mobile side. So while everybody has been anticipating new devices, all of the editors at SPE are anticipating something else that will be starting on November 17th. The hint is right up there in the picture!
Read on for the full skinny on what’s been happening around SPE!
