In my N800 post earlier, I said this about Windows Mobile:

WinMo is an OS that has yet to acknowledge that most smart phones are now touch screen devices. That’s why every manufacturer of WinMo phones has their own interface, like HTC’s TouchFlo 3d–there are also third party UIs like SPB Mobile Shell (which I use).

I said this in comparison to Maemo OS 2007, which came out, well, in 2007, 2 years and 9 months ago. I still prefer that interface to any other today. It’s built around browsing and multi-tasking, and you could easily do nearly anything in that OS with a stylus or a finger.

John Herrman at Gizmodo has put up a review of Windows Mobile 6.5, which says the same thing about Windows Mobile, but more intelligently. After talking about HTC’s superior TouchFlo interface, he says:

Handset manufacturers have done more in the last two years to improve Windows Mobile than Microsoft has, which borders on pathetic. In the time since Windows Mobile 6.0 came out in February of 2007, Apple has released the iPhone—three times. Palm has created the Pre, with its totally new webOS. Android has come into being, and grown into something wonderful. RIM has created a touch phone and a revamped BlackBerry OS.

I just wanted to link to that review. I’ve been trying developer builds of WinMo 6.5 for a while now, and it’s surprising how little’s changed. How can the same company that’s working on the potentially revolutionary Courier ‘booklet’ be the same company that just crapped out WinMo 6.5? How many Vistas do customers have to suffer through before we finally get a 7?

Microsoft has the benefit of producing the most popular OS. When Windows Vista came out, how many people considered moving to Mac? A few, but I’d bet that most, like me, stayed with XP and waited out something better. Who’d give Windows Mobile a second thought versus the iPhone? And don’t BS me, I know the iPhone isn’t advertised as a business phone, but it is very business capable. Isn’t Microsoft worried that AT&T will one day lose exclusivity, resulting in the iPhone breaking even more records? Shouldn’t Microsoft be innovating their asses off instead of just putting a bag on the side of WinMo 6.1?

Seriously, what are they thinking?

Lark

This was originally a digression within a really long post about using my N800 as a 64GB mp3 player. That post was long enough so I’ve ripped this bit out and placed it here.

I posted some tweets about this over the past week, but it bears repeating and explaining, so here goes:

I bought my N800 used. The guy who sold it to me wanted the money to buy a then brand-new first generation iPhone. I bought it because I was away from home for work and I had no portable computer. My laptop was on it’s last legs and wouldn’t work outside of it’s dock.

At the time I was crashing with a friend that didn’t have internet, so I needed something small and portable I could take anywhere I could get online. The eeePC 701 was yet to be released for another few months.

For the rest of the day at least. I finally got an invite to Google Voice. I’m waiting for my friend to get off work so I can test some of the features. Most anxious to test the voicemail transcription and SMS sending/receiving. Wonder if there will ever be a Google phone a la Skype phones, where you have a dedicated mobile just for your Google number.

First impressions–it’s cool. I signed up for an invite, then wondered if I’d ever use it. looking at all the features though, this service is worth the trouble for the collation of all your phone data on your pc.

However, I can only access Google Voice’s mobile site, unlike Google Search it won’t let me choose or go back to classic. I have a smart phone, I can use Google Email on my phone, the non mobile version (I just confirmed). Oh, never mind, looks like I can only choose from the basic html version or the mobile version, not the “full version.” Hopefully there will be a Voice app for WinMo in the near future.

Will get back when I’ve tested it more,

Lark