Windows Phone Thoughts - Daily News, Views, Rants and Raves

While I have to stress this is really heresay (a rep's opinion doesn't count as official), this isn't completely unexpected given the relative age of the X1. But then again, it demonstrates that manufacturers aren't terribly keen on supporting their own WM devices for very long, something we've had to live with through the last ten years. Which is a shame, since the X1 isn't that dated, and I suspect the hardware is more than up to the demands of WM6.5.

"In what appears as another nod towards confirming how Windows Mobile 7 will look like when it is released next year, Microsoft has posted the Office Mobile 7 UI concept that we reported on a few weeks back on their main Office website as a screen shot of Office Mobile 2010. The image can be found on this page, although we are unsure how much longer it will be up. Huge tip of the hat to Stephen Chapman who originally reported this on his site, MSFTKitchen.com. This is yet another confirmation that this will indeed be the layout of Windows Mobile 7 when it is released. Only time will tell as we get closer to the scheduled release."

I wondered when we'd see an Office Mobile 7 story surface. I sure wish this was coming out sooner. But you know, if Office Mobile is created robustly, Microsoft could have a productive, professional hit on their hands. With the Sharepoint Workspace, users can feel like they truly have their office with them. I was messing around with the new Office 2010 beta on my desktop and for the most part - I like it. I hope Office Mobile seamlessly blends in well. What do you all think? What does Windows Mobile 7 absolutely have to have to be successful?

"Following the successful technical preview program, today at the Microsoft Professional Developers Conference (PDC) Microsoft is unveiling the public beta of Office 2010, SharePoint Server 2010, Project 2010, Visio 2010, Office Web Apps for businesses and Office Mobile 2010."

Office Mobile 2010 has hit beta and is up for grabs in the Windows Marketplace for Mobile for all Windows Mobile 6.5 phones. The latest version of the suite includes the favourites, Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, as well as OneNote and SharePoint Workspace. If you've tried it out, don't hesitate to drop your thoughts in this thread.

The M20 is a mid-level, half decent handset that really focuses on GPS navigation (as you'd expect). The good news is that like a few recent device releases, the M20 is getting an update to WM6.5. The really bad news is that Garmin-Asus seems to have forgotten two not so insignificant markets - North America and Western Europe - or at least, that's what's implied by the press release. That's just...strange, unless we're really talking about carrier-imposed delays again.

"The Opera Mobile 10 beta for Windows Mobile looks and feels similar to the Opera 10 desktop browser and Opera Mini 5 beta. Opera is creating more cohesion between its products by introducing a unified look across many of its platforms. Opera maintains its powerful arsenal of features in this beta, including Speed Dial, tabbed browsing, a password manager and its super, server-side compressor, Opera Turbo."

Opera Mobile has for some time now been the best alternative (outside North America at least) to IE Mobile - now they've gone and upped the stakes with Mobile 10 beta. Just about any feature you're used to on Opera's desktop browser has been translated for the small screen, including tabbed browsing and Opera turbo (server side compression). Best of all is the price tag - free during the "beta" period. I can't find any info on feature or date limitations, or how long "beta" testing will last, but this one's getting loaded on my phone in a hurry. Click the link to check out the full press release.

Once again, it's Mobius time! Mobius is an invite-only event, hosted by Microsoft, where the invited guests are shown what Microsoft is doing in the mobile space. Full disclosure: Microsoft generously covers our flight and hotel expenses, and keeps us well fed during the event - though there are some attendees that pay their own way to get here, and pay for their own hotel. I'm not one of those people - if a company is willing to pay for me to fly out to see what they're up to, I'll take them up on the offer. It won't change my opinion about what they're showing me.

At every Mobius event I've been to in the past, the content has been a mix of presentations that we can talk about, and some that we can't. This event so far has been radically different - the entire day was made up of presentations that we've agreed not to talk about. There was some truly eye-opening stuff; stuff that reminds me again that so many of the rumours we read about online are utterly and completely false. I think if every blog or news site went back correct the rumours they've been wrong about, they'd be too embarrassed to publish rumours...for at least a day or two. I lump myself in this group as well; hot and highly-speculative rumours are always fun to ponder, but they often bear little resemblance to reality.

Here's a list of who's in attendance, and the sites they are representing: Read more...

With apologies to the Great Bard, a site by any other name still smells as sweet, does it not? Welcome to Windows Phone Thoughts, the site with a new name, new logo, but all the same great content from Pocket PC Thoughts and Smartphone Thoughts!

Over the years as the Windows Mobile Professional and Windows Mobile Standard platforms have gotten closer and closer together, I've looked forward to merging Pocket PC Thoughts and Smartphone Thoughts into a single site. Many of you have no doubt noticed over the past year especially that the content on Smartphone Thoughts has been largely mirrored from Pocket PC Thoughts. So much of the news about the platform is the same, only the application development for each platform - and the hardware differences - kept them apart. I've wanted to merge these two sites together under a single site name - a site name that reflects the current Microsoft branding - for quite some time, and it's been painful to have my flagship site bear the name of a brand (Pocket PC) no longer in use...yet I held off merging the sites, waiting for the day when Microsoft finally had only one mobile brand. Well, the Windows Phone brand is about as close to that as I can get today, so I'm taking this opportunity.

I'm also going to commit to re-energizing my efforts in the Windows Phone realm - we're going to staff up here at the site (stay tuned for the public call for volunteers), focus on expanding our review team to review more phones, software, and accessories, and strive to be even better at publishing the latest Windows Phone-related news and commentary. I want Windows Phone Thoughts to be the first place that you'll come to for the latest and greatest news and views about Windows Phones and the Windows Mobile platform. Let's be honest - right now it's hard to be a Windows Mobile enthusiast, but I believe that the best is yet to come from Microsoft in this space and I want to continue to support their efforts here - and, of course, speak openly when I think they're screwing up.

It will be hard retiring the name Pocket PC Thoughts - a site that has existed for longer than any other online property I've ever created - but all the great content, and you, the great community behind it, will live on under a new name. The same goes for Smartphone Thoughts - I'll miss that eye-catching orange design, but that core of what made that site great was the community and the fantastic volunteer Contributing Editors that have poured their efforts into it over the years. All that will continue to exist as I move the content from the old forum locations into the new forums. I should also add that more than a few things will be a bit...broken over the next few days as we fix glitches here and there - some things can't be fully completed until after everything goes live.

I welcome you to Windows Phone Thoughts!

"After last week's news, I'm pleased to tell you that Windows Marketplace for Mobile has today reached another major milestone by adding support for Windows Mobile 6 and 6.1 devices. This is an especially proud day for Microsoft because it marks our fulfillment of the Marketplace vision that we put forth only 9 months ago at Mobile World Congress. Last week we expanded the Marketplace experience to the PC and updated the developer portal to include stronger anti-piracy protection features for developers. Today, Marketplace is delivering some great free new features that enhance and expand the Marketplace experience to even more Windows Mobile customers."

Windows Mobile Marketplace is now available for pre-6.5 phones as a download. While I suppose you could have gotten it on your phone prior to now... the release today is suited for older phones and official!

"Konami has recently announced its 6 applications for Windows Mobile: Dance Dance Revolution S, Mobile Pawafuru Proyakyu (baseball game), Konami Sudoku, Konami Solitaire as well as the shooting games Gradius II and TwinBee. Except for the Mobile Pawafuru Proyakyu (available only in Japan) , all of them will be able to be downloaded not only in Japan but also in the US and Canada."

Konami, known for games the world over (and for codes that bear their name), is set to release 6 games for Windows Mobile in the upcoming months. And to think, their are people who think Windows Mobile isn't a fun platform!

A couple of things jumped out at me as I watched this video: first, that the Snapdragon processor/chipset of the HD2 allows Windows Mobile to finally be as responsive as the iPhone - and in fact, I'd argue it's even more responsive. HTC has continued to evolve TouchFlo 3D - seeminly now officially re-named to HTC Sense - and with this new release they've gone deeper into the guts of Windows Mobile and replaced even more than previous devices. You can finally create new calendar appointments in a finger-friendly way, and HTC Sense has been expanded in terms of built-in functionality; there's now a Twitter client, and the photo viewing software taps directly into Facebook photo albums and allows you to browse them as if they were local to your device. The rich, deep functionality of HTC Sense and the associated apps that HTC has created is truly impressive.

The question is, will HTC release this new version of HTC Sense for the Diamond2 and Touch Pro2 via a future ROM update? Or will they continue to use HTC Sense as a "buy a new device to get the new software" ploy that alienates HTC customers? Only time will tell...