Monday, December 10, 2007
What Is Wrong With Windows Mobile Converged Devices
Posted by Ed Hansberry in "THOUGHT" @ 08:00 AM
Don't get me wrong. I love my HTC Wizard, though it is getting a bit old and there are some really nice looking devices out there now. I love the ability to have email pushed to me via Exchange. I love to watch movies and TV shows on my device when traveling. I also enjoy reading on the device.
What I don't enjoy is that all of these features don't really play that well with each other. One of my daily rituals is to wake up before everyone else, grab a cup of coffee and read my bible for a while. About three years ago, I stopped doing that with my Pocket PC. To be sure, I still use Laridian PocketBible quite a bit, mostly for research and when traveling, but in the mornings, I can't concentrate for all of the popup toast telling me I have another new message. Many of my co-workers are in time zones that make emails from 4-7am pretty common. I don't want to turn my phone off, I want those emails coming in, and I just don't want to be notified of every one of them at that time of the morning. So I actually went out and purchased a paper bible to match a translation I have been using on my Pocket Bible for several years. I got another one for Christmas this year, and right now, I have to admit that paper feel has something about it lacking in the digital version.
I like listening to Audible and music in the car through a cassette adapter, but I don't use my Pocket PC for that anymore. Again, three years ago I got a converged device, loaded up Audible and away I went, just as I have been doing since 1998 with one device or another. About a week into that, I got a phone call while driving. I just about had a heart attack, soiled my pants and had a wreck when it rang through the car speakers at the phone ringer level. I don't do that anymore. I purchased an MP3 player for my in car listening pleasure.
I have largely moved away from ebooks too. eReader Pro is better than ever, as well as free, and I still use it for some light reading, but again, I got sick of popup toast on various emails coming in, both on personal and business accounts during the weekend or during lunch hour when I like to take a few minutes out and read.
And forget about watching a movie or TV show unless you are on a plane and the cell radio is turned off. The popup toast totally disrupts the movie playback. I resurrected my old HTC Universal, sans SIM card, for my TV viewing pleasure.
I can't use my phone for an alarm clock either. It will ding all night as various emails trickle in from around the world or from automated reports shot out at 2am. I could turn the radio off, but one of the things I do when I get up is do a quick scan of my emails while the coffee is brewing. The radio would take a while to come on and then four email accounts would need to be sync'd, three of them manually as they could take an hour to do it themselves. By the time it was all downloaded, the coffee would be done and my morning ritual would be disturbed.
While I won't explicitly say this is a Microsoft design flaw, they are complicit in my frustrations. First of all, the Pocket PC, otherwise known as Windows Mobile Professional (the one with the phone and touch screen), doesn't even have profiles. There is no meeting mode, no outdoor mode, no "leave me alone mode." At a bare minimum, WinMoPro should have 6-7 profiles, something Windows Mobile Standard, or the SmartPhone, has had since inception. And for the love of all things digital there should be an "Alarm Clock" profile that silences everything but the alarm itself. But it should go further. Much further.
There should be an API that other apps could tap into to turn off email notifications, or at least the popup toast. I have no problem with the ding, or the little envelope in the title bar, but I don't need to be told six times in half an hour I have 19 unread emails, oh wait, 20, no, 21 unread emails in my Outlook inbox. Applications like eReader, PocketBible and other reading applications should have a setting to stifle the popup toast.
Applications like Windows Media Player and Audible should be able to tap into an API that temporarily mutes or significantly reduces the volume of any and all reminders, phone calls and notifications - again, user configurable with simple checkboxes in those apps.
Some of these APIs may exist, others may not. I have no clue. I am not a developer, but I know none of the apps I have ever used make use of any feature like this. Microsoft should expose these APIs then make it part of the logo process. You have reading applications - you should allow the user to stop the toast. You have a media application? Audio apps should suppress the noises and video apps should also suppress the toast.
Perhaps someone else out there has a converged device that does all of this. I don't know, and honestly don't care. I don't use Windows Mobile because I like the OS. I like it because it is insanely versatile and runs some applications I literally have been using a decade now. But with that versatility comes a responsibility on the platform designer to look at all of these functions and make them play nice with each other. It wasn't a problem 7 years ago as few people had a converged Windows Mobile device, but today it is as almost anyone buying a WM device has a phone built in, with the exception of the few Windows Mobile Classic devices.
I used to be a two device guy. I had a Pocket PC and a phone. Now I have a converged device, and I am a four device guy. My MP3 player handles Audible and music, my Universal handles video, and my trusty old iPAQ 2215 is my alarm clock. I am sure some consolidation could be done. I need to look into a media device that will do movies and music that I like, and it won't begin with an "A" and end with an "pple" either. I could use my Universal as an alarm clock I guess, but it is a bit big for that and difficult to hit that soft button when it goes off.
At best, I see myself going down to two devices assuming new media players can be alarm clocks, but all that said, I still will have my paper books and bible. If the platform took care of much of what I taked about above, then I could become a one device guy. How about you? I suspect 90% of you are on a converged device, and I'd bet you have the same issues or similar issues where the promise of convergence hasn't lived up to your expectations.
Ed Hansberry is a long-time Windows Mobile enthusiast and Microsoft MVP.
What I don't enjoy is that all of these features don't really play that well with each other. One of my daily rituals is to wake up before everyone else, grab a cup of coffee and read my bible for a while. About three years ago, I stopped doing that with my Pocket PC. To be sure, I still use Laridian PocketBible quite a bit, mostly for research and when traveling, but in the mornings, I can't concentrate for all of the popup toast telling me I have another new message. Many of my co-workers are in time zones that make emails from 4-7am pretty common. I don't want to turn my phone off, I want those emails coming in, and I just don't want to be notified of every one of them at that time of the morning. So I actually went out and purchased a paper bible to match a translation I have been using on my Pocket Bible for several years. I got another one for Christmas this year, and right now, I have to admit that paper feel has something about it lacking in the digital version.I like listening to Audible and music in the car through a cassette adapter, but I don't use my Pocket PC for that anymore. Again, three years ago I got a converged device, loaded up Audible and away I went, just as I have been doing since 1998 with one device or another. About a week into that, I got a phone call while driving. I just about had a heart attack, soiled my pants and had a wreck when it rang through the car speakers at the phone ringer level. I don't do that anymore. I purchased an MP3 player for my in car listening pleasure.
I have largely moved away from ebooks too. eReader Pro is better than ever, as well as free, and I still use it for some light reading, but again, I got sick of popup toast on various emails coming in, both on personal and business accounts during the weekend or during lunch hour when I like to take a few minutes out and read.
And forget about watching a movie or TV show unless you are on a plane and the cell radio is turned off. The popup toast totally disrupts the movie playback. I resurrected my old HTC Universal, sans SIM card, for my TV viewing pleasure.
I can't use my phone for an alarm clock either. It will ding all night as various emails trickle in from around the world or from automated reports shot out at 2am. I could turn the radio off, but one of the things I do when I get up is do a quick scan of my emails while the coffee is brewing. The radio would take a while to come on and then four email accounts would need to be sync'd, three of them manually as they could take an hour to do it themselves. By the time it was all downloaded, the coffee would be done and my morning ritual would be disturbed.
While I won't explicitly say this is a Microsoft design flaw, they are complicit in my frustrations. First of all, the Pocket PC, otherwise known as Windows Mobile Professional (the one with the phone and touch screen), doesn't even have profiles. There is no meeting mode, no outdoor mode, no "leave me alone mode." At a bare minimum, WinMoPro should have 6-7 profiles, something Windows Mobile Standard, or the SmartPhone, has had since inception. And for the love of all things digital there should be an "Alarm Clock" profile that silences everything but the alarm itself. But it should go further. Much further.
There should be an API that other apps could tap into to turn off email notifications, or at least the popup toast. I have no problem with the ding, or the little envelope in the title bar, but I don't need to be told six times in half an hour I have 19 unread emails, oh wait, 20, no, 21 unread emails in my Outlook inbox. Applications like eReader, PocketBible and other reading applications should have a setting to stifle the popup toast.
Applications like Windows Media Player and Audible should be able to tap into an API that temporarily mutes or significantly reduces the volume of any and all reminders, phone calls and notifications - again, user configurable with simple checkboxes in those apps.
Some of these APIs may exist, others may not. I have no clue. I am not a developer, but I know none of the apps I have ever used make use of any feature like this. Microsoft should expose these APIs then make it part of the logo process. You have reading applications - you should allow the user to stop the toast. You have a media application? Audio apps should suppress the noises and video apps should also suppress the toast.
Perhaps someone else out there has a converged device that does all of this. I don't know, and honestly don't care. I don't use Windows Mobile because I like the OS. I like it because it is insanely versatile and runs some applications I literally have been using a decade now. But with that versatility comes a responsibility on the platform designer to look at all of these functions and make them play nice with each other. It wasn't a problem 7 years ago as few people had a converged Windows Mobile device, but today it is as almost anyone buying a WM device has a phone built in, with the exception of the few Windows Mobile Classic devices.
I used to be a two device guy. I had a Pocket PC and a phone. Now I have a converged device, and I am a four device guy. My MP3 player handles Audible and music, my Universal handles video, and my trusty old iPAQ 2215 is my alarm clock. I am sure some consolidation could be done. I need to look into a media device that will do movies and music that I like, and it won't begin with an "A" and end with an "pple" either. I could use my Universal as an alarm clock I guess, but it is a bit big for that and difficult to hit that soft button when it goes off.
At best, I see myself going down to two devices assuming new media players can be alarm clocks, but all that said, I still will have my paper books and bible. If the platform took care of much of what I taked about above, then I could become a one device guy. How about you? I suspect 90% of you are on a converged device, and I'd bet you have the same issues or similar issues where the promise of convergence hasn't lived up to your expectations.
Ed Hansberry is a long-time Windows Mobile enthusiast and Microsoft MVP.
