My new phone

I recently purchased the T-mobile version of the touch pro 2. Right now this is mother of windows mobile phones. Yet that is not saying much right now. Windows mobile is currently the black sheep of the smart phone world. Lance Ulanoff of PC mag declared it the worst os on the market. He based it on a week's use of a Samsung version of the phone. So today I am going to take a long hard look at the world of windows mobile point out its strengths and weaknesses and then look at my phone in particular. Serving up an all you can take buffet of dork today so unbuckle your belt and sit down this is going to be heavy.

The albatross: Microsoft
When I say Microsoft you immediately think of all the different problems you have with your desktop. You also think of the brilliant and effective "I'm a Mac" ad campaign. In other words you think of a lot of baggage. Most of it earned. Blue screens of death, viruses, and an abysmal internet browser all these things are valid complaints about Microsoft. It is rife with curses but ironically most of these problems stem from a platform that is infinitely versatile and adaptable. Microsoft makes it possible to do what ever you can imagine. They carry this philosophy over to there Smartphone platform and because of that things immediately start to get murky. Philosophically Microsoft does not believe in discontinuing support for anything. They want their product to work with anything. It is an interesting perspective. One can try to paint it as altruistic, but all too often it is truly an albatross around the neck of its developers. I recently bought a motherboard and while it doesn't have enough IDE connectors for some of my old hard drives it still inexplicable has a floppy drive slot. I haven't built a machine with a floppy drive in at least 5 years and even then it was only for the odd driver that didn't come on a CD. Windows mobile is plagued with this same mentality. They try to be all things to all people and as a result they create a highly versatile device but some things persist for no good reason.

So I tied an onion to my belt, which was the style at the time.
Windows mobile started out as pocket PC, a pda back in the palm pilot heydays. The preferred input was graffiti an alpha numeric code that took at least a month to become proficient in. You would scribble your notes with a stylus a pen like device that slid into the side of the device.
When I pull out my stylus people look at me like I'm trying to crank up a phonograph. Yes, the stylus is from an era that has passed. The stylus allows for precision. Which allowed windows mobile to be designed around small icons an onscreen keyboard so small that interaction with a thumb was virtually impossible. The problem isn't that the stylus is a dumb way to interact with a phone. The problem was that styluses get lost... A lot. Then you are stuck trying to interact with small icons with your big fingers which doesn't work out to well.

Introducing the Sega genesis, the Sega CD, 32x, and the Saturn...
I watched a brief history of the death of Sega as a console. The problem was a vicious product release schedule that had new hardware released every 2 years. This had several tangible effects. First off consumers didn't know what to buy to get the best gaming environment. Second developers didn't know what to program for. In the windows mobile world a similar problem exists. The phone Lance Ullanoff used was on the Verizon network, a company from what I understand goes out of there way to ruins Smartphones removing features restricting the use of features that do stay. Microsoft treats windows mobile like its desktop operating system and depends on the user to choose the best environment for it. Except the user in this case is not the person using the phone, it's the phone company and often times they have the worst understanding of how the phone should work. Phone companies look at smart phones for revenue generating streams hence so many Verizon smart phones that lack wifi. Microsoft is a software company as a result they write their software in a way to interact with the most hardware possible. This is how windows mobile is available on every type of phone style out there. The problem is this is the exact same thing as Sega releasing 5 different consoles, developers do not know what to write for. The world of the mobile phone is not the same as the world of the PC. This is best illustrated by the resolution conundrum. Currently there are no less then 5 different resolutions for the windows mobile. This means that at the very least in order to make their program work they have to debug it for layout inconsistencies on 5 different screen resolutions. A lot of times though it means re-drawing the user interface for each of the displays, add to that phones without keyboards, without touchscreens, with GPS, with accelerometers, with different processors, with different amounts of ram and what you have is a messy grab bag where developers need to reach in blind and guess what to support.

Location, location, location.
It is one of the principles of commerce if you want to hock your wares your going to need a store in a good location. Windows mobile never gave developers a good location as a result no one ever got rich and famous making a windows mobile app. Mostly apps were developed by people to fill individual needs or certain companies staking a claim into the mobile space. This may change with the release of the market place, if Microsoft gets the kinks out of it, but right now it's still not ready for primetime in my opinion.

The t-mobile touch pro 2
My new phone is great, however it not the greatest phone ever made. After using it for a few months I can now give a truly honest critique of the device. The best place to start is the worst thing about it the price. No discussion of the t-mo tp2 can go on without talking about it. This thing is pricey and there is no way to ignore it. Comparing it to all the top phones in a spec by spec comparison and most would conclude that it is over priced. Yet I don't regret my purchase, I wince at the cost but once you get past that which is not easy you realize you’re in for a quite enjoyable experience.

Touchflo 3D 2
Htc has really worked hard to make what amounts to a massive overhaul of the way you interact with windows mobile. Yes it is an overlay that "hides" windows but that description fails to acknowledge that this is software. It's the equivalent of saying windows sucks because internet explorer sucks. Htc brought the same mentality to there android phones and this isn't considered hiding.

Screens: size does matter
From the moment I picked up this phone I could feel the difference. The screen is much more responsive but the major improvement over my previous phone is that the screen is flush with the surface eliminating the corner dead zones and reducing one of the primary difficulties of the finger operation. The increase in size though makes a tremendous difference in the "feel" of the device everything, yes it has a stylus but it doesn't truly "need" it like my last phone which needed the stylus to really go through menu options and fully operate the device easily.

Keyboard
The keyboard for the tp2 is one of the best. This is a keyboard designed for real typing. This to me was the deal maker. People don't like the bulk of the device that dedicated keyboards adds but for me this is what sells these devices. The on screen keyboards included with the tp2 are excellent but when I want to type more than a URL or a short text message, when I want to describe more than just one minute thought I need a full keyboard. The dedicated keyboard enables real content creation on the device.

Buttons
There is a movement against tactile buttons in consumer electronics. The problem is on screen interaction is not always practical. The touch pro 2 succumbs to this. Htc decided to eschew the directional pad and a number of dedicated buttons available on prior models. The loss of the dpad is unfortunate and makes interacting with a few programs without the keyboard a little cumbersome. The device does come with a zoom touch pad which while occasionally useful I would gladly trade for a directional pad or a track pad sensor.

Programs
Htc and tmobile have loaded the phone with a few programs but many of the decisions leave me scratching my head. While opera mobile is included on the device it is not the default internet browser. And while the device does include an accelerometer it is only active in a few programs and there is no software included to add this feature to other programs. The YouTube app is very usable but not linked in a real way to other internet apps. I'm willing to accept not having video work on my mobile browser if I can click a link that will open a play that will.

Say cheese just don't move
I'm not big on camera's being on my phone, it's nice to have on days when you don't expect to be using your camera and something shows up and you just want to take a picture. For me no phone really does a great job in the camera department when compared to a real camera, I like real lenses and powerful flashes. Given that low bar, I have to be honest and say that the camera software on this phone leaves much to be desired. The pictures it takes actually aren't bad for a 3megapixel camera, the problem is speed, perhaps due to the lack of flash the camera on tp2 takes an inordinate amount of time actually shooting the picture. This makes taking anything remotely close to an action shot almost impossible.

Is it the ICU or the Morgue?
At the end of the day we are left with the question is this the end of windows mobile? Is this the last hurrah or the waking of a sleeping giant? The truth is as always somewhere in between. Windows mobile squander years of development mostly because Microsoft has never been able to market cool. They "focused/languished" in the business phone in a minor tête à tête with blackberry, but not winning any decisive battles. With the release of the iphone, android, and web os from palm war has been declared in the Smartphone world. Microsoft's first response windows mobile 6.5 is a lot like Frances Maginot line which would have been great for the infantry fights of world war 1, but was totally useless against the tanks of world war 2(anybody else want to play risk right now). Like France I think Windows mobile will still exist in the mobile landscape in the next few years, windows mobile 7 will probably be much more useful for today's Smartphone users. To strain this analogy the mobile landscape will probably look like the world after World War 2, with the iphone being America, and android being the Soviet Union, two super powers jockeying for positions. Great Britain= blackberry, France= windows mobile, and Germany = symbian/maemo will still be around, but their spot light may never burn quite as bright (oh in this analogy palm would probably represent Japan hobbled but still innovative).