Today i’d like to share my impressions about the upcoming release of windows mobile 6.5. The first devices with wm 6.5 preinstalled should be available by the end of this year. OSNN.NET posted an interesting hands-on preview for windows mobile 6.5, where you can check out the new features and first impressions based on a leaked beta rom.
Windows Mobile 6.5 start menu
While the author of the article electronic punk seems to be quite happy with the new features, i can’t say the same about me. If anything i’m underwhelmed by the stuff microsoft presented so far. Nearly all the praised new features look like steps backwards to me:
- New start menu: i don’t see any benefit here. The old start menu was nothing particularly bad, and the new one is not anything special to rave about. Windows mobile has much more pressing issues to take care of. Please note that the honeycomb lines are gone on the newest iterations of wm6.5, but then again this doesn’t change much about the fact that this just isn’t a killer feature at all.
- New today screen: just take a look what kind of polished user interfaces other big players like apple and palm are providing us with their new devices. And what is microsofts answer? They give us a today screen filled with text links. I think this is totally the wrong direction.
- OS speed: This is the single most important issue for any wm user. We want a speedy device again, like the mdacompact back then with wm 2003 se. But it is way to early to know anything about that. We have to wait until the first wm 6.5 devices hit the market, fill them up with many apps, and then see if the os is still responsive. A completely new device without any 3rd party apps will always seem fast, but the real deal is to get a fully upgraded device with good speed.
The only really interesting feature is the planned widget support for the internet explorer. While anybody can tell already now that the general browsing experience with the IE won’t come anything near to opera mobile, the widgets have a lot of potential and im curious to see how microsoft will pull that one off.
Actually i believe that anybody getting a Touch Diamond 2, coming with the latest iteration of the TouchFLO3D today plugin, won’t be impressed by the wm 6.5 features at all. Because htc just builded the better user interface around the Windows Mobile framework, which is so much more attractive and functional than anything which we could see up to now about wm6.5.
Windows Mobile 6.5 todayscreen
My main problem is that microsoft really doesn’t have the time to delay Windows Mobile 7 much longer, because other companies are not sleeping. They are bringing out new devices THIS year, and the minimalistic updates of wm 6.5 just don’t seem good enough to satisfy the needs of the consumers. I was hoping for a much bigger splash, but in the end wm 6.5 seems to be a minor upgrade which packs only a few more features than the upgrade from wm 6.0 to wm 6.1 did. Therefore i believe wm will lose more ground, and my real hope is that Windows Mobile 7 will be finally a complete makeover, and Microsoft will take the chance and present a cutting edge mobile os again.
No way this is gonna run on my Kjam
Have you seen all of the windows mobile 6.5 improvements yet? If not, you are in for a treat. The Windows Mobile contact list will get a huge visual boost and be more touch-friendly as well, with larger menu items and an updated look. Windows Mobile 6.5 will have a lot of new apps, features and technologies will be included and introduced. Just to name a few: internet explorer mobile, live mesh for mobile, silverlight 2 for mobile, windows media player mobile, windows mobile marketplace,.NET compact framework, .NET mobile, compact framework, and SQL server compact. Microsoft has officially confirmed a new web browser for Windows Mobile, Internet Explorer 6. The hottest new features and apps include: My Phone–a backup and recovery service for contacts, photos and other data stored on a mobile device. My Phone will also be available for phones running Windows Mobile 6.0 and 6.1. The new Windows Marketplace for Mobile is a centralized place to buy increasingly popular mobile applications. Windows Mobile 6.5 features a new user interface and “honeycomb”. A customizable start screen with hexagonal tiles for each program that are designed to be easier to use on touch-screen phones. The Windows Mobile start menu can be customized with Internet applications like weather or stock reports, that are automatically updated. The new Windows Mobile 6.5 user interface is designed to be more “finger friendly,” You can also move icons up or down in the new layout. In addition, the new Windows Mobile Home screen will support special widgets, which will give status information like missed calls, new messages, etc. Another new feature of Windows Mobile 6.5 allows people to go directly to waiting voice mail, text messages or other information when unlocking their phones. Microsoft Recite, came out of the company’s research group. It allows people to record voice notes or other audio files on Windows Mobile phones and then search for keywords using their voice. LG is set to launch 50 new Windows Mobile devices over the next 4 years. And to boot you will get widgets in windows mobile 6.5. The widgets will appear to function just as full applications do, and will have their own icons in Windows Mobile menus and access to web content. The widgets will be powered, in part, by the new Mobile Internet Explorer 6, which will give them access to Flash and ActiveX controls. The widgets will also have control of the SK menu bar. According to Microsoft, the widgets can be written with standard web technologies, such as HTML, CSS, AJAX, and JavaScript.
Hi Tim,
Thanks for the detailed comment.
About your points:
1. “The Windows Mobile contact list will get a huge visual boost and be more touch-friendly as well, with larger menu items and an updated look.”
Thats something i really didn’t know. If they finally manage to provide a contacts app which is up to par with the freeware pocketCM app i’m more than happy. But i have to see it to believe it. And HTC is providing a new contacts app too with the newest touchFLO3d on TD2 and TP2. So let’s see who will be the winner at the end.
2. “Microsoft has officially confirmed a new web browser for Windows Mobile, Internet Explorer 6.”
I may be a pessimist here, but i just can’t think of a way that microsoft could actually get anywhere near opera mobile 9 judging by the huge difference between the two browsers right now.
3. “My Phone–a backup and recovery service for contacts, photos and other data stored on a mobile device. My Phone will also be available for phones running Windows Mobile 6.0 and 6.1.”
You already mentioned it yourself, this is not really an WM 6.5 feature.
4. “Windows Mobile 6.5 features a new user interface and “honeycomb”. A customizable start screen with hexagonal tiles for each program that are designed to be easier to use on touch-screen phones.”
Yeah, thats the feature i’m not impressed about…i don’t really care if its honeycomb or not. We have different 3rd party startmenus available right now, and actually the standard wm6.1 option for large start menu is good enough for me.
5. “The widgets will appear to function just as full applications do, and will have their own icons in Windows Mobile menus and access to web content. The widgets will be powered, in part, by the new Mobile Internet Explorer 6, which will give them access to Flash and ActiveX controls. The widgets will also have control of the SK menu bar. According to Microsoft, the widgets can be written with standard web technologies, such as HTML, CSS, AJAX, and JavaScript.”
This is indeed a feature i’m curious about, as already mentioned in my post. Hopefully microsoft will push this feature so we will get bunch of really useful widgets soon.
Thx, interessant
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