In early April, the experts on our online blogs responded to Nate Adcock's question of the month: What features would you like to see added to Windows Mobile? The following comments have been edited for clarity and conciseness. To read the full blog posts, go to smartphonemag.com/blogs.
Finger touch input
Many people have been waiting for an update that lets them use their device without having to resort to using a stylus. The stylus may provide more precise "point and click" capability, but it also happens to be the one detachable item on the device that can be lost. It also takes a few extra moments to take out and place back in the device. There are many who would like to see the stylus go the way of the dodo. (Dale Daniels)
Taking a cue from the iPhone, and as much as I hate to admit it, WM devices should have finger-friendly navigation to take better advantage of the touch screen. While we're at it, there should be a better input panel too. Why not just adapt the one TenGO (tengo.net) has developed, which in my opinion is the best. It should be a system that allows one-handed or two-handed input. (Tim Hillebrand)
Buried icons, nested menus, and soft keyboards are so last decade. The time has come for a hardware accelerated, predictive, gesture-based user interface that knows exactly what its owner wants, even before the owner does. (Mike Riley)
Zooming in with a Windows Mobile device requires users to select a text size from a preset list within the application's menu. The iPhone features that many have appreciated are both the double-tap zoom and the multi-touch zoom. Simply put, the user can touch the screen in two different places, then draw the fingers apart to zoom in. Conversely, drawing the fingers together zooms out to allow one to see more of a particular Web page. Adding this feature to Internet Explorer and Office Mobile could simplify the zooming process. (Dale Daniels) This will be really useful in making Web browsers that much better. (Tariq Bamadhaj)
CorePlayer Mobile (left) and Windows Media Player Mobile (right).
Media player improvements
I know that the primary purpose of Windows Mobile is as a business tool, but wider acceptance requires exploration of features deemed desirable by the public. Portable media players, MP3 players, etc. are some of the most popular electronics on the market. There are some great third-party applications available for Windows Mobile devices, including The CorePlayer Mobile (coreplayer.com), which I consider a "must have." I recently purchased a non-WM media player called the Archos 605 (archos.com) and I love its user interface. It features icons that clearly represent particular functions, and it is straightforward and simple to use—something that Windows Mobile media players would do well to emulate. (Dale Daniels)
Task Manager
For some strange reason, Window Mobile does not really close programs when you terminate them. They remain running in the background using up system resources. Accordingly, we need a built-in task manager that actually closes the programs without having to do a tap dance. (Tim Hillebrand)
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FEATURE SUGGESTONS Tim
FEATURE SUGGESTONS
Tim asked: "Why can't we have dual-slotted devices? I know expansion cards are holding more data these days, but they are also small enough so that having two miniSD card slots shouldn't be a big deal. It would also give an extra port for peripherals without having to remove your expansion card full of programs and data."
Actually, we have had those for years. Many Pocket PCs had Compact Flash and SD card slots. My iPAQ 3870 with a dual PC Card sleeve could hold three cards.
I assume what you really want are phones with multiple slots. That would be nice.
Mike said: "The HTC Advantage provided a glimpse of what's possible with A2DP Bluetooth, SiRF Star III GPS, 802.11 b/g Wi-Fi, and quad-band 3G-ready mobile radios contained in the same device. The next step is to merge these radios into a single low-power chip that will easily cut the size and weight of the Advantage in half."
I suspect you overestimate the size of those chips. The display is the biggest part of the Advantage, isn't it? And doesn't the HTC Diamond basically have all of that in a much smaller package? (I've read the radio chip actually supports quad-band cellular in spite of what HTC claims.)
And the real next step is software radio, which allows software to configure the radio parameters, allowing one radio to serve as cellular, WiFi, AM, FM or whatever.
Hal said: "I would like a simple solution that gives end-users a way of controlling whether appointment times change when time zones are switched. Pocket Informant (pocketinformant.com) has a solution that does this, as do some Windows Mobile Palm devices. The new Network Identity and Time Zone (NITZ) feature in WM 6.1 at least lets the user control whether or not the time zone gets changed automatically through Internet connectivity. However, the process of preserving appointment times after changing time zones can be a real pain and quite baffling to new and experienced users alike."
Yes, it is baffling to first time users, but it shouldn't be to experienced users. It's been discussed for at least 5 years and won't change (various MVPs have tried) -- and that's actually a good thing. Appointment times do not change when you change time zones; they're merely being displayed relative to your new time zone. (They're still at the same UTC time internally.)
What Microsoft needs to do is make it easier to create appointments the correct way instead of adding a kludge. I've suggested several times adding a control to set the time zone of an appointment in the Calendar (Pocket Informant allows this, although they only support one time zone) and adding a viewing option to display the Calendar relative to a specific time zone. That would make it much easier for people to create and view appointments the correct way.
Hal said: "As with the iPhone, YouTube capability should be built into Windows Mobile devices."
Tari said: "Windows Mobile should have the ability to play more video file types without jumping through hoops, such as Flash (.flv, .swf) and QuickTime (.mov); and not just via a Web browser when visiting a site. You should be able to download the video file to your device and view it with a video player."
Sorry, Hal, but Tari has it right. Windows Mobile should not specifically support YouTube, but should allow playing Flash movies (which, as I understand things, it will because Microsoft licensed Flash technology from Adobe) and other formats. Media Player should also allow installable codecs to allow users to add support for formats Microsoft didn't choose to support.
YouTube is only one site; there are plenty of other video sites out there, and I think that specifically supporting one seems short-sighted. Besides, Microsoft and Google are competitors, and I doubt Microsoft wants to give Google a little boost.
Hal said: "Microsoft needs to include Internet radio capability on their Windows Mobile devices, similar to TunIt.org Radio (left) or Resco Radio."
Again, I disagree. People complain about carriers putting bloatware into their WM devices, and you're encouraging Microsoft to do that for what is likely a niche audience.
Don't get me wrong. I like Internet radio (and have Resco Radio on my Pocket PC), but WM already has the ability to play MANY streaming radio stations in Media Player that you can access from IE Mobile. If you want a list of stations that doesn't require installing any software, just go to http://tuned.mobi and see lots of U.S. and international radio stations.