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"Oh, and did I mention recently that Windows Mobile is crap? Because it is."

funny that, coming from the same mouth (er, keyboard) that inputted:

"the smartest smart phone platform around."

and (relating to Windows Mobile 6's release):  

"I'm looking forward to upgrading"

oh, and then there's this:

"I'll provide an actual review of Windows Mobile 6"

....that never happened.  

Paul - I've been using WinMo for a long time now... and while it's made some serious improvements it's still lacking to say the least (mostly due to resource issues - slowness, mem management, etc...).  I wonder what you think the end game is there?  Does the solution soley rely on MSFT or will someone like HTC create more innovative "Touch" type 'overlays' hiding the underlying OS?  Because WinMo is pretty powerful despite it's poor implementation.

Oh, and I like this one:

"The Moto Q is pretty close to that perfect all-in-one portable device I've wondered about for years"

The Moto Q runs "Windows for Smartphones" which is very different from full blown WinMobile.  My wife has the Q and I'm on the XV6800... very different OSs.  Still Windows-y ... but different.

Waethorn--I see exactly what Paul is saying. It is the smartest platform around--you can do SO MUCH with it. I look forward to upgrading, too. The problem with it is that it's just not perfect by any means. It's better than the competition IMO but there's so much more it could do.

What I don't get is why all smart phones with WM 6 can't upgrade to the next version. Motorola's 9Qc can upgrade, the 9Qm can't. Sucks for those of us with 9Qm's...

I've been using Windows Mobile for about 5 years now. I'm starting to agree with your final comment.

JuryDuty - I've found the same thing... usually it's carrier specific, not MSFT.  For example, I'm running WinMo6.0 but I cannot add Hotmail to PocketOutlook... I need to access it via Internet Explorer... So... bottom line my Gmail account works better in WinMo than Hotmail... retarded?  I think so.

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You see. Fair and balanced journalism from Paul.  ; )

Who are you and what have you done with Paul?  ;-)

Guess you woke up smarter. I think you just gave "Waethorn" a coronary.

I personally don't the vast majority of any of the implementations of smartphones for non-business users. The web browsers are crap, you can't really download anything, and the storage chips are ridiculous inadequite. How hard is it to add a USB port so you can plug in your thumb drive? Especially, if you need something off the web and the only source you have in certain situations is your mobile phone?

Now I'm not talking about business smartphones. Most of those gadgets are pretty useful. I'm just talking about walking into any cell phone provider and getting better functionality. Cause the majority of the ones I got offered were not smartphones or you had to buy an expensive business package.

It would be nice if we had more of the iPhone's implementation of the web on phones. I know it would require some work, but the phones we have are useless. Some of you will argue, well its a cell phone first. I think in today's market, being a cell phone isn't enough anymore. Bigger screens, music storage, photo options, and other ideas are part of the modern usage.

I know this goes a little off topic, but if Microsoft wants to capture marketshare, they need to address these issues. Work on their browser and its treatment of the web would be essential. The idea that we need a mobile version of the web has been blown away by the iPhone.

I took back my Moto Q Music... Windows Mobile IS crap!

I know most phones if not all that windows mobile are crappy but after seeing what the Sony Ericsson Xperia X1 which has a different shell to the usual one that comes with windows Mobile 6.0. There are many videos of it on youtube. MS has to improve in the UX(User eXperience) department. You see that the underlying software is not bad just that the implementations are poor. Opera Mobile is the best mobile browser out there.

Am I the only Palm-man here? It so very lonely! Let's see what Steve Jobs has up his sleeve on June 9th at the WWDC keynote, now that the iPhone is 'Currently Unavailable' at the Apple Store.

Windows Mobile is only strong in the US. Don't forget the other countries in the planet where Symbian rules and the iPhone is coming fast.

Symbian man myself as well. WinMo is just too business specific right now.

It will be interesting to see the numbers at the end of the year.  

The iPhone while selling like crazy was zero threat to Windows Mobile and Blackberry in the corporate environment, because of the missing Exchange support and 3G to a lesser degree.

With both of those gaping corporate smartphone holes about to be plugged in 30 days its going to open the up the doors to iPhone adoption at the corporate arena.

MS is smoking the good stuff if they think Windows Mobile is going to explode at this point the in the game.  If it has taken off like they wanted it to yet, its not going to.

I've heard you say that Windows Mobile is "crap" but I've never heard you say why. Have you written a review on it somewhere?

"Have you written a review on it somewhere?"

nope.  see my comment.

"Guess you woke up smarter. I think you just gave "Waethorn" a coronary."

No, but at the same time, i find it funny that someone who writes for IT is a self-professed consumer, not a regular business user.  I don't recall Paul ever using Exchange Server w/ ActiveSync on a regular basis, nor even using Windows Mobile 6 (his "preview" was just that - no review was actually written, since he got rid of Windows Mobile 5 Moto Q after getting his iPhone).  Likewise, Windows Server reviews don't go much beyond a 2-week (max) Virtual PC installation anymore.  Paul goes on about finding "consumer technology more exciting", and it's more-than beginning to show on "Windows IT Pro".

Windows Mobile's home screen gives you information on upcoming appointments, emails, notes, and more - all as summarized glanceable information.  it's task-based, so you can focus on getting work done, not on finding particular applications to load up.  Compare that to the iPhone "Home" screen, which is just a bunch of program icons.  This is like going from Windows XP & Vista's task-based operating system to Windows 3.1's Program Manager.  It's a step backwards for productivity - all wrapped in a pretty OS X bow - but a turd is still a turd.  You can brainwash consumers into buying into gimmicky "coolness" like exploding icons and finger "painting", but real IT admins know that information workers need access to their data first and foremost, not knowing that they have a dozen or two applications installed on a portable device with a minimal screen that they have to scan through while on the go.  Windows Mobile gives them all-in-one data in a single location - the home screen.  iPhone's home screen is a joke.  Sorry.

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Well speaking as someone who has been using this platform in its various forms since its very inception (en.wikipedia.org/.../Orange_SPV) I'd make the following comments:

1. I always used to look forward to OS upgrades with great fervour. This was largely due to the fact that no matter what version I was running, it always sucked. I think this may have been what Paul was thinking.

2. Microsoft has had years and years to get it's house in order on this platform. Has it innovated? Absolutely not. Each release is a safe interim update. I can't remember the last time any of these devices made me smile.

3. The whole approach to menu and UI design is totally broken. Sorry guys, but I have better things to do than dig through 15 levels of menus to switch off 3G becuase I need to conserve my battery (which always seems to be a problem funnily enough). I prefer Apples approach, its incredibly flat, and makes every setting accessible easily. I'd take that over a home screen, although a home screen would be nice I agree.

Waethorn, you really are such a blatant Microsoft shill, it's amazing.  Anyone (including Paul) that criticizes any of their products instantly gets the full treatment from you.

Windows Mobile is versitile, but its also VERY clunky, sluggish and generally a terrible design for a phone.  Far too complicated with too many interface conventions brought over from Windows for no good reason.

As for the Home screen being "at a glance" and "task based"... what a bunch of Microsoft sales garbage. Did you copy that nonsense off a powerpoint deck from Microsoft's sales team?  And to call the iPhone a "turd" is just hilarious. Everyone with any honesty can attest to the fact that iPhone is an amazing innovation that has some limitations but is a very bold leap ahead of Win Mo and everything else.  Paul's said as much.  Most reviews have.  It has such dramatically higher customer satisfaction numbers than any other phone, it's amazing.  Calling it a turd could only come for a jealous, pin-headed IT hack.

"You can brainwash consumers into buying into gimmicky "coolness" like exploding icons and finger "painting", but real IT admins know that information workers need access to their data first and foremost"

Yep, that kind of attitude pretty much sums up why so many IT admins are insulting, arrogant drones!  Guess what, "consumers" and "information workers" are the SAME PEOPLE.  It's not like it two different classes of human.  People work, then they go home and buy stuff.

I think most people would rather have one-touch access to all the applications they actually have the phone to use, than some cluttered dashboard on nonsense.  Burying applications in hierarchial menus for a phone is wrong-headed design, obviously.

But then Paul is smart and independent enough to admit when MS has a real turd on it's hands, hence Windows mobile being crap.  You, Waethorn, should just go work for Microsoft directly instead of being such a shill.  At least you'd get paid to ignore reality and spew marketing garbage.

Also, didn't Steve Ballmer insinuate that Windows Mobile had or would soon have "70 or 80%" of the market at the time of the iPhone's announcement.

blogs.zdnet.com/mobile-gadgeteer

Yep, he did.  And yet... they only have 13% a year later and will more than likely be eclipsed by the iPhone (a single phone vs. an entire ecosystem of phones) by the end of 2008.

Waethorn, I think Ballmer and his sales monkeys could use a deluded loyalist like yourself on their team.  

You'd be a great spokeperson to tout all the copy-cat "innovations" that Windows Mobile 7 will bring to the table pulled straight from the iphone... in over a year.

"Windows Mobile is only strong in the US. Don't forget the other countries in the planet where Symbian rules and the iPhone is coming fast."

Symbian does rule the roost, but if you think that the iPhone is coming fast and suddenly going to take over the planet, you are just being delusional.  And that was about 15 million WinMo phones sold last year.

The numbers that MS is predicting are way overly optimistic.  However, they no doubt see growth with the new batch of phones by HTC and the Xperia.

"more than likely be eclipsed by the iPhone"

Whoa, whoa, whoa, stop the "phone" if you will.  Where are you getting these numbers?  Note that the 15 million WinMo phones are sold per YEAR, not total.  So in order to eclipse that number, the growth will have to be quite huge, and no where near the goals that even the pompous Stevey thinks they will be.

And that assumes zero growth on the part of WinMo.  You said it yourself, WinMo is quite versatile.  So, the growth won't come from MS themselves, which has been more than happy to leave WInMo all business.  The third-party ecosystem is where they are predicting the growth.  HTC and SE have both shown they are ready to use WInMo for things that are a lot more consumer oriented.

Fo what it's worth I've been beta testing "SkyFire" browser for WinMo... it's not bad at all.  Very cool - I need to get Opera Mobile and see how that compares.  MobileIE is awful.

I'm actually surprised that more WinMo phones are sold than iPhones.  Obviously Apple isn't selling into the business market at all and almost all WinMo phones are sold to businesses, but still.  Unless Apple badly flubs ActiveSync, I see the iPhone having higher marketshare (per quarter) than both RIM and Microsoft by the end of the year.

I've used a WinMo phone for the last several years and it's clunky, the interface is a mess, and so on.  However, WinMo and the BlackBerry are currently the only good ways I can take my contacts and calendar with me.  I figure that the new iPhone is going to change all that.

"iPhone is an amazing innovation that has some limitations but is a very bold leap ahead of Win Mo and everything else.  Paul's said as much."

you mean like this?:

"The primary innovation of the iPhone has nothing to do with technology and everything to do with Apple's ability to loosen the stranglehold that wireless carriers have on the devices they sell"  - Paul Thurrott

"Windows Mobile's home screen gives you information on upcoming appointments, emails, notes, and more - all as summarized glanceable information.'

...you mean like this?...

www.intelliborn.com/products.html

"www.intelliborn.com/products.html"

except that it's not part of the main iPhone interface.  it's built into every Windows Mobile device though.  i could go on and on about 3rd party software for Windows Mobile that's already available right now till I'm blue in the face, including games (unlike the iPhone, which has a sad library, due to an equally sad SDK and Apple's lack of willingness to support 3rd party developers until devs booed Jobs at the keynote and stock plummeted).

@Waethorn,

Paul has praised the iPhone on countless occasions and it's an objectively and obviously innovative device and platform, Waethorn.  The capactive screen and multi-touch UI are brand new to a device like this.  It's operating system is dramatically more advanced that Windows Mobile, with fully hardware accelerated 3D graphics in the UI.  

It's plainly innovative and you're just being a troll to try and deny that.  I mean, come on, look at how many phones are now trying to just copy it's hardware and software design.  They weren't moving toward this direction prior to the iPhone and none of them are going to get close any time soon.  I recommend that you listen to paul's latest windows weekly podcast titled "mission accomplished" so that he can shoot you down fully in his own words.

"unlike the iPhone, which has a sad library, due to an equally sad SDK"

Are you high?  Have you downloaded the iPhone SDK beta?  Have you talked to a single mobile app developer about it?  Have you noticed that it's been downloaded over 100,000 times? Yeah, well, give it 3 months and the mountain of terrible, crashy third party WinMo apps with UI's straight out of 1995 will be eclipsed by a title wave of third party software and games for the iPhone by smart developers.  What a trollish comment, dude.  Go ask John Carmack about the iPhone SDK.  Hell, ask ANYONE.

"Go ask John Carmack about the iPhone SDK."

www.pcworld.com/.../article.html

....seems pretty apparent to me!

"I see the iPhone having higher marketshare (per quarter) than both RIM and Microsoft by the end of the year."

This year?  How?  That's nearly 4 million phones per quarter that they need to sell.  That is a lofty goal not based in reality.  Even with Exchange support in the iPhone, RIM is still selling BES, and has an entrenched cadre of users.  RIM also has many more models on many more carriers, as does WinMo.

And John, you're going to hate me, but I'm going to temporarily shift in to "Internet commenter mode" and say that I got a call on my pwn phone from Wae and it's for you.

en.wikipedia.org/.../Pwn

@Dipsht,

I admit it's a long shot, but with the massive new country expansion, the 2.0 software and it's tidal wave of third party software, and the new hardware rev.. I think it's possible we could see 20 million+ iphones sold in the next 12 months.

As for getting pwn'd...

Um... Waethorn... are you familiar with an actual CALENDAR!  That article is from November.  The iPhone SDK was demonstrated this march.  This is typical dishonest hack BS.

Here's a recent article in which Carmack praises the iphone dev platform.

www.developmag.com/.../Carmack-praises-iPhone-development-plans

He even refers to this old article you pointed to (you obviously and intentionally ignoring the more recent articles).

See Dipsht, this is typical partisan hack tactics.  MS has always been good with developer tools and clearly the Xbox is great platform to write for.  Looks like the iphone will be as well, despite Waethorn's ridiculously ignorant ranting.  

Who pwn'd who now?

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"Looks like the iphone will be as well, despite Waethorn's ridiculously ignorant ranting."

Ah, so by your own logic, Microsoft didn't make the iPhone....and they also didn't make OS X - Apple did.  And Apple has a terrible track record of leaving developers in the dust.  So by your own admission, the iPhone is going to be a terrible platform to develop on.

@Waethorn,

Gotta love how you ignore being called out on that link to the obsolete Carmack post.  That's hack-tastic.  Just a reminder of the ignorant garbage you wrote above:

"due to an equally sad SDK and Apple's lack of willingness to support 3rd party developers until devs booed Jobs at the keynote"

Amazing how you can make a statement like this now AFTER the pretty universally hailed (including by Paul) demonstration of the real SDK.  Have you been in a cave since january?

"Ah, so by your own logic, Microsoft didn't make the iPhone....and they also didn't make OS X - Apple did. "

I sure wish I could understand what the hell that even means.  I was paying Microsoft a compliment since many game devs, including Carmack say that XNA is great.  I was clearly, and obviously saying that both Apple and MIcrosoft are good at developer tools and their platforms benefit... unlike, say, Sony.

But since you're a crazy zealot, you can't understand the idea of a mac fan being able to compliment Microsoft.

"Apple has a terrible track record of leaving developers in the dust"

Oh, I guest that's why WWDC attendance has exploded to the point where it's sold out a month in advance this year.  That's why Apple third party devs immediately embrace their latest OS tech like Core Animation for great new applications while Microsoft doesn't even use it's own new tech like WPF for it's latest media applications... never mind how that tech is largely ignored by the Windows developer community.

I've read many, many places that basing your business on Microsoft tech is a mistake that hurt devs  as Microsoft ends up setting it's sights on every market remotely profitable. Just look at how many markets Microsoft is trying to compete in.  Look at the zune.

Microsoft has been rolling over on its third parties and crushing them forever.  Microsoft has screwed over and crushed far more third parties than Apple will ever be able to do.

You are such a partisan hack, Waethorn.  A dishonest hack.

"Amazing how you can make a statement like this now AFTER the pretty universally hailed (including by Paul) demonstration of the real SDK.  Have you been in a cave since january?"

Let me open your eyes for you:  The iPhone was a complete joke to the dev community until Apple actually released an SDK.  Now it's just on-par with every other device on the market.  Jobs didn't even want to open it up until devs wanted it that way, and shareholders retaliated.

This is proof that Jobs doesn't care about consumers - he cares about #1.  That is, until his bottom-line is in peril.

You, of course, would see that as being "addressing the needs of the community"....WAKE UP!  The "community" is Apple's shareholders.  If, for one second, Jobs thinks they're not happy, he'll backpeddle on his previous stance.  After all, his real income comes from stock value, not the obviously ludicrous $1 salary he makes.  He cares nothing about developers unless it appeases the shareholders.

Your description of what motivates Jobs is pretty much the description of every CEO and their mandate.  Of course he needs to respond to the shareholders, which are the owners of the company.  Of course he needs to respond to what the market wants.  I guess this is just Canadian soft-headed socialism.

But you've been focusing on old information to bash the iPhone.  Old, obsolete quotes from John Carmack that he's since changed on.  Old status of the SDK.

It's just amazing how you cherry pick moments in time with no respect for reality of the chain of events.  Jobs announced that an SDK was coming in august.  The SDK is so robust that it's clearly been in development for over a year... which makes it equally clear that we can't know why Jobs held back the plans. It's pretty much in keeping with the way that Apple doesn't do paper releases and make promises it can't live up to the way Microsoft always does.  Or maybe that didn't have the distribution model decided on.  Who knows?

As for the stock... yeah, it's nearly at its all-time high right now.  And the two recent drops precisely correspond to events in the stock market and world economy.  First, the initial credit crunch, then the second round of fears following weak 4th quarter US growth.

But why be honest about true cause-and-effect when you don't have a shred of honesty with anything else?

Again, the simple reality is that Windows Mobile sucks, the iPhone is technologically superior and has a superior user experience.  Paul Thurrott, the leading reviewer of all things Microsoft, 100% agrees.

But since you, Waethorn, are dishonest partisan hack, any criticism of Windows is always wrong and anything criticism of Apple is always justified.