Mobile Apps - Interesting Article

Asked By Beverly Howard

17-Nov-09 05:29 PM

http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2009/11/microsoft-windows-mobile/

Beverly Howard

18-Nov-09 06:17 AM

It does not seem that it will be much longer before the x86 CPU invades the
territory of the current CPUs that run inside of these types of devices.
When that happens I think Microsoft will be well positioned to put a variant
of their desktop operating system on these new devices, and no longer will
you have to get separate apps for your mobile phone and your desktop.

20-Nov-09 11:57 AM

Here is another

http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/11/19/microsoft.windows.mobile/index.html

imho, the iPhone has little or nothing to do with it.

Beverly Howard

20-Nov-09 11:11 PM

You do not think so? Remember when any PDA was a Palm. How about any
phone/PDA was a Blackberry. I would submit that today a smartphone in the
eyes of the average consumer is an iPhone. I have a drawer full of windows
powered converged handsets that were steadily drifting towards smaller size
and non-touch. All of a sudden this giant touch screen thing with almost no
buttons shows up, and that is the new standard. The Droid seems to be
capitalizing on this wave, but I do not think MS has yet figured out how.
They seem to hope HTC and others will do this for them. I think the iPhone
most certainly changed the face of 'advanced' phones. It is unfortunate that
it did not really do it by real innovation, but rather by marketing, but hey,
they got the result. The Apple marketing machine never ceases to amaze me.
They were recently taken to task for slipping the release date for an item
they have not even announced yet...their tablet. Amazing.

21-Nov-09 04:02 AM

Well, Sven, you have hit the nail on the head, it is purely by marketing that
Apple have come this far.

In my opinion Windows mobile does have potential, however it need closer
ties with manufactures, to exploit the Windows Mobile OS.

HTC, has probably single handidly taken WM farther than any other
manufacturer, which I am pleased to say with stunning results.  However,
size does not seem to be so important, when people walk around with big
bulges in their pockets, carrying around iPhones, which always puzzles me,
due to it is impracticality.

Regards
R

21-Nov-09 10:10 AM

As you well know, I feel very strongly that the primary reason for
winmobile's troubles is grounded in apathy towards wimobile users, their
needs and problems.

I have both winmobile devices as well as an iTouch and the iTouch cannot
touch 2003se's usability and functionality not to mention the huge range
of valuable apps that are not subject to approval by royal fiat before
they can be run on the platform.

Add to that the complete lockdown of the file system, zero user storage
without going through the associated copy of itunes and no storage card
options, and apple ends up with a target if ms were wiser.

Beverly Howard

21-Nov-09 06:30 PM

Beverly,

Yet somehow Apple are still dominating, perhaps the rival to MS is not the
medium by which iphone is delivered (fancy UI and a myriad of downloadable
apps or even the handset itself) maybe it is the maketing machine of swanky
advertising and the illusion of "cool" that appears tobe more important than
functionality and maybe the "one" to watch out for is RIM?

Ricky

21-Nov-09 07:12 PM

Bingo. This is just what I was thinking reading Bevs post. Agree with all
you said Bev, but obviously none of what Apple did, had ever been done
before and MS is now just copying. Yea right. We both know there is not
anything the iPhone does we could not do for years.

The fish, it never cackles 'bout
it is million eggs or so,
The hen is quite a different bird,
one egg-and hear her crow.

The fish we spurn, but crown the hen,
which leads me to surmise:
Don't hide your light, but blow your horn.
it pays to advertise.

23-Nov-09 06:17 AM

RIM will never be able to combat iPhone (not even WinMo) when it comes to
non-corporate / casual consumers.

OK, I am not a corporate consumer either - but the sole reason I use my BB
8800 for e-mails its vast superiority to the iPhone 3G S and my WinMo
phones when it comes to battery life and keyboard when Push is enabled. I
only need to recharge it once (!) a week. With the iPhone 3G S with Push
enabled? That's a joke - about half a day? (And, unfortunately, WinMo
phones are only marginally better in this respect - abou ttwo days with
Push hacks applied.)

However, there isimply is not anything I can use it for, the two other
systems are so much more powerful and better. Most apps (e.g., Web
browsers, games, emulators, remote desktop control apps, media players) are
just orders of magnitude better than on RIM's devices. Consequently, I
do not think RIM could ever dominate the consumer market, which puts much
more emphasis on media / gaming than on "plain" mailing.

06-Feb-10 03:39 PM

IN theory, maybe.
In practice, they need to dip into your pocket TWICE to SELL you two
different apps, even if they are almost identical.

08-Feb-10 11:10 AM

Having the same app run on both platforms makes life easier for
developers. Debugging is _much_ easier on "big" windows than Windows
Mobile, so having more source code in common means much of the
debugging can be done more easily. Maintaining source code also
becomes a bit easier. That would definitely reduce the costs to
developers. And that could mean more apps available for Windows
Mobile.

Having the same app run on multiple platforms could help users find
apps, and learn how to use them.



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08-Feb-10 10:59 PM

I do not think that is a given. For full size apps, MS typically allows
installation on both a desktop and a laptop for use by the owner. Don't
think that would be unlikely for a desktop and mobile implementation. With a
common processor, there ishould be less development required to produce the
phone/mobile version as it would be largely a matter of UI restructure,
rather than a full rewrite for a different platform. There has even been
some precedence for MS providing both PC and mobile compatible apps, Streets
and Trips and Money for example, without the benefit of common code base.