Windows Mobile
We recently informed you guys that WM7 is delayed and might only be released in Q4 of 2010 and with the Q1 HTC Road map we learned there are some amazing android powered HTC devices coming out early next year. We wanted to know who all will stick with Windows Mobile when these new android devices will hit the market, there was mixed reaction from you guys. But one particular Comment caught my eye.
The comment was by Mort ( the developer of Mort-Script )
Just got my Milestone (=Motorola Droid for Europe). Though I sometimes miss the precision and reliability (sometimes a tap is recognized twice) of the resistive displays, I don't think I'll switch back.
I also thought I might miss the freeware customization of WM, but the notification bar (top line with battery level, time, etc.) is pretty flexible and doesn't take much screen estate. The home screen can be replaced with alternatives like Home++, Open Home, etc., and thanks to documented and working(! unlike WM...) interfaces and Open Source original launcher, all Widgets ("Today plugins") are working there as well. Most of the other default apps usually are as good or way better than WM replacements (like all the contact managers) anyway.
So far I'm only missing a nice and easy to use music player, which surprised me because it's way more easy to develop one than for WM. Well, maybe I'll try to reprogram MortPlayer for Android, just with less historical bloating...
And being at development: Woohoo, no propietary shit, free development tools, debugging doesn't crash all the time, easy to design dialogs for all screen sizes, ... Feels like switching from Notepad to OpenOffice.
Which brings me to HD2. Yes, it's cool that it's possible for HTC to reprogram WM so far. Too bad that makes HD2 a device that can execute either crippled old WM apps or propietary HD2/HTC apps which use all the sensors, power, etc. but run nowhere else. That's not what portable platforms like WM where meant to be. It's more like a HTC OS with WM compatibility mode.
This is not the 1st time a major developer have switched to Android. Remember Koushik Dutta he was the guy who cracked the HTC Sensor API unleashing a flood of apps that uses uses the G-Sensor on HTC devices. He was a dev who switched to Android during the initial days.
Any hardcore Windows Mobile user would have come across the the apps from sto-helit.de or at the very least come across MortScript. Think of it like DOS or shell scripts for Windows Mobile. There are 1000s of a apps, themes, or simple scripts that utilize MortScript to perform just about anything on Windows Mobile.
We contacted him to get some answers
Q ) Will you continue Development for your apps on WM ?
A ) At least with MortScript, probably. I use MortScript on desktop as well, and there might be requests from Sparus. I’m not forced by contract, but I don’t want to disappoint the nice people there. However, I don’t know what might happen with WM7. It wouldn’t surprise me if MS decides to allow only managed code (i.e. .NET) with new controls for that. In this case it would need a complete redesign and -programming.
MortButtons seems to run pretty fine (except for the Today plugin on some devices), so I don’t think I’ll do much there. I hope it becomes unnecessary with some WM update.
MortPlayer already is more or less put on hold since some time. Device incompatibilities, bad or missing interfaces, and, admitted, some “historic” code and bloating made MortPlayer a project I don’t like to modify. It even takes felt ages to open and compile it in VisualStudio…
The other programs are mostly just small helpers, which do what they were meant to do and don’t need updates imho.
Q ) If not will it released as opensource ?
A ) MortPlayer already is. MortScript source is available, too, but currently with limitations because I don’t want several incompatible MortScript derivations around.
MortButtons and smaller tools might become open source as well. I’ll have to think about those. There’s some “quick and dirty” code in them which I wouldn’t use for job applications… (Well, OK, in MortPlayer, too. MortScript has some ugly spots, but mostly is pretty maintainable code.)
Q ) MortPlayer goes Android. will something like MortScript Follow suite ?
A )Maybe. So far I still have to learn the possibilities and limitations of the Android SDK/APIs. And there already are some scripting languages for Android, so I’m not sure whether another one is necessary.
Also, MortPlayer won’t be ported 1:1. At least for the first versions, I want to go “back to the roots” and offer a simple to use folder based player. You just set the music directory (like /sdcard/Albums) and it’ll work like a simple standalone MP3 player. Variations for audio books, tag based handling, playlists, etc. might follow as separate apps (or at least start icons). MortPlayer became way too complicated for beginners with all those different modes (playlist editing, music favorites, audio book favorites, bookmarks, streams, …).
The interface will be pretty ugly in the first betas as well. I usually start my apps for personal use, and such I prefer working uglyness to nonworking beauty… 
Q ) 3 top reasons why you decided to go with Android ?
A )THE main reason is the huge diversity of WM devices without any help from MS to handle it. Just take dialogs: For WM, you draw them in a fixed size, and have to write lots of code to reposition the elements to take use of the screen estate – or you just occupy the minimum size of 240×240 to be on the save side. For Android, it’s more like writing a specialized HTML, everything’s optimized to the device’s needs by the system.
It’s much worse with accessing everything that came up within the last about 5 years. BT, WLAN, data connections, call notifications, 3D, all sensors (light, gravity, …), etc. If there are unified interfaces at all, they’re badly documented, complicated to use, and all too often buggy on several devices. Programming for WM by now often reminds me of old DOS days, when games first had to ask you for your sound and graphic cards. You want to use gravity sensors? HTC or Samsung? Oh, something else? Sorry, not possible…
Android on the other hand offers well organized and documented interfaces for all of them.
It also annoyed me that thanks to the patchy phone “integration” of WM my phone sometimes crashed when a call or SMS came in. After years of WM, I longed for a phone I can actually use as one, not a PDA with a mostly working phone add-on.
The rest is more a subjective thing. WM seems to me like an old shed with some support beams and new shutters, while Android is a shiny new building. And it helps a lot that Android seems way faster because it has better task management and takes advantage of all the hardware (esp. 3D accelerators) in the system as well. But let’s see whether the roof leaks in the new building as well…
Regarding WM7, it might become a shiny new house as well, but it will take another year, and I’m afraid it will keep at least some decayed backdoors and windows for compatibility’s sake. Or it might remove further useful ideas like the today plugins that don’t work in WM6.5′s default home screen.
With more high profile developer switching over, things are not looking so good for Windows Mobile. Delays with WM7 is not helping either. The rise of Android has even got the behemoth Windows Mobile Developer community xda-developers to start an Android Section for Development and Themes
Will you leave Windows Mobile ? If so when will you make the switch ? Why ? Why Not ?
let us know via the comments section
xda android
{ 24 comments… read them below or add one }
Will never switch to Android for the reason Google is just like Apple .. In one word : EVIL !!! Don't let you knock down by dark side ….!! Strangely, in these times Microsoft is much fair with his users than Google and even more apple … Stay away …
If Google is evil, so are Bing and MyPhone. Of course Google first integrates it's own services, but nobody forces you to use them (at least since Android 1.5, but 1.0 was more like an RC for nerds anyway imho). You can already sync Android 2.0 with Exchange servers, for example. And it works fine with my 3rd party IMAP account. Since Android is pretty young and (mostly) Open Source, I guess further alternatives will follow.
I'd rather be paranoid about WM apps which can do whatever they want. (Hey, my MortScript could read your contacts and send them to my server whenever you read an internet file. No, it doesn't! But technically, it could.)
In Android, when you're about to install an app, you get a list with system services it uses (like reading or writing contact data, internet access, disabling standby, …), and if you don't like that, you just don't install it. One of the advantages of a properly used Java sandbox…
Just out of curiosity , is that ( ability to read in to contacts, send data to 3rd party server, etc ) only when the Application Lock on the device is removed ?
If a program is installed in WM, it can do everything. Application Lock just allows limitations to installing apps, usually no unsigned apps are allowed. But any company can buy signatures, so an evil company could sign a trojan as well (check your Google Maps traffic!
). And of course, if Application Lock is on warning level (like with most Professional/Classic devices), after approving installation resp. execution there's no limitation for unsigned apps as well.
With apps from Marketplace one should be on the safe side, at least MS runs some tests there. Not sure whether they are able to track all possible leaks in native apps though.
Hi Mort,
I am not talking of any installed app that can do whatever it wants on your device.
Obviously, if you install something on your device, wether you have android, iphone or windows mobile, you are potentially taking risk. But hopefully, I have never seen yet a malicious app either on android or wm. Anyway, What I am talking about is the global Google policy on how they handle your personnal information. Not that they are using it for bad or advertising purpose yet but the fact that they legit that they COULD maybe oneday do it.. This is unacceptable. Today, Google knows potentially your center of interests through search engine and google reader, …, where you are through latitude and google maps, what you're working on through google document and so on …(not talking of google voice but one day, they will simply analyze your calls to better target adverts they send !!). Even Mozilla now recommand to use Bing instead Google as search engine in Firefox !! (see what Asa Dotzler from Mozilla said after recent Eric Schmidt declaration on data privacy related to f***g US patriot act).
My problem with Google is that their power and money do not come from selling something concrete as Microsoft is selling products but comes from what they could do if they wanted from your personnal information !! I would say that google is to IT what reality show is to TV. Google has become something beyond capitalism (that you can criticize already) and much more dangerous. Only my personnal opinion, just wan't to share, not to impose).
One more thing, I have been and still am a user of your apps and I thank you for all that stuff you brought and will bring to the developper community.
Kind regards, and respects.
Just read a bit more information… For WM Standard (i.e. non-touchscreen) there are two security levels, a “privileged” and the default one. No idea whether the “privileged” is up to the development company or if only chosen partners get those signatures. However, reading contacts and sending them to a server should work with the default level as well. “Privileged” seems to limit only really “down to the core” APIs, like some registry paths, reading other application's memory, direct access to system databases (contacts usually are read via Outlook interface), and the like. See http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa45583... for details.
On the other hand, it's also a good thing that Google's power doesn't come from something concrete. If I don't like Google search, I use Bing or Yahoo! or whatever. If I don't like GMail, there are loads of free mail providers. Etc.
Google's power is not as carved in stone as e.g. the Windows' vicious circle (too few other OS users -> no apps for that OS -> too few other OS users).
However, I do understand your uneasyness about the huge amount of data Google is able to collect just because of it's popularity, inventions, and sometimes financial power (like buying YouTube). An antitrust case might be(come?) necessary indeed. But I think Android as an open and flexible platform is one of the smallest problems. Just think about Google Maps and how popular it is, from iPhone and WM app to mashup services to good old maps.google.com itself. Or Google Ads on lots of websites you visit, no matter if you use Chrome, (P)IE, Opera, or Safari.
(And as long as Google watches its data and it's solely used for personalized adds, that's way less troublesome than e.g. a governmental surveilance, which is installed in way too many countries for “security” reasons.)
“An antitrust case might be(come?)”
To be honest, I don't undestand why not yet (isn't google trusting the web search ?)
“And as long as Google watches its data and it's solely used for personalized adds, … reasons.)”
gonna take note of this one 
) Nevermind, we are far away from the original topic I think … 
There lies all the problem for me. Without this, GOOGLE worth nothing !!!! How can a company producing so less be valuated so much on market place ? Until Android, Google was only an over-evaluated advertizing company. I may be so frustrated by this world (you'd be right if you think so) but I can afford a world ruled by People buying iPhones, watching reality-shows, drinking coke and eating Mac Donald's. So many sheeps make me sick (sounds good
I'll switch to Android as soon as some top device with adroid brcomes to Russia. =)
And thanks for this interesting article.
Google still is “just” an (overrated?) advertising company. The Android core is free. Like Google services, it's probably just a means to bring people to the net (i.e. cloud computing -> more web users -> more web ads) and to improve the public image (cool free tools, can't be that evil, can it?).
(Hope others see it like that, too…)
However, advertising became so big, it almost became an own virtual money circle – you spend money for ads, so people visit your page, which brings in money from ads. Sounds crazy? It is, but it (currently) works.
But Google didn't start the fire. Most newspapers make most of their money with ads, private TV continued it, and Google is just the lastest incarnation.
OK, very offtopic, but interesting discussion…
Maybe time to conclude ?
And I'm feeling damn bad with google 
)) iPhone will never get through me !!!
I would say,as for people, it is a matter of feeling
But I have to admit, even if I wish I could live without, that I use Google services, I drink coke and I go for a Big Mac sometimes ….
The only thing I will never ….. NEVER ….. go into is ….. APPLE …. This time I swear, noway
It was nice discussing with you … See you soon I hope …. and to see more of your apps on Windows Mobile also
(One can say whatever he wants but the Touch HD 2 is a damn good device !! 
)
I'm with Mort. I've been using WM since the iPaq first came out and I love it, but Android has been enticing me more and more every day. Google is a great company with great bloat-free products. The only thing I've been waiting for is the OS to marinate a little longer (ie bug fixes, more developers).
I'm kinda tired of having to extremely customize my WM phone just to get it to function the way it should have from the get go. It's especially annoying when my non-poweruser friends need help with something. Nothing is ever simple.
Unless MS pulls a rabbit out of it's hat next year, my next phone will most likely be Android powered.
I think it is exactly the power of Windows Mobile. I'll never get an iPhone because indeed, this is not for power users. And I'll get bored within a few minutes. And not to say the 90000 on 100000 apps of the app store which are only pointless. Whereas I am enjoying customizing WM everyday !! But you're right, I will never recommand a WM device to a non IT, tech, user because he will just be disapointed not to have something as easy to use as an iPhone.
As for Android, I think the naked Google version is pretty … mmm … boring and ugly. whereas if you take the HTC sense version of either WM or Android, you see the difference.
Indeed, the power of Android (as mentionned by Mort) comes from the standardized way of accessing hardware and developping apps where Windows Mobile is only suffering of its long, old history where manufacturers are developping their own graphical framework, hardware drivers and so on…
But if you take the very soul of the OS, you will come to see that Microsoft was really in the right way years before Apple and Google. WM is a multi-task OS where iPhone is natively monotask .. You were able to manage your email from your WM device years before Apple and google. You were able to surf the Internet, listen to music, watch videos, read news, managing appointments years before Apple and Google.
The core of the WM os is really not so bad…
If you wan't some evidence, look at SPB Mobile Shell or Sense UI or even games as Experiment 13 or XTrakt. They are really great apps.
The only problem (but that's also a, advantage in my mind keeping us away from having 100 times the same app as on Apple App Store) is that if you want to develop something sexy on Windows Mobile, then you have to start from scratch (almost for UI design) ) whereas it's really simple when it comes to Android or iPhone. I love WM for this and even if Windows Mobile 7 will be really sexy for sure, I only hope that some of the basis of WM 6 will be kept and not locked as on iPhone or even Android (which is really not so open source than you think (ask cyanogen from xda))
Regards
thanks
I remember the days when we had to pay for pop access for yahoo and hotmail. Then with gmail all those came for free.. well they had ads in there , but I happy to see a few ads than paying for it from my pocket.
” How can a company producing so less be valuated so much on market place ” You are kidding rt ?Google Products : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Google_pro...
They dont have physical products like other companies but they do have a lot of products and needless to say some of their products are miles ahead of the competition.
Dont get me wrong I dont think Google = Saint . Their targeted ads by ( computer read content ) falls in to the grey area n all. But I rather see ads than see the green slip away from my pocket. The fact Google Adsense helps to pay the bills around here helps me to love Google a bit more
BTW : thanks for the interesting conversation. This has to be the the post with the most interesting comments on the site till date.
Hm, I like like the clean default Android interface. Most replacements are pretty close to the original as well, so I think they did something right there. And SPB MobileShell 3 copied a lot as well.
The WM core OS was pretty good about 5-6 years ago – for a Windows system that is. It's been pretty fast, stable, and lightweight. But it also inherited e.g. the bad and complicated graphic system of the desktop window, where all too often programs don't clean up their handles and “device objects” (for a beginner, it's almost impossible to understand when you have to delete an object yourself and when this is done by some other component and trying to delete causes a crash). Thus the well-known “out of system resources” or unexpected program closing when there seems to be lots of free memory. Also, I really don't get why MS still wasn't able to mount the storage cards and re-initialize the drivers before resuming the running applications after standby. Though that becomes less a problem since many programs invoke “unattended mode”, so the device never really enters standby (and uses more battery).
However, WM is no longer a PDA OS, and too much that was added in the recent years seems like a “we need that urgently!” makeshift patch. Sad thing is, some ideas were really good, like integrating A2DP seamlessy into the sound driver – but then realisation failed, like interrupted connections and crashes when a call comes in during using A2DP. And thanks to the “hidden” implementation, no way to detect and repair the broken connection (unless e.g. with device specific registry entries and APIs).
Trouble with “building from scratch” is that every app offers a completely different user experience. This might be useful sometimes, but usually it's hell for a common user. (Well, and of course there's all the development time that could be spent for better things…)
Over here in Germany, there were several free mail providers (some only POP, some with web interface) years before GMail. They usually didn't offer as much space (usually 20-200MB), but for most users that's still enough.
The funny thing whith Google is, they have lots of products, but most of them are offered for free. So almost the only product which gains money for them is advertising. I really don't get why they focus so much on that. Why not offer e.g. an optional ad-free GMail for some bucks instead of scanning the user's mails?
I also wonder why there's almost no noticable competition. I've seen blogs complaining about Google's surveillance but using Google Ads. Is it so hard to copy the principle? With just a few big players (alpha blogs), it shouldn't be impossble to find advertisers…
I agree SPB Mobile Shell takes a lot from Google Android and that's the reason why I mentionned it. Just to prove you can do on WM what you do on either Apple or Google OS.
Also I agree on the WM graphic system which is really a pain when it comes to memory management. This is indeed the only thing that worry me on my Touch Diamond 2 where it is absolutely impossible to regain lost memory due to bad memory cleaning on some apps using GUI (GWES growing more and more until all apps force close because of not enough memory available). I don't know in details why GUI objects are instanciated and managed by the OS core itself rather than in a managed sandbox where memory is correctly recycled but without this, WM will be as great as other os. As for A2DP that I use a lot when listen to music or watching movies, I don't know if HTC rewrote core drivers but I got no problem on my TD2 even when a call is received and I'm listening to music or watching movie. (It was not so good on my previous HTC Elf where the device freezed until a point I was not able to take the call).
And indeed the trouble from building from scratch is that you don't have homogeneity in User Interfaces as you have on Android or iPhone. But this is a point I don't understand as many developers have built their own set of graphical controls libraries so that tends to prove it is feasible but as long as it comes from one developer it will never be a standard. Why the hell havn't Microsoft provided a user and touch friendly set of controls, I don't know. Maybe because they all bet on Windows Mobile 7, giving up on Windows Mobile 6.
Hi there,
As Mort said, I was using free POP email providers years before google existed (iFrance for instance).
OK, the list of Google Apps is not so short but don't forget Google is a 25000 employees compagny and surely most of them are developping Google products. That is many people for one product !!!
As when you say their products are miles ahead others, it is a matter of personnal preference. Some will prefer Bing while others Google, some will prefer Live Maps to Google Maps, and some Yahoo Mail to Gmail.
But, just like Apple imposed iPhone as the “standard and best” smartphone (or whatever they call it) in common people mind, just like Microsoft imposed Windows has the choice OS in common people mind, Google imposes its service in common people mind. And while Microsoft has to fight everyday its trusting position, Google and Apple are left alone while they are just doing the same if not worst !! This I don't undestand.
If a product imposes itself because it is the best then I would say it's great as long as people are clever enough to search and test by themselves and not believing adverts telling that it is the best. I am a pro Windows user but I have intensively used linux at home also. I played with iPhone and Android before buying a WM device to make my own mind.
For me, the risk is always that people believe what they are told without trying to make their own mind and that's why I hate advertising. It's a shame but we live in a world where you can't believe anything you hear or see. You ave to think and make your own mind.
Advertising works, what is the point if it didn't
.. and which company will ever tell you that their product is the 2nd best in the market !! and as far as the best mobile device it comes down to the what they want from their mobile phone. There is no single BEST phone that will be liked by all… I totally agree with you on the fact consumers should do their research before getting something like a new mobile device
Looks like I will be moving from Windows Mobile (a/k/a Windows Phone) when I purchase my next phone. Currently, I have a Palm Treo Pro which is Windows Mobile 6.1, with the SPB Shell version 3.XX. Without SPB, I probably would have gotten another phone much quicker. With the “Google Phone” apparently going to T-mobile (my carrier), that is probably my next one.
1st of all Mozilla doesn't recommend switching to Bing.
It was just Asa, and only to make a point.
Mozilla Foundation is still promoting Google.
2nd, Android is an open source os. If you don't like what Google is providing you, roll your own distro with whatever functionality you want.
3rd, Yes, Google have a lot of data on you. But they also have Privacy Policy and (paranoid) people like you that watch everything Google does. The moment Google will do something nefarious, watchers will be all over them like vultures. At that point 2 things will happen: either Google will lose users trust and they will destroy themselves or Gov't will get involved and will carve it up like AT&T in 1984(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_System)
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not after your…
I don't know how “evil” Google is. But having lots of data always had a fatal tendency to misuse it. A Privacy Policy is nice and well, but it isn't any help if e.g. Google has to forward its data to the government due to some law or some hacker got it without notice. Or some Google employee misuses it for some “minor” private thing, like cyberstalking someone. Google surely wouldn't shout that from the rooftops…
Of course it isn't in Google's interest to get a worst-case scenario. But if it would happen, the horse would have left the barn and it wouldn't help much if Google would go bankrupt due to it. If that would happen at all, Google's rich enough to switch trade in time…
I'm not paranoid, and I think (hope?) Google will try to prevent any problems, but I'd prefer minimized risks – i.e. not collecting that much personalized data in one pace at all.
Didn't want to answer cause I don't like to troll but my answer will not have been better anyway
Even if I am a bit more paranoid than you 
Anyway, I am sure any information US government ask to Google, they got it … And this you will never know nor will they claim it on rooftops !!