by Frank McPherson, author of How To Do Everything With Windows Mobile

 
Very interesting Powerpoint slide here showing Microsoft's current product strategy. Interesting because it lists Microsoft Office Mobile under the Entertainment & Devices category and not Windows Mobile. Wonder what that means?

Labels: 2007, Windows Mobile 6

posted by Frank at 6:39 PM 0 comments Links to this post

 
Microsoft has released a new version (version 2) of Live Search for both Windows Mobile 5 & 6 as well as J2ME. If you are browsing from your Windows Mobile device go to http://wls.live.com. A browser version is also available at http://m.live.com.

The main new feature is Movie Showtimes, and I think it does a nice job of presenting movies and drilling down to display theatres and show times. The program retrieves a simple description of the movie, while additional information is obtained via a redirect to a web site using Internet Explorer.

There is also supposed to be more local data with reviews, and I checked restaurant listings but didn't find many with reviews. The one restaurant that I did find showed a 4 out of 5 star rating from apparently one reviewer. The program doesn't appear to provide a way for entering reviews, which you would think would be logical via a browser redirect.

The program is also supposed to have better turn-by-turn directions along with GPS integration, but I have not had a chance to check it out.

Live Mobile Search is included with Windows Mobile 6, at least it was part of the upgrade on my T-Mobile Dash. Consequently, one would have expected this to be available for download via the new Windows Update feature in Windows Mobile 6, but so far that does not see to be the case. It does make one wonder whether Windows Update will ever be used.

Labels: 2007, Windows Mobile 6

posted by Frank at 9:18 PM 0 comments Links to this post

 
Ok, I have a T-Mobile Dash. It's T-Mobile, it has a Wi-Fi radio, so why couldn't it work with T-Mobile's new UMA service?

Labels: Windows Mobile 6

posted by Frank at 8:57 PM 0 comments Links to this post

 
Some Windows Mobile Professional devices have a customized appearance created by the provider, such as T-Mobile. If you would like to change that appearance, Pocketnow.com has a registery change that you can enter.

Labels: tips, Windows Mobile 6

posted by Frank at 4:05 PM 0 comments Links to this post

 
The version of Office Mobile in Windows Mobile 6 does not support the native Office 2007 file formats. To use Office 2007 documents on a Windows Mobile device you must save the files in an Office 2003 file format. In the third quarter of this year Microsoft will release an upgrade to Office Mobile that will provide native Office 2007 file format support.

Labels: Windows Mobile 6

posted by Frank at 9:53 PM 1 comments Links to this post

 
You probably know by now that T-Mobile released the Windows Mobile 6 upgrade for the T-Mobile Dash. I recently installed the upgrade on my Dash, and here are my notes that I took while performing the upgrade. Before getting in to the details, let me state up front that I think the upgrade is worthwhile. While the upgrade really doesn't justify a full version upgrade from Microsoft, it is worth installing if it becomes available mainly because of some of the improvements that have been added to make Messaging better.

The installation begins by putting the device in a USB bootloader, which you will recognize by Red, Blue, and Green horizontal stripes on the Dash's display. I ran the upgrade using a PC running Windows Vista, and when the Dash went into bootloader Vista had to re-recognize the Dash as a USB device. Vista successfully recognized the Dash as a "USB Smartphone," but the time it took Vista to do the recognization took longer than the upgrade's Setup program expected, resulting in the Setup failing.

Don't panic. All I did is re-run setup, click through all the options, and the ROM started updating. This is an important tip. In my experience there are several steps in the upgrade process that you may feel the setup is hung up or not working, be patient, the upgrade is working. For example, after the ROM was downloaded the Dash reboots and you get that initial white T-Mobile screen and the device sits there for a noticably long time. It would have been nice if T-Mobile or Microsoft had provided some feedback here because it feels like the device is hung. Eventually the screen will change and the Cold Boot Config, which installs all the initial software on the device, begins. After the config the Dash will reboot again, which again takes a bit longer than you normally expect.

I had set up the Dash to synchronize with my PC using Vista's Windows Mobile Device Center. After you upgrade the device you have to create a new partnership with the PC. Before you do that you might want to delete the partnership from Mobile Device Center if you want to keep the same name for your device, otherwise Device Center will create a new name for your device and not allow you to re-use the old name because it thinks that name is still in use. I am pretty sure this same scenario exists with ActiveSync 4.5.

This is it, over all the upgrade went smoothly except for some periods of time where I became nervous thinking that it may be hung up. If you own a Dash, I recommend that you go ahead and run the upgrade.

Labels: Windows Mobile 6

posted by Frank at 1:33 PM 0 comments Links to this post

 
On Monday at the 3GSM conference Microsoft will officially announce Windows Mobile 6, previously known as Crossbow. I have a beta version of the software, and I won't repeat what has already been said in some of the reviews that are online, however there are a few things that I want to point out.

First and foremost to me is the improvement in overall performance. I have the beta running on a Phone Edition with a 185 MHz processor, and performance is very snappy, particularly compared to Windows Mobile 5.

Second, I really like the improvements in Messaging. Delete is now the left softkey, which now makes deleting email one keypress. Better yet, there are several other keyboard accelerators, which you can see by pressing and holding the H key. For example, if you are reading an email, press and hold R to reply to email. This simple change is going to make devices with QWERTY keyboards a ton better to use.

I have not yet sat down to review the new software against my book, but I will start doing that shortly and as I uncover more I'll post here. Bottom line, if you have a Windows Mobile 5 device and are given the opportunity to get an upgrade, I recommend upgrading. Unfortunately, as we know from previous version upgrades, there is no guarantee that an OEM or carrier will provide upgrades for their current devices.

Labels: Windows Mobile 6

posted by Frank at 7:42 PM 0 comments Links to this post