Yesterday, Microsoft launched their new mobile operating system, Windows Phone 7. As a former enterprise network administrator, and Windows Mobile user, I can tell you that Microsoft does have a place in the smartphone world. Redmond fell asleep at the wheel on their mobile development over the last 6-7 years and let RIM and Apple come in and essentially run them out of the mobile game. With Apple’s “fenced in” strategy, many power users who resist that model were left with few viable options in the way of hand-held devices. Google acknowledged this opportunity in 2005 by purchasing Android Inc. It wasn’t until October of 2008 that we were able to purchase the first available Android device. According to a report released by the NPD group, Android accounted for 33 precent of the smartphone sales last quarter. For an operating system that was only released two years ago, that is an impressive figure to say the least.
Andy Rubin, vice president of Engineering at Google, was quoted recently as saying the following regarding WP7:
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I’ve been testing a Windows Mobile 6.5 ROM on my HTC Touch Pro for about 3 weeks now. So far, it seems much faster and considerably more stable. It could be that I’m using a stripped down ROM without the carrier bloatware, but my phone feels very responsive.
Most applications that worked on Windows Mobile 6.1 also work in 6.5. One thing that seems to be missing though, is the built-in VoIP compatibility. While it may seem innocuous that one application, which very few people used, is suddenly not part of the new mobile operating system by Microsoft; I see a much bigger issue.
With the advancement and refinement of “Voice over IP” technologies like the SIP protocol…we are right around the corner from not needing to rely on old phone infrastructure (like analog phone lines) for having voice conversations. It finally looked like the stranglehold that phone companies had on us was about to be over with.
With the majority of new cell phones coming equipped with a wi-fi connection, and applications like Skype or the built-in VoIP support that Windows Mobile 6.1 had, you could make a call from your cell phone [over a free wi-fi connection] completely bypassing any major phone carrier’s network. With the right phone and enough wireless network coverage one could potentially cancel their cell-phone contract and stop paying ridiculous monthly fees. Well, as they say: “If it seems too good to be true…”
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At $489, this is not the cheapest toy you are going to find on the technology market, but it may just be worth its hefty price tag. What is the one aspect of a mobile content “reader” you would always like more of? How about more screen real estate…? The new Kindle has a 9.7 inch electronic paper display. This brings the Kindle experience closer to actually holding an 8.5 x 11 sheet of paper, which is essentially the ultimate goal of an eBook reader. The electronic ink works just like real ink meaning that you don’t need a backlight, eliminating eye strain associated with reading off typical electronic displays.
Auto-rotation seems to be another highly anticipated feature. Like many of the smart phone devices available today, the Kindle will switch from portrait to landscape mode simply by rotating the actual device. Personally, I love that feature on my smart phone.
Internal storage capacity appears to have been more than doubled to 3.5 GB. That may not seem like ton of storage when you think of it in music terms, like an iPod, but 3.5 GB can hold an enormous amount of text.
This device is thinner than a typical magazine and has a free always-on connection for downloading content, using the cell phone data networks. Just like with the previous Kindle models, you do not have to sign up or pay to use that service.
It has been said that printing the New York times costs roughly twice as much as it would to supply a free Kindle to all of its subscribers. I wonder how long it will be before that interesting anecdote becomes a reality. In any case, I would agree that the Kindle along with its now and future competitors will change the way millions of people read anything.
*Prediction* The Kindle will eventually have a touch screen and will become the standard device for signing contracts digitally, without ever needing to print hard copies.
Researchers at Standford University are building a brand new mobile operating system from scratch called Cinder. Philip Levis, a Stanford assistant professor, explains that building a mobile OS on top of a platform like Linux which is built for large systems, is a bad idea because those platforms are not tailored to the requirements of a mobile device. Apparently, work is being done to make it compatible with the G1 handset. One very interesting feature is the ability to increase the amount of power that is being used by an individual program, providing more performance. Cinder’s power management system should allow for much better battery life as well. I cant wait to try the first public build of this OS.
Google really surprised me when they released their own mobile operating system. Why do I say that? Because Google was always supposed to put out a web-based OS, one that you would access through nothing more than a web browser. This was what we all were anticipating 5 years ago. That still has not become a reality, but they are really making waves in the mobile world. Here is the latest list of improvements to Android 1.5:
Overall User Interface Improvements for:
- In-call experience
- Contacts, Call log, and Favorites
- SMS & MMS
- Browser
- Gmail
- Calendar
- Email
- Camera & Gallery
- Application management
Performance improvements
- Faster Camera start-up and image capture
- Much faster acquisition of GPS location (powered by SUPL AGPS)
- Smoother page scrolling in Browser
- Speedier GMail conversation list scrolling
New features
- On-screen soft keyboard
- Works in both portrait and landscape orientation
- Support for user installation of 3rd party keyboards
- User dictionary for custom words
- Home screen
- Widgets
- Bundled home screen widgets include: analog clock, calendar, music player, picture frame, and search
- Live folders
- Camera & Gallery
- Video recording
- Video playback (MPEG-4 & 3GP formats)
- Bluetooth
- Stereo Bluetooth support (A2DP and AVCRP profiles)
- Auto-pairing
- Improved handsfree experience
- Browser
- Updated with latest Webkit browser & Squirrelfish Javascript engines
- Copy ‘n paste in browser
- Search within a page
- User-selectable text-encoding
- UI changes include:
- Unified Go and Search box
- Tabbed bookmarks/history/most-visited screen
- Contacts
- Shows user picture for Favorites
- Specific date/time stamp for events in call log
- One-touch access to a contact card from call log event
- System
- New Linux kernel (version 2.6.27)
- SD card filesystem auto-checking and repair
- SIM Application Toolkit 1.0
- Google applications
- View Google Talk friends’ status in Contacts, SMS, MMS, GMail, and Email applications
- Batch actions such as archive, delete, and label on Gmail messages
- Upload videos to Youtube
- Upload photos on Picasa
Yesterday, Microsoft launched their new mobile operating system, Windows Phone 7. As a former enterprise network administrator, and Windows Mobile user, I can tell you that Microsoft does have a place in the smartphone world. Redmond fell asleep at the wheel on their mobile development over the last 6-7 years and let RIM and Apple come in and essentially run them out of the mobile game. With Apple’s “fenced in” strategy, many power users who resist that model were left with few viable options in the way of hand-held devices. Google acknowledged this opportunity in 2005 by purchasing Android Inc. It wasn’t until October of 2008 that we were able to purchase the first available Android device. According to a report released by the NPD group, Android accounted for 33 precent of the smartphone sales last quarter. For an operating system that was only released two years ago, that is an impressive figure to say the least.
mobile, operating systems | admin | 
October 12, 2010 10:39 am | 
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