Written by PatrickJ on Monday, September 17, 2007

Osiris’ Open Letter to Windows Mobile

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Why after so many years of this platform being around, after so many operators adopting its hardware and after the recent popular release of devices like the Touch or last year the HTC TyTN series, why after all this do so few people still know about the capabilities of Windows Mobile devices?

Hot on the heels of the Engadget ‘intervention’ letter to Palm, a Windows Mobile enthusiast in Australia called Osiris has written an Open Letter to the Windows Mobile platform, outlining the dangers posed by the iPhone’s hype and success, and asking a lot of spot-on ‘Why …’ questions ,like the one quoted above.

It’s a good letter, and poses some fine questions. The three crucial points this stirs up for me are:

Interface Design = More often that not, when a Windows Mobile device is looking really sharp and easy to navigate, it’s by virtue of a 3rd party add-on (or more than one add-on) for the Today screen / launching apps etc. Apple jumped straight in with a much slicker UI.

Real Browser = Again, after all these years somebody within the WM platform should’ve seen that browsing is one of, or the, killer app on mobile devices – and given us a real browser to work with.

Under-Hyped = Not often these days do you feel like something is under-hyped. But I totally agree with Osiris’ view that Windows Mobile is. I know for sure that nearly all of my friends and aquaintances (those who are not involved in mobile sites and similar) have no clue about the platform or about Windows Mobile devices generally. They might know the Blackberry name, and they absolutely know about iPhone, but their eyes generally glaze over if you start telling hem about your latest HTC beauty.

Anyway – Osiris’ letter makes for good reading and food for thought. To have a read, go HERE.

Via: PocketNow