[access-uk] Re: An introduction to Windows Mobile 5.0
- From: "Adrian Higginbotham" <adrian.higginbotham@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <access-uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 9 Sep 2005 10:22:50 +0100
Hmmm the extended battery life sounds good from the perspective of
screenreaders for the operating system which you must re install if the
battery runs dry.
Read yesterday that the Optelink easy read range actually uses pocket
Hal as the screenreader component of products such as Easy link -
interesting given that this has been on the market for 2 or 3 months at
lteast but Pocket Hal true isn't yet on sale. Or have I got the wrong
end of something somewhere along the way?
Adrian Higginbotham
Accessibility and inclusion adviser
British Educational Communications and Technology Agency - BECTA
Tel: Direct dial 024 7679 7333 - Internal extension #2287
Email: Adrian.Higginbotham@xxxxxxxxxxxx
Web: http://www.becta.org.uk/
BECTA, Millburn Hill Road, Science Park, Coventry, CV4 7JJ
-----Original Message-----
From: Carol Pearson [mailto:carol.pearson@xxxxxxxxxxxx]
Sent: 09 September 2005 07:28
To: access-uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [access-uk] An introduction to Windows Mobile 5.0
Hi folks,
Below is a fairly long review of Windows Mobile 5.0 At the bottom of
this post you can find the URL to the actual article, which includes
pictures. I found it interesting.
--
Carol
An introduction to Windows Mobile 5.0
Posted Sept. 5, 2005 by Lisa Gade, Editor in Chief
Windows Mobile 5 sports many new features and enhancements making it a
very worthwhile upgrade. Perhaps the most important feature that
everyone will love- from PDA novices to hardcore PDA devotees, is
persistent memory. Your data won't be lost if the battery runs
completely dry-- a new concept for Pocket PCs, and an old one for MS
Smartphones and some Palm brand PDAs such as the LifeDrive and Treo 650.
This memory architecture more closely resembles PCs: RAM is used for
running programs and not for storage. Your data and all OS files are
stored in Flash ROM which doesn't require power to preserve its
contents. And just like your computer (and the Palm LifeDrive), Windows
Mobile devices can use hard drives as a storage medium. This means we
could see a Pocket PC with an embedded MicroDrive (the MicroDrive is a
tiny hard drive and it's currently used in the LifeDrive as well as hard
disk based MP3 players like the Apple iPod and portable video players).
It's less likely we'll see a hard drive in a smartphone since the
current trend is to miniaturize phones as much as possible and because
hard drives use more power.
Speaking of power, since the device need not power large amounts of RAM,
battery life has improved about 10%. Assuming most devices will go with
large amounts of flash ROM and no more than 64 megs of RAM, expect to
see increased battery life along those lines. Why not even greater
improvements? Because the device, like a notebook put to sleep, does
indeed just go to sleep and not power off completely. The PDA must
maintain whatever is in RAM (i.e.: running programs) so that you find it
in the same state as when you last turned it off. If the battery does
run completely dry, the device will soft reset (reboot) when you charge
it up and all running programs will be terminated. But again, your data
will still be there!
At what price? Flash ROM is slower than RAM, likely why PPC
manufacturers went with RAM in the first place. The Pocket PC
marketplace has become as competitive as the PC market when it comes to
performance specs. This is both good and bad: devices get faster, but
the move to flash ROM came late in the game. Pure benchmarks for file
system and data loads are slower on Windows Mobile 5 Pocket PC and
Pocket PC phones because flash ROM isn't as fast as the RAM it replaces.
The folks who make Spb Benchmark, the common standard for benchmarking
Pocket PCs, say their benchmark app has been straight ported (made
compatible) as of this writing but hasn't be revised to level the
playing field and fairly represent speeds relative to the memory
technology used. The next major release of Spb Benchmark will be
re-architected to do this and may also represent VGA devices in a more
level field against QVGA devices (a VGA Pocket PC's benchmarks should
possibly be multiplied by 4 since they are rendering 4x the data to
screen as a QVGA device, according to Spb).
Pocket PC boot times are slower as well, since operating system files
are copied from ROM to RAM at boot to improve device responsiveness.
We're talking large chunks of files copied to RAM after every soft
reset: about 30 megs of RAM are in use at boot on a Pocket PC with 64
megs of RAM.
High speed data over GSM and CDMA networks? You got it. WM5 supports
every current data standard in use: 3G (EVDO and GSM's UTMS), 2.5g
(1xRTT and EDGE) as well as good old fashioned slow as molasses GPRS.
While Pocket PC and Pocket PC phones have had support for WiFi for some
time, now MS Smartphones will as well. And of course, both can use
Bluetooth.
Soft Keys, found on MS Smartphones are now standardized and ubiquitous
across all Windows Mobile 5 devices, both Pocket PC and smartphone.
These are two quick keys that activate menus on the home screen and
within applications, theoretically reducing the number of actions
required to accomplish common tasks and reducing the need to whip out
the stylus for Pocket PCs and Pocket PC Phone Edition devices with touch
screens. We may not see actual hardware keys on Pocket PCs, but even if
there are no hardware keys, there are two areas at the bottom left and
right of the screen which you can tap with your finger or stylus to
activate these menus. On the Today Screen screen shot below, you'll
notice soft keys for Calendar and Contacts. In Internet Explorer they
are Favorites and Menu which brings up all available menu items for that
application. Once you've navigated to a web page, the Favorites soft key
changes to become the back button. In Word, the left soft key is
dedicated to the View menu and the right soft key is the general Menu
for all available menu items.
Like Windows Mobile 2003, Windows Mobile 5 uses the familiar Start Menu
and the same top taskbar widgets such as volume control, data connection
indicators and etc. on Pocket PC and PPC phones. Unfortunately, we're
still limited to assigning only 7 possible applications to the Start
Menu. The Start Menu retains the most recently used application list and
shortcuts to the programs and Settings screens.
Microsoft Voice Command, a very full-featured and remarkably accurate
voice recognition and command system has been integrated into Windows
Mobile 5 (previously it sold separately). It is not a required component
of Windows Mobile 5 however, so we'll likely only see it included in
Pocket PC phones and MS Smartphones and not Pocket PCs without phone
capabilities. Should you purchase a Windows Mobile 5 PDA or phone that
doesn't come with Voice Command, you can purchase it separately.
GPS Settings applet offers a basic GPS driver and settings control panel
where you can set the COM port, baud rate and allow Windows Mobile to
manage the GPS for you. You'll need to install your own maps, but not a
driver.
Bluetooth now supports HID devices: Bluetooth keyboards and mice. No
need of a 3rd party driver.
Windows Mobile 5 supports a variety of display resolutions included
standard QVGA (240 x 320), VGA (640 x 480) and square 240 x 240. Like
Windows Mobile 2003 Second Edition, it supports both landscape and
portrait orientations and you can change screen orientation on the fly.
Text input options remain the same (on-screen keyboard, character
recognizer, block recognizer and Transcriber), but the keyboard icon
which brings up the input system has been moved from the right to the
middle of the bottom task bar.
As you all know, Microsoft has been under great pressure to tighten
security and user confidence in Windows, and this extends to Windows
Mobile. You'll see a lot of security warnings in Windows Mobile 5 when
you install and run a new application for the first time. MS Smartphone
users are already somewhat accustomed to this, thanks to the unsigned
applications warnings seen on WM 2003 smartphones. When you install an
application using your Windows PC and ActiveSync, you'll no longer
specify the location using the desktop. You'll still install apps using
ActiveSync, but once the desktop portion of the installation is done,
the Pocket PC will ask you if you really wish to install it (after
warning you about installing an unknown application), and where you wish
to install it, i.e.: internal memory or an SD card. This is similar to
the way MS Smartphones have always done things. After you've told
Windows Mobile you really did want to install that app and you do indeed
trust it, WM5 will ask you if it's OK to run it (thankfully it will only
ask the first time you run the app after installation). A somewhat
heavy-handed way of effecting
security-- making you confirm everything is OK several times, but it's
better than nothing. At least someone won't be able to download and
install an app onto your PDA or phone via some yet invented script and
install it because you'll have to confirm that installation before it
proceeds.
Just like Windows XP desktops, Windows Mobile now has error reporting.
You can turn this feature on or off using a Settings applet. If you
enable it, error reporting can send reports about crashes to Microsoft
over your network or ActiveSync connection. The good news is that the
new error handling feature can intercept problems before they freeze or
crash your handheld.
Speaking of ActiveSync, you'll use the new version 4 to sync to Windows
Mobile 5 devices. The PDA or phone will tell you to install version 4 if
you try to sync with an older version. ActiveSync 4 doesn't look much
different but it allows you to sync to more devices (those of you who do
corporate syncing and partnerships or just collect scads of PDAs will be
happy) and is supposed to be faster at syncing. We've only had the
pleasure of using the beta, so we can't make sure statements about
syncing speed. In the beta it seemed about the same speed to us, if not
a little slower to start the sync. Microsoft claims better
compatibility, stability and a large number of eradicated bugs in
version 4.0 as well. Beware: gone is the ability to sync over WiFi
because syncing over a pubic unsecured medium is too risky. You can sync
over WiFi if you're using a VPN connection however. WiFi syncing may
make a comeback. Microsoft couldn't create secure WiFi syncing in time
to release version 4.0 and that's why it's gone. Sadly, the backup and
restore option is also gone. while MS Smartphone users couldn't use this
feature in the past, Pocket PC and Pocket PC phone users have come to
count on it. At least memory is persistent so desperate need of a backup
might be lessened, but still there's one less avenue to keep your data
safe. Do use the included backup utility on your device, and if one
isn't included, get an application like Sprite Backup. It will save your
cheetos some day.
If you've used Pocket PCs or MS Smartphones before, Windows Mobile 5
will look familiar enough, have no fear. The basics of the user
interface and overall functionality are much the same. Rather, the UI
has been improved here and there to make one-handed use possible,
features have been added on top of the familiar OS and bugs have been
squashed. Microsoft has made marketing changes in the name department
too. The OS is called Windows Mobile 5, not Windows Mobile 2005
following the naming convention of the last two OS versions. This is in
part because both Pocket PCs and Smartphones run two variations of the
same OS now rather than two different operating systems. Pocket PCs,
Pocket PC Phones and MS Smartphones will all run Windows Mobile 5. This
doesn't mean you can install a Pocket PC app on an MS Smartphone, but it
does mean the software developers who write those applications will have
to do relatively little work to get their app running on both
variations.
Pocket Office has a new name as well. We used to have Pocket Outlook,
Pocket Word, Pocket Excel and Pocket Internet Explorer. The word
"mobile" has replaced "pocket", so we have Word Mobile, for example.
Today Screen
New for the Today screen are Device Lock, and Pocket MSN. To use device
lock, simply tap on the device lock icon. The device will be oblivious
to all button presses except the power button until you disable Device
Lock by pressing the left soft key and confirming the unlock request.
Pocket MSN is now a handy feature rather than a dead end icon in the
programs group. As a Today Screen plugin, it's an excellent enhancement
with four icons (left to right): the butterfly which takes you to a
listing of all MSN services (Messenger, Hotmail, MSN Mobile and Pocket
MSN help), the house icon which takes you to the Pocket MSN homepage
with a list of useful, small screen optimized info pages (sports,
weather, entertainment and etc.); the MSN Messenger icon and lastly the
mail icon which takes you to your Hotmail inbox. Yes, you can now use
Outlook on the device to send and receive Hotmail.
It seems the file format for Pocket PC Today Themes has changed: we
tried a selection of our favorite extended Windows Mobile 2003 SE
themes, and the color palette changed but the background image did not.
You can still assign the JPEG of your choice as the background image for
the Today Screen as a consolation.
Internet Explorer
Boy, did we want to see the included web browser get better. While not a
revolutionary overhaul, IE is indeed better, rendering pages more
quickly and more like the desktop. Sites that stymied prior versions of
IE now look decent in default layout mode. Yes, one column, default and
desktop layout options are still there, along with the show images
option, history and pretty much the same set of prefs found in IE on
Windows Mobile 2003. IE now has a full screen mode and a progress bar
that appears at the bottom of the screen to show page load progress.
Once the page is loaded, the progress bar disappears, so it doesn't
waste screen real estate. You can now tap and hold on a web page's image
to save it to your Windows Mobile device and just as before, you can
download, save and install CAB files found on the web.
Sadly, NetFront 3.2 does not run on Pocket PCs and Pocket PC phones as
of this writing. NetFront 3.2 (and v. 3.3 Japanese) are designed for
Windows Mobile 2003SE and crash with a gwes.dll (graphics library) error
when trying to render pages.
Contacts
Contacts got a major overhaul and is both more attractive and easier to
use one-handed. There are a few important new features too. Photo
contacts are supported natively and your contacts' photos are synced to
Outlook on the desktop. There's a search box up top where you can enter
a name or number to find a contact (you need not enter the entire name
or number since it filters your contacts as you type). The contacts
directory is cleaner, more attractive and easier to scan, as are
individual contacts. You can use the d-pad to navigate to a contact,
then quickly move to the email address to send them an email, or move to
their phone number (for phone devices) to dial them.
Office Applications for Pocket PC and Pocket PC Phone
PowerPoint Mobile joins Word and Excel on Windows Mobile 5 devices.
Previous versions of the Pocket PC and MS Smartphone OS didn't include
PowerPoint, so you had to purchase a 3rd party application. PowerPoint
Mobile can view but not edit or create PowerPoint presentations. So it's
a great solution if you need to view PowerPoint presentations sent to
you via email, or give a presentation on the go by hooking up the device
to a projector (this generally but not always requires VGA out hardware
which is sold separately). If you need to tweak your presentation on the
road, you'll still need a 3rd party application that allows you to edit
presentations.
Word Mobile supports more advanced formatting and is less likely to
munge your pretty desktop-created documents. For example, tables are now
supported and files will be saved with tables intact. If you're an
advanced user, don't abandon TextMaker just yet. TextMaker still offers
more advanced formatting capabilities. But for general use, Word Mobile
is much more worthwhile than the old Pocket Word.
Excel Mobile also has a few tweaks up its sleeve, which include support
for chart display and creation.
Pictures & Videos
Pictures has been around since Windows Mobile 2003. It's now called
Pictures & Videos and, as you guessed from the name, now supports
videos. Though we tried 3GP, MPEG, AVI, ASF, WMV and MPEG4 files and
none were recognized by Pictures & Videos. Hmmm... we'll let you know
when we find out what it does support.
Standard Software
While there have been additions, there were no subtractions- all the
apps you've been accustomed to are there. These include Solitaire and
Jawbreaker (renamed Bubble Breaker), Calculator, File Explorer, Terminal
Services as well as the Outlook Mobile PIM suite (contacts, calendar,
tasks, notes and email).
Application Compatibility
Though a lot has changed in WM5, we found that most of our favorite 3rd
party applications ran on Windows Mobile 5. Many developers have already
updated their applications for compatibility as necessary, so if you're
running popular and regularly updated software things look good. We
tested Spb PocketPlus 3.0 and Battery Pack Pro 2, both of which are WM5
compatible and they ran fine. Resco Explorer 2003 and 2005 as well as
Resco Photo Viewer run well, as does TCMP (The Core Media Player,
formerly Beta Player), MS Reader and eReader. Conduits Pocket Artist 2.7
worked, though one menu is mostly hidden under the newly centered
keyboard input icon, so you need to tap near the edge of the keyboard to
bring up that menu. In the games department, Jamdat's Tennis Addict,
Arvale, and Ancient Evil ran fine. Mobilair's Creepy Pinball did not run
(frozen with a blank screen). Street Duel got a gwes.dll error on launch
but still ran.
Can You Upgrade to Windows Mobile 5.0?
So far, most manufacturers aren't offering many upgrades. Windows Mobile
5.0 requires at least 64 megs of ROM, and it's advisable to have 64 megs
of RAM, and the device must run an ARM compatible processor such as the
Intel XScale or the Samsung and Texas Instruments ARM compatibles. So
not all machines meet the basic requirements. Beyond that, there are so
many low level changes in the operating system, that testing older
devices and their software with the new OS would cost manufacturers too
much time and money.
Announced upgrades:
Fujitsu Siemens Pocket LOOX 718 and 720, Fall 2005, though rumors of
delay until Jan. 2006
HP iPAQ hx2000 series models (i.e. hx2750), Fall 2005
HP iPAQ hx4700 / hx4705, delayed until Q1 2006
Dell Axim X50 and X50v, Fall 2005
Rumored upgrades:
Samsung i730 Pocket PC phone
E-TEN M500 (TORQ P100) Pocket PC Phone: E-TEN stated an upgrade would be
available but hasn't said when.
Useful Pages on Our Site:
Pocket PC Reviews
Pocket PC Phone Reviews
MS Smartphone Reviews
Windows Mobile 2003SE Model Comparison Matrix
Microsoft's Windows Mobile web site: www.microsoft.com/windowsmobile
http://www.mobiletechreview.com/editorials/windows-mobile-5.htm
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