Windows Mobile Wish List

Features I would like to see added to Windows Mobile - It's Time for a Change! Let me preface the following blog entry by saying I am not an embedded systems hardware designer. I occasionally write programs for the Windows Mobile platform, though mostly using high-level languages and frameworks. With that disclaimer out of the way, I can say with all honesty that I'm so glad the iPhone has been such a success for Apple. Microsoft badly needed serious competition to reset the playing field. Because the iPhone does so many things well on so many levels, it's obvious that Microsoft has to scrap their existing pre-iPhone era platform for something that is a lot thinner, feature-rich and considerably more stable than today's Windows Mobile platform. Here are a few targets that the next major release of the Windows Mobile OS and target devices need to achieve to remain relevant in the post-iPhone world: 1. Better interface - buried icons, nested menus and soft keyboards are so last decade. The time has come for a hardware accelerated, predictive, gesture-based user interface that knows exactly what its owner wants, even before the owner does. 2. Thin, lightweight design - anything thicker than 1.5 cm just won't be marketable to most mobile enthusiasts anymore. The next Windows Mobile platform has to be packaged in a device more powerful and even thinner than an iPhone. 3. Longer battery life - Strive for a mobile device that can sustain a full working day's worth of screen use without a recharge. 4. Built-in radios - the HTC Advantage provided a glimpse of what's possible with A2DP Bluetooth, SiRF3 GPS, 802.11 b/g WiFi and Quad-Band, 3G-ready mobile radios contained in the same device. The next step is to merge these radios into a single low-power chip that will easily cut the size and weight of the Advantage in half. 5. Adequate backward compatibility - with nearly a decade of software amassed for the Windows Mobile platform, software compatibility is obviously a requirement. However, given the power of today's mobile architectures, don't sacrifice serious forward propelling innovations for 100% compatibility. I would rather see Microsoft virtualize the existing Windows Mobile OS inside whatever replacement they need to conjure up rather than staying tied to the past. The time has come for Microsoft to radically depart from its aging Windows CE roots, much the way Windows NT was the radical OS that broke the rules of DOS to form the basis of Microsoft's operating system platform for its server, XP and Vista line. The iPhone should provide Microsoft's engineers with rabid enthusiasm to outdo their competition. Let's get ready to rumble!