David Flynn07 April 2008, 2:47 PM
Microsoft’s updated mobile OS sports a smarter home screen, zoomable IE mini-browser with YouTube support and threaded ‘chat mode’ for SMS.
It’s officially a small 0.1 step up from Windows Mobile 6.0 but that tiny increment contains a lot of welcome, and many would say overdue, improvements. Unveilled by Microsoft at Las Vegas’ CTIA 2008 mobile phone show this week, Windows Mobile 6.1 puts its focus onto ease of use and a better overall ‘experience’.
The OS will be made available to smartphone manufacturers (such as Windows Mobile stalwarts HTC, Samsung and Motorola) for debut on new and refreshed models starting mid-year. Those companies also have the option to issue WM 6.1 as a software upgrade to existing WM6 devices.
The refreshed home page sports a series of sliding panels that sit on the top half of the display, below the status icons but still leaving room for the today screen items which detail your next appointment, the number of unread emails or missed calls and so forth. Each panel is dedicated to a set of activities such as text messages, email, calendar, setting, music and photos, making it easier to access those tasks without diving into the Start menu. A ‘Recent Programs’ list also appears when you tap the Start button.
Plenty of work has gone into beefing up the mobile version of Internet Explorer, which will no doubt please mobile carriers in their continued efforts to encourage customers to chew up data now that voice calls are almost a commodity. The souped-up browser will support Flash and (of course) Microsoft’s own Silverlight, along with h.264-encoded video. The browser also features zooming in and out of a Web page.
Devices using the Windows Mobile 6.1 Standard operating system now gain the same Copy/Paste capabilities as the 6.0 Professional version, although this appears to be limited to Internet Explorer, Messaging (email and SMS) and the Office Mobile programs. It’s also worth noting that the current Office Mobile 6.1 edition, which is bundled with Windows Mobile 6.1, supports the native XML file format of Office 2007 for Windows and 2008 for Mac.
An exchange of SMS messages sees each message presented as part of a threaded ‘conversation’ using a chat room or IM-style window, which is an innovation introduced by Palm in their earlier modifications to Windows Mobile for the Treo smartphones.
When setting up a Bluetooth headset, WM 6.1 will automatically send the most common default passcodes of 000 and 1234 for a fast and hassle-free pairing.
While die-hards will appreciate the Task Managers options to display overall CPU usage and list processes as a means to closing applications, it’s a sad sign that Microsoft is still fixated on Windows Mobile as a traditional operating system in the same mode as its desktop counterpart. We’d rather see an OS that didn’t need a Task Manager in the first place.