Steven A. Ballmer, chief executive of Microsoft.
I had a chance to preview the new Windows Mobile 6.5 cellphone operating system that Microsoft is introducing today. I was unimpressed with the new graphic flourishes that are the bulk of the changes. But the demo reminded me of some of the nicely open aspects of Microsoft’s approach that have always been there.
Windows Mobile, which traces its heritage to Microsoft’s Pocket PC software for hand-held organizers, has long tried to replicate the experience of using a Windows computer for a device you use with a stylus. It had pull-down menus, and offered handwriting recognition as a method of entering text.
Most of Microsoft’s changes to the operating system are meant to update it to work better on phones that people touch with their fingers rather than tap with a stylus. Microsoft is also trying to make the phone have a less businesslike look (without losing appeal to corporate technology managers who have been among the operating system’s main proponents).
That means that the pull-down menus are de-emphasized in favor of icons and scrolling lists of large, friendly-looking type. The overall effect is pleasant, but it appeared derivative, with nothing that I noticed that pushed the art of cellphone interfaces forward.
Unlike the iPhone and the Palm Pre, Windows Mobile does not recognize gestures with more than one finger at the same time. In part that is because it is still using resistive touch-screen technology that senses pressure so that it can still work with a stylus. The iPhone and other multi-touch devices use capacitive touch-screen technology, which responds best to fingers and can sense more than one of them at a time.
Microsoft is also announcing a free service called My Phone that will back up information on a Windows Mobile phone and synchronize it with a computer. It also will introduce a marketplace from which you can buy Windows Mobile applications, although the details are sketchy. (Have I heard of those two ideas somewhere else?)
What impressed me were not the new features meant to copy the iPhone but the longstanding openness that comes from the attempt to miniaturize a PC. Even though Microsoft will offer an easy way to download and buy applications, it is not going to force people to use it. You can still simply load an application on the phone yourself.
Last week, the government released a filing from Apple arguing that anyone who modifies an iPhone to load software that wasn’t acquired through the iTunes store is in violation of copyright law, potentially subjecting them to fines and even jail time.
Also unlike the iPhone, Windows Mobile lets any application read files created by other applications. That means, for example, you can go to any Web site, say Amazon.com, to download music that you can play on the phone. The only way to buy music on the iPhone is through iTunes, although you can move music you got anywhere onto the iPhone from your computer.
In another attempt at openness, Windows Mobile 6.5 will support Adobe Flash and Flash video in its browser. This, in theory, will bring most of the video on the Web to Windows Mobile phones. In the demo I saw, Flash was very sluggish, potentially backing up Apple’s contention that Flash is too inefficient for small phone processors. But Microsoft and handset makers have months to try to speed up the Flash experience.
Phones with the new operating system, from manufacturers including LG, won’t be available until the end of this year.
All in all, there was nothing I saw that made me lust for a Windows Mobile phone. But I hope that Microsoft’s openness will help force Apple and others to rethink their arguments that they need to approve every application that runs on their handsets. It’s nice to see a company that treats people who simply want to use their own phones their own way as customers, not criminals.
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