Todd
Tue Apr 01 14:23:56 PDT 2008
"Jonathan Kamens" <jik@kamens.brookline.ma.us> wrote in message
news:fstr8v$m8b$5@jik3.kamens.brookline.ma.us...
> If someone could actually make a convincing case that
> Microsoft cared about Windows Mobile quality, I might change
> my mind, but I've simply seen no evidence of that.
Perhaps the crux of the problem is that WM is an OS- not a hardware product.
It's up to the OEM to create a stable phone by adding working drivers and
stable hardware to the base OS.
My wife's WM 5 smartphone, a T-Mobile Dash (HTC Excalibur) is about as
stable a phone as I've ever used- it never crashes, never requires
rebooting, and she has several hundred e-mails on it at any given time.
I've had Nokia phones (my usual "rosetta stone" for a quality cellular
phone) that had more bugs (lockups, reboots, out-of-memory conditions, etc.)
than the Dash. Unlike my WM phone (a T-Mo MDA/HTC Wizard) she runs it
"stock"- few if any added apps. (I added Google Maps and the TCPMP media
player to handle DiVx movies to entertain her on frequent plane rides.)
I'd probably use a Dash myself, but I'm hung up on having a touchscreen,
and, unlike you, I do use my PPC phone as a laptop replacement, and the
non-touchscreen MS "WM Standard" platform just isn't as robust for that.
> Take a look at this article, published today, about WM 6.1:
>
>
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&taxonomyName=mobile_and_wireless&articleId=9073998&taxonomyId=15&intsrc=kc_top
>
> There isn't a single word in it about improving the quality
> of the existing software on the phones. It's all about new
> features. New features sell phones, of course, but what
> about making the existing features useable for those of us
> who have already paid their money?
That's what ROm upgrades are for. I'm sorry yours doesn't seem to work
well, but AT&T and HTC have released three different OS revisions for your
phone- the original WM5 ROM, and AKU 3.3 update, and now WM6. It's
unfortunate that they haven't worked out all the bugs, but compare that to
many smartphones that never get an update (like my Nokia 36xx Symbian phones
that had the same bugs from the day I purchased them until the day they were
retired.)
> Another example of a serious WM5 bug that MS knew about and
> didn't bother to fix in WM6 -- if you sync a Sent Items folder
> in an IMAP mailbox, then when you send IMAP messages the copy
> that was supposed to get deposited into Sent Items gets lost
> instead.
Actually, while I had that problem in WM5, it was corrected in WM6, at least
for the two IMAP providers I regularly use (AOL and GMail.) I'm not sure
you're describing the bug properly, either- when I had it in WM5, the Sent
Items weren't "lost"- they just didn't show up on the mobile device. Items
sent from my WM5 mobile properly showed in the IMAP Sent Items folder when
viewed on my other devices (PCs running Outlook), just not on the mobile.
(A bigger WM5 bug for me was the handling of Deleted Items- items deleted on
the device never seemed to delete from the server- just on the device.
That, too, seems to have been corrected in WM6.)
As to your Sent Items problem, is it possible that you aren't sending the
items through your usual IMAP server? Like many cellcos, AT&T offers their
own SMTP server (smtp.cwmx.com, IIRC) for customers whose ISPs block "off
network" SMTP (many cable and DSL providers block external access to control
spam) so any mail sent through AT&T's servers would NOT show up in your IMAP
Sent folder, since your IMAP provider didn't actually "send" the mail- AT&T
did on your behalf. I fell victim to this myself when AOL upgraded their
mail servers a year and a half or so ago, introducing a slight bug that
prevented WinMo's messaging program from sending SMTP mail through AOL's
server, so I had to fallback on T-Mobile's own SMTP server for outgoing mail
until AOL fixed the bug several weeks later. (Of course, Murphy's Law
dictated that the AOL server upgrade happened while I was on a month-long
trip where I'd left my laptop at home, using the WM device as my sole
e-mail/internet device! It was a week before I even figured what the
problem was- AOL apparently refuses to respond to support requests from
non-AOL users, so they ignored various requests from my non-AOL accounts,
despite the fact that I couldn't actually SEND a question from my
non-working AOL accounts until I switched to T-mo's SMTP!)
Sorry for the long winded response, but I guess I'm doing more WM
apologizing- I think it's a good, stable, platform, which is jeopardized by
the various OEMs who show the less than neccessary diligence when packaging
the software for the devices themselves. Many WM devices run as smooth as
silk, while others just fail to hit the mark, despite having the same OS
core. Companies like RIM and Apple create both the hardware and software
and seem to maintain a tighter control over the finished product. Once MS
releases an OS core into a manufacturer's hands, it's out of their control
how well (or not so well) the finished product will perform. A company like
HTC releases more different models of phone in a year than John Grissom and
Stephen King combined write books in a career, so it's not surprizing (but
is still very disappointing) that many of them are bug-addled and receive
very little after-production scrutiny to fix bugs. By the time the users
are complaining, HTC is off building their next bug-ridden model and
suggesting affected users upgrade to it! On the other hand, Palm's WM-based
Treos, or HP's WM phones seem to be less buggy and receive more carefully
crafted and tested updates. (If only they didn't use those quasi-compatible
square screens, I might own one!)
In short, (yeah, too late for that!) I'm a long-time WM fan waiting for a
day when an OEM is actually up to the task of building a phone that actually
implements WM well- at least as well as the various trouble-free standalone
WM PDAs I've owned- hopefully the upcoming Sony Ericsson X1 won't disappoint
(despite actually being built by HTC!) I have to believe that SE will put
the required effort into making sure it runs as it should since they have a
long standing reputation as a phone manufacturer to protect, as opposed to
HTC, who, until recently, always hid behind the wireless carrier's name,
(like with your "AT&T" 8525 or my "T-Mobile" MDA) protected from the shame
of being identifed as the culprit behind some truly awful products. (Like
the absolutely revolting "Audiovox" PPC-4100 phone I owned for nearly 72
hours before returning it! That thing locked up as tight as a drum if you
looked at it cross-eyed!)