“I really didn’t want to beat up on WinMo here, because at this point it just feels tired. But man, come on Microsoft, you’re giving me no choice. Windows Mobile 6.5 isn’t just a letdown—it barely seems done,” John Herrman reports for Gizmodo.
“It’s nowhere near the upgrade that Windows Mobile needs to be even remotely interesting,” Herrman reports. “It’s a superficial update, and not a very thorough one. It’s an interim product, and a vain attempt to hold onto the thinning ranks people who still choose Windows Mobile despite not being somehow tethered to it until the tardy Windows Mobile 7 comes out, whenever that may be. And it won’t work.”
Herrman reports, “It doesn’t really feel like a redesign—it feels like someone went through 6.1 and adjusted a few values. Add a few pixels of menu spacing here, some plasticky highlight graphics there, and BOOM. 6.5. Let’s go to lunch.”
“The confusingly-named Mobile Internet Explorer 6 is to Mobile IE 5 what IE 7 was to IE6 on the desktop. Get that? This is to say it’s a massive upgrade, but like IE7, which added tabs and popup blocking about two years after everyone else had it, Mobile IE6 is at least a generation behind its competitors,” Herrman reports. “Microsoft isn’t really advertising the SUPER SPEED of Windows Mobile 6.5, which makes sense: 6.5 is based on the same underlying Windows CE version (5.2) as 6.1, and even 6.0. In other words, its guts are oooold.”
There’s much more in the full review here.
Bill Rigby reports for reuters, “Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer played down recent industry talk that the company was developing its own smartphone. ‘We are not here to announce today that we are making phones,’ he said at an event in Paris.”
“The market for phones is set to treble or quadruple in the next few years, Ballmer said, and Microsoft is ready to challenge other phone makers for market share,” Rigby reports. “He added that Windows Mobile’s share of the mobile phone market is equal to Apple’s. ‘We and Apple are and we’re chasing the two other players,’ said Ballmer, referring to Nokia, the world’s No. 1 smartphone maker, and Research in Motion.”
Rigby reports, “Microsoft also announced a new online application store, where users can buy 246 applications for their phones.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Steve Ballmer is batshit insane.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “GizmoDan” for the heads up.]
…for a long as it takes.”
Unfortunately people feel safe with Windows because it’s all they know. It will sell phones… Now how many is the big question.
That picture ~ couldn’t be real?
Isn’t this the guy who laughed at Apple coming into the mobile market? Wasn’t he going on about how WinMo’s been around for a long time and is on a ton of phones and that Apple will at most be a niche player?
So now he’s saying Windoze and Apple are neck and neck and chasing the top two? In a couple of years Apple has gone from nothing to #3 in the mobile market and are chasing the two leaders and Ballmer just sees it as, what, healthy competition?
WinMo…fail! Just admit it.
@Apple Pi,
Well, it hasn’t been working over the last year! WinMo’s share of the mobile smartphone OS market has been dropping like a rock, now to a point below Apple’s share (despite what their delusional CEO claims).
WinMobile marketshare is equal to Apple’s in what world Ballmer?
Perfect MDN take.
Batshit insane?
OMG, ROFLMAO!
Too bad he looks like my favorite TV Personality, Uncle Fester!
Too much laughter for today. MDN you’re too much!
From above: “Rigby reports, “Microsoft also announced a new online application store, where users can buy 246 applications for their phones.””
“Microsoft opens Windows Mobile app store packed chock full of 34 whole apps” , from yesterday.
Looks like someone is in wishful thinking mode (or Ballmer GasLight Mode)! by 212 Apps!
Talk about a pump and dump for WinMo Customers..
U – G – L – Y you ain’t got no alibi, you’re ugly… winmo 6.5
Dear Lord
Please protect Steve Ballmer’s health and let him keep his job.
Please keep the Microsoft board of directors as oblivious as possible to his utter stupidity and cluelessness. It is helping my Apple stock immensely and I promise to donate more to charitable causes from my massive profits.
Amen
Microsoft aren’t going to be able to pay bloggers to say anything good about this…
Ballmer is heading for a nervous breakdown if you ask me.. followed by early retirement.
PR u rock!!!
WinMo fail that should be the Microflop catch phrase. I along with the majority of MDN readers, don’t have to deal with substandard upgrades. Why? Because we are smart enough to know everything Apple is better. Did I mention everything? If you realy feel the other guys are better, you deserve what you get. Or don’t get. Funny I made myself laugh.
I still think that Microsoft needs to change the Change Name of Windows Mobile. Naming in honor of the CEO is not a bad choice. And after all you could have a much worse name like Windows, Zune, Vista or CE. Let’s face it! Fart Mo! just works. And, after the failure that all Windows Mobile Versions are up to this point it’s the perfect way to shit the focus and squirt customer attention away from the failure that Microsoft’s Mobile OS is.
The Perfect advertising campaign: Get your gas on and break a breeze with a HTC Smart Phone that a the shit! Runs Microsoft’s Fart Mo OS, featuring Microsoft’s Mobile Application Market Place with 34 applications and higher priced then any other mobile phone application market price. Pay more and get less.
“Neck and neck”, as in;
they are waaaaaaaay ahead, and we are trying our very best to copy along !! (but pleaze, slow down!)
Microsoft always gets it right with version 3.0 – no wait, they only did that once…
While I would love to rag on Ballmer, unfortunately at least in the US smartphone market he’s technically accurate.
comScore reports that in July-09
Windows Mobile: 6.65M users
Apple iPhone: 6.63M users
What Ballmer isn’t mentioning is that this is a 5% drop in the last 6 months for Windows Mobile, and a 15% increase for iPhone.
So yes, they are neck-and-neck, but going in two very different directions.
@Macaday
“Microsoft aren’t going to be able to pay bloggers to say anything good about this…”
———
The FTC just changed the rules this week that forces reviewers to admit any paid or free service connections to the product or company they are “reviewing”.
Sounds like this may impact bloggers at some point as well (if they are getting paid).
Nokia sells lots of phones. Too bad their revenue is in the dumps. RIM has their own 2 for 1 problems. The MacBU at M$ needs to develop a WebOS version for us on WinMo phones. That way Apple can save M$.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Windows Mobile 7 included mobile AV software. It may even cause it to drag to a crawl, but it won’t matter. They’ll just tell the Windows-using sheep that it makes it more secure and compatible with their already buggy PCs. They’ll assert having an IT person to keep it running is just part of being a “responsible user”. The sheep will believe what they’re told.
“use” not “us.” Nap time.
“Apple’s iPhone held onto a 13.7% share of global smartphone unit sales in the second quarter, outpacing Microsoft’s Windows Mobile, which now claims just 9% of the market, according to Canalys.” Appleinsider’s Prince McLean reported on Friday, August 21, 2009, in an article called “Canalys: iPhone outsold all Windows Mobile phones in Q2 2009”
http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/09/08/21/canalys_iphone_outsold_all_windows_mobile_phones_in_q2_2009.html