“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!!!