Now there isn’t anything particularly wrong with Windows Mobile 6.1+ but then again there isn’t much right with it either. One can argue that Windows Mobile has more apps than any other mobile operating system but then there is no easy way to find and install those apps, let alone know if the app is any good. The operating system has some great features that have been there for ages, such as tethering, but then the whole operating system has major issues like being very unfriendly for only finger input.
Whilst information about Windows Mobile 7 is still very thin on the ground there are rumours that suggest it will be a great improvement to the Window Mobile platform (what wouldn’t?) and also a really competitor to the iPhone, Android, WebOS and Blackberries. There are many ways this could be done, obviously there will be improvements made to or a brand new interface for the operating system and better hardware support (capacitive screens) a marketplace more closely integrated with the platform etc etc. But I think that if they are going to branded Windows Phones then there should not only be those improvements but also a way to make the phone feel like an extension to the PC.
When I picture a “Windows Phone” it is something that looks and feel very similar to Windows, something we are not seeing with Windows Mobile 6.5. To get the Windows Phones to something that can easily/proudly be classed a Windows Phone and not create confusion for the general consumers. These ideas are ignoring the obvious changes needed to make the new operating system for phones a real competitor in the market.
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Sounds
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Icons
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Wallpaper
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Visual Style
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Jump Lists
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Touch
Probably the easiest thing Microsoft could do to make a Windows Mobile powered phone feel more like a true Windows Phone would be to use the same or very similar sound schemes as Windows on the PC. This is something I think would immediately make a difference and be useful for new users to the platform as they wouldn’t need to learn a whole lot of new sounds; I am sure most people could recognise the new email sound from Windows Vista/7.
Another easy way to make a Windows Phone feel more like Windows would be to use the same icons for replicated services/software on the phone and PC, this can be seen with Internet Explorer for both platforms but why not extend this. The mail application could use the Windows Live Mail icon etc etc. It felt like this was happening with Windows Mobile 6.1 and Vista however for 6.5 there is a brand new set of icons. Obviously icons are designed to be obvious but why does Microsoft feel it needs two different time/clock icons for platforms that are meant to be closely related? This idea can be taken a bit further to use the same notification icons for power, volume etc etc as found in the system tray of Windows 7.
One feature I enjoy of Windows 7 is the desktop slideshow and I think it would be great to have similar functionality for the Windows Phone. It could be more dynamic and slideshow the most recently taken photos on the phone, or some such feature. What would be even better, although I am not sure of its implementation, would be to set the desktop background on one’s PC and then have a section of that image used as the Windows Phone wallpaper. Perhaps this could be done using the My Phone service.
Another aspect of Windows Mobile I think should be changed the whole visual style of the platform, surely as a Windows Phone it should look more like Windows. For example when an item is highlighted in File Explorer it should have some horrible highlighting block colour , as it does in Windows Mobile 6.5 (I think the highlight colours/theme in 6.5 looks extremely childish with very little style), but a pale blue like Windows 7. Also the widgets that are included in Windows Mobile 6.5, and so I guess will be in Windows Mobile 7, should look more like the Windows Gadgets found in Vista and 7.
None of the above ideas would change the functionality of the phone but it would certainly make them feel like they came from the same company and were definitely closely related platforms. Obviously these are only any good if Microsoft want the Windows Mobile phones to feel like a part of the Windows family as is suggested by the brand name Windows Phone. However if Microsoft are looking to do an extreme make over for the whole platform, more like the Zune platform interface, then I think they should lose the Windows part of the name as the phones clearly wont be anything like Windows.
There are some aspects of Windows 7 that I think could add great functionality to the Windows Phones of the future.
Due to the limited screen size of mobile devices it is necessary to get the most out of the available screen space and to this end I think jump lists would be an excellent way to achieve this on Windows Phones and make it feel closely linked to Windows 7.
Imagine that when viewing the programs on the device rather than just tapping them to open them you could drill down to favourites, history etc for IE or compose mail/text for the email/text client or any number of other quick access functions that users are likely to want. Now this kind of functionality is kind of present in Windows Mobile 6.5 in the Today Screen by swiping left or right on the highlighted menu. As much as I think the Today Screen looks “shinny” I think it is a very slow way of navigating often used features of a program or recently taken photos. This functionality could possibly be accessed by tapping and holding the finger on the icon and then using the pop-up menu to click the quick access functions.
There has been a lot of hype around the introduction of real touch and multi-touch controls in Windows 7 but it has yet to be seen if this will add much to the current interface experience of PCs but I know such support is needed for Windows Mobile. Microsoft have done plenty of work on touch interfaces and yet they have been painfully slow at actually using their research in their own platforms. Maybe with new operating systems for mobile devices with touch and gesture support seemingly popping up all over the place Microsoft will be implementing great uses of touch in their own mobile platform. If the resent rumours of the Courier device can be believed it would seem that Microsoft is about embark on a fairly touch-interface-orientated campaign with its software/hardware with the surface coming first and now Windows 7, the Zune HD and Courier, they can hardly leave out their phones from that.
Now I know this is Microsoft we are talking about and that for such a large company it can often miss some of the very basic steps it needs to take to help welcome and enlighten customers to its new technologies and products but wouldn’t it be great if Microsoft came back as a real competitor within the phone market.
Currently, other than the Windows flag in the top left corner, there is nothing that makes my phone a Windows phone.
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