Windows Mobile

Mary and Simon have just blogged about 6.5 here What changes Windows Mobile into a Windows phone?.

I've used mobile windows since 2000 (the first Compaq iPAQ 3630 - launched at Microsoft Tech*Ed 2000 in Barcelona). A second iPaq and then I moved from Nokia to 5 orange WinMo phones in succession to the current HTC Touch Pro2.

Of the 5 only the Pro2 deserved a true quality rating, but I've been willing to live with WinMo because of the close MS infrastructure integration. From Exchange 2003 SP2 and push email onwards why would I want a RIM server and handset?

OneNote mobile (with a real keyboard I take all my notes at TechEd each year), Voice Command (broken on TyTN II, but wonderfully working again on Pro2), multitasking (I need to switch between concurrent apps) are all great things. But all these are a tad overwhelmed by poor battery life.

The Pro2 was a revelation - with the HTC flo interface I have something in my hand I can hold up against iPhone users with some confidence and pride. In fact no iPhone user has shown me something I later covet (doesn't mean it's not there, but...).

So, what I don't get is why Microsoft doesn't get the interface thing. Simon and Mary blogged about going back to flo, that fills me with despair. Flo fixes pretty much everything broken with the WinMo interface - it's so fat finger friendly, menus work, the weather looks great (even when it's raining!). With a tweak here and there, even Jon Honeyball might like it (see what he thought recently on twitter)!

So why don't Microsoft just buy Flo, apply their extensive resources to the last 10%; get the hardware guys to sort battery life out and then I'd have no complaints :-)