Question: Is Microsoft hindered by its large user base (especially business users) when it comes to rewriting things from scratch? When Apple re-wrote their OS to create OSX they did a great job. The jump from OS9 was huge and it was a step in the right direction. Still, they had a much smaller user base and therefore had less to lose if a few users had issues with their random 3rd party software not working on the new OS. With Windows, whether XP, Vista, Mobile, or whatever, it seems like it is much harder to do a total rewrite to bring things up to date. When the vast majority of businesses depend on compatibility with your OS, you don't want to risk backwards-incompatibility with all kinds of software packages. The PR backlash would be terrible if a new MS OS caused someone's internal software system or email server to stop working at a critical point in the business day.

Google has the potential to rewrite things because they aren't responsible for maintaining backwards compatibility with any existing software. Like Gmail, they can afford to keep it in perpetual beta while the service improves in a much more linux-like approach.

but, as I mentioned in that previous post, microsoft is essentially forcing us to add lots of 3rd party apps, as the built in ones don't measure up. yes, the iPhone is currently locked, but the built in apps
safari > IE
iCal > WM calendar
iTunes > media player

Is it our fault we put on potentially unstable 3rd party apps?
I don't think so

well, just look at vista :)

Uh, do you have an iphone or ipod touch? I do.

safari > IE - true (mostly, but no flash on safari, and not all javascript sites work, so maybe not so much - more pretty? You betcha. More functional? After 10 minutes, not so much.)

iCal > WM calendar (wow... can I get some of what you're smoking? This is really really really not even close to true)

iTunes > media player (There is no "iTunes" - there is "music" and "videos", and they're just about as crappy overall as windows media player. Mortplayer kicks both their asses as an audio player, and tcpmp supports a lot more codecs then WMP and the apple video player... sigh)

I'm no WM fanboy, nor am I an iWhatever fanboy. They all suck in different ways, and are good in different ways. For example, if you need to cut and past (anything) you want to stay away from the iWhatevers until 1.1.3 is released (rumored to have the magical cut and past feature from 1962 implemented. Ah, the great leap forward has begun!)

No doubt android will suck in completely new ways. The most interesting things about it have everything to do with it being an open platform. The Java-sdk is disappointing (oh wow, a java phone. How very Nokia 2003) but sooner or later a native sdk will come out - by then the Apple native sdk should be out, and of course the WM native SDK and PalmOS and Symbian SDKs have been around for more then a decade. So at least there will be lots of choices, and HTC can lower the handset price by $30 since they won't have to pay palm/ms/symbian a license fee for the OS.

So the fact that bluetooth was great on my Wing, and is supposedly great on the Touch is microsoft's fault? How about the microsd problems the wing has? Also how is microsoft to blame for the crappy volume on the Mougl?

if you'd read my post, i was talking about 1st party, not 3rd party apps.
my point was that, with WM6, you're basically forced to get opera (or pie), a calendar program, TCMP, a better alarm program etc..
that was all. I wasn't claiming that 3rd party software on WM sucked

I wouldn't really say the Iphone works "so well". It has plenty of issues with the lesser functionality that it has compared to other phones.

Even if you agree that it does work well, the number of apps doesn't really have anything to do with it. If that were true it would be impossible to make a phone run better with 3rd party apps than you can stock default. If you know what you are doing you can get a Palm OS 5 device running stable with easily 100 1st+3rd party apps.

Yes, 3rd party apps can cause instability or conflict, but it's not as simple as "less apps = phone works better". Apps are designed to make a phone "work better" than it does default.

So wait. with an iWhatever you get support for 1 video format, and 2 audio formats, and a very anemic calendar.

With WM you get support for 2 audio (wma/mpg3) and 2 video (wmv + mpeg4) codecs, and a better calendar. You don't need any 3rd party apps to suck slightly less then iWhatever does.

With android, you get nothing - it's all 3rd party apps. So wait, what was your argument again?

I will definitely be all over android! Google is awesome.

(off topic, my ipod touch is rock solid and has 31 apps on it :) )

My friend has an iPhone. While I don't see it as usable as my Mogul, it is definitely more user friendly.

Also, Safari on the iPhone is WAY more functional and usable than pocket IE. I dread going online with PIE, and sadly it is about the most usable browser on Windows Mobile too.

Anyway, I heard Google was using the Mogul as one of it's test devices, so one can hope Andriod will run easily on a Mogul later on down the line. I'd install it.