Sleep mode has insomnia

[miamicanes]

Well, I hope for Microsoft's sake (in the mobile universe, at least) that you're right. I don't think Microsoft themselves realize how precarious their current position is.

The only thing that's made Windows Mobile halfway tolerable for the past ~5 years or so has been the third-party extensions that helped ameliorate the worst and most intolerable of Microsoft's design sins. Case in point: the PPC-6700/HTC Apache. Out of the box, devoid of thirdparty apps and enhancements, it was basically unusable for its intended purpose. It had the highest return rate of any phone with non-defective hardware in history. The only thing that saved it was the fact that it had decent hardware, and appealed to the mass influx of new users disillusioned by Palm's apparent lack of any real future at the time who stuck around long enough to develop the apps needed to fix its worst shortcomings. Admittedly, the Touch looks *good* compared to the mess the 6700 was in its earliest days, but that's not saying much. And more importantly, the people who developed most of those extensions are kind of like battered wives who've finally had enough... sick and tired of endlessly trying to defend, justify, and rationalize fundamental problems that drive them crazy, too.

This time around, Microsoft won't be able to release a trainwrecked OS that's sluggish, unresponsive, ugly, and awkward. If Windows Mobile 7 "out of the box" sucks even half as badly as 5 and 6 did, it's over. People won't even care enough to criticize or hate it... they'll just ignore it, follow the smiling Android, and leave WM7 to flop around on the sidewalk and rot in the sun. That's harsh, but I really think it's the hard truth. Microsoft wouldn't dare to screw up WM7, or release a mediocre, half-baked warmed-over incremental improvement. When the alternative was a single-threaded OS that couldn't walk & chew gum at the same time (PalmOS), they had some wiggle room. When you're competing with "free" and "good" on one side, and "sexy" & "just works" on the other, it's not enough to be "mostly OK". You have to be flawless. When WM7 comes out, it's going to get ripped to shreds over anything Android and/or iPhone can do better.

Now, if anyone has the resources and talent to do it, it's probably Microsoft. The million-dollar question is whether they will.

But, back to the original topic... thank ${deity} for S2U2. It's not perfect, but at least it helps to mitigate the Vogue's single worst problem and keep it from being a fatal flaw.