Windows Phone is the best mobile operating system available today. I have a Samsung Focus (running the Windows Phone Mango beta), an iPad, and the HP TouchPad. I have carried Androids, iPhones, and Blackberries and the Windows Phone is my system of choice.

I’m not talking about the old-school Windows Mobile 6.x phones that grew into a fragmented mess.  I’m talking about the written from scratch Windows Phone 7 that was released in 2010. Even with a horrible marketing effort from Microsoft, people who use it start to understand that its usefulness comes from its integration and simplicity. Just ask Scott Adams, the creator of Dilbert. Or check out this article from Ziff-Davis last week on the stability of Windows Phone.

Step out of the Reality Distortion Field and you will realize that “other” companies create quality products. In fact, Windows Phone is the best thing to come out of Microsoft in years. (Although some would argue for Kinect.) The ease of use combined with stability and rich feature set makes for a truly remarkable product. I’m running on a Focus (which is a somewhat older WP device) and it is the smoothest, most responsive system I have.  I like my tablets but the Windows Phone operating system is smoother, more responsive, and less quirky. There won’t be a “Windows Phone Tablet” because Windows 8 (yes, the desktop version of Windows) will run on mobile platforms including phones and tablets.  It’s a shame there won’t be a WP Tablet because the hub concept would work perfectly on this form factor.  I’m sure there is a WP Tablet somewhere in a Microsoft lab, but it will never see the light of day.

By the way, after I posted my list of HP TouchPad annoyances, HP stated they were reevaluating their tablet strategy. Let’s hope that doesn’t happen this time!

As great as Windows Phone may be, it is still a relatively new system and there is obvious room for improvement. Here are my top annoyances of Mango:

1. Customization is lacking. Yes, I know this goes against the Windows Phone simple is better theme, but I saw a silly app called “Phone 8” that showed how basic customization could be performed without taking away from the live tile experience. The app demonstrates concept themes that vary the level of opacity of the tiles and allows a background image to be visible.
2. What in the heck is Tap-by-Turn navigation? Yes, I know that turn-by-turn is available through various third-party apps. I’ve also heard the speculation that Microsoft could not include turn-by-turn due to some licensing restriction with NavTeq, but this needs to get worked out. Tap-by-turn may work technically but it is a horrible compromise.
3. Where is the “Find on page” option in IE9? It was there in the original version of Windows Phone with IE8 so why is it missing now?
4. Limited multitasking has been a part of Windows Phone from the beginning.  It was ‘limited’ since it only allowed for managed apps to run simultaneously. You could easily listen to music with the built-in Zune media player, take a phone call and browse the web. However, if you wanted to listen to music with another app, like Last.FM, your music would stop as soon as you navigated away from the app. With the Mango build Microsoft has created a cool new hybrid technique that sits between full-blown multitasking (like WebOS) and a most recently used list (like iOS). This has promise as a multitasking system that doesn’t kill your battery. My issue is with the user interface implementation. To switch between tasks you are presented with a card-like interface that is similar to WebOS users. In Mango, when you hold down the back key you will see the five most recent applications. However, there is no easy way to close the app from this card view or change the number of items in the list. This really seems half-baked.
5. Why why why is there no way to take a screenshot? I would love to show you the multitasking card view, but I cannot grab a screen capture. I heard someone speculate that this is to protect potential copyright violations. Whatever! Every other OS in the world (including Windows) has this ability.
6. No Citrix client. This might not mean much to you, but in a corporate environment this could be a huge deal and prevent Windows Phone from being adopted as a standard. The Citrix guys blame Microsoft for not giving them the proper hardware level access in the API. We’ll see if that changes now that the Mango API has just been released.
7. No Cisco-EAP WiFi client. File this under “special corporate uses”, but this one is biting me since we use CEAP as our WiFi authentication method at work.
8. No Cisco AnyConnect client. Not having CEAP wouldn’t be that big of a deal if I could simply VPN/SSL in. However, that’s not an option either.
9. Some major apps are still not available. There are over 30,000 apps in the catalog. That is a huge milestone that was reached very quickly. This is even more remarkable when you consider that most of these are high-quality apps. There is definitely a limit on the number of fart apps. So what’s missing? For me, I am looking for UrbanSpoon and the Starbucks pay app. I find it ridiculous that the UrbanSpoon app is missing.
10. There are no folders. Since there are so many apps, why is there no way to organize these on the phone?  You can pin your favorites to the home screen but there is no concept of folders (The same feature is lacking on HP’s WebOS and the first few generations of Apple’s iOS).  The compensating factor is the ability to search for an app, but I would still like to see some type of multilevel organization structure in the app list.
11. You cannot search the full index of the phone.  You can search for apps.  You can search for emails in the email client. You can search for contacts in People Hub. You cannot search in one place and return all results on the phone like you can using the “Just Type” feature in WebOS.  This is a “Bing Phone” so you would think this would be possible.
12. Cloudy cloud story.   What is the ultimate cloud strategy for this platform? From day 1 of Windows Phone, you could login to www.windowsphone.com and find or lock your lost phone.  You could also log into SkyDrive and see your photos.  But does everyone know that?  There is little evidence of this on the phone or on the Zune software.  Why isn’t Zune cloud enabled?  I would love to see my phone synced with Zune through the SkyDrive cloud. Or take it further, why do I need Zune?  Why can’t I have a folder on my desktop that syncs with Phone via the cloud?
13. FlickR integration should be part of Windows Phone like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. I would like to browse the pictures hub and see FlickR albums listed as well.
14. Custom ringtones are a pain without a 3rd party app.  In traditional Microsoft style, they provided the guts and are waiting for a partner to build a usable implementation.  As it stands today, without an app, you can create a Windows Phone ringtone by setting the genre to “ringtone” using the Zune desktop software. This is a pain.
15. ActiveSync needs a private app store. Yes, as a corporate user I would love to have a private market place.  I think the natural place for this is on our ActiveSync server.
16. Why can’t I run Windows Phone apps in Windows? OK, this really isn’t a Windows Phone annoyance, but it is still annoying.  If WP apps are written in Silver Light, why can’t I run the apps as a gadget in Windows 7?  This would be huge and open up new doors for new types of apps and attract thousands of new app developers. Update:  This will now be possible in Windows 8.

Before I even used this tablet, I really liked idea of this device for several reasons:

• full multitasking (yes, REAL multitasking in a mobile architecture)
• inductive charging
• it’s not tied to any desktop software like iTunes
• it also includes Flash in the browser, but that is becoming less and less important as websites begin to convert to HTML5.

To level set, I have an iPad (1st Gen with the latest iOS) and a Windows Phone 7 (running the Mango beta) on a Samsung Focus. This note is not intended as an iPad Vs HP Touchpad vs Windows Phone showdown but undoubtedly there will be some comparisons made.

The HP TouchPad is nice, but…

Overall, the TouchPad is a REALLY GOOD entry to the tablet market.  I am really impressed when you consider that this tablet includes the first version of WebOS not running strictly on a phone (version 3.0.0). I keep hearing that an update is pending and some of my issues below will be addressed, but I haven’t seen anything yet. I would really like to see how the over-the-air update function performs.

After a week of use, I like this device.  Let me repeat that since I am about to list some annoyances:  I like the HP TouchPad.  However, it is obviously not a perfect device so here are the top items that I DO NOT LIKE:

1. HP made some questionable camera decisions. Where do I start with this annoyance? Let’s break this up into annoyance 1a and 1b.

1a. There is only a front camera. Why is there no rear facing camera? Don’t tell me “it doesn’t make sense” because HP included both cameras on their Slate 500. Even if HP decided it didn’t make sense, they should have included it anyway and let the developers and users decide how to utilize it.  I don’t expect people to walk around taking snapshots with a 10” tablet, but there are dozens of uses beyond snapshots.

• I can easily imagine a warehouse program that would use the camera to scan bar-codes. How can you take photos of large stock items with the screen facing away from you?
• Take Windows Phone’s Bing Vision as a great example why there needs to be a rear camera.  Bing Vision allows you to point the camera at a book cover and it will tell you all the details about the book and where to buy at the lowest price and download it from Kindle.
• Someone could also come up with a creative way to use both cameras as motion detecting security device.

If anything, you would think HP would want the feature just to say “me too” when compared to the iPad and the slew of Android devices.

1b. There is no camera app for the front facing app.  You read that correctly… In version 3.0.0 there is no way to take a photo with the TouchPad.

2. The browser is not good, bordering on bad. I’m not a fan of WebKit browsers in general, but this one is barely functional in some instances.  Since there aren’t that many apps available yet, the browser needs to be excellent — it’s not even close. You know when you go to Starbucks and you have to agree to the terms to use their AT&T wifi? Well, that language is all stacked on top of other sections and it is difficult to actually click the acceptance box. Try browsing through photos on facebook — it is a challenge to read all the comments for each photo. Try adjusting the volume in a YouTube video. The browser also scores the lowest of any modern browser on the ACID3 test.

3. The organization of apps and icons in WebOS is confusing.  It comes preloaded with two categories: APPS and DOWNLOADS. I still don’t know what the difference is. Worse yet, I cannot create my own folders to organize apps the way I want. On my iPad I created folders called “Reading” “Kids Games” “Music & Movies” and so on.  I would like to replicate this behavior on the TouchPad. This seems so basic and logical, but it took several updates to iOS and lots of begging before Apple finally added it.

4. Lack of quality apps hurts big time since this is what makes a tablet actually useful. Where’s Urban Spoon?  Where’s Netflix streaming? Windows Phone is up to “only” 25,000 apps but they reached that level faster than any other platform and they did it without a lot of junk type apps. I’m not impressed with a high number like the Android and Apple app stores since so many of their apps are pure junk.  How many fart apps are there in the Android App Store?HP could take a lesson from how Microsoft is courting app developers.

5. This is the newest, yet least fluid of any of the devices I own. My phone running the Mango beta is the smoothest, followed by the iPad, followed by the HP. The HP sometimes stutters as you navigate and browse. I hear the first update will address this issue, we’ll see.

6. Button clicking doesn’t always work. When I try to tap an on-screen button I see the little animated ripple on screen, but it doesn’t always activate the control. After several attempts, it usually kicks in.  After some reading, this seems to be systemic problem in WebOS phones as well. This is really annoying and needs to be fixed.

7.  I’ve come to like the swiping and throwing motions that are built into WebOS but they are not obvious at first to a new user like myself. Since this is a TRUE multitasking environment on a large screen (not on a phone) you would expect to see a close option or an “X” on each app. As computer users, this “X” is baked into our being.  Closing an app with the TouchPad is a two-step action to hit the home button to get to the task list, and then you throw the app away. Alternatively, you can swipe from the edge to the center to get the task list. Regardless, both actions require two steps.  It’s not bad, just different.

8. I guess the only way to switch between browser instances is to go to the task list? I don’t see a “tab” option anywhere. Once you get to the task list, the instances are generally stacked.  I still haven’t figured out how to get to the middle of the stack without closing every instance on top of it. Implementing something like IE’s QuickTabs or OSX’s Expose would be really helpful here.

9. The hardware itself is OK, but doesn’t feel as solid as the iPad. In fact, I had to replace my first TouchPad due to a defective case. Whereas the iPad has an alloy back, the TouchPad has a plastic case.  I was told the plastic is required for the inductive charging (but I don’t know for sure). Which, by the way, the Touchstone charger is really cool!  You can charge it in either orientation but if it is placed horizontally, it must be centered or it won’t charge.

10.  The Exhibition app doesn’t seem complete. Maybe I don’t understand this app but it is basically a display app (think screensaver) that scrolls through photos, displays your agenda, an animated clock, or any other “exhibition” app that someone creates.  When you set your preferences, you must click “start” and as expected it takes over your screen.  The problem is that if you select “clock” and “photos” it doesn’t rotate through these items as you would expect.  You must select a drop down to switch the display element.  If I have to do this, then why do I have to go through a set up process?  Here are my suggestions to improve exhibition:

1. Obvisouly, it should rotate through the items you selected in the setup without on-screen interaction.

2. There should be an option to auto start when placed on a charger or Touchstone. (Update:  Exhibition does auto start when placed on the Touchstone.  I’m not sure why it wasn’t but now it is.)

3. It should remember which Touchstone you are using and let you set preferences for each.  For example, my Touchstone at work would display my agenda and clock.  When placed on my home Touchstone, it would display photos.

4. Integrate alarms into the clock.  I can imagine a Touchstone by my bed that would replace my real alarm clock.

11. I want to use Bing everywhere. It’s good that Bing is the default map provider (I didn’t even see Google listed as an option), but why isn’t Bing available as one of the built-in web search providers? This is really inconsistent and a little confusing. This really needs to be tightened up by the HP guys. Perhaps they should give the user an option of all Bing or all Google in the settings. I am on a Google-free diet right now and this experiment is difficult with the TouchPad.

12. Minor hardware design issues may be limiting later. For example, the volume control should be two buttons vs a single rocker switch.  There should also be a usb port on the long side of the device for horizontal docking.

13. Changing the wallpaper requires a series of crazy steps.  Before you can change the wallpaper you need to realize that it can only be done from the “Screen and Lock” app under settings. That’s fine, but you also need to know that the image must exist in the “Wallpapers” folder on the device.  Once you understand these two items you can then browse photos with the “photos” app and click the “+” icon to copy images to the correct location then go set it with your “screen and lock” apps.  If that sounds confusing, it is because it takes TWO APPS to change your wallpaper. It’s too bad that you simply cannot long-click on any photo (in the web, in facebook, in the photos app, etc)  and set as wallpaper.  The good news here is that the TouchPad has integration into other services like Facebook.  When you browse with the photo app, you can see your FB photos as well.  This is a good implementation and similar to the way Windows Phone does with Facebook, Flickr, etc…

14. The power button does NOT turn the device off with a long hold like every other device in the world.  Yes, this function is needed.  You iPad owners know that an occasional reboot is required. You also need this for air travel. How do you turn this off anyway?

15. Inserting the text cursor into a precise place in the middle of a word takes several tries of tapping in the approximate area.  With iOS and WP7, you long tap the text area and get a very maneuverable cursor to drop EXACTLY where you want.  With WebOS it is probably quicker to erase and retype the entire word vs trying to do single character edits like this.

16. Why oh why doesn’t tapping the space bar twice insert a period?  I thought this was standard on every device.

17. There doesn’t seem to be a web service that allows you to locate, lock, wipe, loud ring, or display a message on a lost device.  I think every platform (even BlackBerry finally) has this type of service.

By the way, does anyone know what kind of tree this is?

Of course I recommend you proceed at your own risk.  Anytime you flash a device you could brick it.  Although, I have flashed my Tilt 2 dozens and dozens of times without issue. I recommend the NRG ROMs.  He keeps his ROMs updated and offers various flavors.

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October 25, 2009: In last week’s post about my new AT&T Tilt 2, I asked the question if anyone knew how to remove the “Getting Started” item from the Windows Mobile, I mean Windows Phone 6.5 default menu.  There is no menu editor included with my phone (that I can find) so I was stuck with this useless item taking up real estate.  Well, I’ve had MANY hits on this blog entry but no one has posted an answer. After poking through the Windows Phone Marketplace I found a free app called the “Home Screen Customizer.”  This app is simple and does one thing – allows you to customize the home screen menu.  You can remove any item from the menu, but for some reason you can only add certain apps.  Additionally, you can easily rearrange the order of the items in the menu.

By the way, if you like the Autumn theme in the screen shots below, you can download for free in this post.

The following screen shots show the Windows Phone 6.5 menu before and after editing. You can clearly see the “Getting Started” item is present in one shot and missing in the next (ignore the time stamps).

Below is the interface of the Home Screen Customizer tool. It’s simple and does its intended job well. To remove an item simply tap the “X” – don’t worry you can add it back if needed. The red heart denotes which menu item is highlighted at load time.

After you customize the menu you can remove the app, or it is small enough to leave in-place. Thanks to these guys for creating this great free app. It is something I was looking for.

Of course I recommend you proceed at your own risk.  Anytime you flash a device you could brick it.  Although, I have flashed my Tilt 2 dozens and dozens of times without issue. I recommend the NRG ROMs.  He keeps his ROMs updated and offers various flavors.

By the way, this is what I carry now.

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I’m not a phone geek but on the other hand I don’t want a clunker phone. I want a good phone that will last a couple of years. After having an AT&T Tilt (made by HTC) for nearly three years I decided it was time for a new phone. This was a good phone that has seen several crashes on the ski slopes, a drop here or there, and most impressively my two young boys. Getting a new phone now is good timing since Windows Mobile 6.5, now known as Windows Phone 6.5, was just released. I compared several phones including the Pure and Tilt 2. (BTW, I’m stuck with AT&T since that’s the carrier my company has selected.) The two phones were comparable with slight differences:

• The Tilt 2 is a little larger than the pure.
• The Pure has a 5MB camera and the T2 has a 3.2.
•  The T2 has a very nice speaker phone, I’m not sure what the Pure has but it wasn’t obvious.
• The T2 has a physical keyboard, the Pure does not. This contributes somewhat to the larger size of the device, but they did a good job keeping the keyboard as thin as possible. This obviously makes the Tilt 2 thicker than the iPhone.
• The T2 seems to have a nicer screen than the Pure.

Although I don’t use the physical keyboard much anymore on the original Tilt, I went with the Tilt 2 over the other devices I considered. It felt good in my hands, the screen was one of the best I have seen, and believe it or not, I use the speaker phone.

So how does the new Tilt 2 compare to the original Tilt? It’s night and day:

• The old Tilt had Windows Mobile 6.0 or 6.1, the new one has Windows Phone 6.5 which is basically the same OS but with a much needed face lift.
• Included in 6.5 is a vastly improved mobile Internet Explorer.  I can’t even begin to describe the improvement here.
• The Tilt now feels like a brick in my hands compared to this sleek ergo device.
• The new Tilt has a radio. Haven’t tried it yet.
• The screen, as I mentioned before, is amazing on the T2. At the time, the Tilt screen was nice but we’ve come a long way.
•  The Tilt had no accelerometer so the only way to change the orientation was to slide the keyboard out or hit an onscreen button. The T2 does have an accelerometer but it is very underused with the bundled software. The bundled game Teeter does an excellent job demonstrating the capabilities.

I wasn’t sure I would like this phone at first, but after I removed some proprietary HTC/AT&T stuff I am thrilled with my decision. Namely, I removed the TouchFlo 3D and enabled the default 6.5 UI. The TouchFlo interface is nice looking and great programming but it’s not that efficient or useful. You can flick photos and emails all around, but it seems more for show and selling phones in the store than it does for actual use. The TouchFlo interface quickly becomes a nuisance and gets in the way. On the other hand, the native 6.5 UI is efficient and very natural to use.

Note: Even though Windows Phone 6.5 was officially released just last week (as of this writing on 10/21/09), there are already rumors and leaked builds of 6.5.1 (or 6.51).  I’m sure there will be an HTC upgrade in flash ROM format when this is officially released. HTC did this with the original Tilt providing a ROM upgrade from Windows Mobile 6.0 to 6.1.

Here are a couple of screen shots of the TouchFlo and the native Windows Phone 6.5 interfaces.  Both have a nice look in these screen shots, but you can’t get a sense of their usefulness until you get your hands on the device.

How to disable the HTC TouchFlo 3D interface:

Start > Settings > Today > Items. Now uncheck TouchFlo and check “Windows Default” – This will give you the new 6.5 UI. I really like this interface, it is very Zune and/or Windows Media Center like. (Don’t get me wrong, there is room for improvement in 6.5.1 and the complete rewrite of Windows Phone 7.) Alternatively, if you prefer the WindowsMobile 6.1 look, you can select your own items for the Today screen. However, I find the 6.5 interface very useful and efficient.

How do I remove my Microsoft Live or Hotmail account?

This isn’t exactly obvious, but if you set up a Live or Hotmailaccount and want to remove it, follow these steps: Start > Windows Live > Switch LiveAccounts This will remove all emails and account settings which you previously entered.

How to create your own Windows Phone 6.5 Theme:

I haven’t done this yet, but it looks simple. Simply go the site, select your phone, select your preferences, and if desired supply a background image. You’ll then get a link sent to your phone to install the theme: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsmobile/en-us/downloads/theme-generator.mspx

Remaining questions I am working on. Can you help?

• The phone came bundled with some software I can’t remove. Specifically, how do I remove Opera Mobile 9.5? I like Opera but I prefer to use 9.7. Skyfire is also a very good browser that supports Flash.
• How do I remove the “Getting Started” menu item? This problem is solved HERE!
• How do I add/remove any item in the Windows Phone 6.5 menu?
• Why is there a preinstalled YouTube app but no shortcut?  Most users will never find this app buried in the folder structure.