Recent Comments:
How would you change Windows Mobile 6.5? {Engadget}
Nov 7th 2009 5:52PM I've been a WM user for years, and here's what I want:
0. Better performance.
1. Decent browser! One that is performant, can zoom in pictures and text, standards compliant, etc. IE mobile gets a score of around 4 on Acid3 Test - most modern browsers get 90% or more. And are much more responsive.
2. Tighter hardware control and requirements. And/or clearer tiers for hardware. E.g. make it a requirement for ALL hardware running WM Pro to have video drivers, and make it difficult and very expensive to ship one without drivers. Create a benchmark suite for WM, and require every single phone with a particular SKU to have some minimal performance - that will make user experience so much better!
3. Better WiFi & 3g network integration. On an IPhone transition from 3g to WiFi can be nearly seamless and invisible. And it doesn't eat battery power as it does on WM. On WM you often need to restart IE to switch from one to the other.
4. An updated UI that is geared more towards apps. Zune HD UI is OK, but not great for applications. If you have a dozen different programs, then they are going to be difficult to find and launch quickly on the Zune UI. Compare that with Android and IPhone - they are all about the apps, and are braindead easy to use.
5. More and better eye candy. I think 80-90% of IPhone users choose that OS because it is more responsive, has better animation, and is prettier. If WM is to compete in that market segment, it must have a good and powerful UI. Also make the UI consistent everywhere and finger friendly. That means require a larger screen on devices, support and enforce AA fonts, 3d buttons, etc.
6. More support in the SDKs for eye candy - make it easier for a dev to write apps that conform to the OS UI paradigm, and harder to stray from it. That way everything will appear to be more seamless.
7. Require capacitive screens on Pro SKUs of the OS. WM is the only OS on the market right now that doesn't have phones capacitive screens. I know HD2 will support that, but that should have happened several years ago!
8. Perf, perf, perf.
9. A locking screen that kicks in automatically when the power button is pressed? Several times my phone dialed people or scheduled appointments by itself, simply because it was in my pocket. (And it turns on automatically whenever Exchange sync happens - how long has that been a bug now?) I've had to download the S2U2 app and love it - despite its many ugly bugs. Why doesn't WM have this feature?
Oh, also, consider firing the management of the WM team and hiring a new one. That team is just in so much trouble! How long has it been since a modern OS came out for mobile from MS?
Apple digs into Microsoft at WWDC {Engadget}
Jun 8th 2009 3:18PM @UnixSystemsEngineer - No, it is low-ranked because you didn't say anything substantive. Except that you hate the task bar, start menu, etc. Do you hate icons too? How about the font? The shape of the mouse cursor?
Elgato Video Capture allows Macs to record analog video {Engadget}
May 8th 2009 4:49PM Jeez, that thing costs 140 bucks? Wow, welcome to 1996!
Engadget's recession antidote: Win a Microsoft PC Gaming Pack! {Engadget}
Apr 1st 2009 1:18PM WANT!
Engadget's recession antidote: win an iRobot Roomba Pet 562! {Engadget}
Mar 30th 2009 2:04PM Shots?
Ins and Outs: Whatever happened to iTV? {Engadget}
Sep 16th 2008 9:44PM Yea, right. The reviewer is indeed clueless. Both Europe and Japan have iTV solutions - the Japan one that I've tried is awesome. Looks great, and you can even buy stuff with it. Although I don't think that feature is implemented anywhere.
Also, with Media Center you can get extensibility apps that basically do the same thing as ITV. The sports portal, I think it is called. You can have scores for multiple games, etc.
Are there two Vista Media Center updates due this year? {Engadget HD}
Jul 8th 2008 11:59PM LOL - good luck getting any of this to work on that piece of crap Apple TV.
Broadcast Flag rides again, courtesy of NBC & Microsoft? {Engadget}
May 18th 2008 7:18PM This is not the broadcast flag - there are no tuners out there that pay attention to it. NBC probably embedded SCTE21 or CGMS signals in their signal. As such Media Center has no choice but obey the command and not record.
StreamMyGame streams PC games to your PS3 {Engadget}
Jan 15th 2008 9:16PM LOL - dude, you obviously have no idea what you are talking about. PS3 couldn't do it either until 10 minutes ago. Besides, I very much doubt that the game perf is anything to write home about. The system would need to render the game in software, encode it to something like MPEG2 to get any sort of perf over the network, and then have the console decode it.
First of all, rendering stuff in software is bullshit - there is a reason that fastest proc on your machine is on the video card. That's why it costs 2-3 times more than a CPU these days.
I doubt very much that this software will allow you to properly play latest games at the required resolutions. You could do it in hardware - by basically capturing the video with a capture card, digitizing it, and then sending it over - but even then sync issues would be a problem. IE even local games would be susceptible to lag.
Second, most consoles have the horsepower to play video and audio - yes, including the original xbox and the 360. Just because nobody bothered implementing this thing on top of them doesn't mean you can't - or that they won't. Or even that this will be more difficult to port. These guys chose PS3 most likely because they tested on top of Linux, and just dropped the whole thing onto the PS3.
HP intros SL4282N, SL4782N connected HDTVs, updates Media Center Extender software on older models {Engadget}
Jan 3rd 2008 2:16PM I assume you mean Engadget. Yup, this is definitely not an MCE display.
