If you,
like us, thought the honeycomb UI in Windows Mobile 6.5 was a solution to a problem that didn't exist then you're in luck; after some internal backlash from its own employee beta testers, Microsoft has tweaked the UI making it "a lot more usable." According to Loke Uei Tan, anyway -- a Microsoft senior technical product manager demonstrating the updated WinMo interface at MIX09. While the enlarged, more finger-friendly icons retain the exact same off-set distribution, gone are the rigid borders separating the hexagons. Scrolling also appears
more fluid and now features some built-in intelligence that stops the flicked scroll-action at the end of each viewable "page" instead of scrolling all the way to the top or bottom of the icon list. Hmm, not sure that's an actual improvement. Check it for yourself at about 6:50 into the video posted after the break. [Warning: Silverlight install required]
posted March 20th 2009 4:53AM
"...Scrolling also appears more fluid and now features some built-in intelligence that stops the flicked scroll-action at the end of each viewable "page" instead of scrolling all the way to the top or bottom of the icon list. Hmm, not sure that's an actual improvement..."
Thank God, you just don't know how God damned annoying that is, especially if the item you want is the next one down off screen, and you try to pull it up only to have the stupid phone scroll all the way down to the bottom.
"built-in intelligence" LOL... I wonder if it uses a neural net processor or a positronic brain to work out that its reached the end of a list.
"Warning:Silverlight Required"
Gotta love this iTart. Probably took knelt before his macbook and apologized before installing it.
@KarlW
I low ranked you for being a douche bag.
I know someone in Microsoft who actually develops win mo 6.5, he flies to Korea regularly to work with lg samsung and several others, I have played with the device and I own an iphone, (have also played with iphone 3,0) and I was surprised to find that winmo is at about par with the iphone 3.0. I have always disliked winmo but it impressed even me, still recommend waiting for winmo 7. I also like the fact that I will be one of a select group that was able to play with winmo why'll honey comb was on, to bad so sad for all of you.
I love how light and smooth are these Silverlight players; Impressive! :)
Yeah, why do we need a warning about Silverlight? Will Engadget post a warning about Flash video?
Yeah I didn't even realize it was a silverlight application on my mac until I read your comment. I did install silverlight a while back for some site but I had completely forgotten that it was there. Quite surprising for a MS technology to work so well on the Mac.
It doesn't work for me (trying to use moonlight on Ubuntu).
I just noticed that the presentation mentions engadget.com.. why the hell would they want to promote such an Apple bias site like Engadget? geezus wassup with these guys? They could have promoted a fairer and balance website like betanews.com.
"Quite surprising for a MS technology to work so well on the Mac"
Microsoft softs work well on mac. They are making frequent update to everyone. On the other hand, Quicktime and Itunes work shit on windows. Apple dont give a damn.
Yea, it's impressive. What would be even more impressive is if they could forgo the plugins and do it in standards-compliant HTML.
But, you know, that's just me, being all closed-minded again...
Oh and also, I can scale the video to fullscreen on my big dell 30inch 2560 x 1600 rez and its super smooth. No way I can do that with flash, it become jaggy.
I have a 8600GT.
@jakem
The issue isn't that it's Silverlight or some sort of anti-Microsoft crusade but rather that the reader may have to install some software first and people tend to find that annoying. You'll note that PDF links are normally accompanied by a similar warning. Adobe Flash tends to get a pass simply because everyone has it installed already.
@ nick
If you think that way, why are you here? Seriously! I think Fox News is totally biased horse shit. Guess which channel I never watch & what website I never go to?
It is a big internet, go find another site. You dicks that constantly knock engadget and it's writers all sound like a bunch of whining crybabies. STFU already.
engadget does a great job, if I didn't think so, I would not return. See how that works?
Oh! I thought that was a Flash video before.
@Kelman: Last time I checked Flash required a separate download and installation as well so my point still stands. Besides the warnings about pdfs generally relate to the fact that:
a) the download may be large
b) the document might open in a different window/application/tab
I think it's reasonable to expect the worst when it comes to anything related to Microsoft on Engadget.
Finally, I'm hardly likely to take your advice judging by your silly trolling below.
WHAT TROLLING? I'm sorry but I honestly don't know what the world is coming to when you can't say something without being accused of being either a fanboy/girl/boi/whatever. I happily admit that I was wrong and that tools NOW exist to develop Silverlight content on other platforms. What I said was certainly true in the past and I simply had not read that things had changed.
What I meant about Flash is that it is ubiquitous and everyone has the Flash player installed whereas the same is hardly true of Silverlight. Perhaps that will change in the future but last seen it wasn't even a download the Microsoft pushed out via Windows Update unless you requested Optional downloads.
Will not install Silverlight.
Woa! Advocating open standards suddenly an unpopular position, now?
Clearly these people have never used the web from a mobile phone.
Every winmo phone i have used, has been terrible and slow. Sometimes when trying to call or hang up it just lags, a few seconds behind, hope this is better
Most issues with WiMo being slow has more to do with the hardware then the OS itself. Many Hardware manufacturer design their phone with crappy hardware, for example the tmobile wing...
Well, it's good that they point out that fact because silverlight is just not as widespread as flash (yet?). I, for instance, haven't installed silverlight yet.
This comment should have been a reply for Saad Rabia, of course...
Engadget, is this how you thank people who try to defend you? Post their comments on the wrong place? :P
@Nick hum NO! The issue is the software and NO most wimo phones actually include quite fast hardware because the OS does not really run on cheap stuff. Wimo phones are by definition smart phones and they cost considerably more than you average cell.
Yea, slowness is pretty much a combo of the software, and the cooker of the ROM. I will say, with this AthineOS ROM, WM6.1 is pretty quick, and I'm quite pleased with it.
@digitallysick
Yeah my tilt pisses me off beyond belief sometimes.
I'll wait for Windows Mobile 7 to come before I consider a Windows phone.
Agreed. The practical use of the homescreen is awful. Unless the interface is really smooth, its not going to look good or work right and it doesnt in this. I'm totally deflated about this and it get out of this OS if i didnt need it for my job.
John,
How do you figure it's not useful?
It's way more useful than virtually any other homescreen out there.
You get access to your SMS, Email, Calendar, Contacts, Phone, Time, Notifications, Pics, all on the Main Homescreen.
That's more than can be said of the iPhone, or any other device out there for that matter.
Furthermore, it looks elegant, finger friendly, and it can have any background you want for it.
So sad, how small the crowd is. What does that say about how low the expectation is for 6.5.
They really need to take a note from Apple about how to do a demo RIGHT. The phone was dirty, and smudged looking, and they just recorded using the phone itself, so it was hard to see. They were not prepared with a proper demo unit, because there were private messages on the phone, and the guy doing the demo had dirty hands, and even a hang nail YUCK!
I prefer it like this. There is no need to make every presentation a Hollywood blockbuster. This way feels more up close and personal. People are even aloud to cut in a and questions half way through.
As a developer I'm finding 6.5 and the marketplace upgrade exciting albeit a little late.
I wonder who screamed out "Engadget.com" when the guy asked for an example website....
I was on 6.5 beta from GrooveRom at PPCgeeks, and I can say that aside from some animation issues (scrolling, minimizing), the OS feels very stable. All the apps are compatible with it as well. I haven't tried out the new IE though, since it wasn't included in that beta version of the OS.
If only they'd improve the UI, it would be a pleasure to use.
Silverlight install required? No thanks. No development tools for non-Windows platforms means I'm having nothing to do with this trojan horse. Sorry, it might be a whizzy technology but at least you pretty much know where you stand with Adobe.
now go back to your cave...
I'm not sure weither you're talking about the iPhone doing it better.
(In which case you're an idiot, but I doubt it)
But yeah, I don't like it either.
This is not an attempt at "trolling" as I don't do that. This is a very serious point. Microsoft clearly wants to get at the market currently held by Adobe Flash, which is cross-platform, and they have no financial incentive to support any platform that isn't Windows. If they provide development tools for non-Windows platforms then I'd fully support Silverlight since domination by Flash isn't good either.
I'm sorry if you do think I am trolling.
No, it's my fault, I misunderstood your message, it's just that there's been a lot of trolls around lately.
http://www.eclipse4sl.org/download/
now shut the fuck up.
But quality is better...
The guy has a point - Netscape thought Microsoft would play fair with the web, and look what happened to them.
@Chris
You know, you could have just posted the link and left out the offensive language and that would have been fine. As I have noted, the comment was not an attempt to troll and therefore your tone is quite unnecessary. However, thank you for the link and I will do some research on the product's status with Microsoft. If this is officially sanctioned (i.e. won't be blocked in the future) then I have no issue with Silverlight and will install the plug-in.
Honestly, some people are so tetchy these days. Is it really so hard to discuss issues like adults?
OK, given that Microsoft appears to be supporting the Eclipse effort I installed the plug-in for Safari and it seems to work pretty well. It managed to go wrong when switching to full-screen display once but aside from that it did what was needed and, more importantly, did it more efficiently than Adobe Flash. Flash tends to consume just over 100% of a processor on a C2D 2.33GHz system (i.e. one complete core and some of the 2nd) but Silverlight 2 stayed at about 50%.
I probably could've left out the message but where's the fun in that? It took me 5 seconds to find that link and another 20 to read it. You came back twice in an attempt to show the world how evil Microsoft is.
"trojan horse"? We are all aware of the connotations of your comments. It's a virus yadda yadda ya. The truth is, instead of looking down from your Ivory Tower hissing at everyone who goes by you should embrace new technologies. There is no need to be so negative (you could always just uninstall the thing) but your comment combined with the rather childish "Warning" from Engadget really irked me.
Chris, with all due respect I don't think you understood what I meant by "trojan horse". Microsoft has had a habit, in the past, of introducing new technologies across platforms then stopping development, or letting it slow so that a feature gap exists, so that if you want the "full" experience then you need to run Windows. This primarily affects the Macintosh platform since Linux really hasn't been around long enough to warrant Microsoft's attention. Examples include Internet Explorer (version 5 was as far as things went and then Apple needed to produce Safari) and Windows Media Player. This isn't "ivory tower" stuff, this is just what has happened in the past and, as the old saying goes, "once bitten, twice shy". Microsoft clearly has no financial incentive to help other platforms so you'll understand why we may be wary of new technologies designed to compete with existing products that are effectively platform-agnostic.
As I said, I appreciated your link but the rest of it really is unwarranted.
@Kelmon: Don't have a cow. It's just Silverlight. You don't have to watch the video if you don't want to...
BTW: Expression Studio 2 supports the Macintosh platform, if that's what you use, and it does Silverlight coding according to what it claims. It's a trial version:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=7AE2720C-72BA-489B-ADBB-EE6F3C79066D&displaylang=en
No need to get nitpicky over something, and assume the worst from MS.
@Quikboy
That link gives me an EXE download so despite the System Requirements quoting Mac requirements I don't think that is the case.
Anyway, I'm fed up with this topic now. I have admitted that I was mistaken and I apologise for that.
super.
His accent is annoying. its so lazy. Did anyone else have difficulty understanding what he was saying? If untalented people like him are influencing product development no wonder 6.5 is lagging so far behind other platforms