Microsoft Windows Mobile 6.5 27
Edelira Longinotti
I know this is silly to ask but there seems to be a lot of requests in Twitter search "Lumia, Microsoft Lumia, Windows Phone" of people wanting it to come back. Also, r/windowsphone, feedback hub and a lot of recent Lumia videos are also on the running desktop version of arm Windows on Lumia 950xl.
Is there a chance that this beautiful OS that had the best marketing, commercials ever, was the most personal OS ever, best personal assistant, best offline maps, easy to use and navigate. It was personal and took great photos. Windows Phone was one of the first to have a great camera, dark mode native, continum, usb c, glance screen and so much more.
No one knows. Chances are very slim that there will be a Windows 11 Mobile. There is a project currently that is porting the Windows 10 Mobile shell to Windows 10 on ARM. If those dev's manage to pull the project over to Windows 11 on ARM, then we could see a new life with Windows Phones, since Windows 11 will have Android Apps.
I think that the only way to see somehow an version of Windows 11 Mobile Edition is to modify Windows 11 Desktop Edition at the core level (it's system apps like explorer and it's window APIs, registry configuration, bootloader modification...) - for that we need good spftware engineers and developers who will be able to do reverse-engineering, editing and re-compiling the softwares that will allow developers to implement mobile-friendly UI, replace window mode and elements with mobile UI, it's taskbar and status bar, touchmode input set by default, optimizing drivers, removing bloatwares that could brick performance on those mobile devices, changing the animations, size and other explorer elements to implement maybe an modern version of Metro UI and so much things including configuring bootloader better to fit good and feel good running it from mobile (and also it's setup UI, SafeOS UI, used for in-place upgrades, updates...) just to get an custom newer version of Windows that will be mobile-friendly and compatible. We could freely after that call it mobile edition.
But who will do all of those things just to try to suggest Microsoft to change decision about Windows Mobile Editions to give it another shot. I didn't meet yet such a person who will by their will spend day/night of full work just to make some type of PoC how Windows Mobile Edition with newer and supported build would look like and feels like. Yes, it will be good for us but just think how much work and effort needs to be put into this to make this possible, not to mention that Windows and it's core people needs is closed source. Only who works with Microsoft have access to their source code and no one else - but even them, who will spend their time just to do all of these things for free - just to try to make an PoC that may or may not be accepted by Microsoft to revive Windows Mobile Editions.
@Reza_Ameri Well because they are trying to run Desktop edition of Windows (unmodified, non-patched, desktop UI is not replaced and etc...) - basically no one created for real custom mobile edition of Windows taking an Desktop Edition as base and then modding it at the core to looks like and feels like an phone - more as a phone than desktop (removing some desktop features and adding mobile features instead).
That cannot be easy done - you can trick drivers somehow and bootloader and be able to boot into desktop edition (with correct architecture) and that is also not easy at all - it requires good skilled work of course, but you cannot do all of other things to mod the Windows at that level without having access to their source code to each part of their operating system or at least the critical ones so that someone could easly replace some elements, make another UI from scratch, add mobile features and etc...
And even if someone wants to access their source code to do this, they need to keep this in mind and that is - Windows is closed source, not open source - so if they wants to access, they need to put so much effort in reverse-engineering the Windows itself to be able to do it.
inspiration came from recent use of my old windows mobile smartphone ... and from a conversation here the other day about modern day android 'not having' windows mobile ( windows phone ? ) features ... i never did get a response when asked for specifics ...
Windows Mobile 6.5 was okay for the time. As far as the user interface went, it more closely resembled Windows 95 and didn't deviate too far from that--the hex or staggered layout was okay. Windows Phone 7's UI, which was derived in part from Zune, was much more innovative in my opinion. Sadly, neither the Zune nor Windows Phone were successes in the market.
I never used Windows Mobile, all of my really old phones usually ran some sort of Verizon operating system, (sometimes VCast,) but I haven't had any of the phones I used to have for years now other than the one I'm using now. (A Galaxy S7.) I wish I still had them, honestly.
My first WinCE device was the iPAQ H3660. It lost all storage if the battery ran out and amount of light that leaked sideways from the display could light up a football pitch. Still, I could play Solitaire on the john years before iOS / Android arrived.
I spent all 2009 and the first half of 2010 with him. But the limitations of the platform started to notice (Web browsing, lack of Apps, paltry touch support), while the iPhone was evolving with new features (both HW and SW), even the original one.
Then, I replaced my phone with a Sony Ericsson Xperia X2, with WP 6.5. Natural upgrade, right? Well, except for the keyboard that was even better, it turns out to be a disaster: full of errors, instability, Software problems. It was, by far, the worst mobile phone that I ever had in my life (sometimes even calls crashed the entire phone). Really.
While cleaning out my collection of electronics, I found a PDA. Not themodern kind (voice assistant), but the old school precursor to thesmartphone. It's a HP iPAQ h4350, it was a model used by theDutch Railways. I picked it up in working condition years ago and waswondering, how does a mobile device from 2003 stack up to a modernsmartphone? The first thing I did was run linux on it which workedsurprisingly well, it however was noticeably slower than Windows Mobile. This postshows you how well the device still works in 2022, including using WhatsAppto chat. Almost all things I use my smartphone for, I can do with this PDA!
One huge issue I have is that the internet from, say, 10 years ago(or earlier), is gone. Many broken or dead links, software downloads nolonger available, the git repository for angstrom gone, even with a mirroralmost all dependencies are dead or hard to find or no longer compile on amodern machine. Archive.org has been a lifesaver, butit's sad to see so many sites just gone. I've uploaded most of the stuff I'vedug up from other sources to Archive.org. You should donate to them, it's aninvaluable resource.
Powered by an Intel XScale PXA255 processor running at 400Mhz and Windows Mobile 2003, the H4350 includes a hardware keyboard, 64MB of RAM and a 32MB ROM (about two megabytes are available for permanent storage). Both 802.11b (WiFi) and Bluetooth are both embedded in the device with a standard IrDA port. For expandability, the H4350 has an SDIO expansion slot, and for audio output, a standard 1/8" jack is included. The device recharges and syncs through the same port on the bottom of the device, and includes a removable, rechargeable 1650mAh lithium battery.
As you have seen on the pictures above, the device has a hardware keyboard. Ilove that and I wish modern phones would bring that back. It works so well,intuitive and you're not loosing half your screen on a virtual keyboard.
The iPAQ has a touchscreen, but it's a resistive touchscreen, which means youneed a stylus (included in the device). Pull-to-refresh or scrolling as we donow by swiping do not work, you have to use a scrollbar. Tiny controls, butwith a stylus that works quite well. The screen has a QVGA resolution,320x240, which is small compared to today's devices, but when using it, youdon't really notice, it feels big enough.
The device has no built-in persistent storage, everything is in RAM. Thatmeans, once the battery is empty, everything (all settings, appointments,files, etc) is lost. There is a small backup battery which holds data longenough to swap the battery, but that backup battery is dead in my unit and Icannot find a replacement, it's a very specific part. If you happen to knowmore, send me an email please.
You can work around that problem though. The docking cradle has a sparebattery to charge and the main battery in my unit still works for at leastthree full days. The ROM (which the device resets to after power loss) has autility, iPAQ Backup, which can backup and restore all settings. It even hasthe option to automatically backup when the battery reaches a certainpercentage. If the device was reset, just restore the last backup from the SDcard and you're up and running again. Takes 5 minutes, so not a huge issue,just a minor annoyance.
Development for Windows Mobile was easy back in the day, Microsoftmade sure MFC and .NET compact worked well. My day job even made a few PDA applications, one to sync coffee machine counters via irDA(infrared) to a PDA. If you have the correct infrared PCB, it stillworks today. It was never removed from the coffee software code,since we still have one customer that uses it. Not sure why, the counters are available via a web interface for over a decade now.
The PDA syncs with a windows computer, via ActiveSync. After Windows Vista,Microsoft renamed the tool to WMDC (Windows Mobile Device Sync) and it's notsupposed to work on Windows 10, but the community has fixed that by providingpatches and workarounds. I've uploaded the WMDC client with Windows 10patches to Archive.org so you can enjoy it as well. Installation issimple, first install drvupdate-amd64.exe, then WMDC-fixes-for-Win10.msi.Reboot and you should be greeted with the screen below after plugging in thePDA.
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