First Pocket PC 2003 Details Surface

Ed Hardy · 03-26-2003, 09:32 AM

Microsoft recently gave developers an overview of the next version of its Pocket PC operating system. Users should not expect big changes.

Read more at http://www.brighthand.com/article/Fi...etails_Surface

03-26-2003, 09:40 AM

so this is yet another CE3 based PPC OS? 2-3 years? By then CE6 will be out!

Scott R · 03-26-2003, 09:48 AM

Unbelievable. I'm sure that there are more features that are coming than what you hinted at. Other rumors include built-in landscape support. I hope the bug fixes include:
1) Workable task-switcher in place of the useless "minimize/close" button.
2) Recurring alarms.

It will be interesting to see how the XScale-optimized stuff goes. If it doesn't offer a noticeable improvement, I'd imagine most developers will skip it. If it does, I would think that we'd see multiple versions of apps available. Though, unlike before where a developer could simply recompile the same code for ARM vs MIPS, it sounds like these optimizations might actually involve different code, so that would complicate things.

It certainly appears, as I've stated numerous times, that Bill doesn't have a whole lot of personal interest in the PPC. Still, the big news here isn't really about PPC 2003 as much as it is about VS.NET 2003 with the Compact Framework. The way I see it MS is trying to appease all of their corporate customers who may still have a boatload of HP 548's by finally giving them a decent RAD tool for developing in-house applications. It's about time. Meanwhile, for the geeks hoping for more, there will be much weeping and gnashing of teeth.

In other news, I heard that the code name for PalmSource's OS6 was "Aerosol." Sorry, I couldn't resist.

Scott

ucfgrad93 · 03-26-2003, 10:42 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Scott R
Unbelievable. I'm sure that there are more features that are coming than what you hinted at. Other rumors include built-in landscape support. I hope the bug fixes include:
1) Workable task-switcher in place of the useless "minimize/close" button.
2) Recurring alarms.

I agree. Its hard to believe that MS cut those out or never included them!

Quote:

Originally posted by Scott R
Meanwhile, for the geeks hoping for more, there will be much weeping and gnashing of teeth.

You are probably right on target!

chuky · 03-26-2003, 11:57 AM

I agree, adding for PIM apps...

1.- A decent task manager
2.- A decent week view for calendar

...less than everybody was waiting for....

Regards.

Skoobouy · 03-26-2003, 12:02 PM

My biggest concern at this point is screen resolution. Over at PPCThoughts the general notion seemed to be that, while a neat possibility, VGA screens would be too difficult to do and would be a big hit to performance and battery life.

But it needs to happen, and soon. If there are no VGA PocketPCs by Christmas, we're going to see Microsoft in the same position as the pre-Sony Palm. It's grow-or-die syndrome. Thus far, screen-lighting, processors, memory technology, wireless, and software have seen huge advancements since 2000. As a corollary, battery life has improved even though battery technology remains stagnant.

But screen resolution, if it does not improve within a year, may become the reason to get PalmOS machines rather than Pocket PCs.

QVGA is beginning to smell through the plastic wrap.

PennyWisdom · 03-26-2003, 12:22 PM

I was hoping for more with this new PPC OS, but oh well. Hopefully they will at least fix some of the big inconveniences. I agree that native landscape support would be nice, and hopefully can be switched on the fly, unlike the soft reset required now. I also think it would be a shame if Microsoft can't integrate printing functions into Pocket Outlook, Excel, and Word. That seems like it would be a minor fix, but it would be a big feature in my opinion.

chuky · 03-26-2003, 12:31 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Skoobouy
My biggest concern at this point is screen resolution.

Yepp....................

And if I still have my head over my shoulders, only XScale 2002 devices will be able to upgrade.

Regards.

Timothy Rapson · 03-26-2003, 02:03 PM

This is the news I would hope for:

"Pocket PC 2003, codename Ozone, will primarily be a bug-fix release for Pocket PC 2002 with few enhancements. "

With the new Sony SJs, not including soft grafitti and the intense disgust I have with Sony for slitting my consumer throat on the Memory Stink, I may want to buy a set of Axims for the family. If they can make what it has right now work more reliably that would be the first step to getting my money.

I still don't get the landscape mode deal. You can already do it fairly well with Jimmy's (is that the name?) utility. Even then, I don't see the value as long as you can't realistically see a full width page on a 320 wide screen without scrooling anymore than on the current 240 wide screen. Maybe Microsoft is just so used to adding utilities like this on their desktop OSes and cutting the throats of those private developers who do all the development that they can't resist just one change.

So, there it is. Summer time.

imported_argent · 03-26-2003, 02:24 PM

I don't agree that this is a bad sign at all. It looks like Microsoft is finally being gratifyingly cautious about making aggressive changes to the Pocket PC OS. They haven't learned one important lesson, though... both forwards and backwards compatibility are important. Sure, applications that require XScale optimisations won't run on the ARM, but there's no good reason the new SDK should be incompatible with the old OS other than that.

This also means there possibly won't be a PPC 2003 upgrade for ARM
systems, is the new OS is XScale-only, and there's really no reason for that.

I think both of these could have been avoided without too much difficulty:
they manage to compile code that's optimised for the P4 with all its
collective extensions and still have it run on older processors and
operating systems.

Oh well.

I hope they're doing something about the painful network configurations...