Windows Mobile Team Blog

Preface, I am a dev by trade, but not a mobile dev, but I use a Cingular 8125 now as part of a long line of PDAs + smartphones...

- Fix the UI & config to make moving between GPRS + WiFi easier/possible.  The software config UI was so clunky for the WiFi & switching between so painful I leave the WiFi turned off (I was able to connect to the WiFi, but only by turning of the Cingular GPRS proxy...).  Possibly user error... but if I can't figure it out...  :P

- Make the close button actually close (maybe just bundle Spb Pocket Plus).  Actually, upon reflection, Spb Pocket Plus solved tons of problems (including making memory options easier).

- Add an option to automatically create Outlook a calendar appointment from an email.  I do this all the time on the desktop version with a simple drag & drop, and it's almost impossible to do on my phone.  Similarly, create a task from an email as well.

- I would *love* the ability to delete unneeded apps & info and/or move to a card.  e.g. Move Help off onto the card & free up space.

Cheers & thanks,
-Will

Will - the Outlook Mail requests you have are solved with FlexMail 2007.

As for the abilit to delete unneeded apps - you could always do that. Except if they are in ROM. And if they are in ROM, you'd never "gain" any space.

Now what I'd like to see:
Wifi Debugging
Ability to write Exchange side server sync conduits like we can for ActiveSync on the desktop

$80 - Bring back WiFi Async ;)
$20 - Button mapper that maps ALL buttons and maps then to useful functions

$50 Improved Notes integration with Tasks and Calendar and allow categories for notes.

$25 Improve pocket Word by implementing the drawing feature already present in notes.

$25 Add a simple application to remove files from ROM (if possible) so many OEM's feel the need to junk up a device with sample music, photos etc.

$20 = quicker start up and shut down

$18 = snazzier graphics/UI - I envision a slick endless scrolling start menu that you can scroll through a la MCE's main menu, with smooth transitions between selected items and sub folders.

$11 = if not snazzier graphics, then how about a music mode, where we can have a UI similar to the iRiver Clix (which I haven't bought yet since it doesn't have a stand alone AC charger - grrr).  

$12 = on the missed call info, have the date AND time of the call in the initial view (no need to scroll down to see the time).

$8 = I know it's in the OEM's hands, but video recording in MPEG1 or WMV format.

$18 = repeated notification (beep/vibrate/shock/whatever) of missed calls or unheard Voice mails.  I've written an app for myself to do this, but you could probably do a better, much more integrated solution than mine.

$9 = wider selection of sounds for me to pick from to assign to events (ie new mail notification, meeting reminder, etc.)

$4 = donation to a charity of my choice

I agree to the Buttonmapper that maps ALL buttons.
An ability to predefine envirioment profiles.
An improved addressmanagement (multiple selection of contacts).
Better ringtonemanagement with more supported file formats.
A better file explorer thats more windows like, please.
The budgets:

15$ Buttonmapper
40$ Profiles
10$ Addressmanagement
20$ Ringtones
15$ Explorer

$50 - Policy Management with a managemnet UI instead of RAPIConfig. et.al.
$36 - S/Mime support using soft certs
$10 - JAVA Support in PIE
$4 - Tall Sam Adams as I sit in the bar and read my e-mail.

The whole $100 - fix connection manager once and for all.

Fix correctly not more bells and whistles ending up as triangles and kazoos.

30$ - correctly define namespace and use, and that includes non-programming switchoff as well as in programming. (SIP,Keyboard,IO Device...) This will allow whatever MS think we may need to be turned off as they are not needed without having to program.

20$ - ask the industrial mobile device users what they want from the OS rather than the business-suited MP3 listener on the train thinks is a good idea for their next PDA. Industrial mobile device users do need an easier way of navigating - one handed occasionally - but include the gauntlets, dust, water and grime. They have barcode scanners - 1 and 2D, lightpens, RFID transponders, WLAN networks... not a 2 inch plastic stylus in the same colour as the PDA. It will benefit everyone else as well.

10$ - Correct ActiveSync and ditch ADOCE for something that adheres to the CE mandatory rule of Unicode (such as Unicode version of sqlite) - in the industrial arena data gathering and date-time sensitive data manipulation from multiple devices needed, not database parity on one device.

20$ - dynamic cook-to-need OS rather than the all singing all dancing 'we can do that with MS MediaPlayer in 32Mb' attitude. Cut the dross - make CE (or the successor to CE or Mobile) an ADD IN not UNLOAD IF NOT NEEDED. Need another function - add it with install. The 'cooked' images can then be 'tailored' to a device so if the device dies or is replaced, the image can be reused.

20$ - better (and faster) baseline recovery when system recovers from cold or warm boot, as part of the operating system. I think many have had a PDA damaged and repaired only to find that a full OS reload is needed, and the certificate has been 'consumed'...

While interesting graphics, sounds, certificates etc are needed, they would be covered in the correct namespace definition and added to the base by an install. Mobile devices by their very nature are limited in memory and power - why overload with unnecessary unused memory sapping power-hungry applications? I forgot ... someone wants to shoot an MPEG movie on their smartphone, and send it to another whose phone rings off-key (but cannot answer as their battery is dead).

€50 - Make it easy to setup GPRS via proxy and WiFi without proxy, and it to just work.
€25 - Proper button remapper, mainly so I can "turn off press & hold button 5 to toggle vibrate"
€25 - Easy to overrule OEM muppets who specify that the LEDs must flash all the time. In a cradle just on peripheral vision its annoying as hell, and the duct tape (thick enough to hide the light) approach shouldn't be required these days

$40 Correct ClearType support for landscape orientation.
$30 Possibility to operate almost without the stylus.
$30 Return back the WiFi sync.

$40 - Expand functionality around notifications and alerts.   Let users select types of new emails to be notified about (i.e. urgent mail only).  Create multiple vibration type alerts (one pulse vibrate for mail, two pulses for txt messages, long vibrate for calls, etc.), allowing users can customize their application.  Provide options around new email alerts similar to txt message notifications (i.e. Delete, Reply, Save as Read)

$30 - Expand calendar functionality.  Make it easier to toggle between monthly and daily views.  If I click on a date in monthly view, take me to that day, but then give me an easy way to get back to monthly view.

$30 - Port Smartphone profile manager to PPC platform.   I want sound for MS Voice Manager, GPS and a few other select apps but no ringtones, alert sounds most of the time.  Right now I can toggle sound on/off only with a hard switch on my Treo - not very useful.

$50 massivly simplify network connection control panel.
$10 sync notes
$10 add gps intermediate driver to smartphone
$10 put sql everywhere and .Net cf 2.0 in rom
$10 add RSS to PIE
$10 add the ability to return devices phone number with a 'prompt' to user to a website from PIE.

$50 - Make PPC more one hand friendly.
$25 - Make on device debugging work with more off the shelf devices
$20 - Make ActiveSync able to do a device backup.
$5 - Add errno support and a few other missing stdio functions.

$10 - make phone numbers clickable in web pages and e-mail, so you can dial directly from a website.

$5 - make adding phone numbers to existing contacts easy.

$5 - add automatic redial for busy numbers, just like our $10 Nokia dumb phones.

$10- add a safeboot option to recover from device reboot loop.

$ 20 - fix bluetooth. Support ALL the profiles your $10 Nokia dumbphones support, and make it work properly with all handfree, headset and car kits.  If JETware can do it, so can Microsoft.

$30 - make it impossible for an app to lock up the phone.  Add a watchdog process or place the phone app at such a high priority that no user-added app can bring it down.

$20 - Fix Connection Manager to make it more usable

Surur

$30 Better support for devices used in industrial environments.  We are selling a lot of Windows Mobile devices to customers who want to completely lock down the device.  It would be nice if there were a standard, supported way to disable the Start menu, control the SIP etc.  These customers are not really using Windows Mobile for what it was designed for but there are a lot of them and it wouldn’t take much effort to make them far happier.

$30 Fix the network control panel.  I don’t think I have met anyone who knows the exact difference between “My Work Network” and “The Internet”.  In the current version, it often seems like the OS has a way of working out exactly what you want and then doing the opposite.

$30 Force OEMs to use the Microsoft Bluetooth stack.  Each OEM has a different way of doing Bluetooth which makes it hard to support a broad range of devices.  I know some OEMs claim their stack has more features but for me at least, standard trumps features.

$5 Standardise wireless network configuration.  It would be nice if there were an easy, standard UI and API for configuring wireless networks.  Most OEMs seem to want to put their own applications in which may be great and have lots of features but I would just like something that works on all devices and that I can automate.

$5 For the Windows Mobile / CE team at Microsoft to have a big party because all the other bits of the OS are great!

(A few of these points are issues where OEMs are replacing a lot of the standard OS components.  If OEMs are going to all that effort to replace software they get as part of their deal with Microsoft, Microsoft should be going back to them to see how they can improve the standard implementation.)

I would spen $100 improving mobile outlook.

1.) Better one handed use
2.) Ability to get notification on folders other then "inbox"
3.) Ability to do html email
4.) Prioritize email (add flags) "Triage"
6.) Ability to read email without having it marked as "unread"

Do not bring back ActiveSync for Wifi, I can't find one good reason for it.

Add the WinForms control TableLayoutPanel to .NET CF.

Thanks,
Tom

1) Better one-handed navigation
2) Find a way prevent accidental screen pushes when taking the phone out of ones pocket when it rings. Perhaps don't enable the touch screen when it wakes up until after answer is pressed.
3) VoIP phone built into dialer and other phone functions.
4) Allow remap of ANY button instead of just some as now. eg: I never use the camera and want to leave the voice button mapped to voice dialer, but make camera button activate voice memo

One thing I would like: Outlook Journal on the PPC with sync to Outlook.

most are already mentioned (if not all)

- WiFi AS to get back! (you never presented a REAL explanation why even home users should be bothered)

- MUCH better Pocket Office applications (I mean MUCH better) but also include a nice PLAIN text editor

- MUCH better PIM

- MUCH less relation on specific graphic resolutions (240x240 yes we support, 480x480 too... but 320x320 not because... of the icons!!!!)

- Something like Pocket Plus should be IN THE OS

- A close button that CLOSES (or at least make it configurable) ...hm also in Pocket Plus

...the rest I can think are only things I would "pay" OEM to add, while the above could/should/must be MS things

$20:  Improve the PIM applications!! The default Calendar and Contacts should have mnay more of the features available in Outlook on the computer.  I should not need to buy Pocket Informant just to get by.  Isn't PIM use the main reason for many users wanting a PDA or PDA phone?

$15:  Chat style text messaging in Outlook mobile

$5:   Outlook should have the option for "auto Bcc."  It should also provide some filtering options.  

$20:  Improve Windows Media Player (with devices this powerful it should be much more friendly for playlists, ease of use, and adjusting sound setting...an equalizer would be a nice touch.)

$15:  Allow for more customization of the user interface.  Nothing drastic, but more options for adjusting colors, the size of the top and bottom bars, scroll bar size, and similar appearance items would be appreciated.  Many might not admit it but the way something looks is often just as important as how it functions.  

$10:  Can Word Mobile at least offer the same view options as the desktop version?  If I type something that has columns in one part of the document, Word Mobile should not only show a "reading" layout, thus not showing the columns.  While the current behavour may be easier to see on most devices there should be an option to view the proper version before sending it to someone from the mobile.  

$15:  Improve Internet Explorer!  This browser is good right now, but it should be much better, and I know it can be done.  Tabbed browsing should be standard.  Better options for scrolling are needed(take notes from the Treo 650 on this point).  Options for memory handling MUST be added.  How about deleting the cache on exit or on soft-resets?  It should make better use of the screen real-estate.  Why waste all of that screen with  big bars on the top and bottom when they could still be useful at half their size...or less?  It should render page a bit quicker too.  The Treos manage to get the text of a website VERY quickly with the rest coming later...IE on the PPC should be just as good...

$40 - TRUE VGA support on VGA devices - if I want to squint, let me squint. :)  Stop resizing graphics in IE, too.
$15 - Kill the absurd "Connection Manager" and replace with the same connection manager we are used to on desktop windows.
$15 - Allow users the option to make the title and menu bars narrower. On square screen they seem to take up half the device and don't really need to.
$40 - Make the device truly one handed capable. The Palm Treo manages this pretty well, try one fo these, steal their idea and implement in WM.

$30-Voice dialing over BT for phone edition.  This was one of my favorite features on my cell phone before I moved to the 700W.

$10-Sync notes with activesync exchange.  Not sure why this was left out.  I've had to resort to using notes attached to my tasks to make sure these were synced.

$30-Better PIM apps.  Pocket Outlook isn't advanced enough to be usable while something like Pocket Informant is overkill for my uses.  I really liked the Palm OS PIM apps for their ease of use, ability to view different categories with ease, and assign simple colored icons to different categories.  Also add good one-handed usage inside the PIM apps.

$10-Ability to disable specific undesired notifications.  For instance, I don't need a bubble to tell me I have unread mail when I have the today screen plugin telling me the same thing.  Redundant and I have to dismiss the notification to get rid of it.

$10-Customizable repeating notifications.  For a missed call or voice mail for instance.

$10-More customizable UI.  Windows has a lot of options built in.  Give us a few more in WM.

Thanks for the chance to give some feedback!

$10 Close button that does what it says
$25 Application uninstall / upgrade system that works
$5 Configurable LED flash rates (right down to zero)
$30 Much improved 'phone functionality (I know the hardware is out of your field, but the built-in software lacks stuff like profiles that exist in the cheapest dumb 'phones)
$20 Radically improve ActiveSync to put back WiFi sync., stop it taking 9-10% of desktop / laptop CPU cycles when it's doing nothing, and include a *real* back-up solution.
$10 Get the Bluetooth stack right (i.e. include all the profiles and make sure the thing can handle several BT connections at once without throwing a fit) so OEM's don't need to screw around with it

$20 - Fix Active Sync! I'd be willing to go back to 3.0 - at least it WORKED. It was reasonably fast, and supported net-sync (I think).  Also, how hard would it be to NOT duplicate all my contacts and appointments just about every time I have to cold-reset and re-establish the partnership?

$20 - FIX THE STUPID ALARMS.  I swear, I cannot understand how you people can't seem to make this MOST FUNDAMENTAL FUNCTION of a pocket organizer work correctly. Alarms have been failing to go off on every Pocket PC I've owned since my Casiopia E100. If I were you, I'd be so embarrassed that I wouldn't show my face in public until this was fixed.

$20 - the CLOSE button - why am I having to buy 3rd party programs to make a device with limited memory and processor power capable of actually CLOSING programs - something my desktop pC, with a GIG of RAM, is perfectly capable of doing?  If your users were really too stupid to understand this concept, we'd have purchased a Palm.

$20 - While we're removing limitations designed to insult the intelligence of your users, how about getting rid of the brain-dead restrictions on the file system? "My Documents" isn't the only place I might want to put files- I might even want to use sub-subdirectories. I also can't stand the fact that my list of places to look has to include the directories media player creates on my FLASH CARD. None of this makes ANY sense. Why not just let us access the file system from applications???

$20 - whoever designed the connection manager thing should be sent to the Betty Ford clinic to help them give up their LSD addiction. The thing is totally insane. On the one hand, you dumb down easy concepts like the file system and the close button- and on the other, you inflict this crazy, totally incomprehensible scheme on us, with virtually no documentation. How many of us are actually plugging these things into 56K modems, anyway?

In general, I love pocket PCs. I've owned a bunch of them- my current one is an Axim X51v. I like being able to browse the net, read books, listen to tunes, play games, etc.  But in every case, I'm far less satisified with the software that comes on the unit than the 3rd party stuff I have to replace it with. And yet, there's no alternative to ActiveSync, no way to fix the network stuff with 3rd party tools, no way to make the alarms work right, no way to fix the crazy handling of the "my documents" directory for media Player or Pocket Word or Notes.  

I would much prefer you spend a development cycle just fixing the important stuff you have NEVER GOTTEN RIGHT than to add more "features" that nobody really needs because we've already replaced those apps with ones that work.

actually i ll spend all $100 on hardware rather than software....
But since this $100 is for feature development...
I ll spend:
$100 to increase the speed, WM5 is just slow compare with pocketpc 2002 or WM2003 if they have got the same spec, eventhough it's a lot more stable ....

I'm with Steve on the Alarms issue.  Beyond about a week after a hard reboot, Alarm sounds simply refuse to play.  Maybe a soft reset might make them play immediately after, I haven't noticed... but it is really, really annoying.  Sometimes the reminders dissapear without me hitting anything as well.  Maybe it was another program, but if I'm away when it goes off, it should be waiting for me when I get back.

Also, let's have more time options for snooze on remidners, shall we?  Even better: specify the exact time it should remind again.  Sometimes I think to myself "Great, but I won't do this until I get home".  Instead of snoozing for 2 hours, 2 hours, 2 hours, why can't I say "remind me again at 6 pm"?.

What a treat that you asked!

Here are some things that bug me every day.

$50 for better fast forward support for audio and video on Media Player. I record with TiVo and watch TV on the bus to work, but can't effectively skip the commercials. I have to use TCMP instead, and I'd prefer not having two media players on one device

$15 for an easier way to chose the OK or Start buttons without a stylus. One handedness is poor, as you identified.

$50 for better integration with Lotus Notes. That's what I spent on a synch program from Pylon that does a terrible job.

$25 - User-defined custom profiles on WM Smartphone.

$25 - More customizable Homescreen options built into the WM5 Smartphone.  I'd like to be able to add/remove Homescreen elements (such as MRU Icons or the Calendar object) without editing an XML file!  Editing XML files is not user-friendly for your average Smartphone user, yet so many of the most powerful display options are held within there.

$10 - An updated set of Microsoft developed PowerToys for WM5 Smartphone.  It's way overdue, guys.  C'mon, throw your loyal users a bone here.

$40 - An option to turn of backlighting permanently!  In most lighting conditions I can see my Smartphone screen perfectly, yet I still have to live with having the backlight come on each time I press a key.  It kills battery life folks and it's unnecessary!  Also, if my phone is key-locked, why can I still make the backlight come on?  The keys are supposed to be locked.  How much battery power is wasted by accidental key presses when YOUR keys are locked?

I've played this game all too often with Macromedia. What typically happens is that the whizz-bang super-duper new features get voted for, and the simple, basic, long-lamentred but somehow essential and super-irritatingly-missing or faulty features get left by the wayside. And so we have products that can (say) connect to 3,000 different types of databases at the touch of a button, but there is no way to dynamically change the colour of the text on a button ...

I used to enjoy all the fantastic new features, but as I get longer in the tooth I crave the simple things in life be fixed. So for Windows Mobile, my thoughts are:-


Office Integration (Word, PowerPoint, Excel, Access, Outlook) still needs a lot of work. I no longer buy the argument that it's not possible on such a limited platform. I've used at least five fantastic apps that can replicate the majority of features of the desktop application they are mimicking ... no names for the PDA apps, but the desktop apps are Word, PowerPoint, Excel, Internet Explorer and PhotoShop (OK I know, not an 'office' app).

ActiveSync needs fixed. It seems Vista is bringing improvements to that, but I gave up testing it coz Vista is too slow on my machine and Mobile Sync does not work with WM 2003SE.

Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity is still too cludgy.

We need to be able to connect to external monitors and keyboards, preferably wirelessly.

By default, when connecting the PDA to PC or Mac, it should be possible to see the PDA screen on the PC and control using keyboard and mouse. WinCE Pro and some others enable this, but it is basic functionality that I actually expected to be there right out of the box.

Fix the alarms

Bring back Wi-Fi sync - make it an option for goodness sake!

Let us configure the Close button to do what it says. We shouldn't have to purchase 3rd-party apps to do something most of us want. MS developers may know what's best for us, but **we** know what **we want** best!


How many was that? 8? Make em $12:50 each.

Oh - I missed one.

I want to be able to sync WM PDA with Symbian or other phone. Shouldn't be any need for me to sync both with a laptop or PC, but I have to if I want both to be synced, even though I don't need my laptop synced with either. Plus I am sure there are plenty of people who have smart devices but no PC or laptop to use as intermediary.

$50 - WiFI Active Sync !!!
$20 - Some small caching of pages in PIE so that back button does not have to refetch.
$20 - Enhance the alarm function, and allow different snoozes.  Above all, make it work and don't EVER automatically turn it off just because you think I want it off.  Make me explicitly turn it off.  I've missed too many wakeups because of this.
$10 - To the party-for-the-developers fund.

1) $10 stop programs from being able to leave bits of themselves in different directories! Especially \windows dir. I don't know WHY I must sacrifice my meagre 64MB of space when I have a 2GB card. There really is no excuse.
<begin rant> Opera is an example of the above by not 'easily' allowing the cache dir to be moved and installing files all over the place, despite being set to install to memory card. And I don't want to hear about 'wake up times' and 'initialising the card reader delays' when turning my PDA back on causing a 'need' to put these apps in main memory.. just frigging FIX IT </end rant>

2) $4.98 Have activesync able to CHOOSE WHERE I want 'my documents' directory on my PDA to live. I think most users nowadays don't really need the ActiveSync filters. I'm happy just having the originals of my documents on my PDA, but need to ensure the apps on there can open them. For me, I have Adobe PDF reader (no conversion needed), TextMaker for word files and PlanMaker for excel. PowerPoint is still lacking, but never had a strong need to do a PPT presentation from my PDA, but can see that happening in the future. Just stick with native file formats already! Size saved by convertion isn't really an issue anymore (I don't think)

3) $38 to fix ActiveSync WIFI

4) $25 Faster processing.

5) $20 Better 1 handedness

6) $0.02 fix Media Player. I don't know anyone who uses it! There must be a way to make it more usable?

7) $2 Standard USB hosting so I can plug a mouse/keyboard/USB drive etc into my PDA if I want

Apps that I think shine and set the benchmark for what I want my PDA for:
I don't care for PIE, I'm happy with Opera, and I don't care much for Messaging, I use FlexMail (and no, I would NOT like to see these apps bought out by MS as they would just ruine them, I'm happy to pay for some great pieces of software, Pocket Informant being another)

25$ Stable Active Sync with Wifi/Lan Option again
25$ Connection Manager - eventuall the hole connection Tap
5$ MMS integrated in OS
15$ Comapct Framework 2.0 wrapping all APIs
10$ I want an API Text viewer for .net just like the one for eVB
ALL-IN Better Messaging Application

PIE Is fine with me after applying MultiIE
So Is media player.

$50: Make things work without having to use ActiveSync to install/remove programs.  I don't have a Windows PC and I can't afford one.  When I install apps from cabs on the PDA, I can't seem to uninstall the programs properly, leaving lots of junk on my PDA.

$25: Better built-in pim.  I bought my PDA to get a good PIM.  I assumed that this was what PDAs were for and figured that MS must be able to create something like this.  As it is, I'm very dissapointed.  In general, improve all the built-in programs.

$10: Why is the <ok> button on the top right corner?  This is very annoying since I've been trained to think of this corner as the <close program> corner while I always look for the <ok> button at the bottom left corner of the dialogue.  Make this an option maybe?

$15: Make such dialogues easier to confirm/cancel without using the stylus.  Actually, make everything easier to do without the stylus.

Scott, thank you for asking...

The one thing I am rooting for is Zune/Windows Mobile API compatibility. I do realize that nothing has been announced pertaining to this, but if Zune (the hardware) happens to have two softkeys right below the screen and the same screen size/aspect ratio as WM devices, it would be a shame not to build Zune (the software platform) on top of the same APIs that characterize Windows Mobile. Now, I am aware that Crossbow is supposed to be a business oriented release and that Zune is focused on the integrated experience (meaning the platform may be closed to ISVs), so I am prepared to be disappointed. Still, I would give $50 out of the $100 just for ensuring that well behaved WM applications can run right off the bat on the Zune platform. Or at the very least, for ensuring that they can easily be ported.

Alright, now that I got this off my chest, I also have some down to earth wishes for Windows Mobile that are not based on wild speculation.

I would spend $15 on the ability to browse SMB shares from the network without having to install third party software. Although I haven't looked into it, I read somewhere that it works providing your network resolves NETBIOS names. It would be nice if this would also work when relying solely on IP addresses, i.e. "\\192.168.1.42\SharedStuff". I am especially interested in streaming music from the network, so I guess there would be some work involved with WMP too.

I would spend $10 on fixing the "Favorites" treeview in IE so that folders do not get automatically expanded when using the D-pad. Suppose that you have lots of favorites in multiple folders and that you want to get to a specific favorite. Using the D-pad, you would expect to move the focus down to the appropriate folder, then to the right to expand that folder, and then down again to the appropriate sub-folder, and so on until you would get to your favorite (don't worry, my favorites are actually only one level deep, so I haven't completely lost it yet...). The annoying thing is that when you move the focus down, the selected folder is automatically expanded, forcing you to iterate through all of the sub elements before moving on to the next folder. It means that it takes you "on the order of N" to get to a favorite using the D-pad, which kind of defeats the purpose of having your favorites organized in a tree. In other words, please do not auto-expand the nodes. Instead, expand/collapse them when the user presses right/left on the D-pad, as is the case with the File Explorer treeview on the Desktop.

I would spend another $10 on GDI+ (alpha transparency, antialiased drawing, gradient brushes, etc.). I personally don't care for Direct3D.

I would spend $5 on fixing small UI inconsistencies. I may be a bit fussy, but there has been something wrong with scrollbars ever since the days of Pocket PC 2000/Windows CE 3. As is acknowledged in the SDK docs (PPC 2002, I believe), the "double" black edge formed by the scroll bar's edge and any other adjacent window is something that should be avoided. There is no simple solution though. The only thing developers are left with is to do a "MoveWindow" on the scrollbar by 1 (scaled) pixel to either hide it under the other window's edge or to force the edge to draw offscreen. Not only is this clumsy, but it also is something that must constantly be reevaluated/redone as there is always a special case. (There may be a toolbar edge, there may be a one-pixel black edge below the application's title bar, there may be no such black edge, ...) Since some built-in WM applications exhibit various scrollbar positioning problems, I would guess that MS developers suffer from this issue as well.

Examples of inconsistent scrollbar positioning in WM for PPC:
"Start Menu | Settings | System": The bottom edge of the scrollbar is doubled with the tabs' top edge. The scrollbar's right edge is superfluous since the scrollbar is docked on the right of the screen.
Same kind of problems in IE (all three view modes), Word Mobile and Terminal Services Client.

Yet there are plenty of applications with nice scrollbars:
File Explorer, Excel Mobile, Contacts, Messaging, "Start Menu | Programs".

As a developer, I would like the WM/WinCE APIs to offer me an easy way of adjusting scrollbar edges and to handle the annoying job of actually calculating the layout accordingly. For example, I would like to be able to create a window (or an MFC CWnd/CScrollView/CScrollbar) with styles such as WS_VERT_SCROLL_NORIGHTBORDER, WS_VERT_SCROLL_NOTOPBORDER, etc. While we're on the topic of scrollbars, when both horizontal and vertical scrollbars are shown, the bottom-right corner is still gray under WM5. It would look better if it were matching the theme's main color.

For $3, please add an option in IE to not pixel-double the images when in HI-DPI. I really appreciate the fact that you went for the "pixel-doubling" approach instead of the "true VGA" approach when dealing with HI-DPI devices, yet in this particular case, I would prefer having sharper & smaller images at the expense of readability. One-column view is great and I can live with the occasional broken layout. However, since the pixel-doubling is not enforced for all images (I believe it depends on the original image size), there are situations where on the same page, some images are pixel-doubled and others are not, which gives somewhat weird results.

For $2, I would like to report two bugs (WM5 for PPC, may have appeared with earlier versions)...

The first one is related to GradientFill not working correctly with DCs that have their viewport origin offset, as is typically the case when one must draw to a scrolled view. The GradientFill will work as long as the upper coordinate is smaller than the clipbox height. Then, as soon as the upper coordinate is greater or equal to the clipbox height, the GradientFill just does not happen (yet the call does not fail). A simple FillRect using the same coordinates as GradientFill will work just fine.

The other issue is related to the CMainFrm of an MFC SDI application not being sized to the appropriate height on the initial update. The window is actually too tall, but since the overlapping region appears underneath the Command Bar and since the paint rect passed to the CChildView is correctly clipped, the effect is not noticeable to most application. As soon as the SIP is first shown/hidden, the CMainFrm is resized correctly. The issue arises in *HI-DPI* only, and the height is off by exactly the height of the Command Bar in *LOW-DPI* (26 pixels), as if the code that computes the layout the first time did not take into account the "scaled" height of the Command Bar. Although the ill-effects of this bug are difficult to observe, it does pose a problem to applications depending on CMainFrm to be sized appropriately.

Throw a party with the remaining $5. Windows Mobile keeps getting better with each release, especially regarding the use of sofkeys and one-handed operation. As a result, I don't have much to whine about. :-) Keep up the good work!

There are a lot of little things that I'd love to see improved, but the one major thing is one-handed navigation. I switched to a PPC-6700 running Windows Mobile 5 from a Treo 600 running Palm OS about 9 months ago, and as much as I love almost all of the other differences, the fact that I cannot elegantly navigate through apps with the 5-way constantly tempts me to switch back. So I'd put my whole $100 towards that.

$15. Add text Notes to the Smartphone platform. Also port the Tasks program from Pocket PC into the Smartphone platform; the one currently there is an insult.

$5. Add Minimize and Close buttons to Pocket PC applications and Exit menu items to Smartphone applications.

$5. Add Cancel button to Settings dialogs so that accidental changes can be undone easily. How about left softkey for OK and right softkey for Cancel or a menu that contains Cancel as one of the items?

$50. Improve Accessibility of the OS! Add a Pocket Narrator to both PPC and Smartphone. A mobile version of Narrator will allow a blind user, as well as sighted users in the car, to operate essential functions of the device without depending on the screen. Current alternatives from third-party vendors are costly, very difficult to acquire and limit the user to one exclusive device - defeating the purpose of having device with a SIM card-based phone service. Narrator Mobile doesn't have to do anything fancy so Microsoft doesn't interfere with products from third-parties, but it needs to cover essential functionality, like creating and vieweing appointments and contacts, operating the phone and changing system settings. Also make the Caller ID screen on the Smartphone honor the Large Font setting in Settings-Accessibility and add large-font display option in IE - the current settings are a bad joke especially in higher resolution devices.

$25. Add USER-INSTALLABLE software updates! Not all bug fixes in the Windows Mobile OS are hardware-exclusive. It is dumb that we have to wait for the manufacturer and cellular carriers to "approve" an update such as the change back from a two-line to a one-line Today date display!

$65 - Fix PPC phone UI for one handed operation. I'm going to kill myself or someone else trying to dial in the car.  The buttons are not big enough and don't respond very well.  Seems that the phone app ought to take CPU priority while active too.  It often becomes unresponsive or slow causing a lot of typos even with the stylus when say Activesync is running.

$10 - Automatic certificate exchange with Activesync for root certs that the phone doesn't understand (self-signed, rapidssl, etc).  Most end users don't get exporting and copying a root cert to the phone on first use.

$10 - Alarms need to repeat and have configurable settings for this repeat.  phoneAlarm by PocketMax works fairly well to do this but it has bugs.  This should be integrated into the OS IMHO.

$10 - All apps should have a close button so the app actually stops when you close it instead of continues to run in the background.   It should be another button though.  Make the X close and OK put it in the background.  

$5 - Rotating ring tones.  People love changing them. Why not make them automatically rotate or have them randomize?

$50 : UI Navigation and beautification
$30 : Provide a reasonable app shutdown model for developers!! *
$20 : Allow sync with more than 2 computers, and allow sync with another Windows Mobile device
$10 : Better built-in games

Oh wait, I spent too much again.

I have a T-Mobile SDA (US).

$50 - Office Mobile in Smartphone (I'll deal with input; just please let me do it.)
$15 - More similarity between Smartphone and PocketPC
$10 - A2DP and AVRCP support built in
$10 - Pocket IE fixes (i.e. [pun intended] frame support, flash player for Smartphone, etc.)
$5 - Support for 320 x 320 resolution
$5 - Bring back WiFi and GPRS/EDGE ActiveSync
$5 - An option in File Explorer to send something over Bluetooth instead of going to Beam and then waiting for IR to die out and then for Bluetooth to kick in.

$100 Support third part client certificates. The sales documentation says s/mime capable but only with a MS CA. Hey this is a real world other people uses non Microsoft CA's

- $20 Make something, where I can set the preferences for connection use. Like applications can use, Wifi (and if not available), UMTS (and if not available), GPRS etc.  
- $20 Improve the screen support. Come on guys, Symbian (Nokia's series 60) is improving faster and is on a number of points much better than WM 5.0. Built in VoiP support, built in videocalling support etc. That kind of stuf is nice. But what you really need is to support 32 bit color screens, I mean 64k is not good enough anymore. The resolution is also a problem...
- $20 What is the use of running different programs, when you can't easily switch between them?
- $20 Get that Vista Aero graphics team over there. Let them built new icons, new graphics etc. Let them make WM pretty.
- $10 Make a usable power indicator. It is really incredible that any device running on batteries, especially a device that is so advanced as a Windows mobile device, has such a bad power indicator. It is so easy: just make more bars.
- $10 I love the one handed support in WM 5.0, however it needs to be further improved/implemented. For instance it doesn't work properly in the library view in WMP10 and also in the mail app, it isn't working as it is supposed to.
- $100 Last but not least, I even want to add another 100 dollars. The office team did a wonderfull job in Office 2k7. How can complexity and usability go hand in hand? They showed us. Please let them do Windows Mobile. Especially the settings need a major overhaul. The network setting tab is bad, but I have to say that most settings are hard to find and unnecessary difficult to set.

$100 - Fix the "No symbols are loaded for any call stack frame. The source code cannot be displayed" problem in VS 2005 so that I can debug my applications.  If a thread is in a system call, say waiting on a mutex, you can't get a stack trace, which makes developing for Windows Mobile a living hell for me.  

I'm going to be completely different.

$80 - provide agent to control WMP on Windows MCE.  Yes I know there are some 3rd party stuff to do something similar, but I want it seamless, and complete.  I want to use make my phone as usefull at doing common home tasks as it is for orginizing my work life.  as a smart remote control for playing music, controlling the TV, lighting... via bluetooth (or wifi if you like to burn batteries)  
$20 - fix/improve activesync -- I want to sync at work and see all my appts&contacts, but I want to leave work at work, and not have all the work contacts/appts pollute my home system when I sync up to it.

Les

$90- Leftside scrollbars
$10. WiFi ActiveSync

$30 WiFi ActiveSync
$40 drastically better performance than WM5 (my old 6315 on a 168 MHz processor is outrunning WM5 machines that run on 416 MHz processors!)
$30 set ActiveSync schedule to manual by default, reduce the "on" time for the nightly wakeup, generally better battery performance.

$1: Add Select All to mail, so I can mark all as read since I probably read on desktop.  $1: Power off.  $1: SMS sent bubble disabled by default.  $1: Better monthly calendar view.  $1: Agenda view, just list every single item on calendat chronologically. $1: Real error messages in place of obscure numbers.  $94: Fix the DSOD problem that plagues us all.

$70 - Left handed support (scrollbars on the left instead of the right)

$30 - page scroll for IE instead of "down to the next link" when using the hardware buttons.
or a "hold and slowly scroll down".. or something! Perhaps with a thumbnail of the whole page that pops up at the side and a square that shows the current visable area.

I am not a dev, but end user, albeit techy. I've been looking at the hp ipaq hw6915 today and weighing it up with a laptop. For its price you could get a laptop, wouldn't be anything special but it would be a laptop. The ipaq on the other hand is a phone, camera, mp3 player?, pda, gps unit. Now thats a lot of useful functionality, but its still not a laptop. Laptops being great for doing actual work at while on the move, pda's frankly not so good (personal opinion). So I was thinking how could you get the ipaq to be useable as a laptop, instantly an inbuilt projected screen + projected keyboard would do the trick. Obviously ain't gonna work due to power consumption, heat, and absurd cost. So then I thought hmm seems like some kind of terminal server would do the trick. So my request although obviously it means rewriting half of the os probably is.

Can we have a terminal server builtin ala win2003 or at a pinch remote desktop ala xp.

The concept being I plonk my ipaq down on the table next to a pc, it syncs with wifi or bluetooth I then ts into my pda and work away at the pc effectively using it as a dumb terminal. Also no need why you couldn't use a wyse like dumb terminal to do similar and cut out the pc alltogether.

Unlikely to happen I know, but one can dream.

I'd spend $75 putting a scroll wheel on every unit and fixing the UI to be less clunky and better suited for the scroll wheeel, one handed operation.

$10 fixing the close button to work

$15 to fix the SD card interfaces so that anything can be loaded on the SD card and things work, even if the unit sleeps.

$100 change your distribution model. Phone carriers want to sell phones and not updates. it took months for carriers to update with Messaging & Security Feature Pack and even then it is questionable if older phones will be updated.

$100 fix the DSOD issues

I would love these

1. Bluetooth based voice navigation.. Enhancing Voice Command OR make it a part of WM
2. WiFi Activesync
3. Option to auto install certs
5. Vista like feature that allows you to use external memory as RAM..

Add BackgroundWorker control to Compact Framework.

$40 : Make UI more consistent with Desktop OS
- Task bar and Start menu at the bottom.
- Close button that closes app
- Minimize button to get apps out of the way.

$20 : ActiveSync improvements for home users
- Multiple devices on a single Fast-User-Switching machine

$15 : Allow mapping of any button to any feature or App.

$15 : Improve BT. If our stack was better, OEMs wouldn't need to replace it. And if there is only one, then support for BT becomes a lot better.

$10 : Improve one handed usage

$90 - repeat notification
$10 - better ringtones (not midi)

How about a disconnect button for the cellular Internet connection (I get charged by the minute by my provider (Telstra) as well as by the kb).

If you really want to squeeze value out of the $100 how about a pop-up that tells you when a device requests Internet access and lets you allow/deny it?

And for the last $5 buy lots of copies of Hudson Mobile's Phone Dashboard and integrate it into the Today screen.

I work for a consulting firm that acts as an outsourced IT department for small and medium businesses in the Twin Cities... We configure a lot of devices for end users in every imaginable vertical market...

$25 Ability to synchronize multiple inboxes/contacts/calendars.

$5 Better logging/troubleshooting features for synchronization failures.

$10 Greater synchronization flexibility (filter which items/containers get sync'ed against various systems, etc).

$20 Improved single hand/no stylus operations (especially of phone features--it's hard enough to talk and drive at the same time ;) ).

$2 Close button quits really quits applications.

$5 Scroll/jog wheel API/tutorials to inspire hardware designers (...to crush the iPod)

$10 Network (WiFi) Sync/file transfer.

$10 Easy migration of sync'ed data (email/contacts/appointments) to removable/expandable storage.

$5 Improved Network Connections control panel.

$8 VOIP/SIP client for fixed to mobile convergence.

Make the conversion from SQL Server CE to SQL Server Everywhere easier.  It is too complicated!

Did anyone ever say Thank you?

Thank you!

I'll spend all $100 on getting WiFi sync/debug back!

Cheers,
Lars

Amendment:

$25 Ability to synchronize multiple contacts/calendars including those from Exchange Public Folders.

It's all about the sync baby.

$40 - Make PPC 100% one-handed. The new HTC Hermes/TyTN and Treo 700w go a long way to fixing the problem with a jog dial (I love jog dials)

$10 - Add Profiles (my Nokia and SE candybars have them - Silent, Normal, Outdoor etc) and make them location and time aware (rules)

$10 - Fix comms manager including visual feedback (I hate having to watch the icon to see if it's connected or connecting... it's not 'at-a-glance' obvious).

$5 - make comms manager location aware (if it's before midnight and my cell tower id matches home sniff to see if you can see my wifi network)

$35 - make the damn platform 100% reliable and streamlines. No more random lock-ups. No more random failure to wake up. No more hacks and patches to make alarms work. And when I have to do a soft reset because of one of those don't compund the offense by making it take longer to restart than my WinXP laptop!

If you're really bored have a read of my initial WM5 / HTC Wizard thoughts when I got one about 6 months ago here: http://www.offbeatmammal.com/pt/blog/?id=45
At the moment while I love WM5 and everything it offers... I still use my SE z800i flip-phone about as often!

PS ... If I can grab 5 bucks back from somewhere... WiFi sync would be cool to see returned, but not critical as I use a hosted Exchange Server for mail and contacts

$70 - Safemode\Diagnostic mode or similar. Too many times a 3rd party software install left me doing a hard reset.

$30 - System event logging. Similar to XP's Event Viewer for troubleshooting application errors etc.

I would invest it all in improving Pocket Outlook. there are so many things that (Desktop) Outlook can do and Pocket Outlook can't. this results in me having to do most of my appointment-creating etc. on my desktop.

now there are a few apps (e.g. Papyrus and PowerTasks) that improve this, but firstly they don't go ALL the way, and secondly i really think these features should be included, without having to buy anything...

$50 make using templates easy. in prior version you had access to a new menu and could access templates easy. now you must constantly change options nack and forth just to use a template.

$25 wifi sync

$25 close button that really works

$50 - Escape key on soft keyboard (so i can use VI through an SSH client without having to use CTRL-[)


$10 - Better Key Binding - Allow Binding of hardware keys to sequences of soft-keyboard inputs - NOT just scripting where the stylus is tapping and playing it back but actually issuing the key sequence to the device as if i had used the REAL keyboard to enter the sequence.


$10 - Task switching, some way to change the current task from the menu bar (perhaps next to the OK button position)


$10 - Make PPC more one hand friendly


$5 - Include Notepad in ADDITION to pocket Word.  Sometimes i don't want a full fledged word processor i just want a simple text editor.


$5 - Shutdown/Startup toggle application to stop the SD/MiniSD card driver so that i can be sure i don't corrupt data on the card when i Eject it. (perhaps this would save RAM for people who don't yet have a memory card.)


$5 - Better Bluetooth Device Management - allow me to tell the device to not connect to some devices without removing the partnership.


$5 - Have an option to make Applications ACTUALLY close rather than just minimize when clicking OK, or the X.  (Perhaps use a gesture to close or tap and hold to close - but allow the user to configure HOW the button works.)

$90 Fix the phone interface to make it one-handed, it makes no sense to have to pull out the stylus to make a phone call.  Add the ability to swap in a custom phone interface.  Update the Call History screen to be easily filtered by Incoming, Outgoing, Missed, etc., the current menu implementation requires two hands and too many clicks.

$10 Fix Pocket Media Player to save settings.  Allow the user to configure where the default library is, or better yet, add all mp3's to a single library rather than having two.  I keep my mp3's on a storage card, and I currently have to select "Storage Card" each time I open Media Player.

I would pay $10 if you MS guys can make activesync run much much faster in WM5 equipped PPCs.

I am now suffering from the unbearable slowness while synchronising more than 1000 new appointments from PC's outlook2003 to my PPC(HP2790).

This never happened when I use HP6515 with WM2003 on it.

I would pay the whole 100$ for a fixed SIP-interface.
Because the SIP is a global resource and may be controled from any process (especialy background windows) it is very hard to predict its state.
Even the MS today-application has sometimes trouble to hide the SIP in the case that you switch an application with an active SIP (i.e. explorer) to it.

$100.00 to Support WPA2 wireless security in my wifi connections.

A few weeks ago I asked how you'd spend 100 feature dollars on Windows Mobile.&amp;nbsp; &amp;nbsp; When we do...

I also want to use it as a laptop. I do 24/7  support and can't always carry my laptop while the wife drags me shopping!. So, here goes!

50$ for Terminal server / Remote Desktop client to access our severs with VPN over GPRS.

25$ Easy use of network settings when trying to connect to a WIFI network (used to have a 5450 and was confusing.

25$ Leave in my pocket for next week when I get my hw6915 so I can come back and buy some more dev time :-)

One of the activities our Product Planning team often use in brainstorming is to consider what features...

$50 on supporting AES cipher suites in SCHANNEL (for RFC3268 support), making the cipher suite a plug-in would be a plus (like in VISTA).

$20 on adding hook APIs to POOM for on the fly decryption/encryption of PIM data (at power-on etc).

$10 on improving "one-handed" control of the device

$10 on code signing process simplification for ISV (Mobile2Market etc)

$5 on rewriting the connection manager and have the guy who designed it to make a public Act of Contrition.

$5 on reenabling a secure ActiveSync/RAPI over IP (wifi,gprs) ,
and $100 from my own pocket to fire the guy who took the decision to remove it from WM5