Seeing the HTC Hero must bring home much concern to hardened Windows Mobile users. Here we have a smartphone that looks like a high-end HTC Windows Mobile device, yet it is running Android.
TouchFLO has been recreated on the Hero, but with the Sense UI and this would appear to make interaction with the phone a whole lot smoother. PPPC Thoughts rightly points out that Windows Mobile is in danger of becoming nothing more than software plumbing and that with HTC as the major Windows Mobile partner, things may be starting to creak a little.
Just look at this engadget presentation and you can see how much like Windows Mobile the Hero pretends to be, except it does it with a whole lot more style. Android has always had bags of potential, but all of a sudden Windows Mobile looks like it could be squeezed out quicker than expected…
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Judging from the look of that, its not only WinMob that should start worrying, but also Apple.
I’m sure I noticed a two finger gesture for zoom on the web interface portion of the that demo. Apple were making enough fuss about the Palm Pre having such a gesture, now its on Android too.
The graphic resolution looked pretty good too; makes WinMob’s 240×320 look pretty shabby.
funny thing is I though WM was going about 5-12 months ago (I was looking hard at android myself) but really the hardware range is getting some serious players.. Samsung is growing the omnia range, HTC maybe doing some android devices but their WM releases are not slowing, Sony is growing the xperia range, Toshiba with their TG01 4.1″ monster and then there is Acer, HP, LG, Asus…
and so much 800×480 goodness coming our way..
Apparently some bright hackers have got Android running on a first gen Omnia. I have found android to be a much less frustrating experience than WM personally, although its not without it’s flaws.
“Apple were making enough fuss about the Palm Pre having such a gesture…”
No they didn’t.
I have used wm6.5 and it’s not that bad. Windows 7 is huge improvement.
WM is going the same way as Palm did. They will then eventually stop for a while and will gather the present technology and will come up with something that will overcome the actual Mobile OS’s… after that some will become shaky and will fade, some will come up with different ways of OS’s…
We must not forget that Palm and WM are the oldest (I guess) Mobile OS’s… they have to eventually “renew” someday.
WM & Symbian are both looking a bit tired compared to the touch friendly iphone & Android UIs.
Android is really looking slick with the pinch action (#I love your pinch action#) & cupcake – if they provide WVGA then this will start to change the landscape.
MS still have the ace up the sleeve in terms of Outlook/Exchange sync for corporates due to sheer inertia. I reckon this means they probably will not need to innovate for another 18 months… interesting market developments indeed!