Mobile Concerns

At the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Microsoft announced a new free service called My Phone. Currently in beta, this service allows you to back up your mobile phone data to a password protected web site. Check out the Windows Mobile Team Blog for more details.

When I first saw My Phone, the first thing I thought about was Microsoft’s Live Mesh service. This is where Microsoft is light years ahead of the competition - including Google.

Cloud computing services such as Microsoft's Live Mesh allow you to sync and share your data between devices as well as access your data from anywhere using the power of the Internet. Live Mesh also allows you to remotely control the desktop of any device from anywhere.

At the moment Live Mesh only supports devices with Windows XP, Windows Vista and Mac OS X but Windows Mobile support is coming soon. If you access the Live Mesh beta, you get access to 5GB of storage to get you started.

Yesterday, Microsoft presented a first look at the next version of its Window Mobile Operating System (OS) – Windows Mobile 6.5 – at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. This version of the OS is due for release towards the the end of this year and will be the last Windows Mobile 6 release before Windows Mobile 7.

Although there have been some efforts to improve the usability of the user interface, initial feedback is that new honeycomb interface is too little, too late. What has many people baffled is how can HTC and Sony-Ericsson do such a good job of improving the usability experience on Windows Mobile 6.1 while Microsoft seems to still be behind the times with Windows 6.5.
I suspect one of the problems is that Microsoft needs to support a user interface that works on a wide variety of devices with different screen resolutions and form factors. Hence they must cater for the lowest common denominator. HTC and Sony-Ericsson on the other hand can build a fantastic user experience around their latest smartphones with state-of-the-art screens and features.

I think Microsoft should consider decoupling the user interface from the operating system, allowing each smartphone manufacturer to optimise the user interface experience for their specific smartphone. This may lead to inconsistencies in user experience, but hey, isn't that what we have had with WM 5, WM 6 and now WM 6.5?

Today I tried using the Microsoft Tag Beta with a Dopod smartphone. For those who don’t know, a Microsoft Tag is like a barcode that you can capture with your mobile phone’s camera and have the Tag Reader software on your phone decode. A Microsoft Tag supports different types of content such as URLs, vCards, Phone Numbers and Text.

The image above is an example of a tag. Click on it to view the the full-size image and then try capturing the image on your mobile with the Tag Reader installed. I had to try it a couple of times as the image needs to be in the centre of the view finder, but otherwise it worked seamlessly.

Anyone with a Windows Live ID can sign-in and create tags. The process is simple and done online. You can then render your tag in a variety of formats.

A Microsoft Tag is a similar to Nokia’s Mobile Code (seen to the left). I haven’t tried installing a Mobile Code Reader for my smartphone yet, but there are several available.

The benefits of using the Microsoft Tags include:

• The ability to categorise different tags;
• Define Start and End dates for your tags and;
• Online reporting on how often each tag has been scanned.

These features will undoubtedly be of interest to businesses that need to analyse the effectiveness of marketing campaigns that make use of Microsoft Tags.