[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] quicksite:
Quicksite's Screenshots of Androkkid on QVGA T-Mobile Wing, with Multi-tasking

I am finding the latest carrier wars in the USA between Verizon and AT&T to be humorous... especially since one of the selling points they are fighting over is: Which network and phones provide true multi-tasking?

It's laughable -- if not for Microsoft's being so behind the curve now with their mobile OS -- that HTC touchscreen phones 4 and 5 years ago running Windows Mobile had almost all the features it took Apple 3 generations of phones to catch up to: MMS, shooting video, voice command, handwriting recognition, tethering, etc.

But the really amazing thing is that still, with my 4-year old crappy slow processor with minimal RAM, running WM with a custom XDA ROM, an efficient shell & app launcher like Androkkid, I can quite comfortably click tabs between the following applications all open and running at the same time:

1. Androkkid shell...

2. play music via Nitrogen in the background

3. Have my SMS app open and active

4. My Opera Mini browser open looking at my Gmail

5. my iContact application open

6. my Notes application open

7. Google Maps open

8. and in some cases in addition I can also have a second browser running, Netfront, or my photo editing app open as well.

I run WKtask and so I can tap the tabs in the top taskbar to switch between apps with just a tap... with no fake-multitasking of quickly closing down one app and opening the next.

Now, sadly, WindowsMobile took too long to respond to the world post-iphone, and they blew it catastrophically missing this critical end of year season of 2009 which is defining the players of the future. Their stopgap of 6.5 is not nearly enough to keep users from adopting the new Android phones from HTC, and the droid from Motorola. Apple will almost surely have a new more-varied and refreshed UI next year (my prediction), but will keep the familiar iphone UI and dub it "iPhone Classic" to keep customers happy.

Palm Pre made its splash, and has been well-received, but I think it is getting lost in the mindshare battles of Christmas season 2009, and is likely seen right now as "that older phone from 6 months ago"... I doubt it will end up with a high percentage of Christmas sales.

There is no doubt in my mind that by February (or March), when MS *finally* launches WM 7, it will be a remarkably good UI and user experience, building off of the Zune HD... and if marketed really well, will fight its way back into the game. But I think it's a big gamble. It may well be too much too late, as Feb rolls around with no doubt a new iPhone, and even more Android phones from even more phone manufacturers, running version 2.0 of HTC's Sense UI, and Motorola's add-on UI, etc.

I don't see WM 7 being a game changer, no matter how good it is (again, I think it will be very good). I think it will fall inot place as being what MS should have had this year, and thus it will be seen as merely catching up.

Anyway, since this became a commentary post, I will put my screenshots in the next post. But the real story here is the celebration of Androkkid -- finally the UI environment and app launcher that makes Windows Mobile finger friendly and updated with its Android-like widgets approach. Really great work from simo!