[Windows Mobile Software Development] meltwater:
This is an interesting discussion! :D Remember there is no right answer here, we all have different needs/expectations from our devices.

I totally agree with you guys, except I still stick with my thoughts too, simply since different users have different needs. For you, your needs are to shape your device to fit perfectly your needs (and why not!) but many many more people are not able to or want to do that.

For me the idea of the iPhone is nice, simple software which is supposed to and mostly works smoothly etc (nothing wrong with that), however, wrap it in chains and remove things which might be useful (so you can add it later on new hardware/software), take away any kind of customisation and user preference and you lose me. However, there is value in that concept, the iPad shows this ($200 hardware sold for $650+ in the UK, it is simply the software which does that!). Also there is value in switching something on and using it out the box to do useful things (even if it's within the pre-determined limits defined for you & designed to extract lots and lots money from you).

On WM we've already had an app for that, and it is probably free, and there are more options...and if it doesn't do it quite how you want, someone probably knows how to make it do it!

MY question is, is there anything which is done with WM which can't be done with a little programming in Android? After-all, you can achieve most things with some programming and time if you have some reasonable hardware to do it on. I've not programmed yet on Android, so I'm probably wrong, but I'm expecting similar things in the API but with better graphics (so you can focus on programming function rather than form).

WM is a great platform, but as mentioned before, it fails on the newer form factors of larger screens and compact .net isn't suited to it (anything which is any good from a GUI aspect has to be custom built). WM will have its uses, and I do wish it a long and slow retirement but market forces are not on it's side. I'm not sure how WM compares to CE, but that lives on in some devices but it is a particular market and area of use. It also carries years of legacy code/support which is both good and bad. There is patch upon patch upon patch in some code and that is a nightmare to deal with (particular case in point, my friend the WebBrowser control...).

Things WM can't do...use latest apps and games which are released for Android and iPhone...can you live without Angry Birds? (personally yes! was playing a very similar (but better) flash game over a year ago), but there are more and more apps which are worth using (Kindle, LogMeIn, Google Goggles, Drop Box (I know there is a 3rd party WM app but still)).

Big companies will release apps for the big platforms first, even before WM7, WM apps weren't being released along with Android and iPhone.

Of course with some programming, very similar apps and games COULD/ARE being produced for WM...but not by the companies themselves.

It is annoying, since WM still has some way to go, the latest ROMs show that a lot can be done to make WM look nice and play nice. But drop back to basic WM and standard forms and its not nice at all, what's wrong with getting all that as standard?