So I finally broke down and bought an iPhone. I’ve been a loyal Window Mobile user because of the developement tools MSFT has created… but what good are they if the devices suck?

Here are the top 3 things that really got me down on WM5/6 devices:

1. Too Slow/under powered — I owned the Cingular 8125 and T-Mobile Wing… from powering up to using the camera or even loading the calculator, it took too long.

2. Interface was designed for stylus — I found it difficult to use with a finger touch. Especially to schedule a meeting because the drop down menus for the time required a stylus (or really pointy nail) to scroll… you couldn’t use the down arrow on the d-pad. Also, the touchscreens weren’t sensitive enough, especially when dialing… I would need to tap many times to get a digit to register.

3. Wi-Fi not seamless — I had this vision that I could access my home automation server from outside my home… problem was, that connecting to Wi-Fi on my Window Mobile device took over 15 seconds to register with the Wi-Fi access point, DHCP, and connect… making it easier to just press the garage door opener button manually.

I’m still a believer in MSFT and their strategic plans to get all their devices to seamlessly communicate with each other. I know the next version of Windows Mobile phones will be better that what we are seeing today, but for now, I’ll be developing less powerful Web 2.0 applications for my iPhone. My first one took about 10 minutes… it’s a security camera viewer app that pulls JPG images from my AXIS 241Q video server. Pretty simple… if you rotate the screen landscape you can zoom into the higher resolution image. I currently have it set to refresh every 15 seconds… on WI-FI I can “stream” them in every second.

Next project, tie into my HAI OmniPro II via the iPhone! More to come…