Pocket PC Thoughts: Mobius 2006 Thailand: Day Two

Looking Toward the Future
Chris Sorenson, John Starkweather's counterpart in SE Asia, then gave a presentation on Crossbow, the next release of Windows Mobile. Although there are no NDAs at Mobius, we were asked to not share what we were shown. Crossbow originally started out as more of a "service pack" type release (think 2003 SE), but after all I was shown about Crossbow, it's looking quite impressive - definitely upgrade-worthy. Devices running Crossbow will be appearing in the second half of 2007.

Next up, we had a presentation from Horace Luke about Photon, the really-far-away version of Windows Mobile that is even more secretive than Crossbow. I can't say much, but I'll say that Photon continues to change, and what I saw at Mobius 2006 is more evolved than what I saw at Mobius 2005 (in a good way). And those that were seeing Photon for the first time had their jaws on the floor - there were audible gasps in more than one part of the demo. Design matters, and with Photon you can really see that Microsoft understands that. The design first approach is what drove much of Windows Vista, though I'm willing to bet that it's much easier to re-design a Windows Mobile OS than a desktop OS. I've heard Horace Luke speak three times now, and he's brilliant - he understands users and what they need in a way that no other person in the Windows Mobile group does, at least from what I've seen over the past nine years. It makes me confident about the future of Windows Mobile knowing that someone like Horace is working to make it better.

The Mobius Project
We spent the rest of the afternoon working on The Mobius Project, which is an audacious concept: using the experiences and skills of Mobius group members, we would come up with device concepts (both hardware and software) that we can use to help shape the future of mobility. The idea of the Mobius project is to collect and focus our own personal experiences, and the experiences of the communities we represent. I was part of a team that focused on delivering a hardware and software solution that met the needs of a business professional. My group came up with some concepts, and Horace Luke made some sketches to help us flesh out the design. I don't want to ruin the surprise, because if I understand correctly what will happen next, Horace's design team will help develop the idea further. Everything we discussed and created is considered public intellectual property, so Microsoft isn't using us to generate ideas for them to patent. Though if they do use some of our ideas, I'm sure none of us would mind. The other two groups each focused on a different concept: creating a solution for "social butterfly" users, and for the average users who are intimidated by technology and are more solutions based.



Our group won the "Most Creative End to End Solution" prize, which was a pair of Ultimate Ears super.fi 5 Pro headphones for each of us. In typical Mobius fashion, every person there got a pair anyway. ;-) I haven't tried mine out yet, but I've heard other people raving about them - I'm impressed with the single-driver super.fi 3 Studio headphones I was sent just in time for my trip, so I'm looking forward to trying out the double-driver model. Look for a review on The Two Inch View and a giveaway as well (I have two pairs of the super.fi 3's to give away).