This isn't the first or only comparison, but I liked the comparison chart MSMobiles posted comparing Windows Mobile features to the new iPhone 3G. Overall, the competition is certainly tightening, but WM still looks like a winner!

Check it out. 

Bill Fisher:

Overall, the competition is certainly tightening

And as I said elsewhere, good competition is always in everyone's interest.

Bill Fisher:

Overall, the competition is certainly tightening, but WM still looks like a winner!

Hello Bill,

Windows Mobile may be the winner if you don't take into account the category "Full Internet Browsing" and that third party applications like Opera Mobile amd NetFront are mentioned instead of Internet Explorer Mobile, the original Windows Mobile browser. One big step which Apple has made was to improve mobile internet browsing with Mobile Safari and I think this is a essential criterion for comparisons.

Welcome ttklf4!

ttklf4:

One big step which Apple has made was to improve mobile internet browsing

 I agree, and I look forward to a better mobile Internet Explorer also.

I've been using Opera 9.5, and Skyfire for a while and have tried the iPhone Safari... but so far I still prefer WM 6.1's Internet Explorer.  On the other browsers the page always renders zoomed out so you can't see anything and then you have to zoom in on each piece and pan around to read it.  It's kind of a pain.  IE has much better one-handed usage with the hardware buttons and mobile-designed pages load and are usable much faster than the other browsers (given you don't have to screw around with zooming and repositioning content within the screen view).

 I guess I mostly prefer to use mobile-formatted web pages anyway though.

Remember we are comparing a limitless combination of windows mobile devices to one apple device.. Im sure there are certain windows mobile devices you could slot into this comparison chart and it would look ridiculous next to the iphone.  

Speaking out of experience and after test driving an iPhone for almost 3 months, I have to say the user-to-phone interaction is without a doubt the best in the market so far. Little things like how applications smoothly transition from one phase to another, the way they open and close, and even the way alert boxes are displayed. All that, and more, plays a major role in what makes the iPhone special.

But that's about it. There is nothing more to its uniqueness than that. It’s all about the GUI.

So after I got over that iPhone excitement phase, which took around 2 weeks tops, I kept asking myself, "so...what's next? What else can it do?” And the answer was loud and clear. Nothing.  And that's when I realized how important and essential Windows Mobile is cause it just gives the user a lot more to do.

Microsoft knew how to attract mostly business users and get them using WinMo just for the fact that you can be a lot more productive with it than any mobile OS currently in the market. The next step is to work on the graphical user interface. The aesthetic and GUI side of WinMo is what desperately requires a makeover.

So anyways, what I am trying to say to Microsoft is, "Start gold plating WinMo!"

davidc:

Remember we are comparing a limitless combination of windows mobile devices to one apple device.. Im sure there are certain windows mobile devices you could slot into this comparison chart and it would look ridiculous next to the iphone.  

Nobody's stopping Apple from putting their iPhone OS on more than one device. 

I think the comparison is between operating systems.  Windows Mobile the OS vs. Apple iPhone the OS.  What does each one support?

I just mean, in this comparison,  for someone who was making a descision it is unfair to represent the iphones screen resolution vs windows mobile,,  as we can go through all windows mobile devices, find the biggest one and quote it.

Theres only one reference for the iphone 

This applys to alot of the items 

I must say I was never excited over the iphone....each OS has their thing......but over all....I will always choose a WM Device over the iphone, because I can be "more productive" with a WM device.....rather than just having a cool phone and when the Touch Pro hits the street cool meets productive! although most WM devices are cool. 1 iphone versus many many WM devices......I just don't see the comparison. But then again....I'm a WM professional.....so let apple spend the money on "hype" and a decent device....and bet Microsoft keep gaining market share......domination....

Ahmed Eltawil:

So after I got over that iPhone excitement phase, which took around 2 weeks tops, I kept asking myself, "so...what's next? What else can it do?” And the answer was loud and clear. Nothing.  And that's when I realized how important and essential Windows Mobile is cause it just gives the user a lot more to do.

Wow, Ahmed - That's a really fantastic point, and I don't think I've ever heard it more clearly stated. The GUI is definitely where it's at - as we're seeing from manufacturers like HTC.

It seems to me that Ahmed's nice little summary could make a great sales pitch - "Look, customer, nearly everyone agrees that the GUI is exciting and great to interact with - but how long are you going to want to play with the interface?" 

Windows Mobile is great for having unlimited number of 3rd party software. And that's the definite point why many of us get addicted to this platform. However, when I try to tell my friends WM is great, they turned me down like this, 'What I need is a convenient phone only. This gadget is too complicated for me.' Yes, the advantage makes it bad.

Other concerns about Windows Mobile compared to iPhone are:

1. Windows Mobile cannot make the "real-time" experience. I tried htc diamond. The photo interface is better than the other models but the same problem: it's too slow to react. When I'm using an iPhone, I feels that the photo and interface boxes are actually under my finger. It moves, enlarges or goes out as my fingers move and tap. Windows Mobile gives a command and execute feeling to the user. You slip across the screen and wait the next photo to appear. "How come the CPU/software is that slow?"

2. The interface is the main way of communication. Just think about you pack all the Vista functions to a Win 98 interface. That's no more "wow". Apple did good job in packaging their products from outside to inside. iPhone comes with a tiny package. It starts and give you a smooth and pretty looking interface with some transition effects when openning or closing programs. Windows Mobile devices usually packed in a luggage liked box. The windows environment is too boring. Nothing can making you impressive at the first sight in the native WM interface. The HTC Touch3D interface has helped a step in this. "Why not make Windows Mobile something 'Wow'?"

3. Due to the open development platform, Windows Mobile easily becomes unstable. The general public pays a big attention to this point. Who wants the mobile phones go hang? You're not watching the device all the time like a PC. You don't want to miss the calls all day because your WM phone hangs in the very early afternoon that day. The application management of Windows Mobile is still at the age like Windows ME. iPhone has very little problem about the system crash because it is still nearly an closed environment at the moment. "When I can have a mobile OS at least as stable as Windows XP?"

That's the top 3 points why people choose iPhone over Windows Mobile. I hope Microsoft will give us good improvements over these areas.

I hate that MSMobiles comparison sheet because you've got several different features that range from detail to deal breaker and that are entirely on a different level of importance to different people. If you look at the bare facts the Iphone and WM devices are different and will suit different people.

It's like comparing a Nintendo DS with an XBox 360. Yes you can play games on both and listen to music on both. The DS though is smaller, easier to use, and use loads less power. So it's better yes? No, if you tried to swap my 360 for a DS you'd have to pry it from my cold dead hands.

 1. When my mate at work shows me how easy it is to flip between his album on his Iphone I ask him how long he spent untangling his headphones this morning and show him my bluetooth headset. When he has to leave his Iphone on charge at lunch time I flip in another battery and head out to the pub. And when he's complaining of thumb cramp from typing a lenghty email I rattle off thirty on my hardware keyboard, all of which are dispatched automatically and instantly without a second thought. The Iphone is good at what it does but it just doesn't do enough. The Iphone takes a day to learn all its features, WM can take a month. When the feature set is so much broader, is that a good thing or a bad thing?

 2. You can't argue with Apples packaging. Everything they've ever done is a master stroke in aesthetics. The UI on the Iphone included. The reason the Iphone will never take over the world though is the same reason the Mac never did. A pretty UI is no replacment for functionality and accessibility. 

 3. You want a mobile device as stable as XP? Then use it without third party software. It's better. With my O2 Orbit2 (HTC Polaris) I used the default ROM (which had things like HTC Home and Copilot 7 preinstalled by O2 and running Exchange Active Sync for email, contacts etc) for over a month before my first soft reset. You go a month without rebooting your PC? The majority of people run the Iphone vanilla and that is the ONLY reason it seems more stable. You cannot blame MS for poorly written 3rd party apps. 

The Iphone functionality is unspectacular at best, and the bottom line is that if someone chooses the Iphone over a WM device and is happy with what it does then they could also have chosen a Sony Ericcson or a Nokia or any other regular mobile. I played with an LG Viewty the other day and it was in my opinion virtually as good as an Iphone in all respects, better in some. But again, I'd have a WM device before it any day of the week because it CANNOT compare functionality wise. I find it weird how people are SO paranoid about the Iphone when if you really look at it, people like Nokia have much more chance of stealing WM's market.

Sammy and Dave - thanks for the brilliant points! I love this discussion - anyone interested in seeing (or creating) our own custom comparison chart that pulls all of this together? Perhaps what we need is a "top 10" list of common iPhone claims and the responses we can make about WM...

The UI problem is a very interesting one for MS. What we currently have in a WM6 Professional device is a descendant of a PDA made for the more professional and less casual crowd. Whereas the iPhone UI was designed recently and was built to target the casual crowd from the get to.

Why doesn't MS just change the whole UI? In order to make the PPC enviroment more casual friendly IMHO it'd have to be a very radical change and might break backward compatibility with older applications. Those around long enough should remember the time when the first metaphor change occured during the initial days of the PPC and probably remembers the weirdness of the emulated UI. That might be a viable solution.

But the other problem is that if WM7 puts a wall in front of the advanced settings which experienced users expect from a WM device, what would happen then?

That's why I find the UI of the Touch Diamond to be so interesting. The Touch Flo 3D interface is basically just a Today screen plugin. But the concept of it's design is impressive, I think what HTC set out to do with Touch Flo on the Diamond was to allow casual users to NEVER HAVE TO LEAVE THE TODAY SCREEN. All the normal day to day operations, like making phone calls, starting Opera, taking photos, listening to music, everything is done on the today screen.

But then for the experienced users, it's still WM6.1 to us. Everything is where we expect it to be ready for us to take advantage of the system.

Who knows.. maybe WM7 also might sport this concept of a front end UI for the casual crowd while still retaining access to the flexiblity of a WM platform?