First Glimpse of Pocket PC 2004

Pocket PC users have a long list of improvements they're hoping will be included in the forthcoming Pocket PC 2003. But with its release drawing near, it appears that many of these improvements will simply not be included. Instead, changes to Pocket PC 2003 appear to center around its wireless capabilities.

However, there is some good news. According to News.com, the operating system will get a major overhaul in the next version, code-named Magneto, which is expected to be available in 2004.

What Users Want

The most requested interface changes include support for higher-resolution screens, landscape mode, and an easier way to close applications.

While there is some disagreement about whether the operating system itself is limited to only 240-by-320 pixel screens, it is unarguable that all current and even rumored handhelds running it have a 240-by-320 pixel display. For many years this was one of the Pocket PC's major advantages, as the Palm OS used smaller 160-by-160 pixel ones. However, the Palm OS is in the process of switching to a 320-by-320 pixel standard, and most Palm powered handhelds announced recently use this higher resolution.

This would probably be less limiting if users could rotate the screen image 90 degrees, handy for Web surfing, word processing, and many other tasks. While there are third-party applications available that can switch the screen to landscape mode, these require the handheld to go through a soft reset every time.

Surely all but the newest of newbies are aware that tapping the checkbox in the upper right hand corner of each application doesn't close the application, as it does in Windows. Instead, the application is minimized. To truly close an app, you must go though what many consider to be an unnecessarily complicated process; therefore, all applications continue to run in the background, which can cause difficulties as the amount of available RAM is used up.

Of course, there is no way to know whether any of these will be included in Magneto. However, the News.com article did mention that the next version of Pocket PC will be able to be used in more devices than just handhelds, which is at least a suggestion that it will support more screen resolutions.

Related Links

• First Gateway PDA and Pocket PC 2003 Coming June 23