Smartphone Thoughts: Taking a Look at Caller ID: Part 2 - What's Changed?

Back in mid-December of 2005 I wrote this post about the total uselessness of the built-in Caller ID template on Windows Mobile 5 based Smartphones. While it's great that they finally added the ability to use the Outlook contact picture, when it is actually displayed on the phone, it's of no value at all.

In the discussion that followed on that post, we had some answers provided to us by Neil Enns from Microsoft (who was actually involved in the development on that piece of functionality.) It turns out that the default template was just meant as a place holder and the carrier and/or the device manufacturer were meant to customize this. Unfortunately, no one did.

So, why the post now? Windows Mobile 5 has been available to ODMs for over a year now. I can understand that the early devices like i-mate SP5m and the Cingular 2125 might not have had the time to customize, or perhaps didn't realize that it could be done. What I can't understand is why devices like the Q or the StarTrek are still shipping without an improved template? I'm not looking for a fix from Microsoft, but surely the carriers and the manufacturers could have dropped in a nicer template by now. Take a look at the Caller ID on the new Motorola Q.


Look at all that wasted space! A simple tweak to show a slightly larger picture would have made a world of difference.

Microsoft needs to learn that the default should at least be usable and realistic. If I took the time to test the cache limit size on the latest batch of Smartphones, I'm pretty sure that we would see the same results - Carriers and Manufacturers have failed to set something reasonable, leaving Microsoft's default value that will allow IE Mobile to fill all the available space on your device with it's cache. :evil: