Smartphone Thoughts - Daily News, Views, Rants and Raves

The I Started Something blog has run across a new job posting at MS that indicates Microsoft is getting serious about the Windows Update feature on a mobile device.

"Our goal is to enable customers to anticipate and enjoy a predictable stream of new and improved capabilities for their Windows Phone via a Device Update service that is worry-free and easy-to-use"

It is going to not only have to be as easy and worry free as the iPhone update mechanism, but as powerful as well. Apple has kept the iPhone users that originally purchased the device in 2007 up to date where the hardware allows, and the new 3.0 OS will still work on those original two year old iPhones with only minor limitations in capabilities. Contrast that today with a lot of Windows Mobile 6.1 devices that won't be upgraded to 6.5 due out this fall, giving their owners far less than even one year of having a device with the latest features.

The article indicates this feature won't be on 6.5, which may be true. 6.5 is probably too far along to have any major changes to it before the release date, so it may be 7.0 before we see this implemented.

"Microsoft has built Windows Update into the OS and nobody uses it, and everybody blames everybody else for the fact that today, we still can't keep our devices up to date without tethering with a PC... While the people who supply us our devices decide who takes responsibility for deploying our updates, and as scores of users take to trying 'Cooked ROMs' to get the features they want, why not develop an OTA (Over The Air) update method of our own? It sure is possible using the work already done by others on custom bootloaders, and the work i've already done with AppToDate."



I was incredibly excited when Windows Update was announced for the Windows Mobile platform. Logic fooled me into thinking that if Windows Update was being included with our new devices then Microsoft most have cooked up a plan to issue us system updates without the need to flash our devices - and risk something going wrong and bricking our handsets - or even distribute updates to software packages like Office Mobile or Live Search Mobile. Unfortunately at this moment in time I cannot think of anything that was distributed via Windows Update at all. This is why I love the idea behind AppToDate. The whole concept behind this application is so simplistic and beautiful that I am completely baffled as to why a system such as this is not included with our handsets!

As the video above shows it is perfectly within our grasps to issue complete system upgrades over the air without the need to connect our devices to our computers. Personally I would never feel comfortable upgrading a device in such a way, but it can be done! Read more...