I have to agree with a lot of the commenters here when it comes to stylus vs. fingers. Part of the power of Windows Mobile is the stylus and I think it’s probably best that both input methods are supported where necessary or best suited to the task at hand.

The other thing to remember is that the problems with WinMo aren’t all down to the software. I’ve never really been too interested in a WinMo phone because they always have tiny low res screens (until recently). Now that the Touch HD and Toshiba’s TG01 are changing that I’m becoming more interested because WinMo really shines on a large, high res screen. My iPaq hx4700 has a 4″ VGA screen and I can do most things with my fingers. However, if I want to quickly type an email or use an application that relies on lots of detail (Resco File Explorer for instance) then a stylus is more efficient.

Finally, it’s important to note that America/Europe aren’t the centre of the universe and that other people use their devices differently. Handwriting recognition on a phone is especially important in Asia and a stylus and resistive touchscreen are best suited to those markets. Companies like Microsoft, HTC and Nokia recognise this but Apple don’t which probably explains why the iPhone doesn’t sell well in Asia.

Being finger friendly is a waste of valuable screen real estate

Anyone can grab a recent build of WM6.5 off xda if they want to put a custom ROM on their phone. One poster on their forum did several benchmarks across multiple ROMS. The WM6.5 one was a bit faster than the WM6.1 ROMs. Not enough that I’d pay for a WM6.5 upgrade though. Hopefully it’ll be a free upgrade phones, but I wouldn’t be surprised if its new phones only.

What I do not know is how the final thing will look like.

To me, WM6.5 looks already very promising but I know that not everyone will agree on that. After all, it seems that WM-bashing is very popular at the moment, though I’m not able to understand the reasons, because WM is still the most powerful mobile OS.

It just lacks some style.

BUT it’s less than two days until Steve Ballmer’s Keynote at Mobile World Congress, which means that (hopefully) we will know a lot more soon : )

Actually WM is already finger friendly on the HTC Touch HD. The videos show how to make it even more (perfectly) finger friendly.

But, actually, it’s not so much about the OS and its interface – it’s about the screen.
I don’t get why companies still release devices with those tiny 2.8 inch screens.
All the menus are huge on the Touch HD and there is NOTHING that you can’t control with your fingers. And that’s with WM6.1 and TouchFlo only!

WM6.5 is a minor release and we can’t expect major changes to the built-in applications.

But anyway it’s not necessary to make those major changes because there’s alternative, finger friendly applications for everything!

The most important things Microsoft has to change are the Start menu (and they did change it!) and the scrolling (and, again, they did already change that).

Everything else can be done by the user and/or the manufacturer.

That said, I am definitely content with WM6.5, because:

- On a big screen like the Touch HD’s, controlling Windows Media Player, calendar and all the other built-in applications with just the finger is no problem at all.

- The only thing that’s bad about WM6.1 on the Touch HD is the lack of smooth scrolling, nice animations and style/design. WM6.5 does add those things.

WM6.1 is not bad at all. It does lack some “style” (which means smooth scrollig, finger friendly buttons and beautiful graphics) BUT WM6.5 fixes the most important issues and there’s still lots of things where Windows Mobile is actually ahead of OS X, Android and Symbian.

WM6.5 will easily be able to compete with the other systems (after all, WM6.1 is still the best selling smartphone OS).

I just installed the Pointui Home 2 beta on my Sprint Touch Pro, and so far I am really liking it a lot, although they admit it’s still far from done. It is still just a cover-up of the main OS and apps though.

I will say this though… at least you CAN DO this type of UI replacement on a WM device.