Pocket PC: Encyclopedia II - Pocket PC - Versions

Pocket PC - Versions

Microsoft's current release is Windows Mobile 5.0, internally code-named Magneto. It was officially released by Microsoft on May 10, 2005. Based on Windows CE 5.0, Windows Mobile 5.0 incorporates features such as Direct3D Mobile, integrated Bluetooth and WiFi stacks, and the ability to be mounted as a USB Mass Storage device, bypassing ActiveSync. Pocket Word and Pocket Excel have been renamed Word Mobile and Excel Mobile, respectively, and both applications have gained more complete feature sets, including support for tables, ordered lists, and embedded graphics in Word Mobile, and support for charts in Excel Mobile. PowerPoint Mobile, a new addition to the Office Mobile suite, supports the ability to display and edit PowerPoint presentations on a Pocket PC. Windows Mobile 5.0 also improves support for one-handed usage by inserting two, context-sensitive "soft" buttons at the bottom of the screen which can be mapped to hardware buttons on any specific device.

Windows Mobile 5.0 marks the convergence of the Phone Edition and Professional Edition operating systems into one system that contains both phone and PDA capabilities. A 'Phone' application is now included in the OS, and all PIM applications have been updated to interface with it. Windows Mobile 5.0 is compatible with Microsoft's Smartphone operating system and is capable of running Smartphone applications.

Pocket PCs running previous versions of the operating system generally stored user-installed applications and data in RAM, which meant that if the battery was depleted the device would lose all of its data. Windows Mobile 5.0 solves this problem by storing all user data in the ROM, leaving the RAM to be used only for running applications, as it would be on a desktop computer. As a result, Windows Mobile 5.0 Pocket PCs generally have a greater amount of flash ROM, and a smaller amount of RAM, compared to earlier devices.

The first devices to ship with Windows Mobile 5.0 were the HTC Universal (Europe) and the UTStarcom PPC-6700 for Sprint (United States).

The previous release, Windows Mobile 2003 Second Edition added native landscape support as well as other fixes and changes to those features already present in the original release of Microsoft Windows Mobile 2003 for Pocket PC, also known as WM2003. The first device to come with 2003SE was the Dell Axim x30.

Microsoft Windows Mobile 2003 for Pocket PC consisted of the Windows CE.NET 4.2 operating system bundled with scaled-down versions of many popular desktop applications, including Microsoft Outlook, Internet Explorer, Word, Excel, Windows Media Player, and others. Past Pocket PC operating systems include Pocket PC 2002 (launched October 2001) and Pocket PC 2000 (launched April 2000), both running Windows CE 3.0 underneath.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Versions", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki