Windows Mobile 6.1 New Features

Microsoft announced Windows Mobile 6.1 officially at Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association (CTIA) on Tuesday and here are some of the new features that Microsoft has been showing off.

User Interface and Navigtion
A series of panels have been added to quickly access common applications and information like the calendar, system settings, and the message center. The panels are pretty attractive and add to the Vista-like look and feel. It’s sleeky and we all know that it’s gonna take more memory, so what?

Threaded SMS Messaging
Microsoft has finally added threaded SMS messaging, which allows your SMS messages to be viewed like an IM conversation. This idea isn’t new as it was first demonstrated on the Apple IPhone.

Enterprise Emal Efficiency Improvement
Enterprise e-mail users will enjoy the fact that Microsoft said they have improved the efficiency of Direct Push which leads to a 33% increase in battery life over Windows Mobile 6 devices.

Task Manager
addition of an REAL task manager that allows users to see the amount of memory and CPU usage taken up by applications, as well as adding the ability to remove and shut down applications from memory.

Microsoft System Center Mobile Device Manager 2008
Not really sure what this is but according to some news out there, System Center Mobile Device Manager requires the use of Windows Mobile 6.1 devices to leverage the full breadth and depth of policy enforcement the product offers.

Built in Internet Explorer 6 Web Browser
Internet Explorer 6 will be available as the default web browser for Windows Mobile 6.1, offering features like support for Flash Lite and Microsoft’s own Silverlight. However, Microsoft wouldn’t commit to stating that IE 6 will be supported on all Windows Mobile 6.1 devices. It’s actually up to the manufacturers and carriers to install the software on a device by device basis.

Samsung, Motorola, HTC, I-Mate and several other manufacturer announced several devices that will support Windows Mobile 6.1. However, it’s yet too early to tell whether current devices installed with Windows Mobile 6 will be able to be upgraded to Windows Mobile 6.1.