1. I have some very good news for you all tech geeks. You may have heard (for example, from me) that the latest, double-OS HTC model, the Shift, has a severely crippled and almost useless Windows Mobile OS. This was one of the reasons I haven’t really recommended it either

The excellent MoDaCo guys, authors of several other, similar "liberator packs", did not leave it at this and have published a tool that unlocks the full Windows Mobile operating system on the Shift.

Anyone having read my article “Everything you will ever need to know about the power consumption of Pocket PC audio players" knows x50mix and UdaEq, hardware audio equalizers for Dell Axim and Compaq / HP iPAQ devices (and some other) used with wired headphones. Unfortunately, they can only be used together with wired headphones – neither built-in speakers nor A2DP Bluetooth ones will be affected.

Hardware equalizers have the BIG advantage of not adding any additional CPU usage, unlike software equalizers used by most multimedia players. Therefore, if you need to have absolutely the best battery life, you use wired headphones and you won’t suffer from the equalizer’s resetting upon reinitalization of sound hardware (switching to next track in non-cross-fade- or gapless playback-capable multimedia players), make sure you give it a try.

HTC has also released its own equalizer compatible with most (but not all) HTC Pocket PC Phone Edition models. It’s available HERE (mirror HERE). After installing, manually create a link file to \Windows\Equalizer.exe. I’ve done this for you (it’s HERE) – just copy the file to \Windows\Start Menu\Programs or anywhere underneath it.

We all know how excellent the guru / developer community at XDA-Developers is. For example I, a seasoned Windows Mobile guru and (I use the word in the positive meaning – not to be mistaken for “cracker”!) hacker, still continuously find a lot of nice tips and hacks in there. Most of these hacks really GREATLY enhance the default functionality and usability of the entire platform; see for example the excellent tools written by vijay555 – for example, the full screen TSC utility, which really-really enhances the built-in remote desktop client (TSC) in pre-WM6 operating systems.

This also means Microsoft and the entire platform also profits a lot from XDA-Developers. Just an example: some weeks ago, I was asked to order a new smartphone for my company. Already having tons of Windows Mobile-based phones (and not really wanting anything else now that the Toshi G900, the HTC Athena, the HTC Omni and the high-end, new i-mate and Gigabyte models are still not available (here)), I would have ordered (or, at least, would have told my bosses to wait for) the forthcoming Nokia N95 I would really welcome just to play with to see what Symbian is currently capable of (but, as it’d become another “toy” in my already huge collection of electronic gadgets, can’t really afford to purchase off my wallet). Finally, I’ve gone for the HTC Trinity (P3600) because of the “hackable” GPS support. Needless to say, it was because of the XDA-Dev folks that I knew the model has some hidden GPS functionality. Without the XDA-Dev folks, I would have ordered the Nokia instead. And, this is just one example where the XDA-Dev scored another purchase for Microsoft.

XDA-Developers forum member swartb has just reported HTC doesn't plan to release a WM6 upgrade for any of their current devices - not even to only-some-months-old ones like the Trinity. Certainly bad news.

This is in stark contrast with some other Pocket PC manufacturers' approach; for example, i-mate has just announced they will deliver the WM6 upgrade for the i-Mate JAQ3.

You may have heard (particularly if you’ve been following my past articles) about the differences between the Microsoft Bluetooth stack coming with HTC Phone Edition devices and know its major shortcomings when compared to the major alternative, the Widcomm / Broadcom BT stack:

1. It lacks BT PAN (albeit the latest AKU3 has some basic support for BT PAN server functionality) support, which would be of high importance in, say, chatting / talking apps (for example, 4Talk or Microsoft Portrait or multiplayer games)
2. It, as far as versions prior to AKU3 are concerned, lacks support for BT FTP (see THIS ARTICLE for more info)
3. It has wildly inferior A2DP (stereo Bluetooth headphones) sound quality

No wonder a lot of people have been actively trying to “hack” the Widcomm BT stack on Pocket PC models initially coming with the Microsoft BT stack. Of them, the WM5-upgraded Dell Axim x50(v) and the x51(v) may already be known to you (I’ve also posted a lot on the project; see for example THIS).

Some weeks ago, well-known XDA-Developers hackers started to work on the port to HTC Phone Edition phones; for the most part, with success.

For the most part, you may ask? Yes, unfortunately, there still are problems; they are as follows:

1. Currently, it’s not possible to use traditional Bluetooth headsets for calling. Upon trying to connect to the headset, the PDA will just display an error message as can be seen in HERE. In the Hermes Widcomm developer thread, people are working on fixing this issue; so far, with little success. This will be a showstopper for many.
2. You won’t be able to use the PDA as a modem via Bluetooth (see my tutorial here) using either pre-AKU3 DUN or AKU3 Internet Sharing BT PAN. Also see this thread for my posts on this problem.

That is, if the lacking functionality is a showstopper for you, do NOT consider switching BT stacks as yet.

Model-specific tutorials / threads

Check them out for a discussion and / or a tutorial for installing the BT stack on your particular phone model:

As is reported in Tero Lehto’s mobility-related blog, Canalys has just published a report on the market share of mobile / smart phone manufacturers.

The figures (Windows Mobile has lost some 1.1% and now stays at 16.9%) are pretty interesting an, unfortunately, back up what I’ve been complaining about for a long time (see for example this and this): HTC, the most important Windows Mobile-based smartphone manufacturer (it’s HTC’s products that most rebranders / operators sell under their names) just refuses to include enhanced multimedia capabilities (for example, digital TV receivers) in their phones. That is, features that would really appeal to ordinary mobile phone users. It’s only some of their latest, just-released Smartphone models that they bothered to include FM radios – something the competing dumb / smart phone manufacturers like Nokia, Sony-Ericsson etc. have already had for more than five years. And I haven’t even mentioned TV receivers or anything similar. See the difference?

Anyone that have had a pre-WM5 HTC Phone Edition device and have ever tried to hack it (or have read through XDA-Developers / BuzzDev) have hear about “ROM Kitchen”s.

They give complete freedom to (supported) Pocket PC Phone Edition users to build up their own ROM image. This way, you can store (and leave out) any add-on application you like.

http://phonearena.com/htmls/HTC-Hermes-the-successor-of-the-MDA-8125-Wizard-article-a_1334.html

It has always been rather complicated to find HTC ROM’s, especially if you live in a “peripheric” country (for example, Eastern Europe) where official IMEI numbers are not necessarily accepted. (This is the case with, for example, Qtek and some Eastern European countries – even if you buy an absolutely legal Qtek device from Qtek’s resellers, you won’t necessarily be able to use its services to, say, access the ROM upgrade download section).

Fortunately, the Dutch (it also has an English section, so, don’t be afraid of the language) HTC-related Pocket PC Web site, HTC Club collected all the links to all the currently available latest HTC device upgrades HERE.

I’ve thoroughly scrutinized their list and was, in general, pleased. All the download links are valid and the links indeed point to the latest available ROM upgrade versions. Make sure, however, that you compare the version numbers (more on their identification in the next section) in the “ROM Update” and the “Country specific ROM Update ” column (if the latter has a WWE version) because, in some cases, the latter may have a never version than the former, as is the case with the Qtek 9100 ROM.

Identifying the version number of a given ROM upgrade installer EXE file

How can I decide the correct version of a HTC ROM upgrade? - you may ask probably the most frequently asked question. It’s not that complicated.

http://www.bitstream.com/wireless/products/pocketpc/