This is the first direct look at Windows Phone 7 series. I am impressed!

My contract with Alltel (now Verizon) is pretty solid so I cannot consider another phone for at least another year. That means, for good or for ill, I am stuck with Windows Mobile 6.1. While I did take a brief look at WM 6.5, there really was not much of a reason to switch anyway. For mobile phones there has been much ado about the apps available for other platforms. If like me you are mired in another contract and want to try some decent apps for free I have compiled my list of favorites:

Skyfire – Simply put Skyfire is the best mobile web browser I have ever used. This puppy handles Flash with ease, You Tube is accessible and even useable. I have been on board with this browser since early beta version were available. At this point it is difficult to use any other browser, my only concern is the underlying technology routes all traffic to the Skyfire servers that includes passwords. Needless to say I would not do mobile banking using Skyfire. Get it here!

Bing – Live Search recent rebranding to Bing has finally trickled down to the mobile world and while there are no substantive improvements, this app is still worth considering if you you want to get the best Gas Prices, Maps, or local searches in your vicinity.

My Phone – This was already a solid product during the beta release, helping with the task of phone backups. Well they added the ability to share photos on you favorite social networking sites. To round this out they have added a couple of premium features (at cost to you) that allow you to locate a lost phone, or even wipe data from a stolen phone. Real nice!

Windows Live – Again this an existing app found on most Windows phones, however, there has been a nice refresh that adds a lot of polish and also bring the app in close relation to the Windows Live experience on line. If you have a Windows Live account and use Live IM then this is a compelling upgrade for your phone.

Microsoft Tag Reader – With the Microsoft Tag application, just aim your camera phone at a Tag and instantly access mobile content, videos, music, contact information, maps ... nothing to type! Of all the apps I believe Microsoft Tag reader has the best chance of changing the way we interact with our our environment using our phones, just have to wait and see if this really catches on.

Netflix - Only really useful if your a member of Netflix but still … Managing a Netflix account while mobile has never been easier!

With the release of WM 6.5 and WM Marketplace getting a list of top rated apps is really easy, unfortunately there is some artificial delay in letting WM 6.1 join the fray. Until then (late November?) I hope you find this list marginally useful.

Windows Mobile 6.5 is much more touch friendly this is one of the first decent demos I have seen since I have seen.

Windows Mobile 6.5 Running on HTC

When I signed up for the Microsoft My Phone service I thought “this might be pretty cool”. Backup all my critical phone data, contacts, pictures etc. Once I got past the the initial sign up and slow beta rollout process, I was greeted by a 200MB storage limitation, what is this 1997? … I have a 2GB memory card! I also have 25GB of SkyDrive space in the cloud, why the artificial restrictions.

As my data began to Synch it then became clear that this service only cares about what is actually stored on the main memory of my phone, it completely ignores everything about the memory card. I am not sure about other mobile OS’ but for Windows Mobile Phones storing anything in the main memory makes no sense as it will be completely lost if you have to upgrade or even reinstall the operating system and there tends not to much to space to spare.

So exactly what got backed up on my phone? Text messages, and a few jpegs that are included in the default installation. Even my contacts are stored on the memory card. I think my back up strategy will continue to be a mixture of Live Messenger Mobile (for contacts) and Live Mesh (for everything else).

UPDATE: There is an option to include storage cards, reinstalling this application… Live Mesh is still better I can sink photos and videos directly to my PC.

When I signed up for the Microsoft My Phone service I thought “this might be pretty cool”. Backup all my critical phone data, contacts, pictures etc. Once I got past the the initial sign up and slow beta rollout process, I was greeted by a 200MB storage limitation, what is this 1997? … I have a 2GB memory card! I also have 25GB of SkyDrive space in the cloud, why the artificial restrictions.

As my data began to Synch it then became clear that this service only cares about what is actually stored on the main memory of my phone, it completely ignores everything about the memory card. I am not sure about other mobile OS’ but for Windows Mobile Phones storing anything in the main memory makes no sense as it will be completely lost if you have to upgrade or even reinstall the operating system and there tends not to much to space to spare.

So exactly what got backed up on my phone? Text messages, and a few jpegs that are included in the default installation. Even my contacts are stored on the memory card. I think my back up strategy will continue to be a mixture of Live Messenger Mobile (for contacts) and Live Mesh (for everything else).

I have lamented on many occasion the lack of Calendar synch support within the world of Windows Mobile and Windows Live. While I do believe that calendar synching is a non trivial task, I never thought it would be a show stopper (I think this may have more to do with killing a cash cow). It appears that Google has just released Google Sync for Windows Mobile (they licensed Exchange ActiveSync from Microsoft).

This is a great move for Google as the Trojan horse here is the contact list synch that comes along with the calendar synch. You may or may not have noticed that your contact list in Gmail has been slowing revamped into your who’s who list. Whoever controls your contact list controls the world! ;)

If you have seen the new Android (Googles phone) adverts where the guy grabs his phone takes a picture of a barcode and is immediately comparing prices on his phone, then you we will really dig this new mobile app called Microsoft Tag.

You can quickly create create tags and define what action (URL, vCard, Free Text, Dialer) that tag will take. Below is a tag I created in about 5 seconds … download the mobile app from here and check it out. You do not have to even get the camera to focus accurately and the app quickly picks up enough information to pull down the command for the mobile action.

My tag simply display some text on your cell phone (I am curious how it reacts on non Windows Mobile phones), but you can also prompt your phone to dial a number, add a contact or navigate to a URL. I really think the applications for this are endless from advertising, real estate, to every day purchase … below is an example of a Microsoft game that is using a tag. Give it a try and find out all about the Halo Wars gaming!

I have been reviewing Live Mesh recently and simultaneously helping my wife synch information between her notebook and PC, my music workstation and the cloud. There are a couple of things that I think need additional polish (interface for synching any folders) but overall it is doing a good job of replacing the functions of FolderShare Live Sync.

I had heard rumor that there were a few fortunate folk who have added there Windows Mobile phones to the Mesh after successfully downloading and installing the Live Mesh software. Unfortunately when I installed the software I was politely informed that it could not add my phone to the mesh.

Coincidentally I had recently tried to sign up for the Tech Preview of Azure, I actually thought it might be fun to try and develop a couple of apps that relied on Azure Cloud services we have been hearing so much about. Almost immediately after signing up for Azure I was able to add my phone to the mesh and I have been happily synching my pictures and documents from my phone to my Live Desktop.

So if you have a Windows Mobile phone and often lament the lack of automated synching to the cloud or your desktop try:

1. Sign up for the Azure Tech preview.
2. Download and install Live Mesh to your mobile device: http://m.mesh.com.

Your mileage may vary, this may have been a pure coincidence, but this worked for me!