Plus ça change

Not long ago I remember reading that Windows Mobile 6 was going to be a huge radical departure from Windows Mobile 5, that Microsoft really "got mobile" now, and in general the future was looking brighter for WM. Then it was launched, and it became clear it was just the same OS with new graphics and a few rearranged menus.

What was missing, to produce such a lacklustre release? Well, possibly that traditional fount of Microsoft innovation: Apple. Since then we've had the iPhone, and suddenly WM7 is all about touch, gesture recognition... you can guess the rest.

It's really good to see that Microsoft are now fully committed to losing the "Apple rip-off" moniker, able to innovate purely through their in-house R&D. Then again, if they didn't rip off people with ideas, we'd complain that WM7 was just WM6 in different colours and they still didn't get mobile...