I have to say that I've always found the PIM software on CE to be diabolical... don't know about the GPS software though I know it can't be all bad as TomTom etc is available for it... but it looks as though there is some decent GPS navigation software emerging on Linux too...
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CE has been used as a portable / embedded OS for a long time, and consequently there is a lot of software out there for CE that you might want on a handheld
This is slightly erroneous because:
1) CE is not completely backwards compatible
2) Much of the software written for CE has actually been written for PocketPC or Windows Mobile... these have A LOT of extra libraries and APIs on top of CE which render an awful lot of software written for them incompatible with vanilla CE... this was a problem on devices such as the psion netbook pro, which just ran straight CE 4 and thus couldnt run many applications written for PocketPC. Perhaps a solution was found here but I have never heard of one (theoretically you might be able to find compatible binary versions of those libraries)
On the other hand, a functional ARM-WINE implementation could be very handy, and could possibly overcome the PocketPC/Windows Mobile issues I mentioned above. I am no expert but I believe this is a long way off. Also, historically, not all CE devices have been ARM based so this wouldn't work for all software (and youd have this problem running CE natively too). I must admit though that the majority of CE devices are ARM based, especially in the last few years.
Personally, as a long term Psion fan (i.e. I've seen and used something far, far better) I find the user interface of CE, even after the latest release which I have to say is somewhat improved, to be appallingly badly designed. But as you say, that is a personal preference. And I also think the same about most embedded Linux UIs (though they are generally better than the CE one). Meh.
QUOTE
CE has been used as a portable / embedded OS for a long time, and consequently there is a lot of software out there for CE that you might want on a handheld
This is slightly erroneous because:
1) CE is not completely backwards compatible
2) Much of the software written for CE has actually been written for PocketPC or Windows Mobile... these have A LOT of extra libraries and APIs on top of CE which render an awful lot of software written for them incompatible with vanilla CE... this was a problem on devices such as the psion netbook pro, which just ran straight CE 4 and thus couldnt run many applications written for PocketPC. Perhaps a solution was found here but I have never heard of one (theoretically you might be able to find compatible binary versions of those libraries)
On the other hand, a functional ARM-WINE implementation could be very handy, and could possibly overcome the PocketPC/Windows Mobile issues I mentioned above. I am no expert but I believe this is a long way off. Also, historically, not all CE devices have been ARM based so this wouldn't work for all software (and youd have this problem running CE natively too). I must admit though that the majority of CE devices are ARM based, especially in the last few years.
Personally, as a long term Psion fan (i.e. I've seen and used something far, far better) I find the user interface of CE, even after the latest release which I have to say is somewhat improved, to be appallingly badly designed. But as you say, that is a personal preference. And I also think the same about most embedded Linux UIs (though they are generally better than the CE one). Meh.
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