Windows Live For Windows Mobile Brings Hotmail, Messenger To Your Phone

A native iPhone app would be cool. BeeJive is great though! :D

Anthony Hamilton-Thompson

This isn't just a joke to bring you to google services is it? :P

In all seriousness, MS Live services aren't as bad as some people here would like you to think.

johnsmith1234

Lifehacker is just turning into Engadget with there anti anything Microsoft crap.
Your "april fools" firefox addon was IMO in such bad taste, poking fun calling names. Not at all what an april fools is ment to be.
Lifehacker = FAIL.

Brendon Morgan

But I already have it, it looks different thou... it used to look like the one you just posted, but then I downloaded a newer version and my hotmail goes to my outlook or whatever program handles the mail in my htc touch.

It also had messenger but not the photo thing... I don't use photo stuff from windows live so I guess I'll leave it the way it is.

Download and run SmartSS for easy screenshot grabs for Windows Phones

nightryder21

I have to agree with Brendon above. I'm an avid Google, iPhone, and Mac user, but Lifehacker's tendency to act so condescending to anything Microsoft is really unprofessional and is what a lot of people often hate about Mac users. While Google sneezing gets full blown coverage here, Microsoft and Yahoo still have done plenty of work on their own web offerings that barely get mentioned here. There are still plenty of Windows Live and Windows Mobile users out there.

I must be missing something. I've re-read the post about 3 times and don't see ANYTHING negative or condescending. Seems pretty un-biased to me.

As far as the actual material that they're posting about... I'm a fan of MS, but haven't used Hotmail or any of their LIVE offerings in years. The one draw that may make me reconsider Gmail is the automatic push service built into the Hotmail portion. I still don't understand my Google can't make a native Gmail app with push. The Java client is horrible. I suppose it's all about integration within your own platform
Windows = Hotmail
Andriod = Gmail

chrisaroz

@Brendon Morgan: Why would you post that in a pro-windows post?

Every time someone cries about the blogs loving Apple and hating MS I wonder if they noticed the stream of Win7 posts that have flooded the blogs.

Truth is, there hasn't been much to say in favor of MS. Their mobile platform is outdated by many years, Vista was a flop, and their online initiatives don't match what google and the others are doing.

That said, people seem really interested in seeing that change. We want Win7 to be great. We want Windows Mobile to be a serious offering. And as soon as MS delivers, maybe they'll get a little more respect.

SamburgerHandwich

@chrisaroz: They edited the post, previously the lack of screenshots was blamed on a clunky WinMo phone. Obviously just a single extra word and not a huge deal in this case, the problem is more the overall attitude towards Microsoft across all the articles.

@Kevin Purdy: Well, Windows Live's share is slim, not Microsoft's overall. Geez, I'm really explaining myself well here.

@Ted Avery: I did pull out the word "clunky," because it was misleading--the low-powered Motorola Q I was using was "clunky," not WinMo (though, of course, that's a judgment call in itself).

As for Windows Live and Microsoft services, it's just the facts: they're confusingly labeled, marketed, and differentiated, and their market share is slim, except for Hotmail. No offense intended, but that's how we see it.

@SamburgerHandwich: Strange...
Because when I first read the article the last line read "...snag screenshots from a clunky old WinMo phone...."
So lifehacker editors obviously agreed but couldn't step up and apologise.
Good journalism right there...

Brendon Morgan

It is a bit of a surprise (but a welcome one at that) that Windows Live for Windows Mobile has Messenger included. They have some kind of agreement with Orange here in the U.K. where if you use the Orange branded version of Messenger for IM, they can charge you for every single message you send, rather than have it counted as a negligible part of your data package.

The pictures you have to accompany the piece are wrong by the way. They illustrate how Windows Live looks on any WAP-enabled phone. The Windows Live version is native and integrated with Outlook on your phone so it can sync contacts and mail (free push mail is the one reason I have stuck with Hotmail all this time). The new addition with this install is Live Spaces for photo uploads, which I don't use anyway.

If I wasn't so integrated with Google - a Google Apps domain running Gmail, Google Calendar and Docs - this would be very appealing to me. Honestly, the only thing I wish is that I had an Exchange Server that was relatively cheap. The $10 a year for my domain is very hard to beat - I've tried the mywebhost or whatever it was but the basic plan is $14.99 a month for one user with 1GB of space.

If WinMo could support the IMAP IDLE better without add-ons I would be happy.

Sam Wille

@Brendon Morgan: from the comments below:

"I did pull out the word "clunky," because it was misleading--the low-powered Motorola Q I was using was "clunky," not WinMo (though, of course, that's a judgment call in itself)."

(I personally think WinMo itself is clunky every time I need to look up a number or perform any basic task really)

SamburgerHandwich

@Ted Avery: No, that line was there when I posted. Clunky old windows phone doesn't speak to the OS being bad, it means he's using an OLD PHONE.

At any rate, it's sad we've turned a great post about some neat new software into whether LifeHacker is biased.

chrisaroz

@Sam Wille: You can use windows live domains to host your personal domain just like google apps domains. I use it and have my own domain (ex. mydomain.com) hosted and my personal email address though hotmail (ex me@mydomain.com). I use outlook connector on my desktop to sync with outlook and windows live for mobile to sync to my windows mobile phone. I looked at going to google route, but I like having outlook as a desktop client and really wanted something to keep my contacts in sync between the web, desktop and mobile.

ZafinaSarpedon

Right. Support for Windows Mobile.

Maybe that's why I migrated my main contacts to Gmail to use with my non-windows phone?

gerrrg

@ZafinaSarpedon: My concern here is all the above - contacts, calendar and e-mail. I would like them all to be pushed to the device. With ActiveSync I can do my calendar and contacts (fix the contacts, Gooogle) but the e-mail is delayed without another app filling the void.

Windows Live Mail lacks the spam control.

Sam Wille

@Ted Avery:

Fully agreed. Oh, and add Firefox (& Chrome by Google extension) to the LH-love list.

kftgr

Thanks for the Windows Mobile coverage. It's a VERY neat piece of software right there!

Firasco

"I'm not quite tricky enough to snag screenshots from a WinMo phone."

You can do this easily with MyMobiler. Free and absolutely awesome!

god_forbids

This download completely bricked my spouse's HTC Touch! Seriously, we have never had this type of issue before. Wait for an updated version of the software.

KeithLinglewood

I was going to recommend MyMobiler as well.

ShravaniSnipe