12 Comments For This Post

1. arebelspy Says:
   August 19th, 2008 at 11:36 pm

   mmm… nah.

   i’d rather have awesome apps and do a 30-second reboot every few days than save that 30 seconds by not rebooting, but not get extra cool apps.

2. MarkRoddis Says:
   August 20th, 2008 at 3:24 am

   I must admit that my HTC 710 with WM6 has not had a reboot for many months now. Again it syncs with exchange, runs various applications, syncs with my laptop, and my desktop and is used as a true business tool.

   My previous WM phone was the same.

   I keep bashing on that WM is THE OS for all these new netbooks rather than Linux or even Windows XP because it is a true lightweight embeded OS BUT it does have all your Office apps etc (the real business tools) embeded as well.

   All MS need is to spend a bit of time tuning their Live platform to support this (PS Mesh is now kind of available on WM as well) and I think we have a winner

3. breley Says:
   August 20th, 2008 at 7:19 am

   This will be interesting to keep an eye on, Chris. My X7501 and SCH-I760 seem to require a reset, every couple of days or so, and they are loaded up with plenty of 3rd party apps. However, my E-TEN X800, very spartanly laid out, almost never locks up. I do know that for a long while my X7501 was pretty lean on the loaded apps, but after installing a number of Today plugins and apps isn’t quite as stable as it used to be. After the end of judging in August I’m going to clean off my two offending devices and keep them much leaner.

4. MikeTemporale Says:
   August 20th, 2008 at 7:59 am

   Hey Chris, Thanks for taking up the challenge. Don’t forget - there’s no killing or stopping any applications. You need to let Windows Mobile do it’s own memory management.

   Currently, my task manager shows 5 programs running using just over 20MB of memory. IE Mobile is using 17MB alone! No problems so far. We’ll see how it goes.

5. Christopher Gavula Says:
   August 20th, 2008 at 8:40 am

   So basically we’re saying that the OS is stable but the apps are what’s breaking things? Isn’t that supposed to be the big “perk” of running WM - the apps? If so - why would this test be of any value? If the OS isn’t propersly sandboxing the apps then it isn’t doing it’s job.

   If the SDK isn’t designed to keep developers from getting outside the lines then it isn’t designed propery.

   I believe that apps are likely the source of a lot of WM woes and iPhone woes, but that doesn’t excuse the OS from not isolating those things correctly - sorry.

6. mchinsky Says:
   August 20th, 2008 at 9:54 am

   This is the crux of most Microsoft Bashing. People say “linux never crash”, macs never crash etc.

   No modern OS needs reboots other than for push down patch installation. The issue is 99% third parties.

   The reason linux is so stable, is people install (because so few are available) many third party applications and system extensions.

   My Treo is very stable…and has very little functionality. But with all my apps that make it killer, yes I have to reboot once in a while.

   How often did you have to reboot your PS1? NES? never because they were fixed on functionality at the factory. But the new consoles are dynamically updated, allow you to install new apps etc, and I’m sure can now become less stable.

   So to summarize, stop saying Windows, or xxx is buggy, as it’s almost always the third party stuff and that simply is a fact of life for choice.

7. Christopher Spera Says:
   August 20th, 2008 at 10:39 am

   I think the point of all of this is to point out to MS that there may be holes in the SDK, or in some of the memory management routines so that they correct one, the other , both; or (somehow) enforce tighter code on the part of 3rd party developers.

   Any way you try to crack this nut, its coming down to memory management and optimization. MS has a hand in this, and will need to do something about it. Developers will need to cooperate, participate and insure that their products don’t introduce (additional) instability.

   Its gotta start somewhere, and if Mike (and those that participate) can help show that a somewhat vanilla device can demonstrate this, I, for one, will support that. (hense, my participation…)

8. Mitchell Oke Says:
   August 20th, 2008 at 5:05 pm

   Some Windows Mobile devices would be capable of surviving for a week without rebooting, but not all. I think that some of the customisations made to Windows Mobile by OEMs and operators is part of the stability problem.

   For the record my E71 has been running 8 days rebootless and has no signs of throwing in the towel I only ever turn it off when I need to swap the SIM into another phone for review

9. mcsouth Says:
   August 20th, 2008 at 6:48 pm

   I guess I’ve got to go with Christopher Gavula on this one - I’m not sure that I see the point to this exercise, other than to possibly prove that some WM implementations on some hardware are, in fact, stable.

   I do know for a fact that my 8125 has some 3rd party software installed, but very little. I also know that I have to routinely reboot the unit every few days to a week in order to regain phone reception, and especially to get EDGE working again. 95% of the time, my phone is running with only one 3rd party app actually up and running after the reboot - GOOD Messaging, which my company uses as its solution with our Exchange server.

   I’ve used WM since the PPC2002 days, but this is my first WM smartphone - I’ve had it for about 18 months now. I love the connectivity, but I have less and less patience with WM and its limitations. Issues have existed for years that MS has simply not dealt with, or taken forever to deal with. Yes, I may feel differently if I had WM6.1 instead of WM5, but I have to live with what I have. Under the circumstances, MS hasn’t done a good job of convincing me that my personal smartphone should run WM.

10. Tyler Puckett Says:
    August 21st, 2008 at 12:28 pm

    I have a Palm Centro that I have had to hard reset once because the Handmark application caused a reset loop.

    Other than that, it’s been rock-solid stable. I’m extremely pleased with the device.

11. sixftunda Says:
    August 25th, 2008 at 2:16 pm

    Where’s the challenge here? I leave my phone on 24/7 and can’t remember the last time I rebooted. WM is stable. I don’t run more than 3-4 apps and they are almost always from reputable companies like pocketmax or sbsh (not that there aren’t other good software makers). It has been this way for me with the i730/i760/Touch.

12. mathue Says:
    September 28th, 2008 at 3:58 pm

    I know first hand how Pocket PC/Windows CE got its reputation. When I sold these devices they were far more fussy than the equivalent Palm device (This is over a period from 2001 to 2006). Over that time I worked as a manager at a national but small retail chain that sold these devices, where I myself actually interacted with the customers and sold them as well.

    In 2005 as managers we were tasked with keeping track of the return rate of devices where there was _NO_ hardware failure. In other words, situations where the device wasn’t physically defective. I no longer have my per model breakdown in its spreadsheet as it was wiped out by a corporate reinstall on my backroom computer, but I do have still have the ratio of returns per OS.

    On non-phone devices we would sell 14 PalmOS machines for every 1 returned device and 3 WinCE machines for every returned one.

    On mobile devices it was like this. Symbian OS, 10 for every 1 return, PalmOS 10 for every 1 and WinCE 2 for every 1.

    It got so bad that my employees started to ignore the Windows handhelds and mobiles when selling. (my employees were commissioned and returns hurt since they would loose the commission.)

    Now I’m sure that the current version of Windows Mobile has improved this, heck, they would have HAD to. I’m just saying that the reputation for the Windows handhelds was very well earned. : )

2 Trackbacks For This Post

1. Ilium Software Blog » Blog Archive » The Trouble With the No Reboot Challenge Says:
   August 25th, 2008 at 1:50 pm

   [...] me start by saying I think it’s great that Mike at Mobile Jaw and Chris from GearDiary are doing this. It’s a neat idea and I’m looking forward to the results. At the same [...]

2. Take the No Reboot Challenge! at WindowsMobile Cool Says:
   August 26th, 2008 at 3:46 pm

   [...] mobile bloggers (other than yours truly, of course) have taken up the challenge as well including Chris Spera of Gear Diary and Dieter Bohn from [...]

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