In his keynote address at the Microsoft’s Mobile Developer Conference in San Francisco, the software giant's Chairman and Chief Software Architect Bill Gates unveiled a major update to the company's operating system for PDAs and smartphones, Windows Mobile 2003 Second Edition.

Display

Second Edition adds a number of significant features to the platform, including support for 640x480 or VGA screens. Until this edition of Windows Mobile, the operating system only supported quarter VGA (QVGA) displays that only went up to a resolution of 240x320. This is an important enhancement, as the Palm platform surpassed Windows Mobile in this area with 320x320 and 320x480 resolution displays quite a while ago.

The only Pocket PCs to offer a VGA display under the previous edition of Windows Mobile was Toshiba and its e805 and e800 PDAs. Toshiba used proprietary software to support this resolution. And only four applications that came bundled with the devices could run at 640x480, while all others dropped down to 240x320. Toshiba is expected to release a free upgrade to Windows Mobile 2003 Second Edition for e800 series owners.

An upcoming Pocket PC that will also have a VGA screen and the new version of Windows Mobile will be the ASUS MyPal A730, unveiled at CeBIT last week. There are also reports that Hewlett-Packard is planning to release new iPAQs that are based on and take advantage of the new features of Second Edition.

Microsoft is running sessions at the conference to show developers how they can make their applications compatible with VGA screens. In addition, a technology in the new version of Windows Mobile called pixel doubling takes existing applications written for 240x320 displays and scales them up so they are able to be used on 640x480 screens. With this technology, four pixels are used on a VGA display where one would have been used on a QVGA screen.

Fonts & Icons

Higher-resolution displays mean fonts and icons made for lower-resolution displays will appear smaller. So Microsoft has a new tool in Second Edition called the Settings Panel that allows users to set the size of the fonts at a readable level. There is also a high-resolution version of the Windows Mobile on-screen keyboard as well as icons in Second Edition.

Cool to Be Square

Other new resolutions supported by Second Edition include 240x240 and 480x480, which are known as square resolutions because they are the same size horizontally and vertically. The goal of square resolutions is to allow manufactures more leeway in creating devices with integrated keyboards, such as the one currently found in the HP iPAQ h4355 Pocket PC. By using a square resolution, vendors can keep the overall size of their handhelds in check, making them more attractive.

Screen Orientation

Another important display orientated feature in Second Edition is the ability to switch between landscape and portrait viewing. Before Second Edition, users needed to use third party applications that required resting the device when switching screen orientation. Now users can switch modes on the fly. Landscape mode allows users to view more information in a document or a Web page for example. All the standard Windows Mobile applications can now be used in both landscape and portrait modes.

One of the first device to take advantage of this technology will be Motorola's upcoming MPx Pocket PC Phone, the most unique implementation of that platform yet.(click here for more on the MPx). Windows Mobile for Smartphone devices won't be able to switch screen orientation.

And There's More

Other new features in Second Edition include an improved Start Menu that will remember the most recently used applications. This list will appear separate from the Start Menu's regular list of software.

Shortcut support has been added to Transcriber, the Windows Mobile handwriting recognition program. So users can now come up with a word or phrase that will tell Transcriber to put in its place, for example, a predetermined sentence or paragraph.

Wireless

Microsoft has added the ability for Pocket Internet Explorer to display Web pages as a single column. This will make websites easier to view on a handheld's small display, as users won't need to scroll from side to side to read text. Some third party applications had been offering this function, but it is now native to the operating system. The company has also made Wi-Fi access more secure with WPA or Wi-Fi Protected Access, a security standard created by the Wi-Fi Alliance.

Voice Tags have been added to Pocket PC Phone Edition and users can dial directly form the Today Screen now. In terms of Smartphone, there is now a native MMS client for multimedia messages. In addition, the Smartphone flavor of Windows Mobile can now handle the same resolution supported in the previous edition of the Pocket PC platform, 320x240. This is a significant jump from the176x220 found in current Windows Mobile Smartphones.. Both Phone Edition and Smartphone platforms also feature improved voice dialing, ring tone support and speed dialing.

Developer Tools

To help developers, Microsoft has updated the Windows Mobile Developer Resource Kit, which allows developers to create new applications and services based on the new software. This kit includes eight new white papers focused on Windows Mobile development and new and updated code samples, Windows Mobile 2003 Second Edition emulators, embedded Visual C++(R) 4.0 SP3, and Windows Mobile 2003 SDKs.