Update: Windows Live Mobile only a pay service on Nokia Series 60

by Sean Cooper, posted Jan 16th 2008 at 8:49PM

We posted a piece about users who were seeing a message on their Windows Mobile devices stating that their 30 day trial was starting when using Windows Live Mobile Messenger. As it turns out, there is a new pay service rolling out, but only for users of the software on the Nokia S60 platform in the UK and Sweden. A Microsoft spokesperson admitted that while the idea of charging on the Windows Mobile platform is being considered, there are no solid plans yet -- can I get a collective, phew?. The glitch is being addressed so you needn't worry about getting dinged for your mobile messaging addiction, just yet.

Filed under: Handsets, Messaging, Symbian, Windows Mobile

Tags: Live Messenger, LiveMessenger, messenger, Nokia, S60, Windows Mobile, WindowsMobile

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

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Richard @ Jan 16th 2008 9:04PM

The Empire Strikes Back!

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ChrisKan @ Jan 16th 2008 11:14PM

Wonder if they'll start charging for OSX users to connect as well next??

I ended up installing fring today on my N95 and using that to connect to MSN Messenger..

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Taylor @ Jan 16th 2008 11:16PM

"Hello, this is microsoft. I just wanted to let you know that even though our mobile operating system kind of blows, we're not going to do the sensible thing and add value to it to make it better, we're actually considering charging you for the extra features that we used to give you for free... You know, to make a bad OS even worse to the casual user. kthxbai."
-Taylor

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Mark @ Jan 16th 2008 11:45PM

...and what "blows" about it? I can install anything I want on it(including multiple emulators such as snes, genesis, nes, etc), it's pretty damn easy to use, and can do pretty much everything. what better mobile operating system is out there? palm(lol)? iphone(great if you don't want to do anything out of the ordinary on your phone and want your phone to be exactly the same as everyone elses)? I don't support charging for windows live but if they do, nobody will use it and they'll have to go back to not charging for it so I don't see what the big deal is.

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Taylor @ Jan 17th 2008 12:35AM

Windows mobile blows because even though *I* can use it just fine, i wouldn't (and don't) recommend the phones to anyone who doesn't know what a registry is, or don't want to deal with a hard reset every once in a while when some program turns out to suck, or don't want to deal with half of the text messaging window getting screwed up when they switch back from landscape to portrait (ever 320x240 winmo device i've seen does this most, if not all of the time in the messages program), or don't want to have to PAY for outlook on their PC when the ONLY thing they want to do is sync their contacts with activesync to their PC, or if they don't want to spend hours online trying to figure out why, even though vista's sidebar has an address book, the outlook contacts don't show up there automatically...
I can use it just fine, but 99% of the other people i see with windows mobile have basically nothing added to the phone because for whatever reason they never figured it out. Sure, the iphone CAN't (yet, easily) have more apps installed, but at least the stuff that works works flawlessly! I'm thrilled that the AT&T Tilt i have finally has finger scrolling in the menus, but have you ever tried using it to finger scroll anything but the smallest web page!? If you try to scroll veryy much, it ends up basically locking up the scroll motion long after you've let go, and won't stop scrolling till it's good an ready, even after you've touched it to stop, or flicked it back the other way, or done anything to try to stop it... At least the finger scrolling can largely be described as buggy and terrible! And why? The iphone finger scrolls like butter, yet win-mo's implementation blows.
Or how about this: I love that i can have stereo bluetooth from my phone, and agree that the iphone sucks for not having that, but you know what happens when I go to put the phone in my pocket after picking some tracks? Well, i don't want any buttons or the screen to get pressed, so i press the sleep button - the button i normally press when i put the phone away... and what happens? The bluetooth turns off, because the device is set to turn off bluetooth when it goes to sleep! So i either use the lock feature, which is clumsy and, if i don't have a today screen music plugin (like a stock win-mo phone), requires me to MINIMIZE the music program to find the lock function (leaving my screen on and wasting battery), only to have to do the akward unlock cycle later (as opposed to just hitting the power button again like i would if i could just put it to sleep), and then FIND my music program again (a few presses through menus that are NOT made for fingers) just to change tracks! Try doing that while snowboarding down a mountain... OR, i can find a registry editing program, install it, somehow find the right registry key, and change it so the device doesn't turn off bluetooth when it's sleeping (i'm glad i can do this, but it blows because i have to do it...). How does that NOT suck?
-Taylor

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Richard @ Jan 17th 2008 1:35PM

No. This is not about M$ charging for use of Live on and M$ phone. This is about M$ charging for the use of Live on a Symbian phone. Symbian, of course, is the leading advanced mobile OS in the world and about 90% of Symbian phones use the S60 interface.

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Taylor @ Jan 17th 2008 1:49PM

Right, and though i did realize that when i first posted, the article DOES say they're at least considering charging for it on the windows mobile platform too...
-Taylor

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Davis @ Jan 17th 2008 12:43PM

Taylor is correct; Windows on a phone is just mind-numbing. MS, it's time to come up with something that is designed for a mobile device and the specific requirements of this platform. Keep Windows on the PC.

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Sean @ Jan 17th 2008 5:14PM

sounds like a test market probly not a good idea or might be a sign of things to come

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Richard @ Jan 17th 2008 6:30PM

I don't think that even M$ is so brain dead that they wouldn't get to the point where Live is in the ROM of every WinMob Phone, but charged for on phones running other OSs or Java...(does Live run under Java?).

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Michael S @ Jan 17th 2008 8:18PM

Great another MS service you can fork over your money for. Maybe this is to cover the cost of the lawsuit from their other pay service that recently had an outage.

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