On September 6, 2001, Microsoft announced the next generation of the Pocket PC, referred to internally at Microsoft as "Merlin," but officially known as the "Pocket PC 2002." The new Pocket PC 2002 operating system and built-in software have significant improvements over the original Pocket PC, released in April of last year. This article discusses the most notable of those changes and provides a comprehensive table of all of them. Note that I discuss only changes and improvements, not the features that carry over from the original Pocket PC.

ENHANCED USER INTERFACE

One of the first things you notice is the enhanced user interface (UI) of the Pocket PC 2002.

The Today screen and the rest of the UI are now "skinnable." This lets you change the color scheme of the various screens, and personalize the look and feel of your Pocket PC with your own graphics (see Screen 1). Further, you can share these skins with others.

Screen 1: The Today screen is "skinnable," letting you customize the look of your Pocket PC 2002.

Improvements have been made to the title bar at the top of every screen. It now permanently displays a new speaker icon. Tap on this icon and you can quickly change or mute the volume, a great feature for meetings, movies, or walks in the park. As with the original Pocket PC, the title bar on the Pocket PC 2002 displays the current time. However, if you tap on the time, a notification bubble will now pop up, displaying the time, battery status, and your next appointment (see Screen 2). Whenever critical information needs to be displayed, such as incoming e-mail, due appointments, or low batteries, one of these notification bubbles will pop up. The other thing you'll notice on the title bar of any application, except the Today screen, is either an "OK" or an "X" button. "OK" closes a dialog box; "X" lets you quickly minimize (not close) one or more programs to quickly return to a recently used application. Occasionally, other icons appear on the title bar. For example, if your batteries are getting low, a battery icon will appear in the title bar reminding you it's time to charge them.

Screen 2: New to the Pocket PC 2002, tap on the time displayed on your title bar and a reminder box pops up, displaying the time, battery status, and your next appointment.

The "tap-and-hold" feature is another big improvement to the UI. On a small and relatively crowded screen, it's easy to tap on the wrong button. Tap and hold down on the desired button or icon and a ring of small red dots will circle the button giving you visual feedback on where you tapped. Tap-and-hold also lets you access some menus. For example, press and hold down on the time in the title bar and a menu pops up, letting you change the time display from digital (default) to analog.

Finally, Microsoft has enhanced the readability of the UI by switching to Windows XP-style icons.

IMPROVED POCKET OUTLOOK

The Pocket PC 2002 expands on the capabilities of Pocket Outlook, making Calendar and Contacts easier to use.

Contacts now lets you display your list alphabetized by company or by individual name. This makes it far easier to find someone in a particular company, if that's all you remember.

Contacts' data input screen has been reorganized so that the most common contact information (name, job title, company name, phone number, etc.) is at the top of the screen. This eliminates the need to scroll down to enter common information.