One of the signs of a dying OS platform is the increasingly decreasing (smile) rate at which software applications for the platform are churned out, coupled with the near dry-up in the number of phones that are produced containing the OS. Palm OS, Symbian UIQ and Symbian S60 are examples of now dead or near-dead OS platforms.

One other platform that can be considered dead is the Windows Mobile OS iterations; 5,6 and 6.1 and 6.5 platforms. From the enviable height of having about the most apps written for it among other mobile OS platforms, the Windows Mobile platform can hardly boast of any decent app released recently. Such was the predicament i faced when i realised that most programmers have discontinued writing apps for the Windows Mobile platform.

In my quest for a cheap but decent phone, late last year i got a HTC TyTn II (also known as AT&T Tilt), a windows mobile 6 phone with full QWERTY slider keyboard, a device with a fairly decent specs which i got through hayzees for about $180. The first thing i did was to format the phone, remove the whole OS containing the bloatware installed on the phone by AT&T and installed a clean and lean Windows Mobile 6.1 OS (cooked rom), devoid of all unnecessary softwares, thanks to the guys at XDA. With this, i was also able to free up enough space and RAM on the device.

However, a few weeks ago, i got really tired of the Windows Mobile platform and its lack of good up-to-date apps, i decided to lay the plaform to rest and try out the Android Platform via XDA forum. I must confess that, for me, the installation process was a bit of rocket science with a high possibility of “bricking” my phone in the process. Thankfully, i was able to install the crowd favorite, Android “Froyo” 2.2 on the device, complete with access to the android app market.

The snappy speed of the device with the experience of a whole new platform on an otherwise “old school” phone is a really exhilarating experience. It really feels like i have gotten myself a new phone!