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Microsoft Says Your Phone is Your Next PC
eldavojohn writes "While other companies are marrying the obvious functionalities to cell phones (calendar, MP3 player, GPS, etc.), Microsoft is aiming for it to be your next computer. Microsoft Research chief Craig Mundie said that, "Microsoft has a research project called 'Fone+' that would allow the phone to work with a TV as a secondary display, and one that could allow video stored on the device to be played back on the television.""
Microsoft is talking....
Given their spectacular foray into the MP3 player market, and the hideous mess that is Windows Mobile, I wonder exactly what more plans they have for markets they "don't really get"....
There is nothing interesting going on at my blog
Gee, how inovative. He announces the next big thing 4 months after Steve Jobs demos one.
The real Sig captains the Northwestern. This one captains
Just what I want.... NOT!
"Sorry, Dave, I can't let you take that call from a non-Microsoft phone. Accept or Deny?"
"Do the Right Thing. It will gratify some people and astound the rest." - Mark Twain
Why can't a phone just be a phone any more? I don't want a phone that's a PDA, camera, voice recorder, makes the dinner, advises me on my psychoses, and so on. I just want it to be a phone, darn it!
if they ever were an oracle for the tech industry that is.
.... and on and on
As mentioned, they have yet to release any product worth much this century --- say that slowly to yourself!
No matter how hard they try, and they will, MS will not get anything that can be called portable enough to be a 'phone' to also be a person's primary computer, with or without the addition of interfacing to a tv for video output. The claim of running video from it is just a bit absurd at the current level of technology. So what would be the point of saying something like that? Have you ever watched a stage magician at work? Yep, they tell you one thing to keep you distracted while they seemingly work to pull a rabbit out of a hat. We all know that what you get is not what you saw, or think you saw.
First, we have them misquoting reports to make Linux look 'illegal', then pumped up sales figures for Vista, now this? WOW, the MS spin machine will need some new bearings soon. The ones they are using will be worn out soon, if they aren't already about to fail.
The reality of the world is what they are trying to distract us from:
FireFox is gaining ground at the expense of IE
ODF is gaining ground at MS' expense
OOo is gaining ground at MS' expense
Dell is shipping Ubuntu systems at the expense of Vista
Dell is shipping XP systems at the expense of Vista
MS is being implicated in even more illegal/monopolistic dealings
MS' best friends in government are too busy right now to help them out again
BillG's foundation is getting bad press
Apple is still the tech world's stage hog
Zune is all but buried in the back pages of tech history
In fact, nothing MS has touched in recent years has ended up good for them.... and THAT is what they don't want stockholders to realize
I'm betting that some people in Redmond are looking for a new place in the Sun
Support NYCountryLawyer RIAA vs People
My guess is that they'll make vacuum cleaners next, just so they can have at least one new product that's guaranteed not to suck.
No. My cel phone is not my next PC. There are two main problems. The first is that nobody has figured out a reasonable UI with the screenspace that is available. The second is that Windows Mobile 5.0 is buggy, bloated, slow, and not very useful to program for.
I have a smart phone right now and it crashes about once a week with no extra software installed other than what came with the phone.
strike
"Someone needs to talk to the tree of liberty about its ghoulish drinking problem." by ohnocitizen
Found it.
"If they have both, tell them we use Linux. And if they have that, tell them the computers are down." -Dave Chapelle
MS direction is not set by listening to the market, but by Bill's ego. This is what happens when you have a virtual monopoly.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Why not use your tweezers as a wrench?
Why not use your oboe as a bassoon?
Why not use your sleeve as a handkerchief?
Why not use your car as a truck?
Why not use your PC as a doorstop?
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
After buying a Nokia N800, I don't think so. I think having the connectivity be in a separate device from the computing is a huge win, for most of the same reasons we went away (or never adopted) the all-in-one model on the desktop.
1) In a convergence device, if two parts are important and are still in active development, one part will always obsolesce faster than the other part and force replacement of both.
2) In the particular case of a cell phone/computer, you -can't- replace the phone cheaply and easily until your plan's up (yes, eBay, but that can be tricky), forcing you to use an obsolete computer for the duration.
3) The design considerations for a phone and the design considerations for a portable computer are similar, yes--you want small, thin, and simple to use for both. However, if you want any sort of real power from the portable computer, it's nearly a given that it will need to be bigger and thicker and less simple than a cell phone of the same tech level would be. It needs to do more stuff.
4) Not -all- the design considerations are the same. The portable computer probably wants a relatively large, high resolution screen, and it probably wants to have a touchscreen. A phone doesn't need the complexity or defect rates of a touchscreen, and a high resolution screen on a phone means either a large phone or a relatively high defect rate from a high-pixel-density screen.
5) You don't always want all of your functionality wherever you go. Sometimes you just need a phone. It'd be nice if you could take your 2oz phone with you, instead of your 7oz smartphone.
6) If your phone breaks, you lose your computer, and vice versa.
7) We just don't really need to do it that way, now that bluetooth lets you essentially wear modules in a jacket or nearby bag. You can make a really small phone, if you're not trying to hang a computer off it. You can make it even smaller if you position it to use a bluetooth headset as the primary mic/speaker cluster (of course, you still have built-in ones as backups, but they don't have to be super-comfortable). The classic argument against multiple devices is too much space taken, but if you can make everything as small as they possibly can be for their focused purpose, you can minimize that. Making things smaller is one thing we generally get good at as time goes on.
Sure, there's always going to be a market for phones like the Verizon V/NV or the Sidekick, that do a relatively large subset of the functions of a smartphone for people who don't need more. And eventually, the phone/modem part will hopefully end up standardizing and will be a commodity item that you don't have to chase advancements on. Maybe we'll even drop the current handcuffs model on phone plans. At that point, moving phone functionality into the portable computer makes a lot more sense.
For now though, if you really need a -smart- setup, use separate devices. It seems clunkier and more expensive at the beginning, but you'll always be able to stay at the front of the curve if you want to, and you won't have conflicting buying priorities holding you back.
Didn't he just describe the already shipping Nokia N95?
Phone? Check!
Output to TV? Check!
Video playback to TV? Check!
Plus GPS, running Symbian Series 60 3rd Ed., etc...
So once again M$ comes in late. Good going...
Disclaimer: The above comment was made while under the influence of too much coding and not enough sleep.
... in Cupertino.
They don't need to go to court. Just look what they've done with voice recognition technology. Every year a journalist will tell you that Microsoft gave them this demo of automatic voice recognition technology that required no training and worked perfectly. Every year Microsoft will fail to sell a product that does this, and so will everyone else. Why? Cause the big boys are scared shitless of patent lawsuits, and you simply can't get funding for a startup where there are Microsoft patents that even slightly cover your ideas. It really is a nuclear weapon.
How we know is more important than what we know.
--
~AC
You're dialing (1), cancel or allow? ....
You're dialing (8), cancel or allow?
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ten minutes later after you actually are talking to someone
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WinPhone has downloaded and installed an important security update, please reboot your phone
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Missing WINPHONE.DLL, Please Restart
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
+1 MS Fanboy Troll, but it's late and I have to wait on a long print job.
1) You can't make a phone call on a Newton. You can on a CE device. Both WindowsMobile and SmartPhone are CE devices.Phone calls? No. The Newton is probably better compared to a tablet PC, and still people like you wouldn't like it because it wasn't a full "Windows" PC. My old Newton is still way "smarter" than any smart phone I've seen from any vendor running any OS. Granted it took Apple years to get it right. But the last iteration nailed it. It was the most useful device I ever owned. I'd still use it today if I could easily sync it with my current computer.
2) A vitual keyboard is not a keyboard. Don't BS me."Waaa, it's not the device I want!" *GASP* Could it possibly be you're not the target market? I have a smart phone, with a full qwerty keyboard. I'm afraid I have to side with Apple on this one. With my man sized thumbs typing on a virtual keyboard is certainly no less accurate than using my current Barbie Doll sized one. A virtual keyboard goes away when I don't need it, for instance when I'm trying to read a web page. I'll gladly take more screen space to display and a keyboard that only shows up when I need it.
3) 'Considering' is not the same as 'have had for 11 years.'First is not always best, and not always the winner in the market. Microsoft proved that with Windows. Apple has re-proven it with the iPod, and now we'll find out shortly if they're going to do it with smart phones.
What's truly cool about the CE platform is you could recreate the entire Iphone experience with it and sell it - all probably before the Ibrick comes out.And this is precisely why people say Microsoft doesn't innovate. Sure, they could have created the iPhone experience with CE, but they didn't. Microsoft doesn't innovate. They copy. I watched the iPhone introduction and Steve Jobs was right about one thing. In the smart phone market the killer app is MAKING PHONE CALLS! Everything else is just fluff. Since Jobs has returned to Apple they have been very focused on getting the primary functions right the first time, and making sure the fluff is damn good too.
The only reason Microsoft released this info is to try and steal some of Apple's thunder. Sure the iPhone isn't out yet. But in a months time it will be, and every other phone out there is going to be compared to it. I look forward to seeing how it stacks up and if it does well in the one thing I need my mobile phone to do well (MAKING PHONE CALLS) I have $500 ready to spend on it. All the features not related to MAKING PHONE CALLS are just a bonus.
Am I a sheep? No. I prefer to spend my money on things that just work when I need them too. Apple's got a much better track record of that than Microsoft.
"The avalanch has already started, it is too late for the pebbles to vote." -Kosh
ODF isn't a wrapper around binary data. It's a zip'ed archive of XML files. All of the text and styles are in plaintext english. It's also very verbose [which is also a downside]. OOo isn't perfect, but it's at least "open."
To
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
I'm trying to parse that, and I honestly can't figure out whether he wants the iPhone to be more general purpose (like Windows Mobile is, with its ability to download 3rd-party apps) or more special-purpose (like my cell phone is -- even with all the bells and whistles, I only really have to know how to dial a number and hit "send", just like any other cell phone).
I'm assuming he's slamming the iPhone, because you said so. Maybe it makes more sense in context, but... Seriously, what the fsck? It seems like there's some law of nature that as you get higher on the corporate ladder, you must learn to make statements and speeches that:
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!