Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

iPhone Tops Windows Mobile Share; MS Releases iPhone App

Posted by kdawson on from the late-to-the-party-but-getting-ahead dept.

walterbyrd notes that new data from Gartner indicates that the successful launch of the iPhone 3G was enough to push iPhone market share over that of Windows Mobile devices — the entire range of them. And reader Spy Hunter writes: "Seadragon Mobile is Microsoft's first iPhone application. Seadragon is a technology for streaming zoomable user interfaces, and this iPhone incarnation allows viewing huge collections of gigapixel-sized images over WiFi or 3G. If you don't have an iPhone, you can also try Seadragon in your browser via Seadragon Ajax."

4 of 269 comments (clear)

  1. Innovation pays by alain94040 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    When Apple launched the iPhone two years ago, they announced that their goal was to ship 10 million iPhones by year end. Frankly, no one had any clue how many or how few would sell. It was just a guess on the part of Apple management (really!).

    And somehow, they hit the number and blew past Microsoft smartphones, Nokia and blackberry. For once innovation pays, I love it. In he last 5 years I was involved as an engineer with some of the companies designing cell phones. Ground-breaking innovation is not in their DNA. Instead, they take last year's technology and make it 20% better and faster. Middle management has no clue how to foster innovation.

    You need those companies around because they drive down cost and make technology accessible. But you also need a few Apples that forego incremental improvements and shoot for the moon.

    --
    French iPhone Apps review site applicationiphone.com looking for contributors

    1. Re:Innovation pays by Midnight+Thunder · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Yup, it really is amazing. I don't think anyone could have guessed it would have done so well.

      I wonder how much this says something about the iPhone and how much this says of the competition. Of the competition, the way I see them:
        - For me Windows mobile suffers from the fact it feel like a desktop OS shoe horned into a mobile device.
        - Palm lost focus and the separation of hardware into two separate companies that caused more problems than it solved. Then there was the fact they decided to go with Windows mobile.
        - RIM is still the better contender, but maybe purely focusing on a business solution limits the potential size of the market.
        - Android suffers from the fact they don't control the hardware, so the quality of the experience depends as much on the device manufacturers as the work Google does.

      --
      Jumpstart the tartan drive.
    2. Re:Innovation pays by Cyberax · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Android has good chances, but it has arrived a bit late. For most practical purposes it STILL has not arrived (G1 device is too 'niche').

    3. Re:Innovation pays by initialE · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Well the iPhone didn't stand a chance against Windows Mobile, because there were apps and apps for WM. There were apps for every kind of conceivable thing you could put on a mobile device. It was like... windows... You know you don't want it, you just don't have a choice because you needed your apps supported. Never mind it crashes all the time. Never mind you might miss important calls and never know it. It had app support.
      Then what happened? Apple releases an SDK that enables rapid app development. They produce a storefront that enables you to hang out your hat almost immediately. They even provide back-end infrastructure for apps that need to do background communication. Once again, they are a major contender. And in record time.
      My question is this: Do you see this happening for Android?

      --
      Starbucks, Harbuckle of Breath.