Slashdot Mirror
Does Microsoft Finally Have a Phone Worth Buying?
An anonymous reader writes "Microsoft has finally shown 'Windows Phone 7 Series' and it's supposed to be a completely new smartphone OS. A phone from Microsoft to get excited about that is going to work properly and take on the iPhone's world domination? "
Don't forget the physical aspects either. The iPhone's GUI is succesful partly because the phone has an exceptionally good touch screen. And I don't mean multi-touch or pinch zooming, I mean a screen that registers touches and gestures accurately, so that the interface is easy to use even with fat fingers. Show me another phone that I can operate (even quickly type an SMS) one-handed using the thumb of the hand holding the phone... My message to manufacturers of competing phones would be: don't skimp on the screen!
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
Until you can buy one at the store, it's another piece of vaporware from Microsoft.
Exactly. I liked how we never talked about the iPad before you could buy it for instance.
Except one company (Apple) has a history of delivering what they promise, and another (Microsoft) does not. It's not about a general rule of "we don't discuss product announcements", it's a general rule of "Microsoft announces things, then only occasionally delivers them"
But it becomes a bit ironic when the big example of recent MS vaporware used by other posters right here in this thread is how MS dropped WinFS from Vista. Which is exactly matched by how Apple dropped ZFS from OSX ;) http://blogs.zdnet.com/storage/?p=584
You can do all of that on an iPhone.
Compose an email and exit out to the web browser, do your googling, then return to the mail app. You'll be right where you left off in composing your email.
If your browsing the web and want to text someone, switch to the messaging app, then when you're done, and reopen the web browser, you will be right back where you left it... sessions, cookies, even partially entered form fields and all.
If you're on a phone call, you can do anything on the phone... including run all other apps, listen to your iPod, browse the web, and look at your contacts. There is even a link on the main "call" screen that says "Contacts" while you are on a call to quickly jump to them.
About the only legit complaints I have seen (so far) about the lack of background tasks have been the inability to listen to 3rd party audio apps while doing other things... you can't stream pandora while browsing the web.
Even IM apps have a good way to "run in the background" with push-notifications.