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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? "
Iphone world domination?
I don't know what world is being referred here, probably the marketing and fairy tale world. Last time I checked, Apple was a marginal player in the real world (i.e., not some particular geography or some fashionable pundits).
In the real world, Nokia might be the one to talk about, but even so, its share is far from "world domination"
There are still a lot of questions to be answered, before I can say if I like it or not... Does it support multitasking? How are notifications handled? How efficient is the down-scrolling action compared to the sideways swipe in a real world usage? How would apps look with this spill-over-the-side text philosophy? I agree that the fact that they have started completely from scratch is rather exciting, and also the minimalist design approach is rather bold, but until the above questions are answered it is hard to tell if this will end the "iPhone Domination"
Regards, Boyan
One reason why the iPhone is such a phenomenal phone is that the user interface permeates everything. Not just the immediate application screen or the app transitions, but at a fundamental level there is a symmetry and orthogonality of conceptualization that leads to a seamless user experience.
While that might sound like marketing gobbledygook, compare the Toshiba T-1 to the iPhone. Both have very cool initial user interfaces. In fact, the Toshiba (WinMo6.x) has a more interesting interface in that it changes to meet the user's needs without hardly any user input. However, once you dig past the first interface, it becomes clear that the WinMo phone is the same old WinMo crap underneath. There is no good widget set, there is no clear UI design guideline, and there is no good way to develop an app that doesn't end up feeling like a clunky mess. The iPhone, on the other hand, has a widget set that is reusable and has intuitive usage, there are very clear design guidelines, and most of all there are real artists who want to make apps for the platform.
If WinMo7 can break the Windows Mobile mold and really create something that provides a cohesive user interaction concept, then we may see a WinMo8. Otherwise, it may be the end of the road for this OS.
I hate it when someone quotes "US market share" as "market share" with the fire of 1000 suns.
As a complete Apple fanboi, and one who owns 3 macs and swears by his iPod Touch (I don't like AT&T), I've got to say, that thing looks like it has a really nice interface. Kudos to MS, just from glancing at it (and not having played with it) it looks like the interface could be nicer than both the iPhone OS and Android. If this came out for my cell carrier I would have a tough time deciding between it and an Nexus One. I use Windows 7 at work and have enjoyed it (mostly because MS copied so many of things I prefer about the Mac interface onto Win7, it isn't OS X yet, but getting closer) and I'm willing to keep an open mind about this.
Even if Windows Phone 7 (or whatever cute name marketing comes up with) is the best thing since sliced bread, Apple and Google will continue to release three software versions for Microsoft's one, ensuring that MS will once again be left in the dust.
You have to wonder why MS continues to try their hand in areas where has no advantage -- or clue, really. The best engineers on the planet can't win in the face of poor management and squabbling VPs.
Ballmer's arrogance knows no bounds.
It's Linux, damnit! Pay no attention to renaming attempts by self-aggrandizing blowhards.
This is a serious step 1 here. I have had several Windows Mobile phones in the past. What sold me on the iPhone was that I could hear the phone ring, and actually receive the call. With Windows Mobile, more often than not, I would get the call.. go to answer... phone locks up... reboot phone... call person back. FAIL on the basic UI of the phone. The other features would work well... just often found myself rebooting the phone when it came time to get a call.
Has anyone posted this video of the interface yet?
http://www.windowsphone7series.com/multimedia/Media2
I hope they keep the UI design team that put this together. It's a refreshing change from the escalating UI-candy wars.
Perfect. Can I run it on my vaporware iPad?
You are welcome on my lawn.
Oh wow. "BSOD." "FreeBSD" elitist. "Interesting."
No goofy shading and transitions? Simple design? No backgrounds?
This has promise. I'm a "black screen wallpaper" guy, and until Windows 7 I used the "classic" look in windows (I'm still considering switching back, as the whole translucent thing is more a distraction than anything else).
What I want is a finger-operable OS that allows quick access to all my programs (and easy program switching), is finger operable, makes scrolling and web browsing easy (I've yet to see a browser that can reliably determine the difference in a small swipe vs a click), is finger controllable, and allows customizable parameters for most actions (when to ring, when not to, when to wake, when to sleep, when to check email, etc.), and - most importantly - is finger controllable.
I know that there are lots of people who want a PDA instead of a phone, and prefer using a stylus. Really - it's a phenomenal annoyance to have to pull out a stylus for practically every operation because the icons are the size of a piece of glitter. It's nice to see that they might be moving into the 21st century with their UI.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Work properly? from Microsoft? the company that made "Microsoft Works" an oxymoron? I don't think so.
On the Desktop OS arena, one always has to have SOME degree of MSFT compatibility. On smartphones there's plenty of choice and Microsoft is but a small player. So why even bother? let's keep them relegated to a corner.
Whether a person likes Microsoft or not [...] they are late to the phone game.
Microsoft's first OS for smartphones (Pocket PC 2002) was release in October 2001, that's over 5 years before Apple and a full 7 years before Google's foray into the mobile platform. You can say a lot, mostly bad, about it, but MS has been at this longer than those two companies put together.
Everyone and their mom aleardy had a phone when the iPhones came out, too, it didn't keep Apple from selling 34 million of them and making hundreds of millions in the process.
That's why xda-developers has been in a "can't live without them" state as far as Microsoft and HTC go - MS and HTC have grounds to sue or C&D the people at XDA-Developers, but have decided not to because of the fact that a large portion of their customer base uses cooked ROMs for just the reason you describe - the vendors (AT&T, Verizon, etc.) have a bad habit of bloatwaring the phones.
The hardware vendors (such as HTC) usually do a good problem - it's the carriers that screw the users over with crap releases.
As to "Does Microsoft finally have a phone worth buying?" - they did years ago. Strangely enough, until the advent of Android, Microsoft actually had one of the more "open" phone OSes. iPhone development is heavily locked down, most of the other Linux-based handset efforts were either nonstarters or HEAVILY Tivoized, Blackberries can only be developed for in Java as far as I can tell.
Yes, I'm a pretty avid Linux user on the desktop, but for business/geek users, Windows Mobile is currently where it's at unless you are willing to deal with Verizon. (I'm not, and I won't go with T-Mobile because I'd actually like to use my phone within 20 miles of work/home.)
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
Yes, especially when it comes to smartphones, where the US generally lags about two years behind.
Until you can buy one at the store, it's another piece of vaporware from Microsoft.
Actually no. It will remain vaporware even when it's on sale. Microsoft marketing is that good.
You're putting words in his mouth. He said he didn't like Microsoft; he said he was using BSD. He didn't say he was using BSD because of Microsoft. It's sad that you would be so defensive that you have to read it another way.
That is why I amended my statement - they've invested to few resources, to late. They aren't going to make some huge comeback now. I just can't see it happening. MS can't offer some "killer app" that just makes the rest of the market fall to pieces.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
That's only because he left out some words: "... at a fundamental level there is a symmetry and orthogonality of conceptualization that leads to a seamless user experience to empower the core business for enterprise synergy and a strong paradigm shift."
Now, instead of burning, you fell asleep, right?
That gets repeated often, but so far no one has created a functioning 3rd-party app marketplace. Yeah, they got lots of adoption because they were the first to do it, and have been making a pretty penny as a result. But the developers are not.
Even the ones who have made good software have yet to recoup their initial investment. Apple's market ( and Android's, and the rest) are great for the established players in the market; the Skypes, the Amazons, the people who have the resources and brand recognition to put together a mobile version of what they're working on anyway. But as far as rewarding innovators, it's completely fallen flat. And that's going to cause problems in the long run, especially in Apple's environment which is so hostile to FOSS (so long as it's outside of Apple's offerings.)
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.
Vista isn't vapor. It's cement, mixed with lead and uranium. It's as real and as nimble as a glacier. I've seen tar pits that seem more fluid than a computer running Vista. Whatever it is, Vista is NOT vapor.
Entomologically speaking, the spider is not a bug, it's a feature.
Where is a MS phone going to fit in? Users are not going to pay for MS services as they do for Apple services. If MS was going to give away online service, they already would. Well, I guess they do but not with the popularity of Google, since such services are ties to the OS, which is counter to what the web is.
No matter how pretty MS makes the phone, it is unclear why anyone would buy it. It could be that MS leaves the corporate market to blackberry, and focuses on consumers. This might work if the sold the phone for significantly less than cost, as they did with the xBox. If they did, they would be the only cell phone provider who does so. If they teamed with cricket and the low end carriers they could demolish the competition. Other than that, I hardly see anyone leaving a phone so they can be locked back to the desktop.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
Actually that would be if my app actually ran on this pig. I have to rewrite it all, and all my propriatary corporate integration apps, database backends and productivity apps. Oh and I cannot customise my own theme even? It's turning into a worse lock in than the iPhone.
If I have to rewrite eveny app I use then I may as well port it to Android!
Actually, I've never seen a BSOD on a WinMo phone. In my experience it's usually a direct reboot or a simple freeze...
You are exactly right, and other manufactures, like HTC, also provide their own UI which serves as the primary first-layer (and often second-layer) interactiveness that the user experiences. Generally this interface is very good, but as you say, when you get into the nitty-gritty, it's just WM underneath, which is the child of Pocket PC, which is the child of Palm-Sized PC (windows CE 2.11), which is the child of Windows CE 1.0, which was an _exact_ copy of the Windows 95 user interface. And here's the real problem - Microsoft has managed backwards compatibility all this time. There's still a huge amount that can be done while maintaining backwards compatibility, like using those widgets only with older apps. One of my biggest problems with WM 6.5 is its messaging system (specifically the user interface). HTC, again, tried to provide a layer over this as well, but it doesn't go deep enough. But the fact of the matter is the messaging system is implemented by Microsoft, thus they can do anything they want with it without having to worry about backwards compatibility.
I just have a hard time believing MS could get WM7 wrong. Mainly because everyone and their brother is now producing a decent mobile shell (Apple, Google, Palm, and I've just heard Samsung is joining the fray as well). So MS doesn't even have to do anything groundbreaking or original - merely being on par and in the same paradigm as everyone else would be good enough.
Better known as 318230.
I work at Microsoft now. The development of smart phones here has followed the same pattern of development that has gone on here at Microsoft for years: the front line technical folks push for something innovative, upper management rejects it, Google or Apple then invents it some time later, then upper management suddenly decides they need to get in the business and pat themselves on the back for making the decision "spearhead" into new markets. I remember being in a meeting some years ago where some lower tech managers were proposing we get in the smart phone business, only to be told by some MBA they he should let the "big boys" handle the business decisions. Now the Apple has made a killing in the smart phone business they have their panties in a wad to do the same thing, only now it's probably too late to penetrate the market with dominance that was possible years ago. Nothing seems to get done here anymore unless some upper manager can make it their pet project and get all the credit for it.
I'm really loving that interface. Stylish minimalism that should make it even easier to use than the iphone.
Best of all, solid, bold colours. None of that plasticy, shiny stuff that has been everywhere since the early days of 'Web 2.0'.
A real attempt to innovate mobile interfaces rather than cloning the iPhone is really surprising. I just hope they've really made an attempt to make it reliable unlike previous versions of WinMo.
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
Pedantic-- Apple never announced ZFS for OS X. Some people at Sun mentioned that Apple was looking at ZFS, and Disk Utility had an undocumented facility for mounting ZFS drives as read-only, which had the effect of feulling a lot of speculation, but at no time did Apple ever announce that they were going to use or support ZFS.
This is different from the WinFS case, since MS had been putting WinFS in its product literature and presentations up until the Longhorn reboot. Apple fanboy rumors != Apple announcement.
Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.
Learn your history. Apple NEVER announced ZFS for OS X.
if so, they sure fooled the media to think they did at the time.. ZDNET: "Apple announces ZFS on Snow Leopard". http://blogs.zdnet.com/storage/?p=335&tag=col1;post-584
and even Apples own web site editors where apparently fooled to think so.. from ars technica "Up until Monday's WWDC keynote, the preview page for Snow Leopard Server specifically referred to ZFS support as one of its key features!" (as per story this web site info purged by Apple) http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2009/06/apple-dashes-hopes-for-zfs-support-in-snow-leopard.ars
A simple example: even adding a font on android requires rooting.
More complex example: voice dialing on Android doesn't work from blluetooth headset. The bug report generated thousand of replies, but google is in no hurry to fix it. Third party developer cannot provide such functionality (and no one will develop complex software that requires unlocking and rooting). WM, on the other hand, had 4 different packages for voice commands, and it was a matter of simple installation to switch from one to another.
Pedantic-- Apple never announced ZFS for OS X
More pedantic: Yes they did. Apple had ZFS touted as a feature for OS X 10.6 until a couple of months before 10.6 shipped... without ZFS. Archive.org doesn't seem to have recent caches of Apple's web page, but the Google cache has this. For those who can't be bothered to click on the link:
For business-critical server deployments, Snow Leopard Server adds read and write support for the high-performance, 128-bit ZFS file system, which includes advanced features such as storage pooling, data redundancy, automatic error correction, dynamic volume expansion, and snapshots.
They did have an entire page explaining why ZFS was great, but I couldn't find it in ten seconds of looking through the Google cache.
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Yeah, it is interesting that in some ways, the biggest complaint many have about Windows Mobile is the same complaint some people throw at Linux - they complain about having too much choice! (KDE vs. GNOME vs. whatever in Linux, the various dialers/reskins/alternate UIs available for WM.)
What is a weakness in the eyes of some (flexibility and choice) is a strength for others. A WM phone doesn't provide the "out of the box" user experience that iPhone does, but it is far more powerful and flexible.
It's what Linux on mobile devices SHOULD be, but as I mentioned before (and you confirmed affects even Android), Linux on mobile phones has a bad habit of getting tivoized. There are exceptions (OpenMoko and the like) but they're smallfry.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
Good catch, I pulled the number too quickly. How about 17% market share.
Let's try this again. What came out first, the HTC Hero or the HTC HD2?
Which came out first is irrelevant. The UI on HTC's Android phones is called HTC Sense, and it is not part of the Android OS .It's written by HTC and is based on TouchFlO, the UI that has existed on HTC's Windows mobile phones for years now. The Hero and HD2 have the same version of HTC Sense and it just happened that HTC released the hero before the HD2. Here, educate yourself.
Maybe you should think again, since you don't understand anything
You haven't pointed out anything I don't understand. I know full well that xda-devs is about HTC devices. Until HTC released it's first Android device it was 100% about Windows Mobile. I never said the sites I linked to were 100% dedicated to Windows Mobile, nor do I care if they are.
Thanks for reminding me that apparently you love windows mobile. That's about the most embarrassing piece of software I've ever heard anyone being associated with.
Your hatred of Microsoft is amusing. While morons like you mentally masturbate over the supposed demise of companies for no logical reason, people like me use products that work for us. I actually like the Android OS. It's a bit unstable on my wife's Cliq, but I'm sure those bugs will be worked out by Google and they'll catch up to other mobile platforms. My next phone decision will be between Windows Mobile (or "Windows Phone" or whatever they'll be calling it by then) and Android.
I don't always use unix-like operating systems; but when I do, I prefer FreeBSD.