Windows Phone 7 Lacks Copy-and-Paste

theodp writes "In a behind-the-scenes look at Windows Phone 7 (photos), CNET's Ina Fried notes that Microsoft's new software has won early praise for breaking ground in some areas, but takes a step backward in others. In particular, it doesn't support features like copy and paste and multitasking that were already part of the old Windows Mobile. 'I think users use cut-copy-paste periodically,' said Microsoft exec Terry Myerson, '(but) there's other things they use more frequently.' Hey, tradeoffs had to be made — it was either copy-and-paste or Goo Splat."

Comments

Windows Phone 7 is great

[symbolset]

Rumor has it they're selling hundreds of the first Windows Phone 7 handsets, the Kin, each month. It's a runaway hit. With all these new choices they might launch that up into the thousands. Watch out Apple and Android, Microsoft is back in the mobile game and they're ready to rumble.

It is a very fine article - do read it. Apparently the compass doesn't work, but it's required on every device. That's going to make it hard to have a credible mapping application. It retains Windows CE at its core. The project leader's biggest hope is to "survive the launch," not amaze us with their brilliance.

This comment from the article was particularly insightful:

by peterpulmonary June 17, 2010 7:12 AM PDT the only reason to allow this type of exposure is to reduce expectations.

Re:Windows Phone 7 is great

[adolf]

Here's your woosh:

*woosh*

You're welcome.

Re:Windows Phone 7 is great

[goombah99]

Hey laughed at windows 2.0 too.

Re:Windows Phone 7 is great

[Anonymous Coward]

My favorite part is that they're desperately trying to recruit games developers, while not allowing those developers to use native code. No, instead they're forcing developers to rewrite their games from scratch with C# and XNA, a platform so successful, there have been literally hundreds of indie games released for the Xbox 360. I could either write my game with C/C++ and OpenGL ES and with minimal tweakage, release on the iPhone, iPad, and Android, the most popular and fastest growing mobile platforms capable of running real games. Or I can develop a game that will run only on a platform that has not yet been released and will almost certainly sell poorly. Hm. Tough choice.

Re:Windows Phone 7 is great

[cbhacking]

Retaining a WinCE core doesn't mean that much, considering how much they've upgraded that kernel for WinPhone7. Don't get me wrong, I have nothing particularly good to say about either WinCE (as seen in WinMo phones) or WinPhone7, but I'm not going to go hunting for extra reasons to bash it either. A lot of the old restrictions that made WinCE suck are gone now, like the incredibly low per-process memory space, and it seems to do fairly well running devices like the ZuneHD (I don't have one, but I've played with a few and they appear to be quite solid devices with no obvious OS flaws; pity about the rendering engine, though).

Re:Windows Phone 7 is great

[nacturation]

Here's your woosh:

*woosh*

You're welcome.

It sucks you had to type that in all by yourself given that you could've copied and pasted it from numerous other missed jokes on Slashdot.

Re:Windows Phone 7 is great

[Ethanol-fueled]

given that you could've copied and pasted it from numerous other missed jokes

Looks like he was using one of the Win Mobile 7 prototypes...

Re:Windows Phone 7 is great

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's your woosh:

*woosh*

You're welcome.

Re:Windows Phone 7 is great

[Anonymous Coward]

Spoken like a true Microsoft apologist. Compare a slightly better version to the original fucked up and broken version (all by the same wonderful vendor) and call it progress as if nothing else existed.

Heaven forbid you compare it to the competition head on.

Re:Windows Phone 7 is great

[oakgrove]

The native API is closed. You have to rewrite in Java,

This is false. See here.

which is why Ansroid is missing so many categories of software and why the overwhelming majority of Apple developers are Apple-only.

Also false. iPhone has more applications because it has been out longer and there are more people with iPhones who buy apps thus providing the incentive and momentum for more applications to get written. As Android continues to mature and grow, this may change.

Re:Windows Phone 7 is great

[gig]

You still have to write Java apps. You're still running in a virtual machine. On iOS, 3rd party developers are running a full desktop class C toolkit, the same one Apple uses to create their apps and iOS itself.

> iPhone has more applications because it has been out longer

That is total BS and it's time for Android users to stop playing the "we're too new to be successful" card. iPhone did not have native apps until version 2, which shipped at the same time as Android, in mid-2008. The 3rd party app platforms on iPhone and Android are almost exactly the same age. Android lacks apps because of inherent problems with Android, not because it's too new. It's not just the number of apps, but the whole categories of apps that Android lacks.

Re:Windows Phone 7 is great

[andymadigan]

There are whole categories of apps that the iPhone lacks too, like locale or foxyring-types, plus Google Voice, which I use for SMS and Voicemail. Honestly, I had the G1 and now I have a Droid, I haven't seen any of my friends with iPhones that have apps that don't exist on Android, what am I missing?

Re:Windows Phone 7 is great

[oakgrove]

You still have to write Java apps.

Which means what, exactly? What application can you write for iOS that you can't write for Android? There are many security and development advantages to writing apps in managed code and the NDK takes care of any performance issues. I fail to see the downside. I could see if there were a speed advantage to the iOS model but there isn't. For example, side by side, the Android browser in Froyo as running on a Nexus One has been demonstrated to be faster than the iPhone 3GS and the iPad despite the fact that they are both based on Webkit. So, where's the advantage?

That is total BS and it's time for Android users to stop playing the "we're too new to be successful" card.

Did you even read the rest of my comment or did you just stop right there? I'll just quote it for you:

and there are more people with iPhones who buy apps thus providing the incentive and momentum for more applications to get written. As Android continues to mature and grow, this may change.

Note the bolded points. I specifically point out that, A, more people have iPhones and, B, Android still has more maturing to do.

Re:Windows Phone 7 is great

[socceroos]

...what am I missing?

You're missing die-hard fanboyism for Apple. Duh.

Re:Windows Phone 7 is great

[oakgrove]

How about... simple file management tools?

Want to store files on the Android? Oh wait, you can't. The only way to access files is through a rooted command-line interface. Or you can install a shoddy-quality, centralized, file manager.

Er, what? Astro file manager is very high quality and you can store as many files on /sdcard as you have space to hold. Furthermore, no you don't need to be root to access files on Android with a terminal emulator.

Want to open a downloaded image in Gallery? Sorry, you can't!

Complete bs. I just did the following on my Droid: Browsed to images.google.com, did a random search for kittens, clicked on an image for full size, long pressed it and selected "download", navigated to the download folder with Astro file manager, selected the kitten.jpg and it opened in gallery.

I'm not even going to bother quoting anymore of your rant except for this:

but I do have a Nexus One.

Have you even turned it on yet?

Re:Windows Phone 7 is great

[Hurricane78]

I could either write my game with C/C++ and OpenGL ES and with minimal tweakage, release on it Symbian/UIQ (50.3%) the most dominant platform running real games, and being blocked from the Apple (13.7%*) store for having a “evil word” in it.

Or I just write it in Java, giving me the ability to run it on every phone on the damn planet, except for the Apple and Microsoft lock-in-infected ones, while still having full speed because modern phones already support all the important APIs in Java (OpenGL ES, Multimedia APIs on the level of EAX HD, Location API, storage, etc) :)

Disclaimer: I’m a mobile phone game developer, and if you got a Apple or MS phone, that’s your own damn fault. (Although if you pay me a lot of money, I might use a trick to get them to run on your unlocked Apple phone. For Windows there in no JVM, last time I looked, so I can’t offer that there.

___
* US numberts

Re:Windows Phone 7 is great

[shutdown -p now]

Does the NDK provide code interop with the Java Android libraries?

Yes, it does. Ever heard of JNI?

Not that you need it. The way you code a typical game in NDK, you have the entry point and event loop (for input processing) in Java, which calls into the rest of the game that's written in C/C++. The latter doesn't have to call into Java APIs anymore - it has input events passed to it already, and it can draw directly via OpenGL ES.

Re:Windows Phone 7 is great

[pchan-]

For example, side by side, the Android browser in Froyo as running on a Nexus One has been demonstrated to be faster than the iPhone 3GS and the iPad despite the fact that they are both based on Webkit.

The Nexus One has a 1 GHz processor and 512 MB of RAM, whereas the 3GS has a 600 MHz (both ARM Cortex A8) and 256 MB of RAM. The fact that up until Froyo the browser didn't run faster should be quite embarrassing.

Re:Windows Phone 7 is great

[ozmanjusri]

Yes, that's the joke.

Actually, the joke's on everybody who really believes cut & paste will be missing.

This happens with every MS OS release. They'll make some controversial claim, like the non-negotiable startup sound in Vista, or the three-process limit in 7 netbook edition, then "reverse" the decision amongst grandiose statements like "We listen to our users!"

In a month or so, you'll see a marketing campaign based on "This is YOUR mobile OS"....

Re:Windows Phone 7 is great

[oakgrove]

Still, GP has a point. Astro is an awesome tool, but it's a 3rd party tool. The fact Android doesn't include any built-in, native file manager is a mistake and a shortcoming

True, there's no default file manager but it's very debatable whether that's a shortcoming to the target market. When you're trying to sell phones to the "Oh, shiny!" set, (and face it, that's always the real aim), do you really want to clutter the device? People like us that see value in a file manager are going to seek one out. Besides, we wouldn't be using the default anyway. I have yet to see a platform that has a decent built in tool. Explorer sucks, finder sucks, nautilus sucks. The only great file manager I've ever seen was Konqueror in kde3.

BTW, the quote above brought to you via cut and paste on my droid.

iPhone didn't have cut-and-paste either..

[d_jedi]

Just sayin'..

Honestly, I don't understand why such a simple, useful feature could be missed by both companies..

Re:iPhone didn't have cut-and-paste either..

[bennomatic]

Yes, and Windows (and other non-Apple) fanbois eviscerated (verbally at least) Apple for not including it. Some of the same people (Paul Thurrott, I'm looking at you) are making all sorts of excuses for Microsoft not including it now.

Personally, I didn't really care much about cut and paste when I got my ipod touch; now that I have it, I like it. So for me, this is a big "whatever". But if you lambasted Apple for not having it but you want to excuse MS for not having it, you have some introspection to do.

Of course, I'm using "you" in the general sense; I am not accusing you personally, parent poster, of having done so.

Re:iPhone didn't have cut-and-paste either..

[gyrogeerloose]

I don't understand why such a simple, useful feature could be missed by both companies..

Microsoft didn't "miss" anything. Being unable to innovate in any respect on it's own, it is trying to copy the the iPhone model as closely as it can--including leaving out copy-and-paste on it's first generation OS.

Re:iPhone didn't have cut-and-paste either..

[Saeed al-Sahaf]

FTA:

"We've got a good product," he said. " I actually do believe that. I think we are going to actually have a lot of happy customers."

It's doomed.

Re:iPhone didn't have cut-and-paste either..

[gig]

The iPhone story is very different.

iPhone lacked copy/paste in its first couple of versions. In Windows Phone *7* we are seeing the devices lose a feature they already had in 6.

iPhone lacked copy/paste during a time when multitouch was extremely new and there were zero multitouch implementations of copy/paste. Windows Phone 7 is giving up the feature years later, when there are many phones with multitouch copy/paste.

iPhone is a consumer device, sold direct to iPod users. Windows Phone 7 is coming from a B2B company whose phones are sold as enterprise phones, phones you do work on.

When iPhone got copy/paste, it was the full-featured desktop copy/paste from OS X, finally exposed in the iOS interface in a very elegant way, across all of the apps, including over 100,000 native 3rd party apps. It was worth waiting for. Users were immediately highly productive with it and have forgotten it was ever missing. It works with complex data types. It has a speller built-in now. It runs on a full-size tablet now. When Microsoft brings this feature back, it will be as full of caveats as all of their stuff.

You can pick on various features of iPhone as being missing, but since they shipped their very first phone, overall they have been ahead of everyone else, leading the industry. Windows Phone 7 doesn't lead anything.

True, and they caught shit for it

[Sycraft-fu]

However the real thing is that the old Windows mobile DID have these features. Apple I suppose has the excuse of "We couldn't figure it out because it was our first time making a mobile OS and all our smart people were too busy rolling around in piles of money," or something. However MS has a mobile OS out, right now, that can copy and paste and multitask.

So what the fuck? Do they think Apple succeeded because of those stupid restrictions? I'd guess they succeeded in spite of them, not because of them.

Doesn't matter, I'll happily stick with my Blackberry until my contract is up and then it is probably going to be another BB or an Android phone. I'll have to see, but if MS and Apple have the "You don't want to use your phone as a tool idea," well then my money will keep going to RIM, or maybe Google.

Re:True, and they caught shit for it

[cbhacking]

Windows Mobile and Windows Phone are completely different at the UI level. I mean, literally, as far as I can tell they may have thrown away everything above the WinCE kernel and core level. I'm not saying that excuses the lack of useful and important features, but it does explain why they might not have had time to implement them (because they were working on other stuff, and would have had to re-implement them from scratch) and makes the "But WinMo6 did it!" argument rather irrelevant.

I would say that somebody there seems a little too caught up in replicating even the mistakes of Apple's launch. As you point out, Apple did catch shit for those mistakes - it might not have cost the device its success, but it did cost them plenty of customers - and while they eventually added Copy/Paste, I'm still not buying any device which is effectively a handheld computer, but which lacks the ability to run more than one interactive application simultaneously.

I suppose that means I probably won't be buying a WinPhone7 device, either. In a way, this is disappointing - I was hoping to have more choice when the time came to upgrade my phone, choice is always good and I have no inherent objection to buying Microsoft products as long as they don't suck - but lacking such features pretty much means it sucks, regardless of what else it has, and that means I won't be buying one.

Re:True, and they caught shit for it

[Anonymous Coward]

Either this is a really pathetic attempt at a troll, or you should just turn in your geek card. In order to enter the copy/paste mode, you have to double click a piece of text, or hold your finger in a spot (without moving it) for about a second. I find it very hard to believe you would enter this mode while scrolling unless your epileptic or unless you are scrolling web pages with your elbow. Try gentle swipes when moving a web page. This isn't a Storm phone. You don't need to hold down waiting for some response from the touch interface.

As to how to exit the mode, did you try clicking once anywhere on the page except for the 'COPY' popup button? You can also click once within the selected text, and it will turn it off as well. Once you enter the copy/paste mode, the only UI handles that matter are the edge selectors and the COPY button. Clicking once anywhere on the page that is not on one of those handles exits the mode. Anyone without about 5 seconds of experimenting could have figured this out. Yes Einstein, it's just that easy. I can see why you posted AC.

Re:True, and they caught shit for it

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

Either this is a really pathetic attempt at a troll, or you should just turn in your geek card.

What's weird about that is if he had replaced iPhone with "Palm Treo" he would have nicely described what using that phone was like.

Re:True, and they caught shit for it

[RulerOf]

No, the old Intellipoint mouse. That thing was gold-standard for optical mice.

That is probably the truest statement I've read *all* day. That mouse was the one that finally got me to switch from trackball back over to the normal style mouse. I used it for years until one day it would blink on and off while I was playing video games, constantly getting me killed. I replaced it with a Logitech and have been Logitech for years now.

After I was certain I'd never need the Intellimouse ever again, I cut the cord off of it, grabbed a baseball bat, and had my friend pitch it to me in my backyard. It was a home run, and we never did find every piece of the device.

Windows button

[Beardydog]

I know the iPhone has an enormous Apple logo on the back, but:
1) It's not and enormous Apple logo on the front
2) Some people think Apple is cool

The Windows logo instantly makes me feel like I'm at work. Seeing it on the front of my phone everytime I pick it up would sap a tiny percentage of the joy from my day everytime I picked the thing up. And why? For branding? They can't just put a stylized picture of a house, or a rounded square ( I've never heard of anyone being confused by the non-specific design on the iPhone's ONLY BUTTON )... a circle... a triangle... Maybe no icon at all!
I want my technology to look like it was sent from an alient future, or dug up from an alien past... with mystic runes and shit.
After Mickey Mouse, the Windows logo is the least mystical goddamn rune on earth.

Re:Windows button

[node 3]

How do you feel about that Apple logo (or two) on your keyboard? How about the upper left corner of your screen?

Mac keyboards don't have Apple keys anymore. And the one on the screen is the icon you click on, just like the Windows button. The physical button on Windows phones doesn't benefit by having a Windows icon in the way the button on Windows 7 does. Think about how tacky it would be were the home button to have an Apple logo on it.

Brave but Pointless

[Nerdfest]

I'm not sure where MS thinks they're heading with Windows Phone 7. Their only advantage with WM6 was that it was actually an open platform ... you could install applications from any source. From a usability point of view, it sucks, and I say that as a current user. It is not really intended to be used without a stylus, it's slow, and it's generally not very intuitive. It seems that they're dropping their only feature, adopting the early failures of Apple (cut & paste), and heading towards what most people dislike about the iPhone (single marketplace).

Maybe their doing what Linus Torvalds did with Git, in reversing every decision that CVS made, but I don't think it's going to end well for them. Between iPhone and Android, they're beat in almost every feature.

Re:Brave but Pointless

[node 3]

and heading towards what most people dislike about the iPhone (single marketplace)

I don't think "most people dislike" this, Nerdfest. I realize it's a fairly common sentiment here on Slashdot, but most people have different priorities.

Maybe their doing what Linus Torvalds did with Git, in reversing every decision that CVS made

The thing is, Microsoft just isn't that talented. I don't mean they don't have talented employees, but that the way the company works, talent just doesn't enter into it. What they do, what they've always done, is copy what others have done, and unlike Apple who, when they copy they make things better (that's what "good artists copy, great artists steal" means), MS copies poorly. The first few iterations are atrocious. But eventually they copy things so thoroughly that, what the hell, it's good enough, right?

Technologically, MS has always been behind the curve. Macs, Amigas, OS/2. All made Windows (and DOS!) look pathetic. But price and hardware support, along with some horrible, but effective, business tactics won out.

And it looks like MS is trying the same here, but without the ability to engage in the same old business tactics, and without the sort of market where price and hardware support is as important as it was during the PC era. So, like you said, I just don't see how this will work out well for them. They can't out-class iPhone, or out-geek Android, and they can't tie their monopoly to it.

I guess we'll just have to wait and see. MS has a way of sticking around with technically inferior offerings. It's like a gambler with enough money to keep doubling down. You don't have to win right away, you just have to win somewhere along the line. MS doesn't have the burden of caring about whether their products are good, they just want them to sell, and they have the money and the will to stick around until they do. They'll keep "reinventing" their products (WinCE to Windows Mobile to Windows Phone 7, with Zune and Kin thrown in for good measure) until something sticks.

Re:Brave but Pointless

[gig]

They're just doing what they always do: they're copying Apple/NeXT. However, Microsoft didn't adjust when Steve Jobs came back to Apple.

It was productive for Microsoft to copy the 1985-1996 Apple that tried to sell to businesses and made drab interfaces and drab boxes and kept their prices high and hardly pushed the technology forward. Microsoft could keep up because Apple was slow, they were safe copying stuff whole because Apple was weak and they had even accidentally given Microsoft a license to clone their API, and the copies Microsoft created were drab enough for their PC maker customers and corporate CTO's to like them.

It's not productive for Microsoft to copy the 1997-present Apple for all the opposite reasons. Apple sells direct to consumers now, even to the point where 1 out of every 3 Apple employees is in retail. Zune can't compete with iPod on price or features. The $99 iPhone is so cheap there's no room under there for a profitable clone. The Intel Mac erased the high-end Windows PC market from existence. The iPad is killing the low-end PC market. The products are sexy and colorful and way beyond the capabilities of Microsoft's PC maker customers to compete with.

Windows Vista/7 was "Windows for Mac users". It's not at all what the PC makers wanted, or the CTO's wanted, or the corporate trainers wanted, and so on. Windows Phone 7 is "Windows Mobile for iPhone users." Microsoft continue to sit on a pile of money from their 2001/2003 products that were copied from the old Apple in the case of Windows XP, or ported from the old Apple system in the case of MS Office 2003.

Plus, technology is moving faster now, and the Internet provides everyone with the latest information on the state-of-the-art, and Apple Stores just make it even worse. You can't pretend Windows Vista/7 is not 10 years behind the Mac. You can't pretend that Windows Phone 7 is not 5 years behind iPhone. People have seen the Apple Store, they've tried the products.

I've personally seen more Windows XP to iPad upgrades than Windows XP to Vista/7, so good riddance to Microsoft. People can get the original item cheap now rather than wait for the Microsoft copy. My iPad already paid for itself. I'm drinking the milkshake of anybody who is waiting around for the Microsoft version. I've been using Mac OS X for 10 years, I've been drinking the milkshake of XP users the whole damn time. I've had a fully usable, full desktop browser in my front jeans pocket for 3 years, the whole time drinking the milkshake of other phone users.

So no, Microsoft's products don't make sense anymore.

> Their only advantage with WM6 was that it was actually an open platform ... you could install applications from any source

Not a feature. That's a malware vector. That's something businesses will have to lock down and consumers will have to patrol. Neither of them wants to do that.

Re:Brave but Pointless

[Vancorps]

You've been in Steve's reality distortion field too long. If I didn't know better I'd say this was fark. Are you really trying to say that Windows 2000,XP were clones of OS 8 and 9? Cause MacOS 8 and 9 were atrocious causing instabilities everywhere, they couldn't even handle running out of disk space. The iPad is already a clone of other tablets, specifically the Archos Internet tablet which has been on the market for over a year and ran Windows XP and now runs Windows 7.

You give Apple way too much credit, I'm not saying Microsoft deserves any but you portray a woefully inaccurate picture of the landscape. There is no one genuinely trading a Windows XP machine for an iPad. They target fundamentally different markets and have different strengths and weaknesses. The iPad has cost me many hours of lost time and has cost my users many lost hours of productivity as they encounter it's limitations. It's so heavy I can't imagine wanting to read an entire book on it. It's pretty well limited to consuming content which is precisely what it is marketed as. It makes no attempt at content creation which is why it doesn't even include a camera or SD card slot or USB.

When it comes to mobile phones the iPhone was again nothing of a first besides the multi-touch UI. Apple's strength has been in presentation and marketing which is precisely what Microsoft used to be good at. There's no arguing that the strategy leads to business success at the cost of consumer freedom. Those of us that learned our lesson have headed for Android because we are given back the full abilities of our increasingly useful mobile hardware. I also laugh at you considering the iPhone having a full desktop browser. While it is a good browser the lack of flash makes that statement laughable at best and completely disingenuous at worst. My Android phone in contrast has a more full desktop browser but lacks functionality like adblock that I enjoy in my actual desktop browsing. It also has flash and full java capability unlike the iPhone.

As for an open platform being a malware vector I again laugh at your distorted view of reality. As a Windows mobile user and administrator for the better part of the last decade I can assure you that malware on Windows Mobile is few and far between, so few that I've never encountered it although I've certainly read about duped users but Windows mobile since 5.0 has had centrally managed software and full multi-user controls, things the iPhone even with version 4 still lacks. The iPhone makes a half decent toy but even the camera on my Samsung Moment blows the iPhone out of the water and that was Samsung's first attempt at an Android phone. Android lacks the centrally managed functionality that Windows Mobile and Blackberry has so it still has some catching up to do but development is moving quickly as my phone came with Android 1.5 and now has 2.1 which was a significant jump. Exchange support is great now even supporting remote wipe with 2.1. Of course the locks also work unlike the iPhone as shown by the latest version of Ubuntu.

Re:Brave but Pointless

[node 3]

I disagree that Microsoft has always been behind Apple.

I never said they were.

Not only did Apple copy from everyone else in features

I never said they didn't.

they literally copied NeXT and Mach into the OS

No. Mac OS X is Nextstep.

KHTML into the browser

WebKit is based on KHTML. But this is both a.) not what I mean by copying above and b.) exactly the sort of thing open source is meant for.

This is a great thing, I see nothing wrong with this

I never said there was. In fact, I stated quite the opposite. See below.

but it is wrong to exclude Apple from copying of playing catch-up.

It's even more wrong to think that's what I did.

Perhaps you missed this part of my post?

"unlike Apple who, when they copy they make things better (that's what "good artists copy, great artists steal" means)"

Pirates!

[sakdoctor]

Copy & paste is a tool of pirates and plagiarists. There is no legitimate use for Copy & paste.

Re:Pirates!

[machine321]

And you wonder why you don't have a girlfriend when you call her a "named buffer".

Not surprising

[diegocg]

Phone 7 is in many ways a new mobile operative system, it doesn't even run software from old windows mobile versions (and you can't port your old C++ programs because native code programs are forbidden/restricted to big partners). So it's not surprising to find big differences with windows mobile. Wikipedia says it doesn't even support a socket API.

Of course it's missing copy and paste

[Low Ranked Craig]

They started copying iPhone OS before Apple added that feature.

This is overblown anyway. I've use C/P maybe 3 times since they added the feature. I suspect I'll use it a lot more on the iPad.

Re:Of course it's missing copy and paste

[Grimbleton]

I use copy and paste all the time on my Samsung Omnia running Windows Mobile 6.1

Re:What is it then?

[nwoolls]

They are different platforms. Windows Phone 7 isn't done...the Kin phones are out. Yes, they plan to align the platforms in the future, and sure they use common components, but they are different platforms now, and the Kin phones are not Windows Phone 7.

Read up on it on Wikipedia, Google, or any number of sources.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Kin

"The Kin is based on Windows CE and is distinct from Microsoft's Windows Mobile and Windows Phone 7 platforms."

Re:What is it then?

[symbolset]

Very good - you found the source of the quote. Now read it. Follow the citation links. It doesn't say what you think it says. Here, I'll give you another snippet:

Microsoft said that the underlying fundamentals of Kin and Windows Phone 7 will be held together by similar core technologies. Both Kin and Windows Phone 7 run the same Silverlight platform. Microsoft has stated that over the long-term, Windows Phone 7 would be merged with Kin.

They are like enough for the similarities to be meaningful. Microsoft is going to be able to use the runaway success of the Kin as a springboard for their Windows Phone 7 launch. The result should be epic.

Re:Swing and a miss

[node 3]

Just as windows mobile was catching up being coupled with Sense UI and the like, they go and join the worthless herd of App-based feature-less mobile OS'es.

"Worthless herd"? iPhone and, to a lesser extent, Android, are where it's at. The old-style Windows Mobile is about as appealing today as a tape-playing Walkman.

The thing is, as far as mobile OS'es go, windows mobile has been ahead, being an open platform and close to an actual OS.

"Ahead"? Ahead of Palm, technologically, and ahead of Apple and Google in terms of timeline where they entered the market. But that's pretty much it. As for being "close to an actual OS", iOS is OS X. Android is Linux with (essentially) a custom windowing system. Windows Mobile is much further from Windows than either iOS or Android are to their respective desktop counterparts.

7 becomes worthless

I agree. It can't outclass iPhone or out-geek Android. In a word, worthless.

and 6.5 will go on and on being used and modded by power users for years to come

I didn't realize "power users" meant "a dwindling niche of users stuck in the past". I'll remember that for the next Amiga or Newton story on Slashdot. They abound with "power users" extraordinaire!

because it's the last of the useful mobile OS'es. Long live task manager. :P

POWER USER!!!!

Re:Swing and a miss

[BasilBrush]

Your post makes no sense. Both Symbian and Android are as open (or more open) than WinMo =6.5 is. And they both also have bigger market share.

I'll say the same thing I said before...

[Anonymous Coward]

> But if you lambasted Apple for not having it but you want to excuse MS for not having it, you have some introspection to do.

I'm one of the people who has been giving Apple a hard time (mostly for their lame excuses about why X is unnecessary/pointless ... until they finally add it, when it becomes the most wonderful innovation ever!). I'd just like to say that this new Windows phone SUCKS ASS. Copy/paste is really basic functionality for any computer-like device. Not having it sucks.

I expect this product to become the next Zune.

Old news

[cloakedpegasus]

This was known on day one. http://news.cnet.com/8301-13860_3-20000585-56.html

It wasn't me

[symbolset]

It was Microsoft's marketing department that made this link, not me. If it doesn't leverage the comarketing efforts in the way they desired that's not my fault. It's theirs.

It's too late to undo it. They are linked.

Re:wait a minute

[painandgreed]

Well they did, until Apple decided to put it in (from the complete lack of a user outcry since the iPhone's inception, I'm sure - this is another brilliant concept from the mind of the great Steve Jobs).

If you are serious, I think you are failing to see Apple's sales strategy. They were always going to have cut-and-paste, just like they were always going to have MMS. Sure, the initial version didn't have them, but that is because Apple starts with a small core functionality and makes it work. They don't worry about bullet points as much as they do a working and easy to use end device. One they have it, then they will put out a new version (in the iPhone's case both for hardware and software). The new versions will have those bullet point features added once they have been made to work as well as the core functionality. Not only does this give a solid and useable device which appeals to the general consumer, but also give them feature creep and a reason for people with perfectly working earlier versions to want to buy new models. When the first iPhone came out I knew it would have cut-and-paste as well as MMS if I waited, and it did. Look at the iPod, they did the same thing there. Once the iPod got photos, games, and notes. I knew that it would eventually replace my PDA* in functionality if I waited long enough.

*As it happened, the cell phone replaced if first, but I was still lacking features will lately. The iPod touch would have done that perfectly however if I hadn't have gotten a cell first.

Re:What is it then?

[mmcxii]

The same kind of people who consider WinMo7 and the Kin as having the same OS. At least they should according to the logic of symbolset.

Re:What is it then?

[hairyfeet]

I would also point out that saying they are the same because they have the same core, is like saying Win2K and Win7 are the same OS because they have the NT core. As the FLOSSies will tell you there can be a vastly different experience while keeping an OS core, for example with Linux you can have everything from an embedded minimal OS with nothing but a couple of CLI tools to a fully blown 3d desktop, all while having the same kernel "core at the base.

So I'd say the only way we'll find out if Win7 mobile is any good is to wait until we actually have product in our hands. They may learn from their mistakes and put out a good product like Win7 desktop, they may pull a Vista, who knows? But trying to claim they are one and the same because they have the same core and "someday" MSFT hopes to merge them (remember how many years it took MSFT to merge consumer and business?) is kinda jumping the gun.

Come on now...

[billsayswow]

Come on, don't start coming down on them for no copy-paste yet. It took the iPhone long enough to get it, and we gave them a chance.

Re:Come on now...

[baka_toroi]

The iPhone was offering something new. This doesn't.

Depends on data paths

[SuperKendall]

iPhone didn't have cut-and-paste either..

But what it did have, were data paths for some common needs to transfer data from one place to another. For instance, you could send a URL you were browsing into Mail, or an image from your photo gallery into Mail also, and generally you could click on URL's to bring them up in Safari removing that need for cut&paste.

I think this approach is what Windows Mobile is trying as well, instead of the need for general cut and paste to try and offer more channeled data paths for the user. I still think that approach might not be too bad, I didn't really mind not having cut & paste before and initial users of WM7 might not either depending on what they can do with information.

Well then here you go

[SuperKendall]

It was stupid then and it's stupid now. I haven't seen many excuses yet.

How about the aformentioned Paul Thurrott:

http://www.winsupersite.com/mobile/wp7_love.asp

The multitasking is limited. Users will only be able to get apps from the Marketplace, and not from third parties. Gasp! Is it true that there's no copy and paste?

No matter. Windows Phone combines those very few things that were right about Windows Mobile -- primarily some business functionality -- with a much wider set of new functionality that is exciting in both scope and possibility.

You can read what Paul thought about Apple's lack of Cut & Paste at Daring Fireball

Re:It is the *only* choice they have

[edivad]

Nobody thinks about porting WIndows applications to a Mobile OS.
Of course, you have to implement the GUI using the Mobile OS abstractions and functionality.
Win32 and C/C++ libraries and frameworks that exists inside software companies, go a bit beyond the UI.
With Android, they provided the NDK, while iOSX supports C/C++ code natively.
But no, MS and the management du jour following the mobile unit, decided to break what made them appreciated by ISV and software developers in general.

nonono!

[symbolset]

MS should sit on Windows Phone 7 until they can make it feature complete.

If you wait until it's perfect you'll never ship product. Ship it now and improve it later. It's the One Microsoft Way. They can't afford to wait: they needed to launch this platform two years ago. If they had shipped then it would be "fixed" by now.

Seriously - they're doing great. Let's not give them any more help, ok?