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Microsoft Kills the Kin
adeelarshad82 writes "The Microsoft Kin is dead, or at least it doesn't have a future as a standalone product. Microsoft released a statement suggesting that it's cutting bait on the Windows Phone 7 spinoff and folding the project's staff and technologies into the main body of Windows Phone 7. For now, it seems like Verizon Wireless will continue to sell Kin phones. But with the Kin team essentially disbanded, it's hard to see future updates and support for the line being a priority within Microsoft."
The Kin can be summed up with the following:
a.) Name was horrible and made no sense.
b.) What was the point of the device again?
c.) Ads were annoying and made no sense
So in essence this is just another typical Microsoft device. le'sigh.
What the hell was the Kin? Never heard of it before.
And let me add insult to injury:
(Sent from my iPhone.)
Lawrence Person (lawrencepersonh@gmailh.com (remove all "h"s to mail)
http://www.lawrenceperson.com/
It was a 'kin stupid name. I don't know what the 'kin 'ell they were 'kin thinking. 'kin idiots.
"I have the attention span of a strobe lit goldfish, please get to the point quickly!"
I can't think of any other product that Microsoft made that fell out of its graces so quickly. I think even Microsoft Bob got a year in the stores before it was "retired".
...it is rather enjoyable to watch Microsoft these days...I understand that the new boss is probably same as the old boss. But, damn, it's down right fascinating to watch it all unfold.
How will I know when ?uestlove is having a free concert in the park?
The real question here isn't so much why did they get rid of it -- that's pretty obvious -- but why they released this product in the first place? Is their management really so out of touch they thought this had potential?
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
I don't understand fishing metaphors! Seriously. What is that supposed to mean?
That would be Windows Phone 7. Thanks to Android it's likely to meet a similar fate.
They just can't help themselves, especially in mobile. It's like, if they ever stick to a plan for a full year, we'll all know what they're up to! Can't have that. Call it the Sun syndrome...
But on the bright side, one of their employees has come to the conclusion that, in principle anyway, it would be good if their software worked. And was easy to use.
http://www.crn.com/software/225701869
So maybe they'll give that a shot soon.
This is a phone for kids and young adult. How many of these are able to afford more than $100 a month for a phone. My first mobile phone was $50 a month, and that was when I was working at higher than minimum wage. Sure the ads depict kids with unlimited resources who can afford to take cabs around the city and fly all over the country, but that is like a TV where people with no visible means of income can afford spacious NYC apartments. No one takes it seriously, or maybe they did.
I think this is another case of people worshiping verizon no matter how little sense it makes, thinking that if they can cut a deal they wil automatically become successful. I keep asking if one wants to sell phones to a market that does not already have smart phone saturation, why not go for Cricket or Boost? They could keep the recurring to something a young adult could have a chance of keeping up with.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
Well, I suppose we'll be calling Ballmer "Fëanor" now.
until something sticks. That seems to be their current strategy with cell phones, and unfortunately, despite this individual failure, with their money and resources, I have a feeling something will stick eventually. For every Clippy and Bob and ME and Vista there is an XP and 7. Hrmm, okay, no alternative to Clippy and Bob ever took off. But hell, Office is still raking in dough.
"From the depths of my skeptical and rationalist soul, I ask the Lord to protect me from California touchie-feeliedom."
Perhaps the kids they were marketing it to realized that if they were going to have to pay a smartphone data plan they might as well just get a smartphone that actually has apps and a future.
Really, Android phones are cheap these days and even the crappiest of Android phones can do more than Kin can.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
... but I've only been seeing ads on TV for the Kin for about 2-3 weeks....
That's the crazy thing... it's only been *on the market* for 2-3 weeks. They basically killed it right away.
Engadget covered this a bit better, but basically through bad project management, they delayed the whole thing by 18 months, and a LOT has changed in the smartphone space in that time. If they had come out with it 18 months ago, it might have made sense.
Now even microsoft is coming out with a new mobile OS, it really doesn't make sense to support two, and Verizon was pretty upset that microsoft delayed it so long, so they didn't give microsoft the low plan pricing they originally planned for.
All in all, it never made sense to anyone, and now its gone. Its like the palm Foleo all over again.
-Taylor
Worldwide Military budgets: $2100 billion. Worldwide Space Exploration budgets: $38 billion. Really, world? Really?
Slashdot, how could you miss the chance for the headline, "Microsoft kills it's Kin"?
Withe pretty much any other thing you can name, I can own more than one, even if they do the same thing but slightly differently.
Two cars if I can afford it? One's a pickup and the other's a Mini? Can do.
Hi-tops, oxfords, and sandals? A big TV and a little TV? No problem.
But for just personal use I can only really have one mobile phone. If I want two phones I'd have to pay an additional fee and have an extra phone number that I don't need.
If I was heavily into social networking, having a phone designed from the ground up just for that could be handy. But I'd still want a "real" smart phone that's good at everything else. If I have to choose between one or the other, I'd take the smart phone that's just OK at social networking.
If they want things like the Kin to work, they need to let users have more than one phone on the same number. Only then will people other than tween girls buy a "fun" phone along with a "real" phone.
.
Prisencolinensinainciusol. Ol Rait!
Actually the problem with the linux desktop is lack of hype and the fact that you can easily reconfigure it.
MacOS has lots of hype and you can reconfigure it very much. This forces people to use MacOS more or less with the default settings. And because of the hype people are willing to use it long enough to get used to it.
There is no hype for the linux desktop. And since its not what people are used to, they start spending lots of time reconfiguring it to make it more like windows. The end result is that many users end up with a desktop OS thats a poor approximation of windows which took a lot of configuration to get that way.
Its a shame. If people just installed it and didn't go messing with the configuration too much and instead just got used to the interface, they'd have a really good experience with it. But it goes against the philosophy of linux to forbid users from configuring things the way apple does. So people will continue to move the applications menu to the lower left corner, get rid of the top panel, etc, throwing away all the hard work people did on UI design. And after they make the UI hard to use, they complain that the UI is hard to use.
The biggest problem with getting used to the linux desktop interface is that when you have to use windows or macOS it feels like a big step backwards.
IMO Microsoft just made their mobile platform problems worse. They spent all that time, money and effort to roll Kin out,
made deals with other companies, blew out a huge advertising campaign, and then waited all of about a nanosecond to
kill it.
Every Kin cell phone buyer is now locked into a (usually) 2 year contract to use and pay for a phone with no future. Didn't
they do the same thing with OEMs and end-users of their DRM'ed PlaysForSure music?
Why in the world would anyone be stupid enough to skip over all that and buy into Windows 7 Phones? -- Because *this*
time they'll get it right and not drop the tech at the first sign of turbulence?
-- Gary Goldberg KA3ZYW 301/249-6501 AIM:OgGreeb Digital Marketing Inc., Bowie, MD
No doubt Verizon is thrilled about this news and eager to back Microsoft's next effort with lots of co-marketing dollars, shelf space and sales face time after spending many millions up front for an exclusive. Developers must be lining up three deep.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Baby. Wooooooooo.
wait... the kin was a PHONE?! I thought it was a softball the got the internet.
the guy was kind of stalking his ex-girlfriend or something? Wow, who'd imagine that would fail?
Did you know 80 to 90% of the moderators on slashdot wouldn't recognize a troll even if one dragged them under a bridge.
If you have a GSM phone, you can switch between handsets without much trouble - just put the SIM into the one you want to use, and have at it. You may have to mess with syncing contacts, etc., but you'd have the problem with multiple handsets with the same number anyway.
Microsoft has a really tough time coming up with anything with a future outside of Windows Desktops. Even that was suspect for a while when Vista sucked so horribly badly for so godawfully long.
They've had OVER A DECADE to get Windows Mobile "right". I have a Winmo 6.0 phone, and while it's quite capable, it's also clear that a designer never got anywhere NEAR it. Buttons move randomly. It's slow. Some buttons (EG: green "call" button) work the same everywhere except where they do something else - a result that's immensely maddening. I could be looking at a number that I KNOW is a cell phone, but I have no way to simply send a text message to it without exiting everything and go back in through contacts... as one of too many examples to name.
Future?
Remember Plays4Sure? It was Microsoft's answer to the iTunes store, and it almost worked. Numerous music manufacturers were beginning to rally behind it, until Microsoft came out with their Zune, which didn't use PlaysForSure at all. Instead, it had its own marketplace!
How much louder of a vote of "no confidence" could Microsoft give their own product than to refuse to use it in their own development? To this day, you can't buy music with Microsoft's music store and have it work on their own player.
You can't make up this kind of ineptitude.
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
The moment Verizon decided that they would require a $30 per month data plan for the Kin, it was dead in the water.
Windows 8 will be centered around the "Windows App Store" - a brilliant innovation I think you'll agree. Microsoft is again leading the world forwards into a new era.
No sig today...