Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft Unveils Windows Phone 7 Lineup
adeelarshad82 writes "Microsoft officially unveiled its Windows Phone 7 mobile operating system, announcing that it will be available on a total of five devices in the US. Windows Phone 7 handsets from AT&T and T-Mobile will begin shipping in November, while devices from Sprint and Verizon will be available next year. In all, Microsoft announced nine Windows Phone 7 phones, the remainder of which will be available in Canada, Mexico, the UK, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Singapore, and Australia. It will debut in some European markets on Oct. 21. While early signs are encouraging for Windows Phone 7, it is being deemed as do or die for the future of Microsoft's business."
So they really expect to take over the market share that RIM/Apple/Android have over the cellphone industry? From what I've read it's a step forward for the windows mobile OS but it's not going to tear anything up. And this from a .net developer who loves his Droid X.
Hold up, wait a minute, let me put some pimpin in it
If they don't get traction with 7, they can do 8. Or buy Nokia or RIM out of couch-cushion change. Or several dozen other ways to buy into the market that I haven't thought of but I'm sure someone in Redmond has, singly or in combination.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
I've played with a developer phone in the last month and I'm currently an iPhone user. I have to say I think they're on to something. I like the iPhone, but I'm probably going to switch to WP7 in November. The integration between app and data is an order of magnitude higher than any other phone out there.
http://chicagodave.wordpress.com
Electronics Arts also announced the first wave of games coming to Windows Phone 7, including "Need for Speed Undercover," "Tetris," and "The Sims 3." Tetris? That's a launch title? Ouch. Need for speed came preinstaleld on my droid, much to my annoyance. Wonder how much bloatware MS is going to get crammed in their OS.
Microsoft has been making pretty awesome products lately. I'm afraid, though, that many of them are failing because of their image, and in fact this is the very reason that I'm not even going to consider getting a Windows Phone 7 in the near future. Even if it is a better underlying platform than Android, the community will be what makes or breaks it, and to the community, Microsoft just isn't cool enough anymore.
Sure Steve. Except it was last weekend.
A real blast from what I hear.
mini's been saying the same thing - that WP7 is the product that will hopefully tie Microsoft together (but comments are weighing heavily towards the "or else" scenario)
KIN3 FTW !!!
-- Barbie
Where is cut and paste and multitasking?
It will be interesting to see if Microsoft can get any buzz with this. It has to be better than IOS, Android, and WebOS. It is only available in the US on AT&T and maybe TMobile. So on AT&T will people buy it over the iPhone? Will AT&T push it much? TMobile is the smallest carrier but they are a good carrier. Will they push it over Android since they have a long record with Android and the G2 has just launched?
Microsoft is just in a very bad position. It isn't like the XBox where they came from nothing. They have a product that for the most part is boring and have been beaten up by both Apple and Android in this market.
Unless WP7 is just super great it will be blah... Or to put it better it will be the Next of Kin.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
MS still controls the desktop, and lots of high end business market. That is a very solid, very profitable market. Then of course there's their office suite, game console, and so on. Having a strong mobile market would do nothing but help them for sure, but if you think they have to "do it or die" you've got your head in the sand. MS is doing just fine.
...and no copy / paste until 2011 because "no one uses it". It would be funny if it wasn't so sad.
Why they don't go with the far more honest line of "we needed to get this out by the holiday shopping season, so here it is".
All flash, no function.
Wow. Just... wow. The HTC surround actually has a slide-out speaker (from Yamaha!)? I can't think of anything I want less in a cell phone. Maybe they should come out with an HTC ButteredPopcorn with a slide-out popcorn popper so I have something to snack on while reading all the (apparently deserved) MS-bashing around these phones.
... to apps I develop on my own phone, I'm out.
And I really, really wanted one of these things, too. Maybe they'll come around and change their policy, but until then, I'm sticking with my dumbphone.
I saw a demonstration of Windows 7 Mobile last week. Microsoft decided to remove the VPN client and remote desktop features that were available in previous versions of Windows Mobile. But the award for lamest concept by a large margin was replacing cut and paste with auto-complete. That didn't go over to well during the Excel Viewer demonstration where people were asking how you transferred formulas from one cell to another.
Sorry to disappoint you, but it's just me (not in any way associated with Microsoft except through using Win7 at work and at home) being honest about my feelings.
I loved the iPhone for a while. But iTunes has got to be one of the worst, most bloated, most annoying applications I've ever loaded on my PC (and that's saying something). I can't stand it. It sucks. Hard. And the iPhone seems to have gotten a little long in the tooth, falling behind Android in many areas, feeling very rigid and "controlled", with few choices.
I hope WP7 is successful, and that MS isn't brain-dead about it, and updates it agressively and listens to feedback and gets the apps it needs.
If WP7 flops, I'll go android for my next phone. But right now, my first choice would be WP7. I like what it has to offer... not as "wild west" as Android (with its mess of models and versions), and not as fascist and controlled as iOS (One True Way, One True Phone, Apple's Way Or The Highway). It seems to be a nice middle-ground, with an innovative UI and concept, very cloud-centric, and integration with things I actually use (like Mac OS X users will almost always prefer the iPhone due to the integration with what THEY use).
- Spryguy
There are three kinds of people in this world: those that can count and those that can't
Please take it from my lengthy, extremely painful, dissatisfied experience. Never buy a Windows Mobile phone. Ever. I don't care WHAT they might have done to this version of the software, I can guarantee you it will not work a fraction as well as any alternatives.
I own an HTC Mogul PPC6800. I have never experienced a product so poor, so lacking in quality and completely failing to fulfill its most primary functions. Every day I have to use it I wonder to myself how it was even released. I have never seen such a poor product even be allowed to enter consumer hands in exchange for money. It is just that bad.
I felt this would be a good topic with which to share that experience.
when you can type up a report and run a spreadsheet (comfortably!) on a phone, then it's time to worry.
"And the iPhone seems to have gotten a little long in the tooth, falling behind Android in many areas, feeling very rigid and "controlled", with few choices."
I don't know if you haven't really read anything about WP7, but it is cloning the Old iPhone, no "cut n' Past", no real multi-tasking, no flash, no side loading applications.
If iPhone "rigid and controlled" is bothering you, it won't change much in WP7, why not go to Android. What do you think WP7 will give you that Android won't?
I'm not really all that much "into" phones -- I use them for occasional note-taking, voice recording, and of course texting and talking. I don't care about Facebook or Twitter integration. The one thing I do care about with the new phones here is the Xbox Live integration. As a gamer who has been bitten by the "Achievement Points" bug (which I totally defend and feel no shame over, but that's another post), I look forward to playing portable games that can affect my Gamerscore, or that integrate in some way with the major console titles. This is the deal-maker for me. I'm not sure it will be for others (Games For Windows Live doesn't seem all that popular).
Yeah, Windows 7 doesn't suck as much as Vista.
Golf clap Microsoft...
And the rest of Microsoft's products?
The biggest piece of garbage console in history, the jet engine loud, RRoD plagued, disc scratching/destroying Xbox 360 and its wimpy graphics
The dead on arrival Kin
The we can't even pay people to use search engine Bing
Golly? Wonder why Microsoft just got downgraded and their stock has been dead in the water for the past decade with everyone calling for the firing of Ballmer?
They even managed to screw up the latest Visual Studio. Boggle.
My problem with Microsoft is that they insist on programming everything in-house and lock you in to in-house networks and in-house apps. I prefer a rich ecosystem like the iPhone and Android where people can make their own apps and have them integrate into your social networking life.
Microsoft - once again - seems to want to make all your decisions for you and shove all their products down your throat.
I seriously wonder how many Microsofties will eat their company's dogfood and geniunely love it.
Y
Hah, it really does.
That said, Microsoft does have a thing for doing integration really well. The problem is, then you are stuck with it. You can't mix and match the best products, tools for the job, or prices.
In the short term, it looks great; in the long term, you get screwed.
Lack of copy and paste... for a few months anyway.
Slashdot's rate-of-post filter: Preventing you from posting too many great ideas at once.
If you're into such gadgets and still don't have a smartphone (unlikely), other platforms offer better phones, more apps and a wider support and probably look better too...
Is it just me or is 10mm hardly thin for a 'thinnest' these days - after all, iPhone 4 is 9.3mm...
If you already have a capable phone - I can't really think of a single feature that could be considered an upgrade over latest in Symbian, Android or iOS...
Verizon customers are starving for a new smart phone, why not start there? An AT&T customer looking for a new phone will go with an iPhone due to having 100 friends with one or because they have a previous version. A Verizon customer coming up for renewal would have to choose between two new commers, Droid and WP7. Seems like they would get more initial traction against Droid than iPhone.
I prefer the Microsoft tools. That's not to say I wouldn't get an Android if I had to pick a smartphone, but .NET development is just easier (and the tools are just better) than what Google offers.
(I program in both Java and C# for a living, so it's not an issue of familiarity, just an honest preference)
I'm not going to talk heavily about whether or not Windows Phone 7 is a good consumer phone. Only time will tell what kind of market adoption it will have verses the iPhone, Android, and Blackberries already present in the market.
I will, however, bemoan the complete lack of enterprise-ready features. Support for Exchange and and Office are good, but it's still a step backward from Windows Mobile 6.5. There's no support for 3rd party or enterprise apps. No mention of tethering or security certificates. Enterprise features such as have been promised at a future date, but I need a enterprise ready phone now. Maybe the Windows mobile 6.5 platform can be stretched to cover this need another year or two. But at this point, they're very little reason not to accept the reduced set of enterprise features and move to Android or the iPhone.
In its rush to grab a chunk of the consumer market, Microsoft may lose what market it had in the enterprise world.
Shameless plug for my photos on Flickr
I got nauseous from the swipe interface.
Simple question, how will I effectively keep my 100+ apps/games organize with this interface? I know there's a "hub", but all my games is be games and then I'll have to scroll through pages and pages of icons.
Claiming that anyone who doesn't hate MS must then be being paid by them is like you leftoids also claiming that anyone on the political right must be racists. As if one couldn't possibly have a preference for something that you don't. It makes you sound like the retards that you are, and no one's buying it.
Some other rather solid MS products (if a little developer oriented):
Reading slashdot one-liner: (irm http://rss.slashdot.org/Slashdot/slashdot).rdf.item | fl title,desc*
Microsoft added Angry Birds to Windows Phone 7 site, Angry Birds developer say WTF!!!!??? They are so interested in making Windows 7 Mobile OS popular, they are making one sided friendships.
Won't this fragment the market, or does that astromeme only apply to Apple or Google :)
Bing, Zune, Kin are fairly typical Microsoft junk products. Forgettable and kind funny in a sad way.
The Xbox 360 really is such a piece of shit that it really is shocking even by Microsoft standards. It must be nice to work at Microsoft knowing that no matter how bad your product sucks it won't come close to the stinking pile of fail that the Xbox 360 was.
They're way better at incorporating other 3rd parties into their ecosystem than Apple, and it's "all Apple Lock-in"...
Again, MS is sort of a happy medium between iOS and Android.
- Spryguy
There are three kinds of people in this world: those that can count and those that can't
One thing MS has going for it is their XNA platform shared with xbox makes it easy for xbox devs to port to the MS platform. I believe from a technology POV .NET is better than Java at the VM level at least. Their developer tools are world class. Given what can be leveraged from non-mobile technologies already in widespread use MS at least has a shot at significant market share. As evidenced by Andriod it is possible to be disruptive in this space in a short amount of time.
I personally object to iphone/WP7 style vendor lockin and refuse to enrich any technology company who thinks they have a right to lock down my phone to such a degree. No SD card slots, no managing your own files or installing your own apps..no thank you.
iTunes has got to be one of the worst, most bloated, most annoying applications I've ever loaded on my PC
Have you tried Media Monkey? You can sync your files and not have to worry about iTunes (although it still has to be installed). I use it almost exclusively for all my media files.
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
Here's a clue dipshit. Next time you try to lie about a console, don't make up shit about the best selling console of all time that 145 million people over the past decade have bought and used for years.
Spewing fanboy lies about other consoles isn't ever going to make the Xbox 360's RRoD fiasco any less of an sickening chapter in the history of gaming and an absolute disgusting saga for Microsoft.
Microsoft deserves every single bit of hate and disgust over their sickening behavior in shipping defective by design console hardware. And they deserve every bit of hate for spending a year trying to deny it and lie about it in public before being force to face up to their junk 360 hardware and pay for replacement hardware.
No wonder the console world despises Microsoft, the Xbox, and the tiny Xbox fan niche of the console market.
Definitely a shill. Been waving the blue, red, green & yellow flag since the Win7 beta: http://slashdot.org/~SpryGuy
He just LOVES the office ribbon too.
So, are we going to need Windows Phone 7 Professional to be able to make phone calls and Windows Phone 7 Ultimate to have cut and paste?
What's crappy about it? As a game matching service, it seems to work well enough...not to mention the ton of stuff you have access to with a free account.
Living With a Nerd
MS didn't show it in the demo (that I saw).
The quality of the browser is paramount. Do we know if it's any good? Their last one sure wasn't.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
WINDOWS 1.0 TILES! WINDOWS 1.0 TILES! WINDOWS 1.0 TILES!
yeah, the act's old, but so is that interface.
don't forget to tip the waiters! -- I'll be here 5 to life, tell your friends.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
CEO Ivan said so last week. they can't keep what they've got in stock, and they can't comment in any way on the VeriPhone rumors, and they're finishing up 38 cities of LTE expansion, so they've really got a full plate.
and they've not got the bad taste of the Kin out yet, either.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
A tactic against which cloud-syncing devices like the Palm Pre are technically immune.
And there's a big risk that"#6)" on your list becomes something like "get once again sued for the bazillionth time for monopoly abuse, as usual".
And there's a big chance that they'll actually *DO* this.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Are many of you just taking an opportunity to bash Microsoft, or are you bashing the platform? There's a difference, and for those that claim the latter, I'd really like to hear something more concrete and relevant.
meh exactly. I have a t-mobile G2 with the hspa network and am thrilled. Why in the world would I want to support Microsoft anymore? Got Ubuntu on my home server and daily machine, the only place I have to suffer windows hell is at work. I definitely don't want that shit on my phone.
The Xbox 360 is doing just as badly as the first Xbox marketplace failure:
The Xbox was dead in Japan.
The Xbox 360 is dead in Japan.
The Xbox was dead everywhere in Europe outside the UK.
The Xbox 360 is dead everywhere in Europe outside the UK.
The Xbox relied almost entirely on US PC gamers.
The Xbox 360 is once again almost entirely reliant on US based PC gamers.
Even the installed base numbers are almost identical when you give even generous estimates of the millions of replacement Xbox 360s bought over the past five years:
Xbox was about 25 million worldwide before Microsoft killed it.
The Xbox 360 is about 40 million worldwide which fits almost perfectly with the most common 65 percent failure rate.
25 million + (25 million * .65) == 40 million or so
The same people who bought the first Xbox are buying the Xbox 360. The same hundreds of millions of console gamers who didn't care about the Xbox last gen still don't care about the Xbox 360 this gen.
As long as I have to pay $99 ... to apps I develop on my own phone, I'm out
Discover Windows Phone 7 Development
1.Download the Windows Phone Developer Tools.
2.Create your Windows Phone app.
3.Test it in the Windows Phone Emulator.
4.Sell it in the Marketplace.
The - Free - Windows Phone Tools:
[Vista and Windows 7 Only]
Visual Studio 2010 Express For Windows Phone
Windows Phone Emulator
Silverlight For Windows Phone
XNA Game Studio 4.0
Expression Blend 4 For Windows Phone.
Visual Studio Express 2010 For Microsoft Phone
Channel 9
Windows Phone 7 Developer Training Kit
Getting started with Windows Phone
Silverlight for Windows Phone
XNA Framework 4.0 for Windows Phone
But iTunes has got to be one of the worst, most bloated, most annoying applications I've ever loaded on my PC (and that's saying something)
I'm confused. What do you need iTunes for, exactly?
You can use Media Monkey to sync your media onto your iPhone. With iOS 4 you can create playlists on the phone.
You can download and install apps from the phone. After buying an app on one device you can download it free on another with the same account (why doesn't this apply to media?).
The only reason you'd need iTunes would be to perform backups and to activate your phone the first time you use it. Considering that backups don't actually back up everything (definitely a negative, Apple, I'm looking at app settings and information), you really just need iTunes once.
The last time I synced my iPod Touch was mid June, and the last time I synced my iPhone was August 2nd, when I upgraded to iOS 4.
And this is on a Mac, where iTunes is a staple!
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/features/2010/oct10/10-11WP7main.mspx
I like this part:
As people use their phones, they’ll discover lots of thoughtfully designed features and perks. Holding down the camera shutter button, for example, lets the user take a picture even if the phone is locked – as Lees says, “unlocking your phone can sometimes mean the difference between missing the moment or not.”
I predict Flickr albums full of pictures on the insides of people's pockets and purses.
Does anybody know if Windows 7 will be restricted to running applications bought through their official marketplace (like iPhones are)? I hadn't heard much about this issue until I read a blog, a couple of weeks ago, that implied that they might go the way of the iPhone on this issue. That broke my heart because I love my windows mobile phone but would be unwilling to tolerate this.
(In case anyone cares, PdaNet is why I'm so passionate about this issue. It's a very useful app that would never survive in a restricted marketplace setup).
sHi
It's a great service for gamers who have Xboxes. For general consumers that don't have an Xbox or Xbox Live, there isn't much of an advantage to having Xbox Live integration.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
What? A tiny niche? I'm a ps3 and a wii owner myself (with no 360) but you've GOT to be kidding me. The 360 has a huge share of the market, and it's especially huge when you consider it's only Microsoft's second console.
The vast majority of people who own a 360 use it almost exclusively to play games on xbox live. You can trust me when I say the ridiculously huge sales for MW2 and Halo:Reach were not for the single player portions of the games.
I think Microsoft is failing to recognize that consumers see their mobile phone as something personal. Much like a watch or handbag, consumers want their phone to reflect who they are or who they want to be. This isn't an expectation consumers have of most of the other MSFT products. Things like Office, Windows, Visual Studio, etc. are just tools used to accomplish an end.
Microsoft needs to provide a story that makes people want to connect with their phone. Their biggest push seems to be X-Box Live. I hate to say it, but the people that are going to connect with their phone because it offers XBox Live are probably in the dorks or kids category. Your average person doesn't have a need to be connected to their gamer account 24/7 nor would they have even the slightest interest in that capability. Hell, I'd even venture on to say that most people would be slightly embarrassed to be connected to a phone that was strongly associated with that capability. Few people really want to carry around the 'gamer' label.
Think of a singles bar. A guy is sitting down looking at his phone when a girl walks up and inquires about it. Guy replies "It's my new Windows Phone 7. It lets me connect to my gamer profile on XBox Live so I can score new acheivements and see my friends' gamer scores 24/7." Girl rolls eyes and walks away. Christ, they might as well have tried to sell the phone by saying it connects seamlessly with your WOW account.
To make matters worse there will be two big sets of early adopters with this phone - MSFT employees (because they get a free one) and the types of people mentioned in the preceeding paragraph. Neither group really represents the core of the "people everyone wants to be like" group. In fact, they're more in the "people looked down upon by my social circle" group. Those are the first folk people will see using the phone.
I'm not trying to trash on gamers or MSFT employees or gamers (I've worked at MSFT and used to spend a fair amount of time on Live), but MSFT should at least realize that they aren't necessarily in the 'cool' crowd and probably aren't going to be persuasive in getting people outside their circle to buy a WP7.
So, in short, people want to their phone to be cool. MSFT isn't really 'cool'. They need to do something to make their phone cool so people want it (because being built on the MSFT platform isn't going to cut it buy itself). They tried to make it cool by adding Xbox Live integration. Apparently MSFT hasn't figured out that being considered a 'gamer' isn't really cool.
Whatever you say SpryGuy...
Only I can judge you.
whatever you say SpryGuy...
Only I can judge you.
That's what Apple does with jailbreakers, after all!
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
The quirk is that like many other pieces of Microsoft technology, while truthfully claiming it is "cross platform" it is really only implemented and running smoothly in one central platform. Live is in Messenger but is only a thin/lightweight client. There is a web interface at xbox.com but again the functionality seems limited. Even on PC the support is highly variable and dependent on the vendor. It truly shines on the 360 though but even the version we see to day on the dash is only after years of aggressive revision. I expect Win7 Phones to have some neat features but nothing to make me change how I use Live, XBox or other flavor.
But beyond that, Microsoft's fixation on Apple seems wrong. Microsoft's competition is really RIM/Blackberry for the business crowd and Google for replacing them in the Phone OS market. While Microsoft was failing to deliver on Windows Mobile 6, RIM came in and swept up the tech business customers with a lot of enterprise connectivity features while Google came in a replaced Microsoft as "the guys who make phone OS". Apple is worth some attention but RIM and Google cost them their base so why focus on Apple?? Microsoft's current obsession on beating Apple is derailing what they should be concentrating on so I'm not really surprised Microsoft thinks it is important to have Live integration to win against Apple.
Is Microsoft the new Palm? I guess we'll find out but it isn't a good sign when Microsoft seems equally interested in rattling sabers with phone fabricators to make Win7 Phones for patent protection...or else!
It's a great service for gamers who have Xboxes. For general consumers that don't have an Xbox or Xbox Live, there isn't much of an advantage to having Xbox Live integration.
MobileMe is a great service for iPhone owners with MobileMe. For general consumers that don't have a MobileMe account, there isn't much of an advantage to having MobileMe integration.
See what I did there?
There are far more Xbox Live subscribers than MobileMe account holders. Only a tiny fraction of iphone owners get a mobileme account. Yet several of the iphones more interesting features are locked away behind that service. If WinMo7 offers mobileme features for free + extra stuff that ties into the gamer-centric xbl it will potentially be quite attractive to a LOT of people.
There are far more Xbox Live subscribers than MobileMe account holders. Only a tiny fraction of iphone owners get a mobileme account. Yet several of the iphones more interesting features are locked away behind that service. If WinMo7 offers mobileme features for free + extra stuff that ties into the gamer-centric xbl it will potentially be quite attractive to a LOT of people.
MobileMe is for consumers that use Windows, OS X, iPhone, iPod Touch, or iPads. Xbox Live is only for gamers that use Microsoft's Xbox gaming platform. Gee, which population is bigger? Consumers or Xbox gamers? Targeting such a niche population isn't a major benefit.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Microsoft is two to three years behind everyone else now. They have an OS that is about equivalent to iPhone OS2.
That's all fine and dandy if we were in 2008 and Android was still a clunky geek OS on rubbish handsets, but it's on the up now. Many of the OEMs who were skinning WinMo are now doing so with Android instead.
>>will be available on a total of five devices in the US
Surely they can aim a little higher than five devices. I've got 14 staff, that's one between three.
I'll have it on Mon, Tue and Wed, you can have it Thu and Fri. Then you can have it for the weekend.
The rest of you sort yourselves out.
Oh, that's right we got bored waiting for it and are quite happy with these shiny HTC things.
I think the development tools are going to help win or lose this platform. For anyone who has developed on the competition (particularly BlackBerry and iPhone) you'll know that there is plenty of room in this regard. If MS can improve the state of the art as it relates to mobile app development, then they may just be able to carve a slice out of the mobile device market.
With that said, they have an uphill battle since since the entrenched mobile market has such a strong majority (BlackBerry / iPhone / Android) and at least two of these vendors have a compelling app marketplace. I've played with a few of the Phone 7 devices and I think the UI might need some work, but this is something that can be improved on. Assuming the development environment has a flexible and robust separation to the presentation tier, this should be rather seamless.
We'll see...
Eric Sarjeant
eric[@]sarjeant.com
There are roughly 2 million MobileMe subscribers vs 23 million Xbox Live Subscribers.
Gee, which population is bigger?
Indeed.
Targeting such a niche population isn't a major benefit.
"such a niche population"?
So what you're saying is that MS is only targeting potentially 40 million Xbox users whereas Apple is targeting 40 million iPhone users + iPod Touch users + iPad users. Indeed.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
I did NOT post that. I'm not a Glenn-Beck-tard like that anonymous coward. I'm a proud progressive :-)
I did almost reply to the same guy you did, but decided it wasn't worth my time to react to an anonymous troll post.
But don't assume that was me. Please.
- Spryguy
There are three kinds of people in this world: those that can count and those that can't
No, that's not what I'm saying at all.
You are talking about the market for the service itself.
I am talking about the ability to market integration features to users of the service.
What I'm saying is:
Microsofts Xbox live integration feature in WinMo7 targets 23 million xbox live users.
Apple's MobileMe integration feature in iOS benefits 2 million mobileme users.
This is my point:
iPhone: You can get MobileMe. At that is required is that you pay the yearly subscription.
Windows Phone 7: It has Xbox Live Integration: At that is required is that you have an Xbox 360 and an Xbox Live subscription.
If you already have Xbox Live, it's great. If you don't (and many consumers don't), then it's not really a bonus. The Xbox Live integration feature is narrowly targeted to one particular demographic (Xbox gamers) whereas anyone (general consumers) can get MobilMe if they chose.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
The problem at Microsoft is that any great idea coming from the bottom up needs to pass though something like eleven layers of management to make it out the door.
i hate to break it to you but ios (obj-c) and android (java) don't endorse user apps in c++ either.
Objective-C in a Cocoa program for iOS or Mac OS X can be linked to C++ code (source). The Android SDK has an extension called NDK allowing use of C++ along with Java.
Whay so interesting? It's just a phohe OS. Doesn't come with many apps. Apps must be added. Copy/paste? Surely will miss, but I can't really call copying and then pasting (hot links should be hot already). Mutltitasking? Are you really depending on that? The way it works there is that you leave an app, it gets buried for later resurrection. If you start another app the current app also gets buried. Back key out of an app and you resurrect any app previously left buried. For all intents, it's as it was when you left, only not running at all (it was buried after all). Just how many apps do you want to keep churning away when you start something else? Probably few. There is a page file on this OS. Weird, I know.
It's a contender. It's not revolutionary, so don't feel so threatened. If you don't care for it, ignore it. Most will probably do that for a while, anyway. And don't you really want to do as most do? Yeah, I thought so.
I like the new Win 7 phones, especially the HTC and Samsung ones and Win Phone 7 looks fairly comfortable with nice big UI buttons. Will definitely be looking into one next year when my contract is up.
However, the ZunePass, currently, is probably not going to be much of a crowd pleaser. iTunes Music Store has the music market pretty much sown up at the moment. That might change however, because a lot of people like Steve Jobs even less than they do Ballmer, which takes some doing.
I also think Xbox live integration will be interesting for some but probably not be much of a deciding factor either. There aren't enough Xbox gamers who use Live to make a dent in the phone market.
Similarly, Windows Live is not Facebook or Twitter.
And finally the Office integration is a good deal for business people, but it won't make that much of a difference in the consumer market.
No, what will decide the market is apps and word of mouth popularity. Android got off to a slow start but has now overtaken the iPhone. WinPhone 7 can do this as well if the phones are good value for money and perform well without too many bugs. Consumers don't care who the phone comes from, but they do care if it's popullar with others and works well enough for them.
Wow. Just... wow. The HTC surround actually has a slide-out speaker (from Yamaha!)?
I hear plans are in the work for a special 2010 update to the old propeller beanie, that revolves the phone around your head at 60RPS for TRUE surround sound.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I see what you did there. Neat fallacy, but let's make things honest (and more in line with GP's point):
* There are 23 million XBox gamers with XBox Live subscriptions
* meanwhile, there are roughly 1.5 - 2 billion human beings who could be reasonably considered as "consumers" out there.
But, you were busily counting one phone's potential pool, versus the paid result of the other. See the problem?
Now, to be perfectly fair, out of the 23m XBox gamers, you're going to have to remove the under-18 demographic, and a reasonable percentage of folks who can afford an XBox, but not an ongoing smartphone plan. The leftover folks may or may not consider a console-phone semi-link to be a factor, let alone a deciding one.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
Now, to be perfectly fair, out of the 23m XBox gamers, you're going to have to remove the under-18 demographic, and a reasonable percentage of folks who can afford an XBox, but not an ongoing smartphone plan. The leftover folks may or may not consider a console-phone semi-link to be a factor, let alone a deciding one.
The under 18 demographic? All those 14 year olds who bought xboxes and subscribe to xbox live gold? I don't think that's much of a demographic. There certainly are parents who bought xboxes for their kids, they'll buy their kids phones too.
there are roughly 1.5 - 2 billion human beings who could be reasonably considered as "consumers" out there.
Those 1.5 - 2 billion human beings are consumers and target market for any phone.
iPhone: You can get MobileMe. At that is required is that you pay the yearly subscription.
Except that the VAST majority aren't and are foregoing the extra features (online sync, find my phone, etc).
Windows Phone 7: It has Xbox Live Integration: At that is required is that you have an Xbox 360 and an Xbox Live subscription.
AHA. This seems to be a source of confusion. No, you don't require an xbox 360.
Its not JUST integrating with your pre-existing xbox 360 games account.
You can have an xbox live game account without a 360. You'll be able to play games, get ranked, use player matching services, collect achievements, chat with friends, play online/multiplayer games, etc... strictly from the phone.
It takes the itunes games marketplace, and the iOS "game center" and kicks it out of the park.
Xbox Live integration isn't about being useful if you have a 360. Its a games platform all on its own.
But, yeah, if you have a 360 too, you use the same account on both.
If you already have Xbox Live, it's great.
Yes, if you already have a 360 its that much better.
But if you don't its still worth looking at as a gaming platform in its own right.
Actually have Windows 7? I've never even seen it...
Eric
Phones will have a variety of ways to connect to a monitor (network, Bluetooth, HDMI, projector)
USB 3 ports for mouse, keyboard, and unlimited fast storage. Bluetooth works for this as well. This can also Connect you to wired Ethernet. They already have fine wifi.
You will just walk up to your workstation consisting of a monitor, kb, mouse, maybe an external drive (but storage could be on a remote server) and start working. All peripherals seamlessly connect to your phone, which remains in your pocket.
Why do we need laptops again? Many of these capabilities are already in existence.
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
First of all, neither of those things is likely to work. By the time they get an 8 released they'll be even further behind the curve than they are now - and we'll be closer to the cloud client, which completely undoes their local client OS leverage. Either of those acquisitions wouldn't get them any more than Danger did: an opportunity to destroy the legacy of a one-popular but declining popular brand. And they can't keep doing that.
I find it interesting that on the day that the Windows Revolution Phone was first shown Microsoft stock traded flat at less than 80% of the price it started the year, and Apple shares climbed to another all-time high at 120% of the price they started. It looks like a lot of people don't see this as news of any kind - bloggerati and commenters like ourselves notwithstanding.
They don't have the luxury of time any more. In the real world nobody gets unlimited Mulligans.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
MS still controls the desktop, and lots of high end business market.
Hadn't you heard? We're going to the cloud. In the cloud the client OS doesn't matter. The processing, the apps, the data - they're all in the cloud.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
It was do or die time two years ago when they didn't launch something better than this. Kin was the death spasm. WP7 is just the final evacuation as the corpse's sphincters relax.
What if you threw an OS press party and nobody cared? Thats the attitude the world needs to take on any Microsoft product... just indifference
"Computers are a lot like Air Conditioners" "They both work great until you start opening Windows"
I've had 8 different Windows mobile devices since 2004 (Audiovox SMT5600 to a HTC Touch Pro 2) and they have always been some of the most capable phones available when I purchased them, and once you get to know one, they can do just about everything you want to do with a mobile phone. Especially if you spend a little time over at XDA Developers or PPCGeeks!
Windows Mobile 6.5 (and 6.1) works very well for me, and I rarely have to restart it after days of use, and after having WM for a while, you get all the apps you need, and just use one of the many free restore programs to reinstall everything after you reflash, or hard reset the device.
I trust my data (and there's a lot of it) on these devices, and I just don't trust it on an Android device yet. Don't get me wrong. I still think I get the occasional virus, trojan, whatever you wanna call it on my device, as it will show the tell-tale signs of being infected, but It's painless to restore it (and it gives me an excuse to upgrade ROMs:) and I know when it's gonna happen based on the sights I go to!
I can also run Android on my TP2, and it works pretty well, I just can't help but feel data-mined every time I boot it up though! Ubuntu runs suprisingly well also!!
So, I guess WM might not amke the most user friendly device as far as getting it to do what you want, but it's just like a mini Windows box, and once you find your way sround, and install a few of your favorite programs, it's all there. So to me (and I love linux too) Windows Mobile "just works pretty well".
I've been looking for a good, detailed and high def video of the interface and finally found one.
The phone is in Italian but the review is in English. It really showcases the interface quite a bit when it isn't playing a questionable soundtrack...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jKvRNcYyx1E
No wireless. Less space than a nomad. Lame.
They were such a niche population. Always mowed their lawn, helped old Mrs. O'Leary cross the street..."
The question is what group MS is targeting with this feature. It appears that MS is only targeting users that already use their existing products instead of consumers in general. You'd think that if MS wanted more universal acceptance of the phone, they'd go for general consumers and not a narrower demographic. While very few get MobilMe, Apple isn't limiting it to people who use Macs; it's open to the same requirements as the mobile device that they are buying. Including Office support is different in that many people use Office; only gamers use Xbox Live. The litmus test would probably be the grandmother test: Would your grandmother care about Xbox Live integration on a consumer phone; very few would. They might care about Office integration.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.