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Skype Finally Arrives On Microsoft Phones
judgecorp writes "Skype has finally delivered version 1.0 of Skype for Windows Phone, bringing support for its parent Microsoft's mobile platform up to the level of that enjoyed by rivals Android and iPhone. from the article: 'Skype for Windows Phone is available in 18 different languages and will be available on most local Windows Phone Marketplaces within the next 48 hours.
The app features the ability to make free voice and video calls to other Skype users as well as affordable calls to landlines and mobiles using Skype credit over a 4G, 3G or Wi-Fi connection.'"
I'm sure the carriers will just love this and push windows phones even harder in their stores.
Unfortunately, you still can't receive calls without having the app open in the foreground... sort of defeats the purpose of having Skype on your phone, unless you're the kind of person that only MAKES calls.
Seems WinMo is the only platform with this restriction... works fine on Android and I'm guessing iOS too?
Is the purpose of Skype's existence to save money on international calls? Is there any other reason to use it that I'm missing?
It's a deal breaker for a lot potential customers and current ones. I'll be looking at the google tablet very hard when it shows up this summer.
I was worried for a minute that the Windows Phone owner wouldn't be able to make calls with his smartphone. Crisis averted!
"None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license." --John Milton
I don't understand either why it's so hard to integrate to phone operations.
It worked like a charm on nokia N900, directly integrated into everything, no need to install anything or start separate apps.
The same issue was present in the Beta. Unfortunately yes, the client goes completely inactive when its in the background.
The fact this guy called Windows Phone 7 "WinMo" kind of suggests he doesn't know what he's talking about.
Why? Everyone I know calls them WinMo phones, too. Microsoft may call it something else, but they're Windows Mobile phones, therefore, WinMo.
Is it just me, or does everything about Windows Phone an effort to slavishly copy what Apple was doing ~5 years ago, the good and especially the bad? Even if one supposes that Apple's products are the be-all/end-all of the phone world, and there's no significant market chunk that's underserved by them and could be more easily taken by differentiating your product than cloning, surely you could learn from the past several revisions, and try to copy what they're doing now?
It's in all the articles :(
http://www.phonearena.com/news/Skype-for-Windows-Phone-goes-out-of-beta-final-version-released_id29363
http://blog.gsmarena.com/skype-for-windows-phone-no-longer-in-beta/
http://www.technobuffalo.com/companies/microsoft/windows-phone/skype-for-windows-phone-drops-beta-tag-but-still-wont-work-in-background/
http://www.theverge.com/2012/4/22/2967087/skype-for-windows-phone-version-1-0-final
The app still doesn't do basic stuff that the Skype app on Android does fine, like being able to receive calls when the app is not active. From what I read, this is a limitation of the platform. I really don't understand the glowing reviews for the Lumia 900 and the relentless praise for Windows Phone 7, in glowing reviews like this one: http://techcrunch.com/2012/04/15/nokia-lumia-900-review-this-ones-a-no-brainer/
It seems people can't stop making excuses for WP7, just because it's different to iOS and Android. It doesn't support dual core processors and resolutions higher than 800x480, and now it looks like no current phone will get an upgrade to Windows Phone 8, which is even worse than Android fragmentation issues. And it sounds like a repeat the HTC HD2 story, the HD2 was never upgraded to Windows 7 despite having the hardware to support it. It comes with a childish and uncustomizable homescreen. The applications screen consists of one long scrolling list that becomes a pain once you have a few apps installed. It was clever when it came out, but as Joshua Topolsky said for WP7 it's time we stopped giving it a pass.
Microsoft would have to bless the app or add some background service with special privileges that listens for inbound calls. Or better yet they'd fix the WP architecture so any app can run in the background even if has to request a special permission to do it.
The current situation stinks and demonstrates again why Android is a better phone OS. In Android you can install any VOIP app and run it in the background, better yet some apps such as Viber can actually become the default activity for making / receiving calls so they can merge their functionality in with the standard phone features.
Even though it's owned by Microsoft, Skype won't support low end Windows Phone Tango devices as it “requires a minimum of 512MB of memory to install and use Skype”, and doesn't yet have support for receiving calls in the background -- if the app isn't running.
So, is this a fault of Microsoft's Skype port? Or a limitation of Windows Phone? Like perhaps its not a multitasking O/S.
Have gnu, will travel.
The stupid part is Windows 8 is going to implement a similarly retarded scheme for Metro apps. When they're not in the foreground they're suspended. So tough luck if you were using a video conferencing or VOIP app or a multiplayer game and you want to check an email in the middle of it. Because if you do then you'll probably terminate your session when you step away from it. Multitasking is so yesterday.
That's more android, they started by basically cloning the iphone but then went with more diverse handsets and more open store. So they're both trying to re-envision windows 3.1 in the phone space. And they sort of orbit around each other with some new features, and some unique features but mostly just copying each other
Microsoft is trying a completely different tactic with a completely different style (live tiles aren't really like anything else, except maybe media centre editions of windows), and they're aiming to unify with the desktop (windows phone 8), which sounds like it could be a good idea, but it might be an unmitigated disaster with ARM-Intel compatibility issues trashing the whole thing. WP7.5 is, you're right, lagging behind somewhat on some features compared to droids and iphones, but I suspect some of that is intentionally not bothering with features that will be in WP8. I'm not suggesting that's a good plan, it just seems like what they're doing.
The one thing MS should be copying from Apple is the software update model. Fuck the carriers it's available and we don't care what they have to say about it. Unfortunately they didn't do that. The 99 dollar a year developer licence to unlock your phone (or be a developer) sort of makes sense, but it charges you money for what android gives away for free. Seems kinda dumb on MS's part.
because on windows mobile phones you could actually have background apps and proper skype... and a lot of other things.
whilst on windows phone you don't. that's why people insist on calling them windows phones, even if it's 7 and windows mobile 6.5 was the last version - but really looking at it from usability point of view in terms of sw support etc, it's rather a totally different line of products(for now).
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
fault of microsoft not dealing skype(which they're going to run soon enough anyways) prioritized access and special privileges. windows phone just happens to suck for making apps that extend the phone with voip etc.
do you know who really loves that though? couple of choice carriers.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Because if you do then you'll probably terminate your session when you step away from it.
Half my games already crash if I alt-tab out of them, Microsoft probably figured nobody would miss the other half.
Try playing Minecraft with out being able to alt-tab out.
You read too much into people using the term "WinMo". It's not necessarily meant to imply disparagement, it's simply a portmanteau. It's a WINdows MObile phone, hence WinMo. When talking about Android phones, I don't say "Honeycomb Android" or "Ice Cream Sandwich Android", I say "Android" and most everyone understands completely well that I mean the OS as a whole, not a particular flavor of it.
We're not in a sales environment, so I guess I really don't see why the distinction is that important. Besides, I'm betting pretty much everyone here knew exactly what the GP meant when he said WinMo and understood that he probably wasn't referring to prior versions that ran on obsolete handsets. If someone actually did experience some confusion there, please feel free to retort...
> That's more android, they started by basically cloning the iphone but then went with more diverse handsets and more open store.
you do realize that Android development started in 2005 and was nearing final stages(*) when iPhone debuted in 2007, don't you?
that "more diverse handsets and more open store" was there since the platform's inception, right?
that more open everything, including the source, was the whole freaking point, the major selling point, the single reason it got adopted so widely?
(*) the beta SDK was released on 5 Nov. yes, v1.0 and the first device came a year later, but the changes between beta and 1.0 were relatively minor.
The platform doesn't have the restriction. Tango (the app) does it just fine.
http://www.tango.me/
The Skype app is just poorly implemented when it comes to running in the background
You know, I was going to post a similar thing about the N9. This is a fully-meh non story. M$ catches up to yesterday's tech, film at 1.
do you know who really loves that though? couple of choice carriers.
... so carriers will start pushing it. Users will still lap it up, and only notice too late that the Skype on their new phone is not actually usage.
Quite cunning!
Many are complaining that the Skype app's lack of receiving calls when inactive is a Windows Phone limitation. While this is true, the Tango Video Calling app uses WP's Push Notifications to work around this quite well in my experience. Skype could have easily done the same thing as a workaround until a real VoIP background agent API is introduced.
you do realize that Android development started in 2005 and was nearing final stages(*) when iPhone debuted in 2007, don't you?
I'm not sure what you are trying to say by comparing when development started on one platform to when another platform was released. Are you trying to say that Android development started before iPhone development started? Or that developing android took longer than iPhone development? Sorry, what was your point?
that more open everything, including the source, was the whole freaking point, the major selling point, the single reason it got adopted so widely?
Silly me, I thought it was Android being superior to the custom crap phone makers were trying to push out, and it was FREE were the reasons it got so adopted so widely. I don't think open had much of anything to do with it, and it definitely wasn't a major selling point to the masses. Sure, maybe .8% of those who bought it cared, but statistically insignificant.
Heh. The best part is that Apple has historically been behind in terms of features.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
You realize that Apple copied Windows Phone in allowing access to the camera directly from the lock-screen in iOS5, right?
- Spryguy
There are three kinds of people in this world: those that can count and those that can't
Windows Phone 7.5 suspends apps when they leave the foreground. The only background activity that an app may do are periodic background agents which run 30 minutes apart and some streaming functionality through the multimedia framework. If your app falls outside that model (as Skype does) then tough shit you're going to have to gimp it to make it work on Windows Phone.
The stupid part is Windows 8 is going to implement a similarly retarded scheme for Metro apps. When they're not in the foreground they're suspended. So tough luck if you were using a video conferencing or VOIP app or a multiplayer game and you want to check an email in the middle of it. Because if you do then you'll probably terminate your session when you step away from it. Multitasking is so yesterday.
Retarded scheme? Haven't we learned anything from the system trays and toolbars of typical users? From Real Player agent, Quicktime agent and everything constantly running in the background? Now imagine all of those, running on a tablet or phone with a limited battery and with limited RAM. can you imagine the battery life and memory bloat? It has been proved that the apps abuse the privilege that they're granted and it's too much of a chore for non-power users to babysit them so they don't slow down the machine or eat up battery in an hour.
Also, Windows 8 desktop won't have such limitations, so you can do all what you want. Not to mention that Windows 8 Metro supports two side-by-side applications unlike iPad and Android tablets, which you have conveniently failed to mention.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xOYMCuBbt4E
This space for rent.
You should consider playing games that aren't ancient then. Vast majority of windows games produced in last 5-7 years can handle alt-tab just fine. Many of the games released in last couple of years even offer "borderless full screen window mode" where you can use the game as if it was just another application, which is really handy in multiple display environment. I play SC2 like that for example.
VoIP on a smartphone is a way to work around carriers' tendency to overcharge for international calls, long calls, and calls made from home or other places with Wi-Fi. Unlimited-everything plans are still priced as a luxury.
Imagine talking to someone on Skype and you want to send them an attachment so you jump to the email app and... oh shit call terminated. Or maybe you want to use VOIP for some smacktalk while playing someone at chess. Except you can't. That is just retarded behaviour.
If Android can allow multitasking and the Playbook can allow multitasking and iOS can enable multitasking then there is no excuse that Windows (Phone) cannot. Especially when we consider tablet and desktop devices where any excuses about memory consumption or CPU fly out of the window.
No, it's not Android at all. Android started with Apps from any source, having more-or-less full access. iOS started with no apps, version 2 got apps with limited access (no running in background except for Apple's preloaded stuff), only later versions finally allowed apps that really needed a background service to have one. Windows Phone started with the exact same multitasking restrictions as iPhone 2 -- and I bet in a year or so, a background service API will be released.
And the semi-closed, pay us a fee to self-sign apps and run them on your own device, SDK is the same between Windows Phone and iOS, different from Android. Similarly, Windows Phone started without copy-paste, despite iOS having once lacked it (to great scorn), but now having it (to much rejoicing). And there's been one or two other points of similarity I'd noticed, that the iPhone once had, but already moved beyond, but I'm not thinking of them right now.
I get why Apple had to move fast to secure the market, even if it meant a couple feature-incomplete versions: Nokia was moving in the consumer-friendly touchscreen direction (N800, etc.), Android was already started, and others wouldn't be far behind, so if it took them a year to get more features running perfectly, that niche could have been partly-occupied rather than completely vacant. But Microsoft's going up against a full marketplace either way (and as you say, hoping to win by desktop/tablet/phone unification), so I don't see what it costs them to delay a bit and get it right, rather than releasing a feature-lacking version that leaves a bad taste in everyone's mouth and may condemn the whole project.
i'm saying that before iPhone came out there was nothing to copy, and when it did, Android's design process was already in the final stages.
i'm not arguing it matters to consumers, but i'm pretty sure that "open source under permissive licence" was (and is) a major factor for the device makers. i'm pretty sure that Google had much easier time putting together the OHA when they said "we'll give you the platform, the source and the right to do anything you want with it". full year before any hardware was due to come out they already had HTC, Samsung and Motorola as well as Sprint and T-Mobile lined up and publicly committed to the platform. i haven't heard any reports of money changing hands (i.e. Google bribing device manufacturers). now contrast that with Microsoft's WP7, for which i cannot help but notice complete lack of manufacturer enthusiasm - it's basically Microsoft twisting their arms with patent suits, bribing or installing their man at the head and all but taking over (see Nokia). so yeah, it does matter. it matters a lot, in fact.
They are NOT "Windows Mobile" phones. The last version of "Windows Mobile" was 6.5.
Win7 is a 'Windows Phone'. It's a completely different animal. Call it "Mango" for short, or "WP7". But calilng it "WinMo" just advertises that you don't know what your'e talking about. WinMo vs. WP7 is apples and oranges. Completely different beasts. And NOBODY I know calls them "WinMo" phones... because they're not.
- Spryguy
There are three kinds of people in this world: those that can count and those that can't
Just as in iOS, Metro apps can do background tasks via specific APIs to support it (such as music playback). Apps have to be specifically written to support background execution/behaviors, and there are certainly limits on what can be done (but, for instance, downloads can complete, music can play back, etc). By default, Metro apps are suspended when they're no longer foreground... just like iOS.
Android has battery issues from multitasking apps. iOS and WP7 attempt to mitigate the battery problems and provide much longer battery life by limiting background processing to only those things that absolutely need it, and then manaing those things in an intelligent, energy-conserving way.
- Spryguy
There are three kinds of people in this world: those that can count and those that can't
In iOS, VoIP applications need to run on TCP, otherwise they will not work when in background. Apple doesn't allow UDP background tasks.
And if for whatever reason an app uses too much power, do you know what happens? It gets uninstalled and the store ratings attracts a lot of downratings. It's a self correcting issue.
And in my experience with a Lumia 800 the restrictions in Windows Phone do not result in better battery life. Far from it, the performance has been atrocious for most of the phone's life and has only improved recently with a firmware update. Even in its improved performance state it's merely comparable to other smart phones.
I think bitching about it this extensively advertises an irrational need to defend the brand on your part. What the shit do you care? It's a mobile phone. Running windows. Hence, a "Windows Mobile phone". WinMo, for short. I'm pretty sure everyone knows that it's not Windows Mobile 6.5 we're talking about when discussing it these days, years after that OS has been rendered obsolete.
Thanks for your personal anecdote, though. I'll take it with as much weight as you've obviously taken my own.
The only skype for blackberry is on Verizon phones:
http://www.skype.com/intl/en-us/get-skype/on-your-mobile/skype-mobile/blackberry/
Now, I can understand that Verizon gave skype a bunch of cash to make skype an exclusive among US carriers, but what about the rest of us non-USians?
(and yes, if you extract the skype app from a Verizon blackberry then transfer it to a non-Verizon blackberry, it won't work)
But it does make a difference.. Windows Mobile was/is actually functional.. Windows Phone 7 is not.. sorry but WinMo has always referenced later versions of WinCE. Windows Phone is to WinCE what Dos is to Windows 3.1.. all they share is a parent owner and an hardware architecture.
'...if only "Jumping to a Conclusion" was an event in the Olympics.'
Even the product the Lumia 900 replaced, the N9 can receive calls in the background (Meego OS)
Slashdot's rate-of-post filter: Preventing you from posting too many great ideas at once.
As for android being in the final stages, well, I guess that would be valid if you assume that the iPhone was developed on Mars and nothing was leaked. Unfortunately, that isn't the case. Google could have had advance knowledge of the iPhone before it was released, either through tech demos, partners, ex-employees, etc. Not to mention that the a year is a very long time to fit features in, especially the finishing touches that quite often are what is considered to have been copied.
As for the rest of your post, nothing in there points to android being open as a factor. Free, however is, and even the later part of your post eludes to it through Microsoft forcing device manufacturers to pay for their use of android through it's infringing patents. If being "open" was such a driving force for manufacturers, the fact that they now have to pay $15 per handset for android shouldn't make a difference, but of course, it does. If WP7 becomes less expensive than android, but closed, and the features are on parity, then manufacturers will switch so they can make a larger profit. This is exactly what Microsoft, Apple, and the market analysts that are far more knowledgeable on this topic than you are I are saying. Barring anything that actually points to "open" being more than an insignificant driving force, I'll agree with them.
I think bitching about it this extensively advertises an irrational need to defend the brand on your part.
It's all just part of Microsoft's death spiral.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
no, this is how it is in the mobile applications industry. windows phone is the new shit and windows mobile is the old shit, if you're asking for a windows mobile application to do something you'll be referred to some wm 6.5 apps. if you're marketing yourself as a windows phone coder then you're doing the new shit, in other words .net on "windows phone" phones. it wasn't me who came out with the idea to brand it so but some reason behind it is the fact that windows mobile software will not run on windows phone(nokia sort of fucked up at one time when they broke application compatibility between s60 2.x and 3.x - and then renamed to symbian^3 without breaking compatibility..).
it matters especially because windows mobile doesn't have these restrictions for applications and some companies still rely on windows mobile sw and windows mobile 6.1/6.5 phones are indeed even possible to buy to this day.
of course "everyone knew", but "Why?" was asked on the issue.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
You're missing the point.
"WinMo" is not just a damanged brand, it legitimately sucks and people avoid it because of its history.
"WP7" is a different beast all together, is very good, and should not in any way be associated with "WinMo". It's NOT the same thing. There is zero app compatibility or UI experience in common between the two.
Your laziness in using correct terminology notwithstanding.
- Spryguy
There are three kinds of people in this world: those that can count and those that can't
"WP7" is a different beast all together, is very good, and should not in any way be associated with "WinMo". It's NOT the same thing.
No shit. It's a WINdows operating system. On a MObile phone. Rather than saying Windows Phone 7 (where the fuck is the 7 coming from? "It's NOT the same thing" so why are they continuing the numbering scheme? If they don't want the association there, why foster it in that way?) we just say WinMo, just as we have for the last decade or so that Windows Mobile Phones have existed.
To clarify, again, you're assuming I'm trying to lump them together and I'm not. I don't give a flying fuck what "they" call it, it's a fucking phone running some flavor of Windows on it. Maybe you discuss them all individually and qualify every descriptor as to phone OS with specifics (It's not just Android, oh ho ho, it's Ice Cream Sandwich Android, big difference!. It's not iOS, it's iOS 5, big difference!) but as a layman, we never do.
Again, the ferocity with which you're trying to force the distinction belies either some vested interest on your part or some weird need you feel to defend the brand. What the hell do you care what we refer to it as?
Google could have had advance knowledge of the iPhone before it was released, either through tech demos, partners, ex-employees, etc.
A Mr. Eric Schmidt happened to be on the board of directors of Apple until August 3, 2009, almost a year after Android 1.0 was released. Conflict of interest much?
WP implements the same scheme as iOS - even if your application is in the background and not running, it can still respond to push notifications. And Skype app on iOS does just that. This can most certainly be done on WP, it just wasn't done for this app for some mysterious reason. There are plenty of other IM and VoIP applications on the same platform that do receive messages & calls in background.
I beleive the Skype engineers said that the WP7 notification system wasn't responsive enough to be useful - so no, it can't almost certainly be done on WP. http://www.theverge.com/2012/2/29/2832590/skype-windows-phone-background-limitation
"Good things don't end with eum, they end with mania or teria." - H. Simpson
Too late. Facebook Chat and Google talk are eating their market away with video calls that are based on free and open standards. Just log in with the facebook or mail account and forget about using skype that keeps crashing.
XMPP anyone.
Another fail for Microsoft.
Many of the games released in last couple of years even offer "borderless full screen window mode"...
And thus you uncover the problem - crappy video drivers. Most of the games that crash when you alt-tab out of them have actually gone fullscreen through DirectX, which is really bad at restoring the desktop to correct resolution and functionality when it comes back. Thus, games have gone the route of creating borderless windows occupying the full screen and keeping them in the foreground to avoid the issue. Too bad if you want to run at a resolution lower than 1920x1200.
Sigh. Well, I am already of an opinion that WP7 was an abortion of a release. Hopefully WP8 (or whatever it'll be called) will pick up some of the goodness in Win8. Until then, it's just another reminder for me about why I'm sticking to my Android.
And if for whatever reason an app uses too much power, do you know what happens? It gets uninstalled and the store ratings attracts a lot of downratings. It's a self correcting issue.
To work, this relies on an army of power users (no pun intended) gazing at their power monitoring tools and rating apps in enough numbers that their feedback is not lost among "omg teh app haz ponies!"
However, it looks as though Windows Phone targets a user base not so inclined to perform quality control for software vendors, so it's public APIs are designed more restrictively. I guess for Skype they will just wing it and hook it into the system for WP8, while the hoi polloi will still be offered a limited menu of background activities, Apple style.
My exception safety is -fno-exceptions.
Funny because Microsoft astroturfers get all upset if you refer to WP7 phones as "WinMo", but when it comes time to report market share numbers, they all get lumped together!
Hey Microsoft employee,
Ballmer needs his TPS report STAT! Quit wasting time astroturfing the forums and GET TO WORK!
I would rather have an unsupported, "damaged" WinMo phone than the POS that is WP7!
Try to leave your Skype account online, it will drain the battery in less than a day. Skyhost is a timer-driven CPU wakeup bitch. It's probably a good thing they did not let the Skype team install background services into the system until the performance is much improved.
My exception safety is -fno-exceptions.
I think you need to update your drivers. It's 2012, not 2007 or so, which was about the last time I remember crashing due to alt tab killing ati or nvidia drivers.
The reason why you want to run windowed is because of alt-tab SPEED, and desire to be able to work in another window at the same time as playing. If the game is in full screen mode, it will by default minimize when focus is lost, and you need to maximize it to interact with the game again. There is no such issue with windowed fullscreen.
Because technology is different in Windows Phones than in Windows Mobile.
Oh, I had thought it was copied from an app for jailbroken iPhones...
The "7" comes from Windows 7, which is the success they wanted to associate it with.
No matter how much you protest, these are not "WinMo" phones. Get over it.
My "ferocity" is just a simple matter of being factual. I don't have any vested interest. It's about clarity. When you say "WinMo" people will be thinking about something DIFFERENT than WP7, because they're DIFFERENT.
If you WANT to be misunderstood, inaccurate, and unclear, then by all means, keep saying "WinMo" and sounding ignorant to any listener who actually knows what's going on.
- Spryguy
There are three kinds of people in this world: those that can count and those that can't
Okay sounds good man.
Must me a case of double-no-news is double-good-news. ;-)
He's correcting you because you're wrong. Learn, say thank you, move on. You honestly sound like you have no idea what you're talking about; it's not about defending the brand, it's about correcting a mistake.
As he said, no one calls them "WinMo", for the reasons he said, but whatever, maybe you call iPhones "Mini iPads" or whatever.
To each his own, but maybe be more thankful of people trying to make you appear less of an idiot next time.
But most apps don't need to worry about power consumption at all. The system will suspend the app's process as soon as it is no longer in the foreground. It's the ones which kick off services which would have to be more conscious of what they do. But at least Android gives apps the choice. My contention is that Windows Phone (and Windows 8) should too and the way Skype has been gimped and other simple use cases are broken demonstrates this.
ok
Funny - I call them WinPhones, as do many of the people I know, as well as most of the sites on the 'Net.
No colour or religion ever stopped the bullet from a gun
That has not been my experience. On my n9 I comfortably last a day with Skype, google and Facebook chat open.
could android's design have been influenced by information leaked from apple? of course it could. but you'll have to add some substance to that claim. i cannot prove the opposite, of course, but here's why i think it wasn't. first, we know that the android project - to develop a touch-screen phone - was already underway in 2005, with some key decisions - e.g. to use java - already made (see court filings in oracle v google). second, android and iphone are actually significantly different so as to eliminate direct substantial copying (unless you take "using grid of icons" as evidence). third, back then there wasn't any evidence that apple was doing it right - the thing wasn't market-tested yet! it could well have been something like appletv - an ok product but not a runaway success by any means. and finally, do you think there is any chance that apple wouldn't be suing google's ass if there was any evidence of pre-release information having been leaked and used by google? yet, even as android is becoming more and more of a threat, we only see indirect patent attacks and nothing against google itself.
regarding free vs open, you are basically saying that device manufacturers will put on their phones whichever OS they can get their hands on as long as it's cheap or, best of all, free and they don't care if they can change it or not - as long as it works. and if MS gives away its OS, they will flock to it.
that is wrong. first, MS will never give their OS away as long as their business model continues to rely on license fees. right now they have no alternative, so even if they do end up giving WP away out of desperation, nobody will believe that it's anything other than the "bait" round in a bait-and-switch game. they have no other credible alternative to charging license fees, whether now or later, because the rest of their business works like this.
second, the strongest evidence that manufacturers do care about the "open" part of android is what they did to it, given the chance. all of the major phone makers, given a working and completely functional OS by google chose to make their own changes to it. now, that is not really about "open", that's about being able to make changes, and i'm sure they'd be satisfied with just obtaining a source license from google, even for a fee, but of "source code, for free" first was a very sweet cupcake and the second made for a really nice cherry on top. just look what all of them shipped with their phones. HTC, for one, certainly went well beyond simple reskinning. we can argue whether the changes they made were good or bad individually and whether they were beneficial or harmful to the android as a while (causing fragmentation), but nevertheless, they took the source it and ran with it, choosing to make quite extensive changes to an already good enough base. all in the name of making their handsets different from each other (something, btw, MS is absolutely adamant on *not* letting happen -- which, i believe, is why manufacturers are not at all excited by it).