And Samsung hasn't been kind enough to post the source for the drivers. That's why you didn't see froyo on any of the Galaxy S phones until the Samsung release candidate was leaked. Driver source would be the key that would allow the independent development community to keep all the Galaxy S phones as close to 'up-to-date' as possible. Unfortunately, I don't see that happening any time soon.
I'd say the reason for that is "choice of carriers." A lot of people are happy with Verizon, Sprint/Nextel, T-Mobile, etc. The iPhone simply isn't enough to get them to switch carriers - especially to the much-maligned AT&T. For those that might prefer the iPhone, the combination of a nice Android device and their preferred carrier is the superior option.
Granted, price probably comes into play in carrier preference (ie T-Mobile), but quality of service and other factors are often as, if not more, important (ie Verizon).
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.
My thoughts exactly. Maybe someone has discovered something new. This article could be the biggest news in human history (or at least since peanutbutter met chocolate).
1. To get my iPhone to work with my computer I install iTunes and plug in my phone. Getting my Captivate to work involved digging around on the Samsung website to locate the correct driver, switch from Chrome to IE to agree to the terms and conditions (site wouldn't work with Chrome), download the zipped driver, un-zip the drivers, install the drivers, click through three critical warnings because none of the drivers was electronically signed and then plug in my phone. After that I got to step number two... 2. I had to select the appropriate USB mode after digging around in settings for a while. Once I selected the appropriate setting, Mount/Don't mount didn't pop up when I plugged in the phone. I had to pull down a menu to find it. Sometimes it show up at all. - if you've ever owned and iPhone, items 1 and 2 are really frustrating. Samsung could have done a MUCH better job in this area. 3. Kies is Samsung's client software for the Galaxy S line. The fact that you know nothing about it shows just how poor the user experience is. Go find Kies on the Samsung site and check it out. It's actually kind of cool. 4. I think iTunes offers a better experience for syncing content like pictures, contacts, etc. Media Monkey and Double Twist only do a good job syncing songs and videos. I sync more content that that. 5. I do agree with you on the Apple tax, but nobody out there offers the effortless experience of the iTunes app on the iPhone. The experiences I've had with apps like the Amazon MPR store were from seamless. 6. Could be an ATT problem, though I you may also find separate media players for songs and music on the other Galaxy phones. You could certainly have a point here.
I like my Galaxy and don't plan to go back to the iPhone. Still, I think the items above would keep me from suggesting the Galaxy as an iPhone replacement for anyone but a geek.
I had an iPhone 3G and now have a Captivate. I enjoy the new phone, but there are lots of things an iPhone can do that the captivate can't. My iPhone could do all of the following with no problems or hassle. To do the same with my Captivate has involved downloading and installing unsigned drivers, loading clunky software, and dealing with other strange issues.
1. Plug into a Windows 7 64bit machine and be automatically recognized. 2. Sync with a computer without having to find a hidden 'mount' feature. 3. Be detected by and work automatically with the client software that supports it (try doing this with Kies). 4. Sync all of my playlists and pictures from iTunes (double-twist works great, but does not have good granularity for syncing photo folders). 5. Allow me to download songs over the air from iTunes and have them end up right in my media player. 6. Include a media player that allows me to access songs, videos, and podcasts from a single UI.
I think all of the above are important for your average, non-geek phone purchaser. Enough so that the iPhone is still a superior choice for most. It hurts a bit to say that too.
I've played with a Windows Phone 7 quite a bit as well. I was impressed with the hardware (though it was an Asus test device) and the speed with which the OS facilitated things. The big problem was that the UI was awful. At the time I put the phone through its paces I was an iPhone 3G owner looking for a change. I was hoping WP7 might offer a more wholistic experience than Android with a manufacturer shell. I was wrong.
The 'home' screen was bland. Finding apps was not intuitive. Using media was nice (similar to Zune, which is pretty slick IMO), but offered an experience that was completely different from the phone experience. I also found the 'seeing a small portion of one big screen' concept to be awkward. It required me to make and keep a mental map of the phone for navigation.
I don't think a snappy OS and a superior gaming experience can overcome the fact that WP7 is a shitty smart phone. I think that most people with the $$ for a smart phone (and the data plan that goes with it) are looking primarily for smart phone functions with the gaming experience being a secondary consideration. Of course, I could be wrong.
Oh, and one week after spending time with a WP7, I purchased a Samsung Galaxy S.
Does one million sales = success? Maybe it does, but I'm not so sure. I think we will need to see strong sales for several months before we can declare the ipad more than a toy for members of the early adoption crowd.
For sake of comparison, over 15 million Windows Mobile handsets were sold in 2010 (http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=1306513). That's over one million handsets per month yet we all consider WinMo 6.5 a dead OS.
I know that handsets and tablets are apples and oranges, and that the ipad is performing well in a market that is far smaller than the smartphone market. Still, I think the comparison shows that one million devices isn't all that many in the scheme of things.
Sure, the developers should have known better, but issues like this pop up due to an inherent problem in most software development processes. That problem is that specs are written that say what the software should do. Every once in a while the specs note a couple things the software shouldn't do. The specs then go to testers who make sure that the software does everything in the specs and, when it meets spec, everyone signs off. There's often little attention paid to making sure that software DOESN'T do things that aren't spec'd. This problem is further exacerbated in many shops that outsource testing to vendors. In such situations the testers cover only the very specific items noted in the contract and nothing else.
Shops that want to prevent problems like this need to bring back some creative types for testing. You know, the ones you can hand a device to and say "I dare you to f*ck this thing up" and who will take it as a challenge. Unfortunately, those types often command a higher $$ figure than management is willing to pay when "there is a team of people in India who'll test this thing to spec for $30 an hour."
Of course, you need a little bit of both in this world. It's important to have spec testers who'll follow strict methodology just as it's important to have creative testers that will find all that stuff nobody thought about.
I get your point, but there are interesting concerns on the other end as well. Cattle are often raised on pasture for 9 months or so and then shipped off to high density pens where they are grown and fattened on grain http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cattle_feeding . Moving cattle to these areas greatly reduces the amount of pasture land necessary to sustain the 30 or so million cattle that the US produces every year. This is important because the grazing of cattle has had (and continues to have) devastating impacts on the riparian zones of the Southwest. Reducing this environmental strain has a number of positive impacts. For more info on riparian land damage see: http://www.publiclandsranching.org/htmlres/wr_lifeblood_west.htm
If you're really concerned about the impacts of cattle (be it their strain on energy or their impacts to the environment) it's probably best to give up or greatly reduce your use of cattle products. That's an ugly proposition for people like me who love beef and cheese, but I can't help see the logic.
Sure it will allow you to print to any printer...that can be accessed via the internet. I'd wager that's a step a large number of people haven't taken when it comes to their home networks.
Unless you're reading on the beach in the sun. Or in low light situations where a glowing screen can be a strain. I'm going to guess that the 10 hours a day you spend looking at an LCD do not include such activities. The hour or two a day you may spend reading a book might. What the world really needs is a display that is both e-ink and LCD with users given the option to choose the display type based upon content.
Warrants are for the government. When you signed your contract with your ISP you likely authorized them to monitor your traffic to some extent (at least bandwidth usage and likely more). Does that violate your privacy? Maybe, but the issue is much more complicated than you make it seem.
Because I think that some companies can significantly increase their market share and profit by being advocates for humanity. While not true in all cases, there are certain products that are more likely to sell by tugging at your heart strings than by the pure merits of the product. Tom's shoes and several coffee marketing companies have followed a similar model (though I have to admit that I'm not sure how successfully).
It would be interesting to see a corporate model that allows these items to be sold to the hiker/camper crowd in the first world with revenue for those sales being used to donate the bags to places with a need. For example, I could easily see the Seattle area yuppie hiker crowd paying $10 for three bags at REI. Let's say it costs $5 to produce, package, import, market, and retail these bags. $4 of the remaining $5 could be used to produce more bags and donate them to international aid organizations.
I agree. We haven't seen just what compensation was involved. If it was slight, buying off MSFT was surely less expensive than fighting off an army of their attorneys.
MSFT's strategy here seems interesting. They realize getting other companies to license their Linux patents is likely to strengthen their claim to the patents.
Knowing this they pushed in that direction. They were able to get some of the early licensees to do so by offering what seemed like mutually beneficial terms (like patent sharing). My guess is that as more the terms will be similar for a while - giving MSFT a large group of patent licensees.
Getting a license will then become more costly. the first group that MSFT doesn't like that also refuses to license the patents will be taken to court. MSFT will then flaunt all of the other licensees before the jury stating "Amazon, and others all recognized our patent. What makes [variable] so special?"
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And Samsung hasn't been kind enough to post the source for the drivers. That's why you didn't see froyo on any of the Galaxy S phones until the Samsung release candidate was leaked. Driver source would be the key that would allow the independent development community to keep all the Galaxy S phones as close to 'up-to-date' as possible. Unfortunately, I don't see that happening any time soon.
I'd say the reason for that is "choice of carriers." A lot of people are happy with Verizon, Sprint/Nextel, T-Mobile, etc. The iPhone simply isn't enough to get them to switch carriers - especially to the much-maligned AT&T. For those that might prefer the iPhone, the combination of a nice Android device and their preferred carrier is the superior option.
Granted, price probably comes into play in carrier preference (ie T-Mobile), but quality of service and other factors are often as, if not more, important (ie Verizon).
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.
Interstate truck? That's far too easy. I'm thinking something like slip it in some meat and feed it to a gator in the Everglades.
amphibious assault Seguay couldn't keep its head above water
My thoughts exactly. Maybe someone has discovered something new. This article could be the biggest news in human history (or at least since peanutbutter met chocolate).
1. To get my iPhone to work with my computer I install iTunes and plug in my phone. Getting my Captivate to work involved digging around on the Samsung website to locate the correct driver, switch from Chrome to IE to agree to the terms and conditions (site wouldn't work with Chrome), download the zipped driver, un-zip the drivers, install the drivers, click through three critical warnings because none of the drivers was electronically signed and then plug in my phone. After that I got to step number two...
2. I had to select the appropriate USB mode after digging around in settings for a while. Once I selected the appropriate setting, Mount/Don't mount didn't pop up when I plugged in the phone. I had to pull down a menu to find it. Sometimes it show up at all.
- if you've ever owned and iPhone, items 1 and 2 are really frustrating. Samsung could have done a MUCH better job in this area.
3. Kies is Samsung's client software for the Galaxy S line. The fact that you know nothing about it shows just how poor the user experience is. Go find Kies on the Samsung site and check it out. It's actually kind of cool.
4. I think iTunes offers a better experience for syncing content like pictures, contacts, etc. Media Monkey and Double Twist only do a good job syncing songs and videos. I sync more content that that.
5. I do agree with you on the Apple tax, but nobody out there offers the effortless experience of the iTunes app on the iPhone. The experiences I've had with apps like the Amazon MPR store were from seamless.
6. Could be an ATT problem, though I you may also find separate media players for songs and music on the other Galaxy phones. You could certainly have a point here.
I like my Galaxy and don't plan to go back to the iPhone. Still, I think the items above would keep me from suggesting the Galaxy as an iPhone replacement for anyone but a geek.
I had an iPhone 3G and now have a Captivate. I enjoy the new phone, but there are lots of things an iPhone can do that the captivate can't. My iPhone could do all of the following with no problems or hassle. To do the same with my Captivate has involved downloading and installing unsigned drivers, loading clunky software, and dealing with other strange issues.
1. Plug into a Windows 7 64bit machine and be automatically recognized.
2. Sync with a computer without having to find a hidden 'mount' feature.
3. Be detected by and work automatically with the client software that supports it (try doing this with Kies).
4. Sync all of my playlists and pictures from iTunes (double-twist works great, but does not have good granularity for syncing photo folders).
5. Allow me to download songs over the air from iTunes and have them end up right in my media player.
6. Include a media player that allows me to access songs, videos, and podcasts from a single UI.
I think all of the above are important for your average, non-geek phone purchaser. Enough so that the iPhone is still a superior choice for most. It hurts a bit to say that too.
I've played with a Windows Phone 7 quite a bit as well. I was impressed with the hardware (though it was an Asus test device) and the speed with which the OS facilitated things. The big problem was that the UI was awful. At the time I put the phone through its paces I was an iPhone 3G owner looking for a change. I was hoping WP7 might offer a more wholistic experience than Android with a manufacturer shell. I was wrong.
The 'home' screen was bland. Finding apps was not intuitive. Using media was nice (similar to Zune, which is pretty slick IMO), but offered an experience that was completely different from the phone experience. I also found the 'seeing a small portion of one big screen' concept to be awkward. It required me to make and keep a mental map of the phone for navigation.
I don't think a snappy OS and a superior gaming experience can overcome the fact that WP7 is a shitty smart phone. I think that most people with the $$ for a smart phone (and the data plan that goes with it) are looking primarily for smart phone functions with the gaming experience being a secondary consideration. Of course, I could be wrong.
Oh, and one week after spending time with a WP7, I purchased a Samsung Galaxy S.
could get a little hairy.
Does one million sales = success? Maybe it does, but I'm not so sure. I think we will need to see strong sales for several months before we can declare the ipad more than a toy for members of the early adoption crowd.
For sake of comparison, over 15 million Windows Mobile handsets were sold in 2010 (http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=1306513). That's over one million handsets per month yet we all consider WinMo 6.5 a dead OS.
I know that handsets and tablets are apples and oranges, and that the ipad is performing well in a market that is far smaller than the smartphone market. Still, I think the comparison shows that one million devices isn't all that many in the scheme of things.
It looks like a chef's knife (not a cleaver as the author indicates). As such, it really shouldn't be used for cutting through bone.
It hurts just a little bit seeing Global brand cutlery used for chopping up a SIM card :-(
Sure, the developers should have known better, but issues like this pop up due to an inherent problem in most software development processes. That problem is that specs are written that say what the software should do. Every once in a while the specs note a couple things the software shouldn't do. The specs then go to testers who make sure that the software does everything in the specs and, when it meets spec, everyone signs off. There's often little attention paid to making sure that software DOESN'T do things that aren't spec'd. This problem is further exacerbated in many shops that outsource testing to vendors. In such situations the testers cover only the very specific items noted in the contract and nothing else.
Shops that want to prevent problems like this need to bring back some creative types for testing. You know, the ones you can hand a device to and say "I dare you to f*ck this thing up" and who will take it as a challenge. Unfortunately, those types often command a higher $$ figure than management is willing to pay when "there is a team of people in India who'll test this thing to spec for $30 an hour."
Of course, you need a little bit of both in this world. It's important to have spec testers who'll follow strict methodology just as it's important to have creative testers that will find all that stuff nobody thought about.
I get your point, but there are interesting concerns on the other end as well. Cattle are often raised on pasture for 9 months or so and then shipped off to high density pens where they are grown and fattened on grain http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cattle_feeding . Moving cattle to these areas greatly reduces the amount of pasture land necessary to sustain the 30 or so million cattle that the US produces every year. This is important because the grazing of cattle has had (and continues to have) devastating impacts on the riparian zones of the Southwest. Reducing this environmental strain has a number of positive impacts. For more info on riparian land damage see: http://www.publiclandsranching.org/htmlres/wr_lifeblood_west.htm
If you're really concerned about the impacts of cattle (be it their strain on energy or their impacts to the environment) it's probably best to give up or greatly reduce your use of cattle products. That's an ugly proposition for people like me who love beef and cheese, but I can't help see the logic.
This sounds like Plato's version of a server farm.
Sure it will allow you to print to any printer...that can be accessed via the internet. I'd wager that's a step a large number of people haven't taken when it comes to their home networks.
All the stories re OS2 are at least 1 decade old. Seriously, in computing time that is like a half decade.
My son is 10 years old, but in computing time he's only 5.
Unless you're reading on the beach in the sun. Or in low light situations where a glowing screen can be a strain. I'm going to guess that the 10 hours a day you spend looking at an LCD do not include such activities. The hour or two a day you may spend reading a book might. What the world really needs is a display that is both e-ink and LCD with users given the option to choose the display type based upon content.
Warrants are for the government. When you signed your contract with your ISP you likely authorized them to monitor your traffic to some extent (at least bandwidth usage and likely more). Does that violate your privacy? Maybe, but the issue is much more complicated than you make it seem.
Because I think that some companies can significantly increase their market share and profit by being advocates for humanity. While not true in all cases, there are certain products that are more likely to sell by tugging at your heart strings than by the pure merits of the product. Tom's shoes and several coffee marketing companies have followed a similar model (though I have to admit that I'm not sure how successfully).
Or pocket defibrillator, jump start for your car, stun gun, or a real life Hadouken.
It would be interesting to see a corporate model that allows these items to be sold to the hiker/camper crowd in the first world with revenue for those sales being used to donate the bags to places with a need. For example, I could easily see the Seattle area yuppie hiker crowd paying $10 for three bags at REI. Let's say it costs $5 to produce, package, import, market, and retail these bags. $4 of the remaining $5 could be used to produce more bags and donate them to international aid organizations.
Sadly, I know just what you are talking about when you reference the Sesame Workshop ads. What has become of my life?
I agree. We haven't seen just what compensation was involved. If it was slight, buying off MSFT was surely less expensive than fighting off an army of their attorneys. MSFT's strategy here seems interesting. They realize getting other companies to license their Linux patents is likely to strengthen their claim to the patents. Knowing this they pushed in that direction. They were able to get some of the early licensees to do so by offering what seemed like mutually beneficial terms (like patent sharing). My guess is that as more the terms will be similar for a while - giving MSFT a large group of patent licensees. Getting a license will then become more costly. the first group that MSFT doesn't like that also refuses to license the patents will be taken to court. MSFT will then flaunt all of the other licensees before the jury stating "Amazon, and others all recognized our patent. What makes [variable] so special?"