With Windows Phone 7, Did Microsoft Actually Bring A Gun To A Gun Fight?

http://techcrunch.com/2010/10/12/windows-phone/

by cwan • 16 years ago

46 70 16 years ago

daleharvey3• 16 years ago

I guess I live in some alternative reality where my HTC desire is actually much more enjoyable to use than an iphone. I can see how iphone users could enjoy their device more, I just wish they would extend the same courtesy.

fanboy ranting aside I dont think I could trust microsoft to give me a nice computing experience again, even if some people like it superficially, there must be something wrong in there.

cryptoz2• 16 years ago

> there must be something wrong in there.

There sure is. It ships with a browser that's "halfway between IE7 and IE8."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Phone_7#Web_browser

Ouch.

recoiledsnake5• 16 years ago

But the first version of it still matches or outperforms the Android and iPhone web browsers. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zgvphQx9MY8

blub• 16 years ago

Opera mobile solves that problem. Not that it is a problem in the first place. What bothers me about this phone are the missing features like copy-paste and multitasking.

runjake• 16 years ago

I think the problem is they didn't ship a browser based on WebKit, and from what I can see in my testing, it doesn't necessarily try to be WebKit-like in its rendering.

This means that website owners who have already written advanced web interfaces for the mobile browsers on iOS, Android, and BB 6.0 will have to re-engineer their code base for WP7. That probably isn't going to happen until Microsoft establishes an impressive user base.

spiffworks4• 16 years ago

I've been using Android solely for the past 2 months and I'm going to start developing for it soon. The one thing that I genuinely hate about it is the menu button. So many great features in so many great apps go undiscovered because the user is expected to have the idea to press the menu button in the right activity. And even when you have discovered the feature, pressing the menu button is just that bit of cognitive overhead which subtracts from a delightful experience. The most powerful features that Android's architecture(intents, etc) enables are stuck behind hidden menus. I would guess that most users use their phones just like an iPhone- with the exception of widgets on homescreens. I love this OS, but this madness has to stop.

Edit: Add to this the long press of a list item, and between them, most actions are stuck behind an undiscoverable layer of UI.

daleharvey3• 16 years ago

Sure, I actually share this annoyance, at the very least I wish the menu item would be kept consistent between activities.

But the point remains, I also have a lot of annoyances with i-devices at the same time, compared to the two I prefer my HTC Desire, it would be nice to not be regarded as some type of idiot for possibly thinking that i-whatever arent the pinnacle of design that all things aspire to.

NickPollard3• 16 years ago

I've found the long press in Android one of the most instinctive and consistent pieces of the UI language; I love it. I don't know about the menu button, I certainly wouldn't cry if it went away, but the distinction between a short press (go, activate) and long press (configure, customise) is great.

Long press is the right-click of smartphones.

storm• 16 years ago

10 points and climbing for a reply that essentially says, "Bah, it's Microsoft, there must be something wrong with it"? That's really disappointing, HN.

I foresee some serious cognitive dissonance playing out as Microsoft manages to do a whole lot better than hive-mind "HA HA too little too late / M$ sucks" sentiments have been allowing for. And frankly, Microsoft deserves the success they've got coming to them here. Somehow, the teams responsible for WP7 have been able to overcome the bureaucratic, backstabbing inertia that Microsoft is famous for, and they've produced something pretty damned good for a 1.0. Shame that so few people bother to actually examine the platform in any detail before pontificating about it, predicting its doom, etc.

daleharvey3• 16 years ago

To be honest it was a pretty vacuous comment, and was mostly about iphone / android than windows mobile.

But I didnt say it sucks, or that there must be something wrong with it, I said I couldnt trust them (with a lot or money) not to suck, and my opinion isnt formed from some hivemend, its formed from the last 10 years of my experience with microsoft products.

robryan• 16 years ago

Just like the side by side search engine tests without branding it would be interesting to test peoples perceptions not knowing it's Microsoft, although it would only work on people outside tech who haven't used either interface.

SnowLprd• 16 years ago

Windows Phone 7 is... 1.0? While I believe the WP7 team does indeed deserve credit for overcoming all the entanglements endemic to Microsoft's current bureaucratic mess, I think it's a bit silly to call this a 1.0 product. Even if the WP7 software was a complete rewrite, I think you lose the ability to refer to your mobile OS as 1.0 when:

* You've been shipping mobile software for years

* You have "version 7" in the name of your product

Not trying to be pedantic here -- I know what you mean when you refer to this new mobile OS as "1.0". I just think it's more appropriate to refer to, say, the original 2007 iPhone as 1.0 than the WP7 product.

chopsueyar2• 16 years ago

In the Hall of the Mountain King, also used in The Social Network regatta scene.

Coincidence or intentional?

siglesias• 16 years ago

It has become the de facto dark humor tension building track.

chopsueyar2• 16 years ago

What about The Thieving Magpie?

_b8r0• 16 years ago

Just got an iPhone 4, after 'upgrading' from a 3G.

It has the new hotness. Retina screen is nice, but it's so annoying that I can't use it with my left hand. Thanks apple.

I can see things hotting up if Microsoft can get it together, but they're very much the underdog and lack a reason to buy one (unlike say, iphone - the shiny, android - the geeky, blackberry - the constant messaging).

froo2• 16 years ago

I just got my iPhone 4 yesterday. I love it, I really do.. I haven't been able to replicate the deathgrip to the same extent that others can. Best I can do is drop 1 bar.

stcredzero4• 16 years ago

...it’s going to get stranger and more frantic if Microsoft once again becomes a big player in the mobile space. If they get there, will they use their power to try and bend the carriers to their will? Or will they take the Google approach and let them walk all over the place dictating features and bloatware?

If M$ doesn't bend carriers to their will, then they might end up with crappy software on superior hardware. Not only does Microsoft have to guard against design-by-committee from within, it has to deal with the same from the carriers. In other words, Microsoft has to fight its DNA to be beautiful, while Apple just has to follow their usual tendencies. On the other hand, individual companies in the Android space can decide where they fall in the luxury/bargain spectrum.

Apple vs. Android is cathedral vs. bazaar. Is Windows Phone 7 going to be another cathedral, a bazaar, or will it be a half-assed combination of the two?

(Note that cathedrals took advantage of the efforts of several generations of individual workers adding their own contributions, but in a way which fit the whole. In other words, cathedrals were also a kind of ecosystem!)

The mobile space is about to be a full-on gun fight. And at least Microsoft seems to have walked into the middle of it with the right weapon.

A 3-way standoff? Who's the Good, The Bad, and The Ugly?

froo2• 16 years ago

Is Windows Phone 7 going to be another cathedral, a bazaar, or will it be a half-assed combination of the two?

I was thinking about this, I imagine the midpoint between a cathedral and a bazaar could possibly be a shopping mall... How profitable do shopping malls tend to be? They might have something, if only because they're doing something different with enough marketing steam behind them.

megablast• 16 years ago

I would not call Apple vs Android as cathedral vs bazaar, more Cathedral against lots of little annoying Cathedrals who want to extract every cent from you and disable functions on your phone to do that.

Clearly Apple = Good (they started this new smartphone revolution, and care more about consumers than careers), Windows = Bad (will do anything to try to maintain their monopoly), and Google = Ugly (not really ugly, but they seem to be letting the carriers have more control).

recoiledsnake5• 16 years ago

>If M$...

I thought Hacker News was above the juvenile 'M$' but guess I was wrong.

>Is Windows Phone 7 going to be another cathedral, a bazaar, or will it be a half-assed combination of the two?

Right now it looks like a good combination. Good variety in hardware(for example, phones with real keyboard unlike the iPhone) while still retaining the ability to directly update the software(no shipping of old versions that take ages to get updated, if they get done at all, like Android).

raganwald2• 16 years ago

How is "M$" juvenile? It is a nickname I have seen from many adults but never from children. Do you mean "immature; childish; infantile?" as the dictionary suggests? I don't see hows. It implies to me that the person using the nickname claims that Microsoft is motivated entirely or largely by making money at the expense of all other considerations. It's cut from the same cloth as "MSFT," which implies they value their stock price above all else (this would appear to be wrong, based on the stock's performance, but there you go).

You or I may not agree wit the characterization, but I hardly see this as immature. Informal, perhaps, in comparison to writing "Microsoft (who worship at the Temple of Mammon)..." But I don't see it as childish and juvenile.

There is another possibility. If "M$" has been regularly used by people who are juvenile in other ways, perhaps using "M$" in trollish flamewars and ad hominem diatribes, it can become guilty through association with juvenile rants. Is that the problem here? That the nickname has been used so often by people acting in a juvenile way that it has unpleasant overtones you perceive that are invisible to someone like myself who doesn't share your life experience?

brc2• 16 years ago

I agree - HN is not the place for M$. I stopped reading after that.

greyman3• 16 years ago

As a long-time developer of Windows desktop applications, I am quite excited about the possibility to using Visual Studio, C# and .NET to create software for my phone. I like what I see so far, and suddenly, Android doesn't look that much exciting to me anymore.

golgo13• 16 years ago

I'm with you. I have wanted to develop apps for a while, but I didn't want to jump into Java or Objective C. With C#, I already know how things work, so there is no learning curve for me. So I dropped the $99 to sell apps in the marketplace. My market verification is complete, but I was not picked for the initial wave of apps. Hopefully, I'll get cleared to sell WP7 apps soon after launch.

greyman3• 16 years ago

I expect some learning will be necessary, like how to use multitouch API and all that mobile-specific stuff.

BrandonWatson• 16 years ago

I run dev marketing for wp7. Shoot me an email and lets see if we can't get you on the list. brwatson@microsoft

clofresh• 16 years ago

Does anyone know if it will sync with Macs?

recoiledsnake5• 16 years ago

I don't think it will at launch. But they're supposed to be working on support for Zune desktop for the Mac.

rbanffy6• 16 years ago

Thanks. Now I spilled coffee on the keyboard...

1010011010• 16 years ago

Just assume it doesn't.

retube• 16 years ago

Techcrunch comments resemble Youtube comments more every day

wslh• 16 years ago

IDNS (Is Dot Net, Stupid) :-)

zmmmmm2• 16 years ago

This article seems a little under-appreciative of some of the innovations in Android. After using Android I don't think I could go back to a phone that didn't support home screen widgets no matter how good it looked or how pleasant it was to use otherwise. A serious amount of my use of my phone is mediated entirely through widgets now.

Having said that - I totally agree that WP7 is going to be pretty competitive and I'm really happy about that. My hope is that it makes Google go the extra mile with Gingerbread to really sweeten up the UI a bit - but we're going to win (consumers, that is) either way.

sandipc• 16 years ago

Keep in mind that the author of the post is Apple fanboy/Android troll MG Siegler

rbanffy6• 16 years ago

Keep in mind ad-hominem is a logical fallacy.

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

spiffworks4• 16 years ago

>Google go the extra mile with Gingerbread to really sweeten up the UI a bit

I've never understood what exactly people mean when they say that. The one area Google needs to fix is the settings menu, with a much more logical organisation which they failed to do properly even in Froyo. Other than that, the worst flaws in Android are not things that Google can just wave a wand and fix without breaking backward compatibility.

Agree with you about the widgets, though. Can't live without them.

zmmmmm2• 16 years ago

I present to you the iOS date picker side by side with the Android date picker:

http://i.imgur.com/PcNGf.png

One has a beautiful touch responsive scrolling display while the other requires you to pick out small + and - symbols and tap repeatedly on them until you get to the right date. Mis-hitting the square below brings up the keyboard with a jarring UI-rearranging effect.

This kind of stuff, as well as the fluidity of the UI in general (jerky scrolling, transitions sudden instead of animated) is what they need to address.

JackRudley• 16 years ago

While I understand that the diversity of the hardware is a strength, I feel that the Androids problem is the large variety of hardware it is on which makes it harder to develop for than the iPhone, does anyone think that these problems will be a major issue for Windows Phone 7?

greyman3• 16 years ago

No, I don't think so, because according to the presentations Microsoft put forward strict rules for the hardware makers who wants to run WP7, like processor, RAM, only two allowed screen resolutions, etc.

gvb• 16 years ago

Hmmm, that sounds a lot like the lead-in for another "Vista Capable" debacle.

http://arstechnica.com/hardware/news/2009/01/1-5-billion-mic...

rbanffy6• 16 years ago

So, their idea is to make a phone so awful, so useless, people won't want to use it, right?

They could have done it with WinMo 6... It would be cheaper...

gamble• 16 years ago

It's telling that most of the comments on this article are the usual iPhone vs. Android arguments. I just don't see the interest out there for another smartphone platform to survive, particularly one which is so far outside the interface norms established by earlier entrants.

With Windows Phone 7, Did Microsoft Actually Bring A Gun To A Gun Fight?

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