Windows Phone 8 stands a chance as Apple, Android dither The markets have delivered their verdict on Nokia. Failure is priced in, and the company is deemed to be worth little more than its intellectual property portfolio. The Finns may as well pack up their bags, go home, and whip themselves with birch twigs in the sauna – there’s no future to compete for. That’s also the …
People don't want Windows on their phone.
They don't think of Metro as being Windows, and the more MS tries to drag it back to being a Windows phone, the more baggage (both emotional and code-complexity) it will accumulate.
People - mostly - don't LIKE Windows. They don't necessarily hate it, but it doesn't inspire much affection in the general populace. Why saddle the 'new broom' products and OS with this association? Especially the utterly perplexing "Windows RT" for tablets...
Apple, for all its faults does at least know when and how to kill its own babies. MS could learn a lesson or two there - but it may well be Nokia who ends up paying for it.
People don't want Windows on their phone.
YOU don't want Windows on your phone. The public don't buy a Windows Phone or an Android Phone. They buy a Nokia or an HTC or a Samsung or whatever. The only exception is that they do buy an iPhone, although most still don't know what iOS is, merely that Apple stuff all works with other Apple stuff.
They don't know what Android is at all and Windows is just the thing on the laptop.
A phone that I can make calls on,
Send/recieve texts
Not have my location tracked
Not have my web activity mined
Not scan for wifi networks and send their IDs along with geographical location to the NSA ^M^M^M Google.
You know, a bit of privacy, where it's assumed that I'm *not* a criminal* that hasn't been caught yet.
Hello 6310i
* Criminal: Someone capable of free-thought.
Competition is good, and Android handset makers have pushed apple to make these incremental increases to their iPhone, both of which are actually pretty darn good phones. Now MS/Nokia have stepped in with something that everyone says is a pretty good (and even revolutionary?) OS/Phone.
I think though if this new iPhone 5 is the best apple can come up with NOW, and in 1 years time they come out with an iPhone 5S (or whatever) that's another small incremental upgrade, then in 2 years time Samsung and HTC will have stepped up and eaten Apple's breakfast!
The other thing is, if you want expandable storage... go for an Android handset. If you want a swappable battery... go for Android. A really good camera? etc.
The real question is though, which phone makes the most profits for the sales droids in CPW? That's what's going to get pushed to the masses. I wonder if we're heading for a "phone mis-selling" scandal.
Provided MS don't try too ape the apple approach too closely developers might find it possible to share common code between windows8 and android.
There seem to be tools out there to do cross platform app development its just that apple really don't like them
to be used for the iphone.
Its the apple no-emulators rule that makes it necessary to develop every app twice. A 3 way ecosystem does not necessarily require 3-way app development.
Not sure why a technical blog has decided to miss out one of the biggest mobile OS`s in the world from your article.
Blackberry 10 is already in development and will hopefully be pushed for release this side 2013 not that
the iphone 5 hasnt really impressed lots of people.
Nokia has not announced any products. It has announced 2 model numbers, and a faked camera demo. When we have full specs, release dates, prices, and fully working demo units we can start thinking about products. Until then it's vapourware. Meanwhile Google is registering close to 1 million phones per day, and Apple goes from strength to even greater strength.
> Then Google would have to keep making Android better and better
Gingerbread, Honeycomb, ICS, JB. Yeah, Google has sat on its hands.
In fact it is the competition between HTC, Samsung, and many others that keep the improvements coming.
One problem with WP7 was that MS dictated what could and could not be done, such as limiting it to single core, 800x480 (or 320x480) so that all WP7 phones were the same reducing the competition between OEMs.
If you say the same of the Iphone 5, sure - let's wait until release.
And yeah, obviously Nokia have no track record of releasing phones, it's not like they were the number one phone and smartphone company until this year.
And Apple go from strength to strength, now they're so good, they're 3rd place behind Samsung and Nokia.
I have finally got my N8 and it's fantastic. Built in SIP VOIP.
It completely blows away my BlackBerry, yesterday I opened more Apps at once (including internet radio and skype) than my Blackberry 9700 would cope with and it still felt smoother than the BlackBerry.
What is needed is a proper review, so that anyone moving from an N8 knows whether they are taking a big step down or not. (From everything I have heard it sounds like they would be with Windows Phone 7. Is it the case for WP8?)
You can do more with the N8 than any current Droid/fruit based device.
Nothing comes close on the call handling, the camera, the hard baked GPS, USB on the go, FM transmitter etc etc...
The Lumia 920 is getting there but I think the next upgrade again will be the one to best it.
"That’s also the conventional wisdom of most technology pundits, who see no prospect for anyone outside the two "ecosystems" of Apple's iOS and Google's Android. "
Indeed, though they really are clueless. Up until 2011, Nokia's Symbian was the number one platform. It then continued to outsell Iphone until late 2011, when the WP switchover began.
So whilst we are now in a situation where Android and Iphone are the top two, this really is a very recent thing - yet the so-called armchair technology pundits have been harping on about Android and Iphone (or worse, just Iphone) for years, which shows you how clueless they are. That doesn't mean that WP will replicate Symbian's success - who knows, but I really care little for what these people say.
Also note it's misleading to put Iphone on the same level as Android. Android outsells Iphone by a factor of 4-5 now. The market is basically Android and that's it - and if you want to count Iphone too, then sure, but also count WP and Blackberry, and so on.
Nokia have fallen, but only from 1st to 2nd place (overtaken by Samsung), so all this talk of a comeback is a bit overblown anyway. Plus the media have been spreading this myth that Nokia went away the moment the first Iphone appeared in 2007, and for years have been asking whether Nokia will make a "comeback", despite Nokia being the number one company all that time (and still outselling Apple today).
Oh, and just to add - it's also ludicrous to see this talk of "Is there room for more that 2 platforms", given that for years, we've had 3, 4, 5 or more major platforms. And for most of that time, Iphone was 3rd, 4th or even 5th.
Personally I use Android now, but I don't understand the arguments against WP - did we have years of people saying about Iphone: "Is there room for more than Symbian and Blackberry", or "more than Symbian and Android"?
Perhaps there is some hypothesis that long term stability is only possibly when we have one major platform, one smaller platform, and everything else is much smaller (similar to the Windows vs OS X vs Linux etc ratios). But I think we're still a few years from seeing what the final long term state of the phone market is.
I don't think so: if you managed to read the account of the iPhone launch without being sick, you would realise that what Apple is good at, more than any other phone maker or computer maker by far, is PR. They can afford the best graduates of the best universities to represent what everybody else has done for years as new because it has an apple on it, and people swallow it. Companies like Nokia and RIM never knew what hit them. Nor did Motorola or HP. To a degree, no matter how clever they were, their ability to explain it to journalists and Joe Public was dismal by comparison.
This time round Nokia seems to have improved somewhat. If RIM can improve on their inability to promote their products, BB 10 might surprise everybody - the developers are enthusiastic and it's already known that the first BB 10 product will be higher spec than an iPhone 5 and smaller than the Lumia 920. But at the end of the day it all depends on who has the best psychologists, copywriters and ego-flatterers. Cupertino seems to have cornered the market there.
People want Apple stuff - it's not that they are being 'told' they want it - it's genuinely good. I've been in IT for longer than I care to remember and the Apple stuff just works better. Apple have done a lot to drag the market up / forward - we jumped a few years forward when they came out with the iPhone, same with the iPad and Macbook Air. You may pay a slight premium up front but TCO is generally far lower when the kit generally has a longer life, lower support, better resale value etc.
It's defined by the app market(s), not the phone markets themselves.
Apple and Android both have massive momentum now c/o their app repository. To the extent that phones are becoming task devices, proper computers, this is where the relevant comparisons are to be made.
Windows Phone 8 will be dead on arrival.
The following weeks will be dominated by the iPhone 5. Nokia Lumia 920 will hit retail only in mid-November, earliest.
It's over. Nokia should sack Stephen Elop, and go for Plan B - Android. Do it soon or Nokia's share price becomes utterly worthless.
Like watching a bunch of idiots trying to see who can piss the farthest into a hurricane.
The world has moved on since the 90's. The Desktop (Microsoft) is no longer the driving technology - it is now mobile. The days of sticking "windows" on a product and MS bullying the market to follow are over.
So now MS has a <5% market share with a product that has been totally rejected by the market (why does not matter) and all you MS lovers think that just because they are finally coming out with a product that may not totally suck all the IPhone and Android users are just going to throw out what they own today (and in many cases love), shout "thank god - MS has saved us" and run out and buy one. All because it looks like a desktop product that only the MS love children care about.
I know, just wait for WP 8 (WP 7.5, Nokia, WP 7, ...) - they should rename WP to "JWF"
Wow. It never ceases to amaze me how quick opinions from all sides fly on every rumour. You haven't seen W8 phone so don't slam it down so hard.
I'm an Android user, currently on a Nexus S that went from Gingerbread, to ICS, and then to JB). It's a great little phone, does what I want and I can count on regular updates without bloatware. It's not the newest, and it's not perfect,...but it suits me perfectly.
I'm a Windows 7 PC user, not a Mac user (my son and his girlfriend both have Apple laptops)
Things that keep me away from Apple
- Same programs I have at work, and wide range of products available
- Games (there....I said it)
- I build my own computers as a hobby and am always tinkering/upgrading. Apple won't let me do that.
- I am free to choose any hardware components I want, at a good price, from a highly competitive market
- iTunes - this alone would keep me away from Apply products. I like the freedom to drag and drop files/media from any computer to my phone with a (very) standard USB cable.
- If I want to transfer files or charge my phone and I don't have my cable I can easily borrow one from almost any other smartphone user out there
I like Apple products. They are well designed, easy to use, and very standardized. They are just not for me.
You can have your opinion, and others can have theirs, and you can both be right. No solution is perfect, you just have to choose the product and the company that works for you. You can prefer the flexibility or Android and deal with late upgrades (if/when they are released), or get walled in by Apple's "Do it our way" but have a more standardized product. You can support a company like Samsung who copies another company's designs and denies it, or Apple who is out to use silly patents to crush competition and stifle innovation.
I love and hate aspects of each. I don't know what will happen when MS/Nokia release the new phones, but at this point a third choice looks like a pretty good option. I may not go that way, but I will certainly have a look.
The article writer dismisses pundits on prospects for Windows8 Phone, but never mentions Blackberry 10 based Smartphones that the pundits also give little chance.
What is it about Rim that this tech author feels needs to be totally omitted from any mobile discussion, or is Andrew Orlowski just another one of those writers with a myopic Microsoft view that has become nauseating to the point of distraction?
Let's remember a major reason the WP7 Lumias failed is because by and large they never did appear on shelves. Even the shops that stocked them kept them all in the backroom out of sight. I've still never seen an actual Lumia in real life, despite trawling through shops looking around launch time.
Will it be any different this time? Seems pretty unlikely, apart from EE signing up not much has changed to make buyers want to stock them or shop staff want to sell them. Unless you believe Microsofts cynical Win8 scheme will work... I tend to believe not trashing all their existing apps will be more important to users than some imaginary Win8 bonus.
One thing that's not really been mentioned is the developer experience and cost to market for a given application.
Microsoft's dev stack really is light years ahead of android and iPhone in terms of language features, framework and tooling. Its simply quicker to knock up equivalent apps. Not to mention that from win 8 onwards web developers can target the OS natively as well.
Even if Windows phone 8 is the greatest OS the world has ever seen, doesn't mean it will be successful if there are no good apps for it. BeOS was technically much superior to Windows when it was released but because no one wrote any programs for BeOS it eventually died a death. Its a vicious circle, a new OS with hardly any users so developers you don't want to write apps until they know they will sell so wait until the install base increases. But end user buying a new phone don't want to buy a phone with no apps available so go with Android/Apple or Blackberry.
As each platform has game exclusives.
This is something that you can not found on the other platform.
Enter the internet connected devices, the key here is that most if not all the important applications are available to everybody.
Now enter the exclusives:
Apple has polished posh experience, and it is the right eye of the publishing world, and the favour of the masses, they can get away with murder.
Android has the backup of the majority of phone manufacturers, it is free and you can bend it to your liking, it has many shapes and sizes as a fighter jet has buttons in the control panel.
Now what does Winokia has? No applications, an excessively wide margin, and a once wonder camera not so great this time.
Sure MS can make a stride, but seems difficult.
I can only presume that this statement about the new iPhone was intended to be sarcastic. I am British and apparently understand sarcasm but don't think you made that one very clear.
The fact that Apple brought out little new is slightly less surprising than noticing my dog has farted. That is not what Apple does. It looks around for ideas and combines them in ways that they calculate will sell.
They noticed that smartphone screens are getting bigger.. They did not copy this and make an iPhone with a big screen. Instead, they brought out a screen that was not quite so small. This will be important when someone else updates a phone with a very small screen to merely a small screen. Their lawyers will pounce.
"Behind this belief is the view that application developers do not target more than two platforms, and manufacturers of companion products such as music gear and TVs don’t hedge their bets either."
Hi, Andrew,
In global marketplaces with universal spaces and virtual reality areas, do SMARTR ProgramMING Application Developers target Any and All Platforms and Plan Phorms for Currency and Power with Present Delivery of Future Product Placements to Render the Past a Memory to be Lost in History and Ignored at One's Peril and at Leisure for Pleasure.
Do you know if Nokia and Microsoft are into Great Danegeld Game Theory Play and the Delivery of a Present with Future Product Placements to Render the Past a Memory to be Lost in History and Ignored at One's Peril and at Leisure for Pleasure, or is that to be supplied by someone else and others, for that is what is available today.
And it is an edutaining and illuminating ponder to wonder why the mainstream media and governments are avoiding mentioning it, and badly ignoring it whenever there is such a clear and transparent chain of command communication linking them to the development.
So iOS and Android have dithered by breaking sales records - Android now being the largest mobile OS with over half a billion activations, and Microsoft have a chance because so far hardly anyone has bought a Windows Phone and Nokias sales are still in decline.
If it isn't too much of a stupid question, what on earth is this article talking about ?
Definitely probably my last words today, on your thoughts as shared on the page http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/09/14/windows8_phone_ecosystems_analysis/ and this thread of comments, Andrew.
And thanks are due to C, El Reg, for the heads up and confirmation of successful stealth supply of steganographic applications/prime invisible transparent programs in virtualised operating systems …… "No, it was simply completely unintelligible, sorry.
C." ….. diodesign (Written by Reg staff) Posted Monday 17th September 2012 11:54 GMT … http://forums.theregister.co.uk/forum/1/2012/09/15/google_j2objc_tool/ ……. and of the certain true nature of the last three paragraphs shared in the post alluded to there and entitled AIPinging of the White House for Intelligence, Opportunity and Curiosity. ……. and which was disappeared in moderation?
And the question mark is placed there quite consciously, for one would just love to be surprised by intelligence services which may actually be considerably smarter than they will ever seem and/or be generally perceived by any other than themselves and those extremely active and effective in the field and their fields of Great Game[s] Play ….. ARG MetaPhoria :-)
But I digress somewhat, and that is another tangent and parallel program of thought, and I just wish to provide you with the information that virtual reality is another ecosystem which supports world markets and is a response to your sharing of If I were Redmond – or Nokia – I’d be reminding the world that markets are pretty unruly, dynamic and volatile places, and sometimes they can support three ecosystems quite nicely.
Slightly more on the matter is left out in the open and posted on 09/15/12 10:15 PM here/there ….. http://www.thedailybell.com/4290/Who-REALLY-Produced-the-Film-Desert-Warrior-That-Is-Now-Convulsing-the-Middle-East ….. where the ecosystem highlighted and currently being supplied with NEUKlearer HyperRadioProActive IT is simply complex and "the Future as IT Presents it as Fabulous News to replace the Ignorant and Arrogant Follies which extraordinarily rendered the Past." with IT now deliverable with Default Supplies for Advanced IntelAIgent Imaginanation too. …. 4AI2 C42 Quantum Communication Control Systems.
For with the Command and Control of Computers and Communication in Creative CyberSpace [C42] what cannot be Presented as the Future and a Great AI Virtual Reality, with any number of particularly and peculiarly well-spun realities available for Orders and Order on Earth, with it and IT being more IntelAIgently Designed than by Primitive Pedestrian Human Beings/Man of Woman. [Another one of those enigmatic circular chicken/egg conundrums to waste time in space pondering on who begat whom whenever it matters not a jot whenever all is invented with Big Bangs as IT needs such things to be.]
Oh, and you have not mentioned at all that BT are a global communications player hosting everything that the likes of Redmond and Nokia, Apple and Sony, Huawei and Samsung or whoever you can mention, invent and provide/imagine to supply. That sort of provides/leaves them in a lead rather than support role, does it not, with future direction from head office honchos, an area of interest ....... or concern if not up to universal resource leading standards.
The InterNetwork is the Virtual Computer Operating System.
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