Windows Phone 7: 'Different, delightful'... and unfinished Microsoft has unveiled Windows Phone 7, stressing the phone's difference from other touchscreen devices, such as the iPhone and Android handsets. Company chief executive Steve Ballmer called Windows Phone 7 "different" no less than five times during his remarks at a company event in New York where Microsoft joined number-two …
I'm glad I'm not the only one who thinks that the author of this article is heavily biased against Microsoft. I used to enjoy unbiased articles on this site with the added satire and other humour. Lately though it seems many of the authors for The Register have their own agendas that go against straightforward propagation of facts. At least we've still got John Lettice, Lester Haines and Lewis Page providing us with good articles that provide humour and fact in decent quantities!
Really don't know how the author missed the part of the presentation dedicated to the WP7 marketplace. Maybe he fell asleep or was too busy using his Android/iPhone/Blackberry at the time? :)
Another (more probable?) explanation is that your hero Mr Ballmer had little worth saying and his comments were fully reporting - just like that internet thingy, MS are late to the party and Windows Phone 7 is a rush job to try and catch up.
So they miss out little things (like backward compatability) to get their incomplete product out (AGAIN).
AC wrote: "the writer here is a very, very negative individual! i have never ready such a 'half empty' report - u must have a very sad, unfortunate, boring and highly uninteresting life"
Maybe the report simply echoes the reality of the product. All the reviews I've read about Windows Phone 7 seem to be struggling to find something interesting to say, and not many seem bothered about commenting either. Perhaps it's just Windows Phone 7 that is "very sad, unfortunate, boring and highly uninteresting"?
Interesting speculation and something I hadn't previously considered. Appreciate you putting forward this possibility for contemplation.
I guess you've also ruled out Apple iPhone and RiM Blackberry devices for similar reasons? There's always Android phones, a friend took me through the process of 'rooting' Android handsets and showed me some of the frustrations of regularly having to hard-reset the device due to software updates for the OS.
Basically Apple have managed to convince a lot of customers that letting the manufacturer retain complete control of the handset is in their customers' best interests. Now the road is clear for other manufacturers to do the same so it's only a matter of time before the notion of us controlling what our phones do is completely out of our own hands.
The games side is integrated with Xbox Live - with the achievements, avatars, friends lists and everything else that entails.
I'd imagine Windows Live is in there somewhere too (they mentioned sharing Office docs and such)
Personally I'm only really interested in how the UI pans out - it seems like a good idea to go simple and "stylish"
that fails entirely to comment either way on whether this 'phone' can make telephone calls.
Perhaps i am old school, but since the iBroke 4.0 antenna issue perhaps its worth asking that question?
Also, rightly or wrongly windows is known for crashing (ref: the 'if MS made cars' joke).
The Windows phones I have had to endure needed hard boots at least once a day.
---
MS is nowhere in the mobiles space (and never has been). One must wonder why they are now making this sudden play, is it just to collect patents and make money of the sweat of others?
MS nearly lost the netbook market with their arrogance and only serious back-pedalling over XP (assisteed by the ineptitude/inexperience of the Linux distros) allowed them to regain their hold. The problem with the mobile market is that Linux et al are already entrenched, integrated and working very well; this is not how it was when netbooks started.
I seriously hope the various Linux groups can use the mobile space as a chink in MS's armour and then spread to other areas such as the desktop (i.e a share in double or near-double digits). Only time will tell.
I hope there's some degree of customisation to how this thing lets you organise stuff. I'm not sure how "delightful and wonderfully mine" it would be, if what it says about me is that I need everything I do organising into one of six broad categories, that are then hidden under baby-blue and vomit-green squares.
Otherwise, I can see all the parodies going up on-line ... John Hodgman, in that grey suit, holding up one of these things: "delightful... and wonderfully me..."
The iPhone only ships with, er, one kind of handset. Can't recall the last time that was used to write a negative article about it by El Reg.
Also... does that mean iOS 3 was unfinished since Apple let you upgrade to iOS4? I'm just glad we're getting C+P added without the hassle of a complete OS flash or a new handset...
Full Disclosure: I'm an MS Employee
or do all the WP7 articles here really have decidely negative tone to it? Feels as if Reg (and the usual MS hating commentators here) is bitter and annoyed that MS came up with what seems to be really good mobile OS. C'mon, if uber ifanboi John Gruber thinks it's awesome, it can't be as bad as people here think, right?
"Cut and paste is being added following feedback from the Windows Phone 7 beta program according to Belfiore who said it had been overlooked as Microsoft had focused instead on touch."
If they've overlooked such basic functionality such as Copy & Paste, what else has been ignored? Has anyone checked if you can make calls with this thing? Just asking.
They needed feedback AFTER most of the development had been done to tell them that cut and paste will be something that people actually want?
Did no one at M$ read any news about the iPhone when it was released without cut and paste? No one back then could work out why Apple thought that it was fine not to have such an essential feature, providing Nokia with one of the last laughs they had at Apple.
Makes you wonder what else they don't know about and isn't included .....
Or is M$ trying to prove that they are being 'different' and have not let there developers be 'corrupted' by having any knowledge of rival devices. A team of developers recruited from the remotest part of the world, from the suburbs of Ulan Bator to Urucurituba no doubt.
From what I've seen it has some good features, but also it seems to be different for the sake of standing out. But the UI looks like you'll spend half of your time scrolling around to find things that should just be there.
Many of the user interfaces are only partially shown, so you have to scroll about using your phone like a magnifying glass to find things. You might think that's the same with all OSes, but the layout isn't very consistent.
Have a look at three examples here:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/mobile-phones/7928956/Hands-on-preview-Windows-Phone-7.html
Laughable, writer tried to stress the unfinished so much that it feels forced. It took Apple how many years to implement cut & paste? However most sites praised the phone anyway. The writer needs to find tangible proof if he wants readers to take him seriously.
Michelle, sadly big brother is here anyway. Just be smart on how you share your information. XBox Live (or any Live services) should not be mandatory, I think. However, bricking your phone would be past anything big bro should be able to do. Given MS position in the market it is not in their best interest to piss off anyone.
That being said, I am still on the sidelines on the new OS. MS seems to want to control every aspect of the experience, which is both good and bad. Which side it leans on more will decide how well it does in the market. Keep an even presentation and it will be great. Try to tightly control everything users can do and imho it won't go smooth.
ok, this article and many like all over the web today really should be setting off mental alarms for consumers. MS admits that it is releasing a product that is unfinished and not ready for prime time my stating "an update will be available" before the product is even being sold?
that makes me nervous, and shows how desperate MS is to get back into the phone pool with it's new OS. I'm not saying it's a bad thing, but....are they listening? consumers complained for a while about the expectations of the IPhone, and MS is making some of the same mistakes before it even ships the first phone. Even going a few of the same disappointing paths as Apple and others took.
first impression is a lasting impression, and if they do not have anything to impress consumers with between now and Xmas, then I'm pretty sure an IPhone is going to be on everyone's list.
A year from now, Apple and Android will still be fighting for the top spots while WinPhone7 won't even be considered as valid competition.
Cut and Paste overlooked? my ass! Microsoft intentionally left it out, initially MS had announced that it wouldn't be present, period, end of story, but they received such a huge backlash from the (dwindling) WinMo fan club that they promised to add it in later....
This shit about an app store... if their app store is the only way software can be installed on these phones, it'll surely mean i'll never buy one... the only thing that makes my touch pro 2 compelling to me is that i can install what ever i want without any bullshit of an app store...
Major missing features:
- cut/paste (and its complete BS that this was "overlooked" after all the noise made over Apple's lack of it initially).
- Tiles not customizable by devs
- Video output
- Mac Support
- no side loading apps
- no file system
- no browser silver light support (only in apps)
- no cross-app data sharing
- no streaming (from PCs in the home)
- no SD cards
- can install other browsers (eventually) but default MUST be IE (can not be changed, wow, the EU is going to CRUCIFY them over that one....)
- no iTunes support (some may call that a plus, but millions of people use it. And YES, there ARE phones that support iTunes other than Apple, they just don;t "integrate" with iTunes, and rely on APIs to access the XML database and file system directly, which IS allowed by Apple, f*ck you Palm!).
Its far from finished.
... from using this phone- I can't stand Face(palm)book, and I don't have an Xbox live account to link it to. The music features sound interesting, but I've already a device for that with works a treat. GPS navigation and internet? Again, depends on how well they work, which this article glossed over pretty lightly. (Not sure if I want to use IE on a mobile device, though- too many bugs and holes with the desktop version already.)
I do wonder if it will let me establish a real-time voice conversation with people? That would be a very useful feature to have, especially if the quality of the voice conversation is good.
@AC "Boring...."..... *shrug*, I'm with the article writer though. All the info on Windows Phone 7 has made it look lackluster. And based on articles I've read (not just this one) it seems like Ballmer's presentation was a bit lackluster too. It's hard to fake excitement about an unexciting product.
I'm surprised they didn't think cut and paste was important. I mean really? When IPhone shipped without it, even the biggest raging fanbois couldn't come up with an excuse, they were like "Huh.. well it should be added soon". It seems like a pretty silly mistake to duplicate.
Are people still making that jibe? c'mon, get with the 21st century, Windows since 2000 has been relatively stable, each sucessive release being generally better than the last. I manage a large WinTel estate and we don't have Windows "crashing". I guess its the "give a dog a bad name" thing. I suspect that will haunt Windows phone efforts as some previous efforts have been a bit horrible. Not so much that they were bad attempts for their era, but that MS has been lacking development in this area and what it has been offering has been sorely out of date. Like walking into a Ford dealer and finding they are sill selling the Escort... Not great when new but not actually bad. But compared with a modern design, sub-par! I'm prepared to give MS a shot with this, I'm even prepared to wait until Phone 7 v1.1 but Ballmer beware I am rapidly becoming an Android Fanboi as are just about everyone I know who doesn't Fangrl thier iPhone...
...trying to rubbish any competition to his Apple church. Exactly why isnt WP7 "unfinished"?
Aahah, precisely 2 (!) points cited by our journo - no cut and paste! no apps!
I wonder if he called iPhone "unfinished" when it was launched, without GPS, without stereo Bluetooth and yes, without cut/paste and...apps.
"Think different" - buy Nopple!
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