back to article Yahoo! blasts Microsoft over WinPho 7 bug blame

Yahoo! has hit back at Microsoft, claiming it is the software giant's Windows Phone Mail app that is the root of the WinPho 7 phantom data bug – and not its email servers. The glitch, which has led some WinPho 7 phone users complain that their handsets transfer far more data – potentially with tariff-twisting consequences – …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    You bought the wrong phone...

    omfg M$ are not using standards... no surprise there.

    Also, if you bought a windoze 7 phone - what the fcuk were you thinking??? iPhones sell well for a reason

    Fail for windoze 7 phone, fail for non-standard IMAP.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Grenade

      Re: You bought the wrong phone...

      iPhones sell well because a lot of people don't know any better. I'm not saying that iOS isn't a stable, intuitive platform, because it is. I just don't think it's the best on the market right now.

      I owned a 3GS, an Android 2.1-powered HTC Hero and I gave the iPhone 4 a go for a few weeks. I replaced the 4 with an HTC HD7 running WP7 because I was curious.

      I was very quickly blown away by the fluidity of the UI and I can easily say that after three months of use, I'm very, very happy with it. I'll be the first to say that there are many gaps (missing features etc.), but the OS is very new and this is to be expected. Let us not forget iOS' alarm clock bugs... It is at the end of the day software, and software has bugs.

      I hope that MS* (Ballmer) allows the product to live and develop as it could really become very special. That is of course assuming that people don't listen to shit advice from the likes of closed-minded individuals such as you.

      *You'll note I didn't at any point call you a 'fanboi'. Let's all stop using crap terms such as that and 'M$'. They're not funny and just make you look like a 'tard.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Grenade

        I was very quickly blown away by the fluidity of the UI

        If you come near me and I'll blow you away... BTW the HTC HD7 is not waterproof.

        What a complete steaming pile of marketing speak. Do you work for M$*?

        Most people here buy phones on contracts and have to live with them for 18months, sometimes 24! So I really cant be arsed to take advice form someone who changes thier phone as often as thier socks. how can you say you used the phone, when you probably never got around to charging it. let alone applying an update. in fact actually thinking about it I tried that phone in a shop, so now i'm going to say I had one too.

        *I have deliberatly gone out of my way to use M$ as although I generally do not use it it seems that you are making a point out of it, in fact thevery same point that Microsoft, oops sorry I meant micro$oft liek to make that 'its just nonsense' well that as maybe but here on teh webs we comentards have the right to speak nonsense whether you or MS, dang again, M$, like it or not.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: I was very quickly blown away by the fluidity of the UI

          Whilst not wishing to troll-feed, I'm happy address your points:

          I did not suggest the HD7 was waterproof. I stated that the UI (user interface) is fluid. I was using the word as an adjective.

          I do not work for Microsoft, nor do I work in any marketing position.

          I owned the HTC Hero for the duration of an 18 month contract. The iPhone 3GS was issued by my employer during most of that time.

          I owned the iPhone 4 for approximately five weeks. During that time I encountered a sufficient number of defects to warrant a replacement (the HD7) under the 1979 Sales of Goods act.

          The HD7 is not on a contract. I am now on a SIM-only, non-contractual tariff. I find this better value for money compared to an 18 month contract. I have also found that smart phones tend to operate poorly beyond 12 months life - regardless of brand.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Re: I was very quickly blown away by the fluidity of the UI

            Ok I accept your timeline... oh and if your phone starts to operate poorly after 12 months its easy to re-rom it back to as new, of course if its the fact that its not new after 12 months that cant be fixed.

            But really were you 'Blown Away' was it really that different? you see your statement infers that it is surprising, new and wonderours perhaps one could say magical... ok perhaps not! but somekind of step change in Mobile OS?.. and yet we all know that MS are not capable of inovation they can only copy (And usually incur a few fuckups along the way). That aside though I am yet to see a new os that works well in its first year of release, and as such I am sceptical that those who preach the wonders and hide the ommissions tend to have a vested interest of somekind...

  2. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    IMAP is a terrible standard

    I wouldn't normally support Microsoft - after all they abuse most standards they come across - but having wrestled with IMAP protocols I know how badly defined they are, and whilst more testing would have been a Good Idea, they have my sympathy.

    There are ambiguities in almost every area of the IMAP 'specification', and both IMAP servers and clients have to take a pragmatic approach to supporting all sorts of interpretations at the other end of the connection.

    If I worked for the university that invented it I would hang my head in shame.

    1. Miek
      FAIL

      yeah but ...

      $MS should have probably checked what to implement based on what Yahoo were using.

      Another $MS "not-quite-compatible" FAIL

  3. Mikel
    WTF?

    How do you not test this?

    No, really. How?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Erm...

      They probably did, but for some reason it didn't come up in testing. Maybe Yahoo changed their software slightly, after the testing. Maybe MS tested against a refrence mail server, but not every specific mail server available.

      The bottom line is that noone has enough information to say if testing was carried out, how it was carried out or if software at either party had changed post testing.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Boffin

        They probably did, but for some reason

        isn't it obvious? they did test it, but the test account on yahoo was not a heavily used day to day account, and a test account with 3 two line emails is not a suitable test. MS employees and testers all have hotmale* accounts.

        *its just thier dream we all really know they have middle age spread and are balding...

  4. Bram
    Stop

    Well

    From what I read Yahoo said MS did not implement their IMAP standards properly. This leads me to believe Yahoo have their own implementation of IMAP and just provide a manual to other businesses on how to use it.

    MS probably just used a standardised implementation of IMAP which leads to other problems ie extra downloads.

    The win pho 7 hackers would be looking at the industry standard IMAP implementation and they seemed to confirm that win pho 7 is using that and there must be an issue with Yahoo's servers

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Unhappy

      Re: Well

      "From what I read Yahoo said MS did not implement their IMAP standards properly. This leads me to believe Yahoo have their own implementation of IMAP"

      Of course they do, there is no alternative...

      You make the quite reasonable, but unfortunately incorrect, assumption that the world is blessed with an unambiguous Standard for IMAP.

      The lack of a clear standard is the root cause of this angst, and leads to the daft situation where every IMAP client needs to be exhaustively tested against every IMAP server it's likely to connect to, rather than being able to test against a reference implementation. Read the history of IMAP, and weep.

  5. frank ly
    Stop

    Yahoo Mail does IMAP?

    I didn't know that Yahoo Mail could be accesses using IMAP. With my ordinary Yahoo webmail, I only see a POP3 option. Is this some premium paid version they are talking about or have I missed something?

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Come-uppance

    After decades of ISVs having to do whatever it took make their products compatible with Windows' badly documented and proprietary standards, it must come as shock for the bully to realize it is an also-ran in the smartphone space and may have to do that little extra bit of work to make sure it complies with *other* companies' implementations

    I don't know if this is the cause of the problem but it does seem that Yahoo! IMAP! is not 100% compatible with the standard:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yahoo!_Mail 2/2/2011

    "It is possible to get direct IMAP access. Yahoo! operates IMAP and secure IMAP servers (imap.mail.yahoo.com in particular), which are globally accessible. However they require a specific, non-standard IMAP command to be sent before login is done, namely: “ID ("GUID" "1")”. It is feasible to modify an open-source e-mail client to send the ID command, and there are modified versions of Mutt and Mozilla Thunderbird available to download.[24][25] Alternatively, one can connect an unmodified e-mail client through an IMAP proxy that adds the ID command. A commercial software package that accomplishes this is called 'Yahoo IMAP Connector',[26] available here

    . Mutt-dev (1.5) works without any modifications.

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