Leaked Nokia WinMobes ready for midrange scrum The worst kept secret in mobiles is out. Nokia will launch its first three Windows Phones this week, and since everyone in the industry has already seen them, except the media, it was inevitable details would trickle out before the announcement on Wednesday. When you lose control of your platform, you lose control of your leaks …
The Porsche 911 sells the boxster. High end design makes a brand desirable and makes people go for the mid range options.
If you come in at the mid range and lack those high end features, what happens to your brand image and desirability?
I was more tempted by Apple than ever before this year, Android 4, Revenge of the Ice Cream Sandwich has me excited and I was so looking forward to hardware accelerated browsing and voice recognition in WinPho 7.5...
This has dampened my enthusiasm for Windows Phone 7.5. I wanted to see stuff that made me go wow, and all I got was a lousy "hmmmm....".
Well you would be wrong. There are plenty of folks interested in Windows Phone.
You may find this hard to believe...but there ARE folks who do not like Apple or Google, and until RIM catch up with the 21st century, Windows is the only choice, IF someone wants a smartphone.
I for one don't want ANY smartphone, but prefer to stay with my "stupidphone", because I actually use mine as a TELEPHONE. Don't give a rat's ar$e about apps.
With Apple and Microsoft, anything you buy is locked to their platforms.
Buy something on the Android store and it works on a MUCH bigger variety of products from a MUCH bigger selection of manufacturers.
Anyone buying an iPhone or a Windows Phone is frankly an idiot that can't see further than tomorrow...
You really want to watch tv on the thing?
Sorry, no. The screen is way too small and I have an iPad or PC if I want to watch something while I'm in an airplane seat.
What I want out of the phone is something solid. Where it's not going to fall apart and break on me. I want a phone that will outlive its 2yr contract so I don't get stuck in an endless cycle on a single carrier.
I want a phone where I can make phone calls and not worry about dropped calls or antennae gates. I want a phone where I don't have to worry that it will run out of a charge when I leave the house.
I want a phone where I can send and receive text messages and e-mails. I want a phone with limited internet connectivity and A-GPS to tell me where I am.
All of these things can be found in the Nokia and probably half a dozen other phones.
So don't discount them too soon.
I want to be able to have 3 sims active at the same time [2], and a months standby time. [1]
I want to be able to make and receive calls.
I want the voicemail on the phone, so I don't have to pay for international calls to retrieve it when I am abroad
I don't really care about SMS, I would not miss it if it was missing. I certainly don't want to use up my battery listening to music or being a torch.
I don't think this is rocket science.
[1] My TimePort L7089 with the double size battery and extended case could do around 45 days standby time. in 1999.
[2] I have had two Smasung that did this for two sims, on rental, but they are not quad-band or world-wide which is daft. There are chinese knock-offs with up to 4 sim slots, but the software is so crap I end up throwing them at the wall.
I'm sticking with my iPhone for a while, but I did have a play with a Windows device in an Orange shop, and actually quite liked it. The interface is novel and good looking and it did zip along at a fair pace too (although if it's like Windows PC's it will slow down considerably after three months!). Good effort I'd say
To go from great innovation to just selling such a crap OS. Drives me mad. Poor Finland.
Even Symbian is better than WP7. And Meego would have been perfect, the panacea.
You can email Elop and tell him what a great job he's doing, he even responds though you need to prepare for great hubris in his replies:
stephen.elop@nokia.com
With so much sacrificed for such tat I only hope the shareholders will see that steering the ship towards WP7 is a course destined for disaster.
WP7.5 - no custom message alerts?! No tethering? Made of fail. Made of balls.
"WP7.5 - no custom message alerts?! No tethering? Made of fail."
That's the same tired message people said of iOS and Android back when they didn't have them (still don't in some cases)...
And Symbian and MeeGo had great potential, but you forget one small issue - Nokia can not/could not ever compete with companies like Google and Apple on software and services! Hence, Microsoft. Same reason webOS died. Same reason BBX will die.
No need to be so rude.
According to Tom Warren on the 27th of September
""Windows Phone 7.5 includes the ability for end users to share their Internet connection with up to 5 devices at the same time. Microsoft revealed on Tuesday that only new Windows Phone 7.5 devices will be able to take advantage of the feature due to some hardware differences. “This feature will only be available on new Windows Phones that have radios capable of broadcasting a connection,” said Microsoft’s Ben Rudolph in a blog post on Tuesday.
The tethering feature is also controlled by mobile operators....
.....
Update: It appears existing devices may get tethering support if device manufacturers and operators decide to update the Wi-Fi drivers on current devices. Microsoft’s Joe Belfiore revealed that Internet Sharing requires a new Wi-Fi driver to be provided for existing handsets. “I suspect most will do this, but it will take time,” he said in a Twitter message that has subsequently been deleted. Miscc.net was able to capture his remarks. ""
http://www.winrumors.com/windows-phone-7-5-internet-tethering-feature-only-available-on-new-devices/
Nokia somehow convinced developers of all sizes to learn trolltech qt framework saying it is the future of all things nokia.
A miracle happened and they actually took their word serious. Millions of dollars and engineering hours spent for awkward (for that base) framework since their argument made perfect sense. You can try and see right now that framework actually delivers what java promised. It works anywhere. I use kde apps under windows 7!
You know what that company owning the framework and their partner did? No qt for windows phone announced. Some naive asked the question and it was formally validated. If there has left any logic in business, nokia will go down taking that bald ceo with it. Their newly registered sock puppets from India etc. can't change it.
Another reason the operators will like this: they already have a very good relationship with Nokia from the days when Nokia were the only game in town.
But it might turn a bit sour; Nokia used to be their best friends because they would bend over backwards to provide operator customizations. They won't be able to do that anymore with WP7 being locked down to such a large extent.
I think that Windows 8 with Metro will do more to sell WP handsets than Nokia will. WP7 looks different than other smartphones; Win8 will make it more familiar, and make people more comfortable with it.
Will Nokia be successful? Well, they have to compete against other WP vendors, Apple, and Android.
For work, I have tested iOS, Android, and WP7 this year, and wound up liking WP7 the most based on interface with iOS a close second for maturity (but a clear winner on industrial design.) I am intrigued by the improvements in Android (search: Android 4.0 platform highlights) and will be picking one up for testing that when I get a chance.
I think folks that bash WP7 have never really used a configured device. What I really like so far is a properly developed App that conforms to standards and leverages the live tiles. It creates a much more consistent user experience than the design jumble of App interfaces I have used on either Android or iOS. This familiarity and consistency of interface layout was what allowed Microsoft to take market in the last 15 years. An example: familiar cross-product administration/user dropdown interfaces, right click options, and admin layout paradigms that evolved such as the MMC.
Windows 8 will make an impact. Folks are going to like the interface when they use it, and that will increase interest in WP7.
Or similar is what Im waiting for, you have to hope Nokia will garner some flexibility in the standards set for other OEM's.
A Nokia tablet will be interesting too, as that cant be far off either.
Still, Im a happy S^3 user & I'll be sticking with until it expires I think, despite its foiballs its a pretty capable OS.
I'm sorry, but there essentially is no competition in the "smart phone" market. There might be several companies, but they all try to create the same product. Nobody even attempts to fix the issues of current smart phones. Microsoft even deliberately makes the mistakes all the other companies already made, creating a system which is nearly indistinguishable from feature phones.
"With so few users, Windows Phone hasn't had the chance to fragment or sprawl just yet."
Aren't you missing the point of Microsoft's entire strategy? They're allowing some diversity in spec, quality, etc. whilst ensuring that there's a level playing field for all when it comes to software, thus deliberately preventing fragmentation.
Android is rapidly moving to the point where software Devs have to account for 4 or 5 actively used versions of Android on dozens of different hardware specs. Maintaining their software across all of that so as to maximise sales is a big job.
In contrast, whilst there might be fewer Windows phones they're all the same from the software Dev's point of view. So the Devs win on maintenance costs, which may well amount to higher software sales at the end of the day.
The old maxim "Write once run many" has real commercial clout if you're a software Dev, and Android is surely going far away from that.
A programmer who has written books on iOS programming wrote an app that I'ved used for a long time on both a 2nd gen Touch and an iPhone 4. I wrote a comparable app for the 7.0 version of Windows Phone and it delivered the same charted results in half the time of the iPhone 4 (on a Samsung Focus) and I'm not a professional programmer. Under Mango, it runs even faster. Apple and MS have foregone LTE to save on battery life. Most people I know are okay with 3G because they are often near accessible wi-fi.
Anyone who actually uses or programs for Windows Phone knows that it falls somewhere between the iPhone and the best of the Android offerings for overall usefulness.
This post has been deleted by its author
I would say it's a little too anecdotal to prove that not all programmers are good or good at writing programming books. However, checking out his book's reviews on Amazon, it got a lot of negative comments. So maybe you're on to something. I do get paid for programming, but it is incidental to my primary fields of expertise, which are UI/UX design and GIS. So I still consider my efforts @ writing an app amateur. Yet I was able to accomplish what I wanted with WP7 and Visual Studio. It took some hammering to render a list quickly - more so than in a desktop Silverlight environment - but it was clear to me that Microsoft has put a lot of work into optimizing these things for mobile CPUs.
Once again we are subjected to an extremely biased Register article that loaded with negative commentary and that's just the first paragraph!
Whatever happened to journalistic impartiality?
Perhaps the writers look at Ars Technica for inspiration. It's also a far superior site in terms of content and the look.
Care to talk to a symbian user (about 100m) about the junk shipped and the real problem of nokia is?
If Nokia and their fans have read that particular author's articles to this date we wouldn't be talking about this anyway. Ars being nice? They are based in USA which never ever seen a real symbian phone. That is the naive / good hearted explanation of course.
Upgraded it a week or so back.
Unfortunately, it now infuriates me more. Background themes are 'Midnight something-or-other' (Basically, black-ish text on a black-ish background. Even my missus' icon is now white, unlike the Shrek-green that had a more realistic likeness).
Watching BBC's coverage of Elop's London presentation spasm live made me wonder if we've been a bit premature in our judgements. Time will tell...
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