Well, if you know the distinction, why not root your Droid? Sticking to a rigid rule without applying the principle sounds like shooting yourself in the foot.
I had rooted my original Droid, but it was behaving a bit funky ... and with my Droid Pro I am just keeping it as simple as possible ...
I live in airports and I have yet to see a WM phone. Plenty of Androids and iPhones though. Did I mention iPads?
MS is acting like it's 1995 and they are going to swoop in and catch up like they did in the browser wars. That was a different world and a different time. The Nokia deal may just keep them gasping for air a bit longer in the mobile arena.
Apple rolls out updates in their sleep. MS is just sleeping. They are rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. It is sad to watch.
Gee Jerry: given the hardware that you post on the bottom of your email, I find it hard to swallow your "it is sad to watch" comment. Sounds more like you'd love it if MS fails. MS investing 8.5 Billion in R&D annually will have an impact and I'll bet that the tune will be different for christmas 2011.
Gee Jerry: given the hardware that you post on the bottom of your email, I find it hard to swallow your "it is sad to watch" comment. Sounds more like you'd love it if MS fails. MS investing 8.5 Billion in R&D annually will have an impact and I'll bet that the tune will be different for christmas 2011.
I grant you it does look that way. I have a drawer with 4 WM phones I don't use anymore. I really don't want MS to fail. They just seem so stagnant right now. How many huge lumbering companies, while still around, have followed the same path. The world is zipping past them and they can't even squeak out a "cut and past" update.
Need mindshare, and effective ads to gain marketshare
I visited a local T-Mobile store to purchase the HD7 the day after it was released last year. There were no WP7 devices on display. When I asked a sales rep to see one, he said he thinks they have one in the back room charging up. After about 5 minutes of searching in the back room, he returned with a working HD7. The sales rep's knowledge about WP7 could fit in a thimble. After a few minutes with it, I did purchase a HD7 because I am a gadget person nothing to do with the sales rep.
The average non-tech consumer is inundated with iOS commercials nightly on network TV for both iPhone, and iPad. In most cases, the iOS devices are shown doing simple tasks that a non-tech consumer would value. We did have a flurry of WP7 commercials when they were released (IMO - not very good), but have not seen a WP7 commercial on mainstream media in quite some time. Meanwhile, I am still inundated with iOS commercials nightly. I pass multiple illuminated kiosks downtown advertising the iPhone, and several more advertising the iPad vs. zero for competing devices. Add in all the free mentions Apple gets in the mainstream press whenever a new / updated device is released, and you have an Apple marketing juggernaut resulting in massive mindshare with the non-tech consumer. If you are an avid moviegoer, you would think the Apple / MS desktop market shares were reversed due to the number of Apple logo devices prominently displayed in most mainstream movies. The general tech blogs salivate over everything Apple while they seem to nitpick on the deficiencies of competing devices.
Apple was the only company to massively advertise MP3 devices in the mainstream media, and as a result, they won the MP3 race handily. It was hard to go a night watching network TV without several iPod commercials mainly advertising "being cool" because the devices were definitely feature deficient compared to the competition which unfortunately did not advertise in the mainstream media. The famous silhouette ads advertised "coolness" / "being hip", and certainly helped Apple dominate the MP3 player market. When it was time to move up to a smartphone, the Apple brand was easily recognizable from all the former iPod ads, the then ubiquitous iPhone ads, and the "halo" effect from having owned at least one iPod. The fact Apple emphasized the iPhone includes an iPod certainly helped as well. Only recently did competing devices advertise on network TV. Prior to the Droid commercials, the major carrier advertised their networks, and any phones in the commercials were secondary. Android's meteoric rise did not start until massive advertising for Android based devices became common in mainstream media.
I am a gadget enthusiast, and a former Windows Mobile superfan / power user bordering on evangelist. I felt MS threw out the baby with the bath water when they abandoned Classic WM which still does more of the tasks I need out of the box than any competing platform. WP7 definitely has a smooth UI; however I do not see any compelling reason to switch back from my new favorite power user friendly Android platform which has an equally smooth UI 95% of the time. Android needs to fine tune the code to make that number 100%. I will always own at least one WP7 device because I am a gadget enthusiast / addict, but it cannot be my daily driver in its current configuration. I do not use the iOS platform as my daily driver due to its similar limitations. I recently used my roving T-Mobile SIM in a HD7 for two weeks, and then a HD2 for two weeks. The HD2 was able to accomplish 100% of the tasks I wanted while out, the HD7, about 60% due to restricted file access, or unavailable critical (for me) third party apps. My 2004 era Toshiba VGA PDA does more of the tasks I want than the HD7 except of course it can not make phone calls. Sure the HD7 is a bit smoother than the HD2, but smoothness means nothing if I cannot accomplish what I need to do while mobile.
Unfortunately, Windows Phone 7 emulated the Apple model too closely for my needs. The WP7 UI is definitely as smooth as iOS. However, the Metro UI tiles are certainly a matter of opinion not a guaranteed wow factor, and the restricted file access etc. are just too limiting like the same restrictions are in iOS. If MS kept the power user features of Classic WM, fine tuned the code, and added a super smooth UI like WP7, MS would have the best mobile OS bar none.
Microsoft has to get the carriers on board so the only working model is not charging in the back room. Maybe I just hit a bad store, but it was the day after the phone was released, it should have been receiving prominent display. MS also needs some new exciting hardware, and frequent updates adding features to surpass the competition, not just attain parity. The latest WP7 update shown several weeks ago looks nice, but is not due until the Fall. By that time, we will probably have a new iPhone, and top end, tech bleeding edge phones are released almost weekly on the Android platform. Finally, MS has to match Apple's mainstream media advertising budget, and probably while they are at it, switch advertising agencies.
Last edited by jimtravis; 05-06-2011 at 05:45 PM..
I have had windows PDA's and phones since the 90's, and I am ready to give up on them. We still don't have cut and paste or run multiple non-MS applications at the same time. As mentioned by most forum readers, their update capability sucks. I thought they could update windows phone 7's without the carriers' permission, like the i-phone. I also got really tired of buying expensive phones and finding that you also needed to buy a new phone in order to update the software. Given their update delays at this point, I am not sure that they won't back into that requirement again. In short, they don't have the fire in their belly. Nor have they presented a pressing reason to prefer their phones.
I predict the Mango update will not go smoothly and this will forever cripple WM7 sales. Microsoft lied to the public about the update process. Originally, they said the carriers would have nothing to o with the updates and Microsoft would be pushing them out by itself. Now, it seems, the carriers can skip any updates and delay others. That and the fact Microsoft doesn't seem to be doing much testing of updates bodes I'll for their getting the confidence of the public.
I have yet to see. WM7 phone in the wild. Lying about sales figures is yet another black eye.
I had Windows Mobile 5 and 6 phones for 4 years and the day I ditched WM for Android was one of the happiest days of my life. Unfortunately, the talk from Microsoft that they learned a lesson is just talk and very little action.
Last edited by TheBigCheese; 05-07-2011 at 01:37 AM..
I predict the Mango update will not go smoothly and this will forever cripple WM7 sales. Microsoft lied to the public about the update process. Originally, they said the carriers would have nothing to o with the updates and Microsoft would be pushing them out by itself. Now, it seems, the carriers can skip any updates and delay others. That and the fact Microsoft doesn't seem to be doing much testing of updates bodes I'll for their getting the confidence of the public.
I don't recall Microsoft ever saying that carriers wouldn't be part of the update process. In fact, they stated that carriers would be able to delay an update for one cycle. That's far from saying that carriers wouldn't be involved.
There's also the manufacturers we have to think of. In particular, Samsung apparently had released some units that had problems.
It's a learning process for all involved. Hopefully they'll have it worked out. They are definitely working towards improving the process.
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I have yet to see. WM7 phone in the wild. Lying about sales figures is yet another black eye.
There's the "lying" accusation again. What did they lie about?
Microsoft doesn't sell phones. They sell OS licenses.
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I had Windows Mobile 5 and 6 phones for 4 years and the day I ditched WM for Android was one of the happiest days of my life. Unfortunately, the talk from Microsoft that they learned a lesson is just talk and very little action.
There's the "lying" accusation again. What did they lie about?
Microsoft doesn't sell phones. They sell OS licenses.
Google also sells OS licenses. When they say they are activating 300,000 per day, and you look at the monthly sales ... it all adds up.
Microsoft came out at EOY 2010 and said 1.5 million sold, and implied in the statement was that it was about phones, not just how many OS licenses they crammed down handset makers throats. In reality there less than HALF that many devices sold to actual people.
So whether it is lying, misleading or one of those 'depends what you mean by IS' sorts of things, Microsoft clearly had information and chose to present it in a certain way that looked favorable for them ...
...not just how many OS licenses they crammed down handset makers throats. In reality there less than HALF that many devices sold to actual people...
The Nokia deal essentially does the same thing. It will be interesting to see if when those phones see the light of day, people are not running away from WM.
Google also sells OS licenses. When they say they are activating 300,000 per day, and you look at the monthly sales ... it all adds up.
Microsoft came out at EOY 2010 and said 1.5 million sold, and implied in the statement was that it was about phones, not just how many OS licenses they crammed down handset makers throats. In reality there less than HALF that many devices sold to actual people.
Ah. So when they say how many they sold, you take that as "lying" since they didn't explicitly state that it wasn't to end users. Even when they were asked to clarify the statements and they said it was to manufacturers.
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So whether it is lying, misleading or one of those 'depends what you mean by IS' sorts of things, Microsoft clearly had information and chose to present it in a certain way that looked favorable for them ...
You could say that their first statement was ambiguous. And the reason for ambiguity could have been for marketing and to lesson PR damage. But they weren't lying.
It actually seems that when you're accusing them of "lying", you're doing exactly what you think MS did.
LinkBack to this Thread: http://forums.thoughtsmedia.com/f396/little-under-700k-windows-phone-7-handsets-sold-end-2010-how-much-does-matter-109158.html
Need mindshare, and effective ads to gain marketshare
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