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  #1  
Old 03-05-2010, 01:00 PM
Jon Westfall
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Default Why A Half-Baked Windows Phone 7 Release on an HD2 is a Bad Idea

"We've had it up here with these shenanigans. You're jerking us around, and we're sick of it. We get it, you have a very particular concept of what sort of phones you want running your new Windows Phone 7 Series OS. Not only do we get it, but we're kind of proud of you for sticking up for yourself for once and ensuring some sort of sameness across your platform. Unfortunately, it's not the holiday season yet, so we can't buy one of these fancy WP7S phones yet. Meanwhile, on the other end of town, HTC is bringing the HD2 to T-Mobile in the US this month. Sure, it runs your soon-to-be-outdated Windows Mobile 6.5 OS which nobody wants, but it's also pretty much the best hardware we've ever seen. Bar none."

Paul Miller published an editorial at Engadget yesterday that made me think about the consequences of corporate secrecy and policy when it comes to the geek community. Even as someone willing to play by these rules (as evidenced by my own NDA with Microsoft), I still long for a time where geeks can have what they want, and companies can keep mainstream customers happy. Unfortunately I don't see that happening any time soon for some very practical reasons. And in the end, as frustrating as it is, I think it is for the better.

We're Geeks: Just Let Us Play

This is the mantra that I think resonates with us, and where Paul is coming from in his editorial. We're geeks, we know that there is a high degree of likelihood that Windows Phone 7 can run on the HD2's fantastic hardware, so let us have an upgrade. After all, as geeks, first adopters, and hardcore'ers, we're cool with the fact that it doesn't run 100%. Haven't we all experienced the surprise of having a piece of technology we assumed would have bugs run better than we expected (or flawlessly?). Geeks already anticipate problems since we're used to pushing the bounds.

However regular users are not. Believe it or not, most people who buy a phone expect it to work 100% of the time. They give no slack to the vendors involved when it comes to bugs, errors, acts of god, or any combination of the three. And unfortunately again, they outnumber us! Which means that even if we all go out and buy 5 Windows Phone 7 series devices at launch, we still wouldn't have the same consumer power as regular users. So why can't we just keep them away from our "secret" ROMs and such? Well if you've ever been over at the dark side of the force you know that this is impossible. Just look through the forums there and you'll find many non-geeks who saw cool features they wanted for their phones, and ended up doing horrendous things to their devices because they skipped a step, or didn't see something, or didn't do something we all take for granted. Regular users shouldn't be expected to act like geeks, and because of that, companies can't give us half-baked un-intended ROMs and still deliver an exceptional product.

But Since Regular Users Won't Use It, a Half-Bake Can't Cause a Negative Perception!

So who am I? I'm a geek and a contributing editor. This means that I both push and write about the limits and the mainstream. And while some of the old media types aren't geeks, most of the new media (where you'll get your first impressions of Windows Phone 7 Series, most likely) are. This means that it's tremendously important for the success of WP7S to make a good first impression on users and media members alike. Would a good first impression best be served by the HD2 running a half-baked ROM or by a device built with the OS in mind? The latter. The most available to media geeks? The former. Therein lies the problem. If I buy an HD2 (which I will...) and I put a ROM on it that isn't built for it (which I might...), I may be biased toward the final product remembering bugs that I saw with my unintended preview. It sounds crazy, but as a psychologist, I've actually thought of this (which is why it's unlikely that I would flash a Windows Phone 7 ROM onto my HD2 - I don't want to judge a new OS by a flawed implementation).

What if Microsoft Just Releases a Win 7 ROM That Isn't Half-Baked?

That's awesome, if it happens. I personally doubt it will happen (and honestly have no clue from any source, NDA-covered or otherwise), but if it does, it would likely be a good thing, speeding up adoption rates of the new platform. As for myself, I may want to keep my HD2 running 6.5 though - after all, it's the last great device of a great operating system (that unfortunately outlived it's greatness in many ways).

There you have it, my own editorial. I agree with Paul at Engadget though - Microsoft should come out and say yes or no on the issue. But to address Paul's last line, I doubt Microsoft would ever release a half-baked ROM with a non-preferred caveat - it would only hurt their efforts to rejuvenate their mobile phone business in the end.

Jon Westfall is a geek psychologist decision making researcher working in New York City. His average day includes server maintenance, manuscript revisions, statistical data analysis, and reading a myriad of tech and psych blogs. You can learn more about him at JonWestfall.Com.

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  #2  
Old 03-05-2010, 01:33 PM
Fritzly
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Ever been a Beta testers for some software company? What you use is a OS or other kind of software with issues and bugs; actually you are in a quest for them. Does this negatively influence the tester opinion about the final product? Not at all, eventually the opposite.

I do not see an average user go looking for an "unofficial ROM" for Win 7; on the other hand a geek would surely do it but fully aware of what is playing with.
 
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Old 03-05-2010, 02:16 PM
Russ Smith
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Well, I'm going to place myself firmly in the middle
I agree that there is a problem with releasing an update to a device which doesn't fit the specs for the new OS. I'd also agree that the problem is more with novice users (who might even think they know more than they do) who get excited about the new features but don't appreciate the possible pitfalls. On the other hand, the _only_ non-spec item on the HD2 is the presence of a few more buttons than MS specifies. I don't think that's a serious issue even though I can see someone complaining because their "Windows" button doesn't work.

I've drawn the comparison several times that Apple is a hardware company that writes (surprisingly good) software in order to sell their hardware, where Microsoft is a software company that is only really interested in selling their software. With phone OS, however, it still comes back to the hardware in the end. MS won't be selling their OS if people don't buy the phones. Releasing an update for an existing product means that (at least some) people won't buy a new one. (That's why I was surprised that Apple did actually release an update for their "older" iPhones.)

I'm sure the XDA folks will have an unofficial WP7 update for the HD2 and I'll probably use it as well. However, I suspect that, just like the 6.5 update for the X1, it will have some artifacts.
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  #4  
Old 03-05-2010, 03:24 PM
whydidnt
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Jon Westfall View Post
However regular users are not. Believe it or not, most people who buy a phone expect it to work 100% of the time. They give no slack to the vendors involved when it comes to bugs, errors, acts of god, or any combination of the three.
I get the sentiment, but Microsoft has been allowing vendors and carriers to foist this sort of thing on us for years. How many WM phones have been unstable because the manufacturer skimped on RAM or poorly put together the ROM? Couple that with the US Carriers desire to load as much crapware as possible on these devices and you've had a recipe for disaster -- NO WONDER WM has a poor reputation with consumers. In some cases the only way to get a stable device has been to use one of these gray market ROMs.

Now Microsoft says, "We're going to make sure the hardware meets certain specifications" which I think is great, however, if they continue to allow the carrier to load the device with crap then really they are saying we don't care so much about the consumer experience, we just want to make money.

Let's hope MS means what they say this time and actually follow through with making sure that these devices work and are stable. Based upon there past record in this area, I don't have a lot of faith that this time they really mean it.
 
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  #5  
Old 03-05-2010, 05:46 PM
Jon Westfall
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Fritzly View Post
Ever been a Beta testers for some software company? What you use is a OS or other kind of software with issues and bugs; actually you are in a quest for them. Does this negatively influence the tester opinion about the final product? Not at all, eventually the opposite.

I do not see an average user go looking for an "unofficial ROM" for Win 7; on the other hand a geek would surely do it but fully aware of what is playing with.
I've beta tested many things, even mobile operating systems. However I've never seen an open beta for a mobile OS for exactly the reasons I've stated above. The ones I've participated in have always been heavily advertised as not close to the final product to prevent me from thinking that the bugs I saw were indicative of the final product.

I do see average users seeing a geek friend's phone and saying "Whoa, how did you get that feature" and thus ending up looking for an unofficial ROM. Or do the geeks you know hide their cool features from their friends
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  #6  
Old 03-05-2010, 06:55 PM
Fritzly
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Jon Westfall View Post
I've beta tested many things, even mobile operating systems. However I've never seen an open beta for a mobile OS for exactly the reasons I've stated above. The ones I've participated in have always been heavily advertised as not close to the final product to prevent me from thinking that the bugs I saw were indicative of the final product.

I do see average users seeing a geek friend's phone and saying "Whoa, how did you get that feature" and thus ending up looking for an unofficial ROM. Or do the geeks you know hide their cool features from their friends
My apologies, I should have been clearer: with "Beta testing" I mean a close, "technical" and with NDA program. I did not mean the majority of Google products that remain in "Beta" forever or what lately MS called "Preview" like Office 2010.

Now, speaking of WM there is a big difference between "Beta" and "unofficial" ROM: my WM 6.5.3 "unofficial" build installed on my HD2 works much better than the original HTC one. And yes the HTC one, not a carrier modified one; I never buy crippled phones through carriers.

Finally the bottom line here is that, apparently, MS will not let HD2 owners upgrade to the RTM release of WM7; my understanding is that the only thing missing in the HD2 is the so called "search" button. I am sure that people who just bought a HD2 would be more than happy to remap a button instead of buying a new phone.

Last edited by Fritzly; 03-05-2010 at 06:59 PM..
 
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  #7  
Old 03-05-2010, 08:21 PM
Jason Dunn
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Quote:
Originally Posted by whydidnt View Post
Now Microsoft says, "We're going to make sure the hardware meets certain specifications" which I think is great, however, if they continue to allow the carrier to load the device with crap then really they are saying we don't care so much about the consumer experience, we just want to make money.
I'm not entirely sure what I can and can't say at this point about that, so I'm going to play it safe and be vague: Microsoft really cares about the performance and perception of Windows phones, and they're going to be strict about protecting that.
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Old 03-06-2010, 09:35 AM
alese
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It's kind of funny.
You could probably find tons of old posts from "Pocket PC / Windows Mobile days" expressing dissatisfaction with Microsoft, Toshiba, HP... because there was usually no upgrade for certain device even though the device itself was perfectly capable of running the new release.
The bottom line was always that this is both bad for the image of the platform (especially the fact that Microsoft made flashing a pain since you had to reinstall everything) and really bad PR for the company selling the "upgradable" device.

It's pretty much the same now. I get it that Microsoft want's to be more strict, but really, the only difference between HD2 specifications and Microsoft's requirements for 7 is the fact that HD2 has 5 instead of 3 buttons. Yes the pictures on these buttons are not the same as expected, but I highly doubt that anyone even the most "normal / regular" user is not that stupid not to be able to use a button with an arrow as search button if it's mapped like this - especially since this user had to flash his phone before that.
So for me this is stupid excuse and one that will bring MS some bad press, but they probably figure it will not be a big deal, after all HD2 is only one device with maybe few thousand users willing to upgrade.
I'm sure they could (HTC said it will provide the upgrade) if they wanted to provide not only "half baked" but complete and full featured upgrade to 7 for HD2, but they made a business decision to completely cut off with the past and has nothing to do with caring for existing customers or their experiences.

Oh and one more thing, mandating that your phone can't have dedicated hardware buttons for call pickup and reject, and that this is only handled on touch screen is, frankly stupid. Such buttons don't really break the "experience", they improve it - I don't want to pick up my phone in my gloves and not be able to pick a call without removing the gloves just because Microsoft want's to copy Apple too much.

Last edited by alese; 03-06-2010 at 09:39 AM..
 
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  #9  
Old 03-06-2010, 11:46 AM
Fellwalker
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Default User experience

Whilst I have an HD2, I can understand Microsoft.

One of the reasons (IMHO) that Windows CE/Mobile/Phone has never taken off as well as Apple's iPhone is that the experience from machine to machine has been different. Often so different that they might as well have been different operating systems.

Software writers are then trying to write an app that covers several (or indeed many) applications. Currently people are writing apps for the HD2, and posting them on HD2 specific web site (XDA) but many others using different HTC devices are coming on and installing those apps, only to find that they do not work. Then they grumble and overtake the forum with their complaints, "bugs" (no- it is not designed for their phone, it works as described) and suggestions for improvement (for THEIR phone, not the HD2 for which it was designed). As a software, writer that must be a huge diversion and waste of time. They do not even have that other phone to test it on, and if they add machine specific code, that bloats the program and brings potential for unforeseen glitches on the model they originally wrote for.

Commercial software has similar issues - which version do they go for? My HP hx4700 was on the face of it the same as my sisters Fujitsu Siemens and my friends Dell; all of them VGA Windows Mobile. But the experience was different, as each has its own take on what should be included, and what should not, what graphics and sound, what display, and what extras.

If MS allowed the HD2, its users would be immediately clamouring for tweaks that allowed them to use their buttons for something additional, and that immediately creates a sub-culture within WP7S.

So, MS have decided that there will be ONE (or maybe 3) layouts permissible. It is their only chance of beating Apple. They need something that application writers can write for knowing that they do not have to cover lots of different alternative layouts. And re-mapping a button is not something they want to be bothered with, nor are the support questions when that re-mapped button does not quite work, or the user presses another button that they have personally remapped and it does not do precisely what the user expected.

If they choose to allow the HD2 to get an official upgrade, then how long before the outcry of "why not my phone, it's only difference is ..."

Having said all of this, MS have got to really police it tightly, and they must ensure that when released, the OS is bug free, stable and fast. It must do everything and do it well. It is going to have to last a long time, with improvements but the same core for several iterations. They will need an outstanding app store with lots of free rubbish (a la iphone) and some really must have games and programs to generate interest and traffic.

In the words of Sir Humphrey in Yes Minister - "That's very brave of you, minister. An extremely courageous decision"
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  #10  
Old 03-06-2010, 07:02 PM
Jason Dunn
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Well said Fellwalker! You definitely grasp the problem Microsoft has had in the past, and what they're doing to address it now.
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