Microsoft's Project Pink is now Kin

[Jason Dunn]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/presskits/webcast/' target='_blank'>http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/...sskits/webcast/</a><br /><br /></div><p><img src="http://images.thoughtsmedia.com/resizer/thumbs/size/600/wpt/auto/1271092874.usr1.jpg" style="border: #d2d2bb 1px solid;" /></p><p>I'm in the midst of watching the <a href="http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/presskits/webcast/" target="_blank">stream of the live keynote</a> on this event, so will report back later, but wanted to share this news as soon as possible. This isn't a Windows phone - it's a highly-focused feature phone that's targeted at a certain group of users. It integrates the full Zune client as well...more to come! The <a href="http://www.kin.com/" target="_blank">Kin Web site</a> is also live.</p>

[USArcher]

Yey, we have our first official phone that supports Zune and Zune Pass. The Kin-1 looks to be the most unique and probably will be the most common device among Kin users. Beyond Zune, Kin Studio is impressive. I'd like to see them make this available to Windows Phone 7 devices as well. If we do see a 2nd generation, Zune HD...I have to wonder if they might incorporate some of Kin functionality.

[randalllewis]

Ok. This is a Microsoft device, right? This isn't a spoof or an April Fool's post, correct?

This is the second phone announcement in a row from Microsoft that has me excited. They really do get it after all. And they can keep secrets! And they can announce a product just before it is to appear in stores! Wow!

So far there hasn't been a wrong note on the Kin launch. The name is darn good. The UI clearly shares some roots with the WP7 but seems even more lively. The Kin Spot is very clever. And so is the Kin Studio.

I am way out of the supposed target market for this device, but I want one. I was pleased to see a statement from a Verizon rep that they felt parents (and grandparents like me) would love the device for posting pix and video of the family. That was exactly what I was thinking when I saw the product.

Check out the first unboxing of the Kin Two on the ZDNet site and you can see that as with the Zune, Microsoft has also remembered that packaging is part of the appeal of a product.

I await a review from the trusted Thoughts team, but so far this appears to be another potential hit from Microsoft. (And given all the crap it is getting from iPhone and Android users on other sites, they must realize that too.)

[David Tucker]

I think that for the Zune platform, these phones could potentially be really nice. They're clearly aimed squarely at the Hiptop crowd, which is generally the teen market. If I was a parent I would definitely like being able to put my kid on a subscription music plan and if I was a kid (who am I kidding...I'll always be a kid :p) I'd really love to have something like that (not that I don't love it as an adult!)

[egads]

I think that for the Zune platform, these phones could potentially be really nice. They're clearly aimed squarely at the Hiptop crowd, which is generally the teen market. If I was a parent I would definitely like being able to put my kid on a subscription music plan and if I was a kid (who am I kidding...I'll always be a kid :p) I'd really love to have something like that (not that I don't love it as an adult!)

As a parent I hate these things. You can't have one of these phones without a expensive data plan. No way I'm shelling out $30 more per kid a month. Like I've said in other threads, the 1st US carrier who comes out with a $25 a month unlimited phone/text/data plan will make a killing. That or have a affordable family data plan...

[Lee Yuan Sheng]

Sorry, not in the know. What does US$30 a month get you in terms of data?

[Janak Parekh]

Ok. This is a Microsoft device, right? This isn't a spoof or an April Fool's post, correct?

This is the second phone announcement in a row from Microsoft that has me excited. They really do get it after all. And they can keep secrets! And they can announce a product just before it is to appear in stores! Wow! And here I'm thinking just the opposite. Why is Microsoft competing against their own platform? Plus, the Kin has no developer experience, no installable apps as far as anyone can tell. Why not make unique formfactors based on WP7? I see they want to "eventually converge", but what will the upgrade story be? I find this platform very confusing.

I understand that this is a successor to the Hiptop (Sidekick) for the youth market. But the Hiptop had a number of powerful features that many kids used that this seems to lack -- IM, email, and installable apps. Somewhat interestingly, while Apple takes credit for the App Store, the real credit is to Danger, who had a centrally-managed app store 3+ years before Apple did! I liked the Hiptop platform a lot, but this is three steps back as far as I can tell. The Hiptop also had aggressively-priced data plans through T-Mobile; will Verizon do the same?

I await a review from the trusted Thoughts team, but so far this appears to be another potential hit from Microsoft. (And given all the crap it is getting from iPhone and Android users on other sites, they must realize that too.) I am just as curious to see the critical and market response, but determining whether something is a hit based on the opposite of others' reaction is dangerous. :)

--janak

[randalllewis]

Janak, Microsoft isn't competing with itself with the Kin and other WP7 devices anymore than it competes against itself with various Windows versions (I know some people don't understand that either, but it really makes perfect sense.) The Kin is really a subset of the coming WP7 devices aimed at a specific set of users....those 15 to 30 and then people like me.

There appears to be confusion about what the Kin offers, but it does offer e-mail and texting. Microsoft has said they consider their implementation of text to be IM like (whatever that means) but that they are open to adding IM if users want it.

I really don't see the lack of downloadable apps feature as the big deal that others do. I can download apps on my Touch Diamond 2. I've downloaded exactly two- and one of those I later deleted. I know there are people who are forever downloading apps however. They won't want a Kin.

The one thing that I think MS may have missed was games, as portable games would seem to have the same target audience as the social network crowd. But MS did 50K hours of interviews with that audience and I didn't, so I'll cut them some slack on that point. I could also hazard a guess that with the Zune software already on the Kin, that adding games might have been seen as undercutting the potential market for WP7 devices.

I gather that neither Microsoft nor Verizon are planning to set the world on fire with the Kin. I think they just want a successful product that creates some mind share in the target audience for Windows Phones. I think they've hit on that with what I've seen of the two devices.

And as for the negative reaction to the announcement on some tech sites- it is similar to what I saw with Windows 7 and with Windows Phone 7. We already know how wrong that gang was about Windows 7 and I believe we will see they are equally wrong about WP7 and the Kin as well.

[Janak Parekh]

Janak, Microsoft isn't competing with itself with the Kin and other WP7 devices anymore than it competes against itself with various Windows versions (I know some people don't understand that either, but it really makes perfect sense.) The Kin is really a subset of the coming WP7 devices aimed at a specific set of users....those 15 to 30 and then people like me. But they aren't a subset, at least not yet. They pretty clearly stated that it's not WP7, at least not yet.

Also: what kid in the age group of 15-30 doesn't want downloadable apps? They had it with the Sidekick, and now they have it with the iPod touch, and even with the Zune!

There appears to be confusion about what the Kin offers, but it does offer e-mail and texting. Microsoft has said they consider their implementation of text to be IM like (whatever that means) but that they are open to adding IM if users want it. That's like Apple not including iChat on the iPhone and just offering SMS. Don't buy it.

I really don't see the lack of downloadable apps feature as the big deal that others do. I can download apps on my Touch Diamond 2. I've downloaded exactly two- and one of those I later deleted. I know there are people who are forever downloading apps however. They won't want a Kin. There are many of them, if App Store statistics are correct. I have one word for you: games. I see so many people on the subway using their smartphones to play games. I see you note that in your post, but I don't think the 50 hours of interviews are necessarily right. Microsoft user tests everything they do, but if you do the user testing wrong you're not going to get good answers.

I gather that neither Microsoft nor Verizon are planning to set the world on fire with the Kin. I think they just want a successful product that creates some mind share in the target audience for Windows Phones. I think they've hit on that with what I've seen of the two devices. Well, I think they're a huge step back from the old Danger platform, and if they're not planning on setting the world afire, why did they spend many millions of dollars on it?

And as for the negative reaction to the announcement on some tech sites- it is similar to what I saw with Windows 7 and with Windows Phone 7. We already know how wrong that gang was about Windows 7 and I believe we will see they are equally wrong about WP7 and the Kin as well. We shall see. I am utterly unconvinced of the Kin as a platform. WP7 is already a promising platform, with a lot of nice changes, a nice user experience, a nice app experience, etc. The Kin has none of that. I've seen plenty of dumbphones in this category, and the Kin is just going to enter another crowded market with an offering that will compete against the Samsungs etc.

--janak

[randalllewis]

Janak, we clearly disagree about this device. Fine. We'll see who's correct shortly. Allow me one correction, it was 50,000 hours of interviews with the target audience, not 50. I am well aware of Microsoft's user testing; I've done it myself many times, going back as far as Windows 95.

I can't believe that in all those hours of interviews the subject of games and downloadable apps was not raised. I would like to hear more from Microsoft about those discussions. Any sample testing can certainly go wrong, but I think the results obtained from a sample that large certainly has a high degree of reliability.

[nmcclana]

Probably a bit harsh, but really, this is what msft's been cooking up?

First I get WM7, which has no backwards compatibility, no multitasking, no native code, no side loading.

Then I get this feature phone. Did anyone tell msft that you can buy an iPhone for $100? If you're going to kick out $30/mo. for your kid's data plan, would you really get them a 'kin' or an iphone?

[Janak Parekh]

Janak, we clearly disagree about this device. Fine. We'll see who's correct shortly. Allow me one correction, it was 50,000 hours of interviews with the target audience, not 50. I am well aware of Microsoft's user testing; I've done it myself many times, going back as far as Windows 95. Thanks for the respectful disagreement. Time will indeed tell. :)

I can't believe that in all those hours of interviews the subject of games and downloadable apps was not raised. I would like to hear more from Microsoft about those discussions. Any sample testing can certainly go wrong, but I think the results obtained from a sample that large certainly has a high degree of reliability. My problem with it is that it is all about context. If you ask the user "is this device cool useful etc.", I'm sure you'd get a "yes" from enough users. But is it good enough to win over other products out there? I don't know.

Honestly: I am also very worried about the platform fragmentation, and no amount of user studies will give you enough useful data for this. One big strength of RIM, Apple, and Google is they are maintaining ONE core platform for mobile devices. Apple in particular has scored a big win by improving their footprint by including iPhones, iPod touches, and now iPads with one OS. Microsoft, on the other hand, has at least three now, all with SOME overlap but not nearly enough: Zune, Kin, and WP7. Oh, wait, there's four: there's also WM Classic. Oh, wait, I suppose Windows CE counts too? This is much worse than the old days of Windows Me vs. Windows 2000; at least the Win32 API had some overlap there!

--janak

[virain]

Maybe, I'm too old to understand all that Thech staff, but the way I see it, kin is just the next logical step in a dumb phone evolution. It looks that people use SMS and social networks much more often than a regular voice call. Every one I know has a Skype, Facebook, Twitter, or some other social network. It just makes a very good argument to unite them all in one, not so complicated device. I see that Kin has Zune support as well. Doesn't Zune support games as well? I know that mine 32 Gb HD does.

[Macguy59]

Maybe, I'm too old to understand all that Thech staff, but the way I see it, kin is just the next logical step in a dumb phone evolution. It looks that people use SMS and social networks much more often than a regular voice call. Every one I know has a Skype, Facebook, Twitter, or some other social network. It just makes a very good argument to unite them all in one, not so complicated device. I see that Kin has Zune support as well. Doesn't Zune support games as well? I know that mine 32 Gb HD does.

But is that all they are using are their phone ? I doubt that. Like always, the consumer will decide it's fate. I think it may do ok on Verizon until or if a CDMA based iPhone appears.

[virain]

But is that all they are using are their phone ? I doubt that. Like always, the consumer will decide it's fate. I think it may do ok on Verizon until or if a CDMA based iPhone appears.

It may come to you as a surprize, but there's a lot of people, that use their phones strictly for communication purposes. Do not measure everyone by your own-merits. People are different, keep your mind open.

[doogald]

These phones look like great replacements for the higher-end feature phones that Verizon sells, like the Samsung Rogue. They make you buy a data package - a $10 minimum for 250 MB per month, or $30 for unlimited - with these premium feature phones. If the Kin phones are sold with the same data plans, as a parent, I would rather get these for my kids than an iPhone with a minimum $30 data plan.

[Perry Reed]

I admit, I had a weird reaction to the Kin. Sort of the opposite to how I felt about the iPad. With the iPad, here was a slate device, small, thin, and (relatively) light, with apps built for that form factor. The Tablet PC enthusiast in me should have been thrilled. But instead my reaction was "meh". I just can't seem to get excited about it, although I am hopeful that it will spur innovation in the slate Tablet PC area from HP and others.

With the Kin, I knew right away that this was not the device for me. But, I love the idea! I'm a smartphone guy and have been since they were still just PDAs and so feature phones don't normally excite me much, but the Kin has and it is *almost* good enough that I would want one for myself.

I understand that I'm not the target market for the Kin; heck, my kids are much closer to that. But I do spend entirely too much time on social networking, I text a ton, and I take a lot of photos and video on my phone and share them with my friends, usually on Facebook. So despite my advanced years, I'm not too far off.

That said, there are some limitations that are a killer for me. The lack of a calendar is one. I guess Microsoft's research told them that kids don't want or need calendars, but as a responsible adult, I sure do. I'm actually surprised that the kids wouldn't want one. Do they not make plans with their friends? The memories are hazy now, back in the mists of time, but I seem to recall that I and my friends occasionally planned ahead our activities.

I also like having GPS, which the Kin lacks, however I know it can geo-locate photos, so I assume it's got some sort of GPS ability (maybe just the cell tower triangulation version), so perhaps all it needs is an app, something Microsoft could add if they felt it necessary.

I know several people have lamented the lack of IM, but I thought the kids these days were mostly using SMS instead. I know my IM use, outside of work, has dwindled to nearly nothing, but I text people all day long, and treat it much like IM. I'm guessing the Kin is safe here with the SMS functionality.

Games don't mean a whole lot to me, but I'm surprised there weren't any included at all. Seems like a glaring omission to me. I don't think they need arcade-like graphics-heavy shoot-em-ups, but some simple, quickly played games (think: solitaire) would have been nice.

I hear it's built on WP7 and I guess you can see some of that in the UI. The Loop reminds me of the active tiles on the WP7 home screen, but the Spot is something new. I would love to see the Spot appear in some form or another on WP7. Microsoft has said they will work to converge Kin and WP7 over time and I believe them. I think what happened was that the Kin was in development well before they decided to ditch Windows Mobile and start over with a fresh Windows Phone environment.

The Kin Studio is also pretty slick; far better than the My Phone thing they have on Windows Mobile. Let's hope it gets included in some way into WP7, too. Actually, I'd prefer that the WP7 version be integrated with Sky Drive and Windows Mesh (both of which should also be integrated with each other), but that may just be wishful thinking on my part. Microsoft really needs to think about a consolidated cloud strategy and resolve the competition between Mesh, Sky Drive, Live Sync, etc., just like they need to resolve Windows Media Player and the Zune software. But I digress...

Of the Kin phones, I'm definitely more attracted to the Kin One and its little square shape. I love my phones small and easily portable and for years used my old Sprint Touch (aka HTC Vogue) which had one of the best form factors I've seen yet. Currently, I'm using a Palm Pre (yes, my dirty little secret is I'm not using Windows Mobile any more), but will look very closely at the first WP7 devices. I really like the vertical slide-out keyboard on the Pre and the Kin One and hope we see a similar WP7 form factor. The Kin Two just looks a little too generic for my tastes. It's a shame the Kin One doesn't share the better memory and camera.

As a Sprint customer (still), I hope they eventually do the Kin on Sprint as well as Verizon. Should't be hard since both are CDMA. Maybe by then my kids will be old enough to want their own phones (they're not quite there yet, but will be very, very soon) and I'll steer them towards the Kin probably. And when they're not looking, I'll grab the Kin and play with it myself.

[Janak Parekh]

I saw a Kin commercial for the first time last night, and it was absolutely terrible. It talked about getting together with your friends, etc., and then showed the name of the product with a URL, with absolutely nothing about what the product is. For all I knew, it could have been a phone chat service! The commercial was not catchy enough to serve as a viral ad. I was just confused, the URL flashed by, and the ad promptly ended.

Microsoft, if you're reading this: obviously there is some potential for this device, as people here have expressed. However, you need to actually market, you know, the devices!

--janak

p.s. I note there is a longer commercial on the Internet that some people have seen, which is controversial because it implies sexting. This was a shorter (30-second ad) with absolutely no shots of the device. At least, as far as I could see.

[randalllewis]

Geez Janak you REALLY don't like this phone! Even to the point you're dumping on the ads.

And Perry, I was surprised to see your comment about the Kin not having GPS because according to Engadget it does have AGPS.

http://www.engadget.com/2010/04/14/microsoft-kin-everything-you-ever-wanted-to-know/

It sounds like you and I are of similar age...or at least are both out of the target market for the Kin. I am not letting that stop me. I intend to obtain a Two next month. Mainly because I like the UI, the geotagging, the quality camera with flash, the Zune integration, and the social media stuff. I could wait to see the first WP7 devices later this year, but I haven't bought any new technology at all in 2010. It is way past time.:D

[Janak Parekh]

Geez Janak you REALLY don't like this phone! Even to the point you're dumping on the ads. You seem to be implying I'm "dumping" on the ads because I don't like the Kin. That's absolutely wrong. The ad was just a terrible ad on its own merits.

(That said: I don't like many of Microsoft's ads. I don't think they've been particularly good. I did like the original "Coming Zune" material; it was trendy, but since then I've not been very happy with their anemic WM, Windows, or now the Kin ads.)

--janak

[Sven Johannsen]

These phones look like great replacements for the higher-end feature phones that Verizon sells, like the Samsung Rogue. They make you buy a data package - a $10 minimum for 250 MB per month, or $30 for unlimited - with these premium feature phones. If the Kin phones are sold with the same data plans, as a parent, I would rather get these for my kids than an iPhone with a minimum $30 data plan.I'd go for a $10 for 250M plan myself if the result of passing 250M was a throttling or elimination of further data that month. Typically though, the result is a budget busting phone bill.

[Janak Parekh]

Geez Janak you REALLY don't like this phone! Update on this: Phone Scoop hated the phones, too (http://www.phonescoop.com/articles/article.php?a=365&p=2602). I'll quote the summary:

"Quite frankly, I haven't been this disappointed in a phone in a long time. The list of complaints and missteps far outweighs the positives this time around.

The basic concept of a phone focused on social networking is not new, and has been done better by others (Motorola, Palm, HTC). The Kin Loop and Kin Spot are neat concepts, no doubt, but the execution falls far, far short of what others have been able to accomplish. The skin-deep nature of how social networking has been implemented on Kin is so painful, I can hardly imagine applying the term "social networking" to these devices."

Phone Scoop is a very fair site, and I haven't seen them write a review this negative in a long time. They also observe that the Kins require a $40 voice plan plus $30 data plan. I still remain unconvinced this platform was the way to go. I'd love to see updates that prove otherwise, but so far, I think the old Danger platform was far superior.

--janak

[Janak Parekh]

Last one on this, then I promise I'll stop. Engadget was even more scathing (http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/05/kin-one-and-two-review/1).

"In the end, we're left with two orphan devices -- phones that feel like they should have been killed before they made it to market, but somehow slipped through. It's clear to us from conversations we've had with Microsoft that there are people at the company with good ideas about what phones should and shouldn't do, but we don't feel the Kin is representative of those ideas. The execution (or lack thereof) on these products makes us legitimately concerned about what the company will do with Windows Phone 7. We can only hope that the similarities between those devices and the Kin handsets don't stretch much further than the "Windows Phone" label, because in our estimation, Kin is one side of the family that needs to be disowned... quickly."

--janak