Should You Bother Looking At Windows Phone 7?

[Ed Hansberry]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.networkworld.com/news/2010/072610-wireless-burning-question-1.html' target='_blank'>http://www.networkworld.com/news/20...question-1.html</a><br /><br /></div><p><em>"Windows Phone 7 is shaping up as the most innovative mobile UI since, well, since the iPhone introduction three years ago. In July, Microsoft released for developers the "Technical Preview" version of WP7, along with the first prototype handsets. The early reviews, from a user viewpoint, corroborate many positive things that developers have been discovering since they got their hands on the initial developer release in March. The first handsets, from LG, Samsung, Asus and others, are expected to be unveiled sometime this fall, along with carrier service plans."</em></p><p>I'd say that the UI is the chief factor driving buzz around Windows Phone 7. There are concerns, of course, about what the platform will lack, at least a launch, like multi-tasking and copy-and-paste functionality.</p><p>NetworkWorld takes a look at the overall platform. It is clear Microsoft is serious about it and while it doesn't have everything its competitors do, it does have enough, as well as some unique features of its own, that it is worth a serious look when it ships.</p>

[efjay]

Where were all these types of articles when android was released? Will we see the same thing when meego or the next version of symbian is released?

[Fritzly]

Where were all these types of articles when android was released? Will we see the same thing when meego or the next version of symbian is released?

MS has started the WP7 advertising campaign........ :-)

[Brad Adrian]

I realize I'm coming a little late to the game here, but do I understand you correctly? There will be NO multi-tasking and NO copy-and-paste? Aren't those the two capabilities which we have always touted as making Windows Mobile more useful than the other OSs?

I have to admit that I stopped using Windows Mobile when Microsoft decided they couldn't get syncing to work, but what you're describing sounds like a death knell to me.

Just my 2 cents' worth.

[caywen]

I realize I'm coming a little late to the game here, but do I understand you correctly? There will be NO multi-tasking and NO copy-and-paste? Aren't those the two capabilities which we have always touted as making Windows Mobile more useful than the other OSs?

I have to admit that I stopped using Windows Mobile when Microsoft decided they couldn't get syncing to work, but what you're describing sounds like a death knell to me.

Just my 2 cents' worth.

Honestly, multitasking is just not that useful. I lived without it on my iPhone for years without any complaints. And now that I have it with iOS4, I've only used it once, just as a test. I'm sure there are some use cases, but they just aren't all that common.

Same goes for copy/paste. The number of times I've ever used it, I can count on one hand. It's more useful than multitasking, IMO, but I just don't see it as a deal breaker for the vast majority of people. And it's near certain it'll be in the next revision anyways.

I think WP7's biggest downfall is that its tiles view appears lopsided and stark. First, there shouldn't be a big black strip down the right side. That's just wasteful, and it makes the contents appear unbalanced. Second, forcing perfectly flat colors sounds wonderfully simple, but is a bit harsh in its starkness. People want personalization, and all that has been taken away.

If Microsoft can eventually pull the reigns on their beret-wearing black turtleneck guy, and start making some sensible adjustments to the user experience, they might just have a winner.

[Craig Horlacher]

Brad, I'm with you. I use copy and paste as well as multi-tasking all the time. They kind of go hand in hand. If you're working on an email and you need to collect info from different sources for it, like web pages and contacts, you can't loose your place every time you go back and forth between things. You'll never get anywhere. I agree that, for me at least, they are very basic and very needed features.

[Fritzly]

Brad, I'm with you. I use copy and paste as well as multi-tasking all the time. They kind of go hand in hand. If you're working on an email and you need to collect info from different sources for it, like web pages and contacts, you can't loose your place every time you go back and forth between things. You'll never get anywhere. I agree that, for me at least, they are very basic and very needed features.

What I find really silly is that when the iPhone came out without multi-tasking and cut and paste ability legions of Windows bloggers/"journalists", btw correctly IMO, ridiculized and trashed it for the lack of these functionalities; now, a couple of years later. MS is going to launch an OS with the same shortcomings....... and the same bloggers play down the same issue as irrilevant.......

[Brad Adrian]

Hey, I don't do rocket science on my devices, but I DO want multi-tasking and copy-and-paste for even the most simple things like:

* Copying "Appt. w/ Dr. Jones" from a date in June to a date in September
This sounds like a little thing, but it is IMPOSSIBLE to do and the kind of thing I do on nearly a daily basis.

* Moving information between my calendar and my Address Book

I'm not here to stand on a soapbox or anything. However, I do know that for people like Ed, me and others who have been in this game since the inception of the Pocket PC TEN YEARS AGO and beyond, the capabilties which we have today are NOTHING like what we envisioned way back when we oooh-ed and aaaah-ed at those early OSs.

Windows Mobile 7 represents the umpteenth time that Microsoft has "re-created the UI around the users." Sorry, but if that re-creation comes at the cost of the only two advantages which Microsoft has been harping all these years, I'm not very optimistic.

[stlbud]

MS has started the WP7 advertising campaign........ :-)

Ummm. Where? Has anyone noticed?

So far this has been just about as exciting as a deflating balloon. Microsoft has never done well with PR. Their Seinfeld campaign should have been exciting and explosive but instead fell flat with the general public. Windows 7 has succeeded only because business, home users and vendors alike were desperate for something new.

I'm glad they're doing something innovative and new. I want to be excited, but past history has shown that there won't be any more satisfaction in buying a Windows Mobile product than in the past. It will still be a boring and ho-hum roll out.

I want to be wrong.

[stlbud]

People want personalization, and all that has been taken away.


Have you actually been paying attention? Each tile can be customized to suit the needs of the user. They reflect the features that you find most important and can be adjusted, moved, removed, added at any time. The features they show are customizable. You can limit them to a small group of activities or expanded to cover everything available.

http://www.winsupersite.com/mobile/wp7_hotornot.asp

[Brad Adrian]

I want to be wrong.

I think we've just come up with the most honest and powerful of taglines that Microsoft could invent! What powerful imagery! Even better than the "Mac vs. PC" commercials!

"I want to be wrong this time!"

[randalllewis]

Ummm. Where? Has anyone noticed?

So far this has been just about as exciting as a deflating balloon. Microsoft has never done well with PR. Their Seinfeld campaign should have been exciting and explosive but instead fell flat with the general public. Windows 7 has succeeded only because business, home users and vendors alike were desperate for something new.

I'm glad they're doing something innovative and new. I want to be excited, but past history has shown that there won't be any more satisfaction in buying a Windows Mobile product than in the past. It will still be a boring and ho-hum roll out.

I want to be wrong.


I'm with you on the need for great PR, but I have hope because Microsoft does show it has talent for advertising and PR every once in a while. The Seinfeld ads were not part of a real campaign, so lets get over that. Microsoft did a very good job with the Windows 7 campaign. The whole embracing what Apple tried to use as a smear concept behind "I'm a PC" was brilliant. The ads were clever and varied enough to avoid sameness. And, most importantly, they ran often enough that real people actually got to see them. Just like Apple does. This campaign evolved first into The Rookies and then into the Laptop Hunters which were both very effective. They drove Apple fanboys nuts (remember when the fanboys were reduced to actually criticising a four year old little girl?)Laptop Hunters even provoked a complaint from the infamous Apple lawyers. Can't get better than that. The campaign has now morphed further into the My Idea spots which are also fun and varied and ran often enough to be seen.

This work shows what Microsoft needs to do with Windows Phone. Clever ads, run frequently, and focused on features that make WP7 different. Given the resources the company has put into the reboot of their mobile strategy, I have to believe that the marketing effort is a part of the strategy. It better be.

[Fritzly]

Well, I do not know if the Seinfield ads were not part of an advertisement campaign; the related costs were surely listed under advertisement in the prospect sent to shareholders.

Said that I would guess that the unanimous opinion is that it was just wasted money.

Unfortunately even the best and cleverest advertising campaign needs in order to be succesfull a competitive product and, in my personal opinion, WP7, at least in this first iteration, does not qualify as such.

[caywen]

Have you actually been paying attention? Each tile can be customized to suit the needs of the user. They reflect the features that you find most important and can be adjusted, moved, removed, added at any time. The features they show are customizable. You can limit them to a small group of activities or expanded to cover everything available.

http://www.winsupersite.com/mobile/wp7_hotornot.asp

In fact, I have. I run the emulator and tinker with the SDK all the time. I'm not saying the home screen can't be customized. I'm saying its personalization options are limited to colors only. For example, I want to maybe set a background picture, which I can't do.

[V-iPAQ]

Windows Phone 7 is as innovative as the iPhone three years ago.

Too bad that was three years ago.

When Windows Phone 7 launches it will be three years out of date.

[randalllewis]

Well, I do not know if the Seinfield ads were not part of an advertisement campaign; the related costs were surely listed under advertisement in the prospect sent to shareholders.

Said that I would guess that the unanimous opinion is that it was just wasted money.

Unfortunately even the best and cleverest advertising campaign needs in order to be succesfull a competitive product and, in my personal opinion, WP7, at least in this first iteration, does not qualify as such.

There you go again with that shareholder stuff.;) The cost of the Seinfeld ads was certainly immaterial to a company the size of Microsoft. They were described at the time as "conversation starters" and they certainly succeeded in that regard. A company that hadn't done much consumer advertising except for Xbox and the launch of Vista and had let a competitor define them unchallenged for years needed some kind of jump start. I found the Seinfeld ads no less useful and much more entertaining than the corporate advertising that Microsoft does on television. Ads to the enterprise are valuable, but not on network television.

And I guess we will just have to disagree whether WP7 is a competitive product. And I will go further. If Microsoft screws up the marketing, it won't matter if WP7 had cut and paste and multi-tasking and universal inbox and any other feature that people say is a deal breaker. It wouldn't matter if it cured disease and sliced bread, if the marketing sucks and/or isn't as agressive as Apple and Google, people won't notice. My fears for the phone are much more based on that than on cut and paste.

[Fritzly]

There you go again with that shareholder stuff.;) The cost of the Seinfeld ads was certainly immaterial to a company the size of Microsoft

Unfortunately "immaterial costs" do not exist. Money is spent to generate a return of the investment; if the return does not materalize than the "cost" becomes a loss. Do you think that because a company has a yearly turn-over of several Billions $ it does not run cost analysis when shopping for toilet paper? It does, and rightly so.

Of course when companies use tax-payer money the story is, unfortunately, different..........

[jkovacs]

I agree with Brad. These are just a few small things that end up making a big difference in how I use a device.

...Joe K.

[paschott]

I'll admit to being cautiously optimistic at this point. The developers are starting to get on board, promising what could be a pretty cool experience. Some developers have found some ways to work around lack of multitasking for programs like a stopwatch. That doesn't make it possible to run a streaming music app in the background, but it's still promising.

I'm also disappointed by lack of Copy/Paste, Multi-tasking, and replaceable storage (to name a few), but I don't tend to really use multi-tasking now except for a quick switch between programs and the main reason I use copy/paste is to copy serial numbers for apps. So while I think they're important and it's going to get ridiculed, I can live without it in the short term. Knowing that it's on the way and seeing how they handle using the context of different items to do the appropriate task makes me feel a little better.

I was really hoping for user-upgradeable storage, if only to avoid paying what will likely be really premium prices for 32GB or even 16GB to be "on-board". Maybe PPCTechs will be able to make a comeback over that... :P

My only major concern right now is the Facebook contact integration. I don't want Facebook contacts mixed in with my other contacts. I don't really use Facebook for that purpose. I can see where some people would really like it, but let us opt out of that. I know that I can avoid using FB on the phone, but I do use it sometimes so this would be useful.

So when you ask if we should bother looking at WP7, I'd say that it's worth a look. It won't be the platform for everyone. It may not even be my final choice. I think that it's worth considering, though.

[bnycastro]

At 1st I was concerned w/ the lack of cut & paste, multi-tasking, & storage cards. Then I realized these could be added later.

Think of this as a 1st release.

My main concern about this v1 release is the synergy part.

Bing Maps / Zune / Xbox / Marketplace are not available in my country (Philippines).

I am not sure how fast Microsoft can bring these services out to non US customers.

Btw it's been 8 months since I installed Windows Mobile Marketplace on my WM6.1 device and I still cannot add my credit card to purchase applications. I can get the free or trials & do side loading but for windowsphone7 side loading is disabled.

On Android my cc is also not accepted. Side loading is allowed on android if the dev sells the app outside the android market.

On iOS I can buy apps via iTunes w/ no issues but media is not allowed for my country.

So as a non US customer it isn't looking to good for WP7. I hope Microsoft steps up & really goes international on their launch.

[Ed Hansberry]

Unfortunately "immaterial costs" do not exist. Money is spent to generate a return of the investment; if the return does not materalize than the "cost" becomes a loss. Do you think that because a company has a yearly turn-over of several Billions $ it does not run cost analysis when shopping for toilet paper? It does, and rightly so.

Of course when companies use tax-payer money the story is, unfortunately, different..........

Actually, immaterial costs do exist. Just look at any accounting text. Microsoft has roughly 8,763,800,000 share outstanding and their Q4 2010 earnings were 4,518,000,000. That is an EPS of 0.52. If they spent $10,000,000 on those sienfeld commercials, that would be one tenth of one penny on a quarterly EPS, or 0.2% That is immaterial to the overall business.

It is all releative. $10M for the old Palm would have been VERY material. $10M for me would be enormously material. $10M for Microsoft, Oracle, GE and Ford are just not material in how it impacts the overall business.

Doesn't mean you just throw money away. You don't get to be a big company by doing that. You review all costs because it all adds up, but once you review the numbers, it doesn't matter if the ad campaign was $5M, $10M, or $15M. It was immaterial to overall operations.

[Ed Hansberry]

At 1st I was concerned w/ the lack of cut & paste, multi-tasking, & storage cards. Then I realized these could be added later.

Think of this as a 1st release.
I agree, to a point. If Copy and Paste though is 2 years away, and multitasking 3, then there is a problem.

Something else that is mostly missing is any way to sync files. You can sync PIM data with Exchange, music and photos with Zune, and Office Files via sharepoint or maybe some Windows Live cloud service, but that's it. Forget syncing other files for now. The answer is, just email the file to yourself from your PC. :rolleyes:

ActiveSync and WMDC were never that great, but they did a pretty good job keeping files in sync, AS better than WMDC as WMDC had no conflict resolution. It always assumes the device is out of date, which is rarely the case in the real world.

[Jonathon Watkins]

I realize I'm coming a little late to the game here, but do I understand you correctly? There will be NO multi-tasking and NO copy-and-paste? Aren't those the two capabilities which we have always touted as making Windows Mobile more useful than the other OSs?

I have to admit that I stopped using Windows Mobile when Microsoft decided they couldn't get syncing to work, but what you're describing sounds like a death knell to me.

Just my 2 cents' worth.

I'm with you all the way Brad. :-/ We're not over the rainbow any more; we're back in black & white Kansas.

[bnycastro]

I heard on the msmobiles podcast that there also won't be Asian language support at launch?

Also twitter is a buzz that Eu will see devices in September & October for US. I guess we shall see in a month if wp7 will be viable. Not much longer.

Starting to look like a beta instead of a v1 release :-(