{"id":326520,"date":"2010-02-16T10:23:41","date_gmt":"2010-02-16T15:23:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/theappleblog.com\/?p=40986"},"modified":"2010-02-16T10:23:41","modified_gmt":"2010-02-16T15:23:41","slug":"microsoft-starts-over-announces-credible-iphone-competitor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/326520","title":{"rendered":"Microsoft Starts Over, Announces Credible iPhone Competitor"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Of all the companies competing in the cellphone industry, it is perhaps more than just a little poetic that Microsoft should be the first to offer a truly compelling product to rival Apple\u2019s iPhone.<\/p>\n

I never thought I\u2019d write that<\/em> sentence.<\/p>\n

Yesterday at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Steve Ballmer unveiled Microsoft\u2019s newest phone platform, awkwardly-titled Windows Phone 7 Series<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Quick rundown; it\u2019s based on Windows CE kernel 6.0 (the latest WinMo is 5.2) is finger-friendly everywhere with swiping, pinching and multitouch, sports a virtual keyboard and offers music and video playback via the awesome Zune UI. Oh, and, there\u2019s not a stylus in sight.<\/p>\n

And here\u2019s the thing;\u00a0Windows Phone 7 Series actually looks good. I mean, it looks really<\/em> good, even though it\u2019s clearly unfinished. <\/span><\/p>\n

As such, the UI is a bit slow, finger touches are sometimes ignored, and it\u2019s clear<\/a> that the fancy animations and transitions are something of a drag on the processor. Microsoft engineer Joe Belfiore said<\/a> of the new OS;<\/p>\n

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“What we’re doing is building and delivering a different kind of phone [\u2026] a smart design that puts the user at the center of their experience. We’re moving beyond the phone as a PC-like item that moves beyond separate applications and brings together the key things that are important to people [\u2026] like pictures, and music and video, and productivity.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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Users have one simple place to go and access their web services, access the functionality in their applications, and access the data on their phone. Those are the fundamental ideas behind this new user experience.”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

On the matter of its fresh new UI, Windows maven Paul Thurrott wrote<\/a> in his (even more awkwardly titled) Windows Phone 7 Series Preview Part I<\/em>;<\/p>\n

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This is an important difference between the iPhone and Windows Phone. When you use an iPhone, you go into an app, which takes over the device. If you want to do something else, you must leave the first app, navigate around the home screens, find the new app, and launch that. Rinse, repeat. (And the iPhone’s lack of a Back button let alone sophisticated multitasking is, of course, still a huge issue.)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

After years of heavy daily iPhone use, I can\u2019t honestly say the lack of a back button or \u201csophisticated multitasking\u201d have ever been a \u201chuge issue.\u201d I had those things in Windows Mobile phones years ago but never used those devices anywhere near as much as I use my iPhone. Maybe Thurrott is right \u2013 though personally, I just don’t think it’s the issue he has long made it out to be<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Credit Where Credit is Due<\/h3>\n

But this shouldn\u2019t be about taking cheap shots at the competition. Microsoft deserves credit. The new Windows Phone 7 Series is a compelling glimpse at \u2013 maybe \u2013 a bright future for a platform everyone thought was dead. The UI is stylish and looks really fun to use. It even makes the iPhone\u2019s OS look more 30 years old than three.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re just not accustomed to Microsoft doing bold, exciting and compelling work. Maybe that\u2019s the result of having the wind knocked out of its\u00a0sails by the EU Commission, or because it tends to focus more on business solutions than it does personal consumer-facing solutions. Whatever the reason, it hasn’t done anything this<\/em> exciting and new in a long time.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s still opportunity for it to mess-up. If Microsoft has any sense at all, and wants to claw-back some of the marketshare it has lost since 2007, it’ll need to exercise far greater control over OEM\u2019s (enforcing strict minimum specifications on Windows Phone handsets) and Carriers, too (insisting end users be free to install software updates \u2013 traditionally, Carriers required users buy a whole new handset should they want to upgrade).<\/p>\n

Apple\u2019s iPhone success owes much to its closed ecosystem; Apple designs and builds its own hardware which is coupled with custom-software. Updates are available for everyone everywhere and carriers have no say in the matter. Even third-party apps are vetted by Apple in order to ensure they don\u2019t tarnish the universal iPhone \u2018experience\u2019.<\/p>\n

Microsoft has never<\/em> demonstrated it cared about user experience in Windows Mobile. Now, it seems obvious it’s adopting a new attitude.<\/p>\n

So here\u2019s the big picture; Microsoft has produced a powerful new mobile OS in Windows Phone 7 Series. It offers all the same basic functionality as the iPhone. There\u2019s an app store. The Zune media platform. System-wide social network integration. It will likely be cheaper than an iPhone and Carrier-agnostic from day one. It won\u2019t need iTunes or the iTunes Store, either (though I\u2019m not suggesting the Windows Marketplace or Zune Social is any better).<\/p>\n

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Windows Phone 7 Series Marketplace (Image by Engadget)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

I look at today\u2019s current best-competitor for the iPhone and it\u2019s clearly an Android-based handset such as the Nexus One. But let\u2019s be brutally honest \u2013 Android is a mobile OS for Geeks. Android\u2019s huge gain in market share probably owes more to the fact that it\u2019s free than to any other consideration.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the iPhone\u2019s remarkable success proves that consumers are willing \u2013 even during a recession \u2013 to pay real money for a great product if everything is done right.<\/p>\n

Microsoft might have finally figured this out. And ain\u2019t it fun to imagine that, a year or so from now, the most credible competition to the iPhone may come not from Android or RIM, but from the company we all stopped caring about years ago. Somehow, that\u2019s just perfect. And I can\u2019t wait to see how Apple responds.<\/p>\n

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Of all the companies competing in the cellphone industry, it is perhaps more than just a little poetic that Microsoft should be the first to offer a truly compelling product to rival Apple\u2019s iPhone. I never thought I\u2019d write that sentence. Yesterday at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Steve Ballmer unveiled Microsoft\u2019s newest phone […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-326520","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mobile","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/326520","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=326520"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/326520\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=326520"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=326520"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=326520"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}