As TNW’s resident Microsoft fanboy, this post is hard to write. Windows Phone 7 was supposed to be Microsoft’s mobile renaissance, and when it came out it made quite the splash. We published a story called “7 Reasons Why The Windows 7 Phone Is THE iPhone Killer.” People openly agreed with the heretical idea.
That was before iPhone 4. Before iOS 4. Before Android 2.2. It was before the entire latest generation of top-tier mobile phones came out. Where does Windows Phone 7 stand now? If things have not drastically changed for the product, when it does come out this holiday season, Windows Phone 7 will be a year late and a feature short.
Everyone who loves the Zune interface and desktop software was pulling for the phone. Let’s take a look at the parts of the phone that we used to be excited about, and compare them to what is in the market now.
Beautiful Apps
When we got our first glances at Windows Phone 7 the applications looked wonderful. We had not yet seen in the wild a 4.3″ smartphone like the Evo, and were thus impressed at the quality presentation of the applications that Microsoft demonstrated.
Then along came the iPhone 4′s retina display, large screen Android phones, and the Dell Streak, not even to mention the iPad. The applications that Microsoft showed us then now feel dated, small, and not that high-res. As Redmond is trying to catch the cutting edge, this is hardly the position that they want to be in.
To remedy this, Microsoft should ensure that it’s development platform is as open as possible. That leads us to our next point.
Games
Windows Phone 7 was supposed to be a gaming machine. From our earlier coverage:
Did we mention games? Forget Flight Control, how about full on XBOX action on your phone? The graphics look up to it and the game levels, credits and achievements will be recorded against your Live profile.
Sounds cool right? Until you discover that Microsoft is crimping the style of developers everywhere. It will take guts to develop for the new platform at all, and Microsoft is not making it easy.
Instead of taking the necessary step of rolling out the red carpet for developers (Ballmer should know better), they are locking down the hardware and putting roadblocks in the developer’s way. Not good. This will limit the gaming capabilities of the phones as fewer people are going to bother to take the time to develop for the platform.
Every email function that Windows Phone 7 touted when it came out has been baked into other platforms. Hell, even the iPhone now has threaded conversations at long last. Exchange? Other people have that now too.
This is the business end of the phone that perhaps Microsoft was hoping to push as a unique advantage. Instead, they are going to launch with a product that merely matches other platforms, and does nothing in this area of regard.
The Buzz Factor
Windows Phone 7 had it, now it does not. How quickly the winds of the public opinion can change. Microsoft will be launching these phones into the holiday product climate where Apple and Google are going to be at war for Christmas dominance. Microsoft will have no brand, a new platform with few applications, and two entrenched competitors.
That is not a pretty mix. Will the phone sell? Yes it will, tens of thousands of units in its first few months on sale. It will launch, and given that it is a solid tier-two product will launch to mild success. But that is not what Microsoft wanted, they wanted to break into the big leagues and regain their former prestige.
That does not look likely in this first product cycle. If Microsoft iterates at light speed and releases endless firmware updates and new phones, they can catch up in just a year or so, but that will require dedicated vision and endless cash. We shall see, but as it stands, the Windows 7 Series phones are not going to have one tenth the splash that we had thought, or that Microsoft had hoped.
Wow it’s amazing how one person’s opinion can reflect the whole world’s opinion.
Why can’t we hold judgement until the devices are released?
Why must we declare that something has failed before it gets the chance to succeed?
The only reason people have to doubt this OS is because poeple want to compare the Zune HD release to this.
I am very excited about this phone. People don’t know about it, except us in the geek/gadget community. Any time i take someone to the http://www.windowsphone7.com site, they ask me, “when does that come out?” and yes it’ll be awhile still, but come on.
Iphone 4 has some great hardware features, but there is no reason for Microsoft not to allow a higher native res screen, in future updates.
And you speak of holding developers back because of hardware restrictions. That makes no sense at all. Thats what develpers want to have. That way they don’t have to build code for differing devices. And microsoft allows for building code for phone/PC/xbox with in the same tools.
Bring on Windows Phone 7!
Jay, indeed bring it on. I hope that the phone platform blows people away. I have been pulling for it since it was announced, I just cannot see its first generation succeeding as we had all originally hoped.
Why not though? MS has been putting an insane effort into courting developers. Did you know that they are giving away THOUSANDS of phones so they can test everything out before release? What about all of the software, literature, conferences towards it? There were hours of, essentially, online lectures showing how to develop for the new platform.
Heck, MS is even paying developers who make popular apps for Apple’s platform to be sure that they have high quality ports ready for the release.
I’m most excited about the gaming portion. I wouldn’t use a portable gaming device enough to warrant a DS or a PSP so this would fit right up my alley. Being able to use the same code to make games for xbox live as you will for the phone will bring titles from big name developers.
I’m fully confident it will do quite well. You aren’t going to see something completly take over the market with the first release but I’m fully confident that their mobile smartphone marketshare will increase.
I think you miss the point, Jay…
It’s not a matter of judging the platform, it’s a matter of recognizing that what Microsoft was setting out to accomplish (as has been thoroughly advertised) has now been met or surpassed by other platforms and released to market.
They are officially behind the 8-ball, period. The platform could be amazing, but consumers are already flocking to the iPhone and Android OSes and the share of the market they COULD have secured is dwindling.
Heck, I myself was a die-hard WinMobile user for years. But got tired of waiting and I’ve switched to Android. And now, I see no reason to look back.
Alex has it bang on. WinPhone7 will fly, but it will not soar.
“Alex has it bang on. WinPhone7 will fly, but it will not soar.”
No, he said it was DOA – pretty strong words, and not indicative of something that will “fly” at all.
Frankly, I’m more disturbed at the idea that WP7 will be a “platform for ads” as seen here: http://goo.gl/zJ5w
Oh, and no copy/paste? Rly? boo! http://goo.gl/VLsu
I agree more with the headline – DOA – not capable of getting off the ground… at least not with me or my organization.
Where are you getting the “putting roadblocks in the developer’s way” bs. They are doing everything in their power for it.
Free software and documentation. Blend is AMAZING for point and click interface design as well as animations. You get Visual Studio for free. You get XNA game studio for free. You also get a 200-page, beefy, get started book for free.
They are GIVING AWAY THOUSANDS of unlocked handsets to developers to do their thing.
They are PAYING developers directly to port their apps over to the new platform. If you have a top selling app in Apple’s app store then you will have been called up by MS.
Xbox games are coded in the same way they will be on the phone, so you’ll be able to code a game for xbox live and reuse almost the entire code and put another one out for the phone.
Did I mention getting developers who make xbox games to make games for the phone?
For the hardware front, we’ve only seen prototypes from LG, Samsung, and Asus. The shell of the LG phone isn’t even finalized yet. HTC has already said they were going to make phones for WP7. Don’t knock the hardware until you see it.
Quit with the sensationalism. The OS hasn’t even been finished yet.
I agree with Jason, from my experience, developing for the windows phone 7 has been the easiest yet. I admit i’m already a Silverlight developer, but i’m sure there are many .NET developers out there who will find the platform really easy to develop for.
We know enough about Windows Phone 7 already to know it will fail.
It has too many missing features. Too many functions not working. It’s price will be high, due to the compulsory hardware specifications.
Browsing on IE mobile will be much slower then WebKit browsers on other platforms.
It’s a closed platform, more closed than iPhone, which will turn off both developers and consumers. Microsoft is using DRM to lock the phone to the hardware. The freedom of the older Windows Mobile will be gone, and replaced by various restrictions, including content restrictions.
The WP7 platform is immature. It’s inhibiting developers, because most of the API’s required to write software are not finished. Example, video API unfinished, compass API inoperable. This limits the complexity of software on the platform. You can make simple feature-phone type apps, but not complex apps.
Lack of native code will make Windows Phone 7 run slow. That’s why no browser vendors will bring their browsers to WP7.
So, there are lots and lots of shortcomings with WP7. But no killer features. Nothing compelling. The interface won’t sell it, as we saw a similar interface on the Kin phone recently crash and burn on release, and was a sales disaster (soon to get axed).
“That was before iPhone 4. Before iOS 4. Before Android 2.2.”
Alex, I read your Windows 7 iPhone killer article. It was full of good arguments, but frankly, I knew it was a doomed premise before I finished it. The problem was that you were arguing (admittedly skillfully) from the status quo at the time you wrote it.
Like technologists, tech pundits need to learn to look 2 years out, think 5 years out, plan 10 years out.
You can be forgiven for the error, because your reputation did not hang on the outcome. Microsoft, on the other hand, cannot afford to make that kind of mistake. Ballmer should have known better than launch a product that would, at best, match the competition.
I didn’t write the other article. Read the damn byline.
My sincere apologies. I take back anything that might reflect on your technical savvy. Entirely my error.
The part about Microsoft’s folly? That stands.
Windows Phone 7 is dead … Microsoft has no chance in regaining any traction in the phone market. Apple and Google have both set the bar so high that by the time Microsoft even comes close to catching up, they are left in the dust.
The UI for Windows Phone 7 looks like it was designed by 1st year art students. It shocks me that anyone would think otherwise. It looks like someone took the wireframes and just rolled with it.
Is it going to sell ? Sure, of course it will. Will it sell more then Apple and/or Google ? Doubtful.
There’s a recent video on the web, demonstrating a game that takes advantage of iPhone 4′s gyroscope. You hold the phone in front of your face, like it is a pair of binoculars, and “pan” around the scene. It’s truly amazing.
Compare this to Windows Phone 7. WP7 only comes with a plain old compass. But even that compass won’t work, because Microsoft’s WP7 software can’t take advantage of the hardware that it resides in. Microsoft made it compulsory that every OEM must include a compass in every handset, but the compass will be broken in every handset.
There’s no room for a new phone platform that has missing functionality, and hardware that is not working. That’s why Windows Phone 7 will be DOA.
What hardware not working?
hmmm I was able to write a rather attractive (IMO) game in about 4 days with no serious roadblocks in my path, the only thong that was thrown at me was no support for custom pixel shafted in Silverlight but with promises to add this in future released! This to me is the very first release of the WP7 OS, Apple is on 4 and feature wise WP7 is pretty close already… So I have to disagree!
I’m excited at the support that the OS is getting from MS. They are expecting to be sending out updates regularly. Minor updates and patches will be OTA to fix bugs and security fixes. While service packs (yes, you read that right, there will be service packs) will require plugging your phone in.
Currently, the phone uses a combination of Silverlight 3 and some stuff from version 4. Not long after release it’s supposed to be fully upgraded to version 4. Probably with this upgrade we’ll see the addition of the compass API.
The only true statement in this article is MS is late to the party. The rest is frankly not worth the time to respond to point by point. iOS4 has changed very little. We’ll see how things pan out when the product hits the streets.
You have to love comments clearly written by people who want competition to die so their platform of choice doesn’t have to stand up to public scrutiny.
The game is on people, get use to it. Multi platform, here we go.
Another blogger whoring for readers with a catchy headline that is so far offbase and innacurate that it is truly laughable. Sure I read it, and a lot of others did, but you lowered your value for me as a blogger or columnist or whatever you are tremendously. I don’t normally like to trash folks, but what a pinhead. Anyone looking at an HD2 screen which clearly blows the IPHONE “ooh retin-A” display away, just by the shear size, and equal clarity, can see that from that the one comment you make about the screen, the rest of what you wrote must be equally moronic. Stop whoring for readers cheif, give it to us straight, think of another more honest headline that will grab my attention.
Do you really think that the lack of a compass API will prevent people from writing apps for the phone? Microsoft has gone above and beyond to court developers for the phone.
What makes WP7, what sets it a part (other than the snazzy UI) is how they are integrating their other technologies. It’s an xBox Portable, it’s a zune (you may laugh but zunePass is insanely good), it has MS Office, it fluidly integrates your social networks.
Run slow? … Have you SEEN any of the clips of the phone? The thing is snappy as mess on prototype hardware WITH the debug code still in there (slows down the phone).
The browser isn’t bad, WebKit isn’t the end-all-be-all of browsers. Plus, they’re using the JS engine from IE9 in this beat. Have you seen the speed tests for it? As fast as Chrome and faster than Firefox.
Dude totally forgot about the rest of the world. iPhone is AT&T property, most of the most popular applications from Apple store are USA oriented and are useless outside. Outside USA iPhone is hard to get useless toy which costs ~1000$. No wonder that every other chick overthere does not have it yet. Market is still open.
Good point. I think globally Nokia still has a monsterous marketshare.
One thing to keep in mind when people talk about the “too late to the market” argument. Smartphones encompass less than a third of the total mobile phone market. The smartphone’s share is expected to double over the next couple years. Do Apple and Google have a head start? Absolutely! But the game is far from over.
How is it that so few in the media & blog world (comment authors mainly) fail to grasp the concepts MS is following regarding the hardware. Yes, the compass & camera will lack API’s that will take advantage of them at launch. Yes it will lack copy/paste functionality. Seems to me there was another phone manufacturer that left out this capability for what seemed to be an endless period, but instead of acknowledging it as a feature that was worthwhile users were simply scoffed at with the implication that the manufacturer knew better than they what a smartphone should be. Sad how quickly that manufacturer receives blind forgiveness for such moves, particularly when said feature is finally and grudgingly added that it is seen as some great innovation, etc, etc.
Re- “ad machine”, please actually read about the feature. With opt-out it’s no more intrusive that iAd, etc.
I for one appreciate the candid nature of MS’ description of what features will be active at launch, with particular note of features that they know users want and which will be added via updates post-launch. Anyone willing to actually educate themselves on winphone7 will know and understand the approach is based on focusing on polishing the performance of what’s included, rather than including add’l buggy features simply to extend the list for bragging rights….
Incidentally, I’m a gadget hound and drink the kool-aid every time SJ “changes everything” again, so I’m well acquainted with just how many issues from firmware updates (see 3G & 3Gs) to “just don’t hold it that way” we had to go through before those products even came close to reaching their promised performance. I like my v4, but it’s in NO way any kind of great leap over the 3Gs, being more evolutionary than revolutionary (check out that super-res screen with a protector on it….).
I’m glad to see that MS is requiring hardware to be in every phone in spite of not taking advantage of it at launch. Already this is a step ahead of my iphone, which required hardware purchases each time a new OS offering new hardware-based features was released. Apparently, planning ahead for this scenario is another area where MS can do nothing right…. Perhaps their error is in not requiring a new purchase in order to get the latest functionality when firmware updates are released. There will definitely be those that would prefer to be in-the-wild beta testers post product release (hey, we’ve done if for three iphones now).
As the writer of the first article, I was pumped about what I saw. But obviously 6 + months between announcement and roll out is waaaay too long in this market. And I was hoping for so much…
@Jamie: Say what you will about Apple’s technology, business practices, or secrecy, the simple fact is this:
When selling consumer products, it’s better to keep absolutely quiet about a product until it’s ready for market AND the future product roadmap is way more advanced that your press releases let on. It makes embarrassment considerably less likely.
Microsoft’s core marketing failure is and always has been talking about products 1 to 3 years before they’re ready to ship. It’s a good strategy if your primary customer base is large businesses, but it sucks for consumer products.
The issue here is that with devices like this, you need to have support of developers to make it take off. So they had to annouce it to be sure that their app store will have stuff in it at release.
They are also still deep in writing the OS itself and they wanted input from potential customers and developers. We’re not too far out from the release date. Phones are supposed to be hitting the shelves at the begining of October.
Alex, I read your article. I take it that you’re gay.
You are the worst fanboy ever!
Have you ever seen anybody cut and paste on their phone?
Microsoft made the initial decision to use “smart linking” what this does is that the software creates hyperlinks when it detects specific text. So, whenever you see an email address you can touch it to send an email to that address. Mailing addresses are linked to Bing Maps. Phone numbers use the phone, etc.
This decision was made because the act of copy-and-pasting can be some what awkward on a touch screen only device. So, they had hoped that smart linking would have been a viable alternative.
Once they announced their plans with this it was immediately shot down by the public and the next day Microsoft announced that although it won’t be completed by release, it will be added shortly after due to it being what people wanted.
PS: You can copy and paste already in the office suite. You just can’t currently due it across applications.
Yes, when moving files around in registry or file explorer. Cut/copy and paste is xtremely useful.
today’s phones still are crap. I’m hoping to see a real quality phone with either a Carl Ziess or Nikon camera lens and maybe an Altec Lansing or Polk Audio or Bose speaker touting some sort of Dolby decoding. Hopefully Sony can come to market with a premium Windows Phone 7 leveraging their DSLR technology and their audio offerings. you put that in a Windows Phone 7 and game over. 4.3inch screen, HDMI out above mentioned real photo and audio specs, GPS, speaker phone with MUTE, send my pics and vid to the cloud and it’s a done deal.
Sony is coming out with an Xpera like handset for WP7. Also, you may be happy to see the camera that’s going to be on Samsung’s device. Keep in mind that the device you’ll be able to see is inside the case of an omnia HD but it in no way reflects the hardware inside.
I believe the lens is twice the size of the iPhone’s.
I for one am waiting for this phone. I disagree with Alex. Ok this phone won’t have the retina display and some advanced features of the new Iphone or others, but it will have enough features for the everyday guy. I WP7 will offer a good competitor to the Itunes experience with Zune on a global scale (Android does not even have a music store yet), and better functionality with MS Office, which most people use daily. I think some of the hardware will feature portrait and landscape keyboards. So for a business person this could be a solid alternative to the Blackberry. I’m not a gamer but I imagine a lot of people will like the integration with XBOX. I am a big library nerd and most online libraries keep their files in WMA, WMV formats. So for me this will be great to easily get these files on my phone device. You can always get a solid Apple experience by also purchasing the Itouch or Ipad.
Windows Phone 7 will get axed in 2011. At that point, CEO Steve Ballmer will get booted out of Microsoft.
My previous post here, further up this thread, I said that Kin would soon get axed. I wrote that before the Kin was axed.
The two platforms have the same problems. Similar interface. Lack of features. High price for a phone that is lacking.
One phone save all…Nokia 5110!!!! Snake and 47×84 screen…..enough said!!!!
Microsoft is not the same. I want Ballmer’s head as the dinner.
Wow Alex. You sound like an IPhone user. Im surprised you haven’t pulled this humiliating article. Windows phone 7 is a huge hit and is by far living up to your old article “windows phone 7 an Iphone killer”. I’m currently using the HTC trophy and let me tell you that it has blown many of my friends’ IPhones away in every category. Its blazing fast and is much more personable then none functional icons like the iphone 4. Its funny and rather stupid that Apple users have to fork over a ton of money every time a new version comes out to get updates. And that the IOS interface has yet to be changed and updated. Mango is soon to be released and is going to be an even better upgrade to pound iPhones even deeper in the dirt. And it’s free.
0Im8a0pc2