To make a short story shorter: for the last three days, I’ve been one of but a handful of people carrying around a handset running Microsoft’s unreleased Windows Phone 7 operating system. This specific handset isn’t one that’s ever intended for release, and, while it’s looking pretty close to done, the build running on the handset is by no means finalized.
With these bits in mind along with my new personal policy of not reviewing big-ticket items until I’ve really lived with them (even if that means not being first out of the gate with a review; for logic, see here), I present our pre-review of Windows Phone 7 in its nascent state.
The Handset:
As mentioned, the handset I’ve been carrying isn’t something that’s ever intended to go on sale. Codenamed the Samsung “Taylor”, it’s one of three handsets given to select developers and partners to get a feel for Windows Phone 7 as development is underway. This review is in no way about the handset itself, but for those wondering: for a mostly-internal prototype never intended to hit the shelves, this thing is actually pretty dang decent. Chunky? Yes. Original in its design? Heck no. Would I be ashamed to pull it from my pocket? Not one bit.
The Disclaimer: It’s an early build:
As is to be expected from an Operating System still months from release, there are lots of things that.. well.. don’t work. In the sense of fairness in reviewing this crazy early, we won’t be railing too much on the things that are obviously just unfinished. That’d be like walking in on a sculptor five minutes after they began their latest work only to yell “Hey! This is crap! It’s just a block of cement with dents in it!”
With all that said, lets begin..
The General Rundown:
You tap the power button. A lockscreen appears; a picture of a meadow fills the background, and icons at the bottom tell you that new e-mails and text messages await. There’s no immediate indication as to how to go about unlocking it — but touch it any way but the right way, and it bounces up and down as a way of saying, “Hey. Slide me up.”
Once unlocked, the home screen is two separate entities, represented as separate pages: on the left is your “Start” screen; on the right is the full list of applications installed on the device. If we’re using Windows as an analogy here, the left page is like your desktop, while the right page is like the Start Menu’s “All Programs” option.
The left page is where any applications or contacts you’ve chosen to “pin” show as tiles. These tiles, either one or two squares wide, can be as basic as text and an icon, or as complex as an animated patchwork of profile photos pulled down from Facebook. Microsoft tells us these tiles can display just about whatever a developer wants, and can be updated on the fly with push messages.
Some applications — the alarm, maps, calculator, etc — are just that: applications, with whatever single purpose their name implies. Others, however, are what Microsoft calls “Hubs”. Hubs are centralized places where you can go to find the content pertaining to that given subject, spread out across a seamless series of horizontally scrolling views. The “Games” hub, for example, dedicates one view to my Xbox Live profile/avatar, one to any incoming game invites, one to a list of all the games on my device, and one to show off new games on the platform. Developers can also tie their applications into hubs (Pandora adding radio stations to the music hub was given as an example). We’ll talk more about hubs later.
The Looks – Stunning, yet depressing:
Initially turning on the device, I had two obstacles to overcome:
1) The shock of seeing that this looked absolutely nothing like anything from Windows Mobile of yesteryear — which, by all means, is a good thing. The conversation that went down at Microsoft, as I imagine it: “So, hey. Windows Mobile 6? It looks terrible. Lets get rid of it.” “Okay. Which parts?” “All of it. Get rid of absolutely all of it. I want no similarities.” “But.. then… how..” “Fine. They can both use letters and numbers and other aspects of language. Everything else? Gone!” End scene.
2) The little Human-Interface-Guideline-trained voice inside my head that demands things like standardized margins and consistent font sizes. Windows Phone 7 takes such ideas and more or less throws them out the window.. and yet..
Once I tackled those two hurdles, I realized: Windows Phone 7 is actually really, really pretty. It’s not pretty in the same sense as the iPhone, where its beauty comes from order — and it’s not pretty in the same sense as webOS, where its beauty comes from gradients, translucency, and rounded corners. It’s pretty in its own, intensely-minimalist way. It is, as everyone says when they first see it, very Zune-esque.
Screenshots don’t do it justice, primarily because everything is animated. Tap an icon, and it floats in the air as the other applications glide out of view. Click into a date on the calendar, and the camera zooms through it like it’s a rabbit hole, emerging in front of the respective day’s agenda. There’s a fine line between animations adding to the experience and animations being so overly flashy that they make the entire thing seem unresponsive, and Microsoft is tiptoeing it well.
Alas, animations only go so far. After a few minutes with Windows Phone 7, something clicks: holy crap, they used a lot of black. Nearly every screen of nearly every included application is backed by an endless sea of black, with the alternative being.. and endless sea of white. Some of the “Hubs” have rich, sometimes-customizable backgrounds — but for the most part, it’s a whole lot of black (or a whole lot of white).
While this is undoubtedly an intentional aspect of the minimalist design, it gets, for the lack of a better word, depressing. There’s a reason people generally avoid solid colored wallpapers on their desktops, and it’s not just because of a dire need to have one more place to put a picture of their family or dog: solid colors get old, fast. The empty-void look was something I complained about with the iPhone before iOS 4 introduced custom wallpapers, and that void was limited to the homescreen. Here, it’s bred into the entire operating system
This is offset a bit by the fact that Windows Phone 7 allows the user to pick an “accent” color, which determines the hue of the aforementioned tiles on your Start screen and various bits of text and flavor tucked around the OS. It helps, but only so much.
The Keyboard:
Who the hell did Microsoft hire to make this keyboard? Because whatever they’re being paid, they deserve a raise.
I’ve got no idea what sort of sorcery Microsoft used to build this thing, but it rocks. I’ve typed the character-count equivalent of a novel or two on just about every smartphone platform’s software keyboard, and this … this just might be the best one. I could type as well on this immediately after picking it up as I could on my iPhone after weeks of practice. To say I was pleasantly surprised would be an understatement. Auto-correct works as expected, and if it misfires on a word it just doesn’t know, switching it back is a matter of tapping the word once at any time. The word you originally typed will lead a list of potential alternative corrections — tap the original, and all is returned to normal.
As we already knew, there is no copy and paste. That sucks, a lot. There’s a fully functional highlighting feature, but it seems to only work in the Office application. Still, it gives us hope that a copy/paste mechanism could come in the future — but in the mean time, it’s a rather unfortunate limitation.
Windows Phone, as a Phone:
It’s no secret: over the past few years, smartphones have become more “smart” and less “phone”. Just about gone are the days of little green dial buttons jumping you directly to the number pad, and the number of clicks required to actually use your phone as a phone is going nowhere but up. On just about any smartphone platform around, this number is generally anywhere between 3 and 4; Windows Phone 7 is no different.
(Tangent time! Like those of Windows Mobile before it, the dial tone sounds played when you punch in phone numbers on Windows Phone 7 are ridiculously loud. Gratingly so, even. I barely care to hear the tones as I dial, why the hell would someone across the room?)
Once a call is initiated, you’ve got the standard array of options at your fingertips: speaker, mute, hold, and add call. In other words: Windows Phone is markedly average as a phone. As a contacts manager, however, it shines.
It’s all about the People:
The People Hub is Windows Phone 7′s take on an contact book — and it’s pretty dang slick. Sure, its got your standard list of contacts (all pulled down effortlessly from Facebook and Gmail, with overlapping contacts automatically linked together flawlessly) — but tap into a contact, swipe over to the “What’s New” view, and you’re looking at their latest social network updates. Want a broader view of what’s going on? Pop back to the list of all your contacts, slide over to that layer’s “What’s New” view — tada! It’s a Facebook news feed, comments and all. It’s not the first time we’ve seen an OS try to bring all of this stuff to one place, but Windows Phone 7 does a damned decent job of it.
The Marketplace:
If the “People” hub is the core for whenever you’re feeling talkative, “Marketplace” is the hub for whenever you’re feeling spendy. Be it apps, games, or music, all sales go through here.
Outside of the Music section (which, being based off Microsoft’s Zune store, is pretty much fully functioning already), the Market hub is in a pretty early state in this technical preview. They’ve got a handful of basic applications loaded into the Apps section for testing purposes, but its understandably pretty empty right now. Even so, I’m intrigued.
You see, every app store faces the same problem: discoverability. To be considered successful, an app store needs lots and lots of apps. More apps seems to bring more users to the platform — but as more apps fill the market, it becomes harder and harder for new applications to be discovered.
At least from our cursory glance, it appears that Microsoft is going at this problem with sub-categories. Here’s how it works:
When you first enter the app layer of the Marketplace, you’ll see at least 4 views: Top apps, new apps, featured apps, and categories. Click into a category, and you’ll be offered the same views for that respective category, except with a view of that category’s free apps instead of the featured apps view. Lifestyle category? You’ll see top lifestyle apps, new lifestyle apps, free lifestyle apps, and then a list of sub-categories within that category. These categories, in turn, have their own top lists.
What does this mean? Instead of only battling for the top of an all encompassing “Games” category, developers will theoretically also be able to duke it out for the top spot in the “Action Games” or “RPG” categories. By allowing users to drill down into sub-categories, they’re giving more applications the opportunity to get their time in a spotlight, even if said spotlight is slightly smaller than that of a main category. More exposure = more sales.
As a Camera:
The camera user experience joins the keyboard on the list of pleasant surprises. While the quality of pictures will obviously vary from one piece of hardware to the next, the job of getting the user to the point of closing that shutter is Windows Phone 7′s, and that’s a job it does well.
Here’s how it works: Snap a picture, and it slides almost completely out of view to the left, with the main view returning to a live camera feed prepped for the next picture. Want to see that last picture again? Just grab the little bit left hanging and slide it back into view — bam, you’re looking at a linear film strip of your photos. Want to get back to the camera? Just slide back over to the live view. It’s perhaps the most intuitive photo taking interface I’ve ever seen.
Another neat little trick: even when your phone is locked, holding the camera button on the side of the handset will launch it directly into the photo snapping interface. No more losing that once in a lifetime shot just because you couldn’t unlock the thing and find the camera app in time. If you’ve set a password for the lockscreen, the aforementioned film strip feature will be disabled until you punch in your code; in other words, if you’ve got naughty shots stored on your phone (bad idea!), don’t worry about would-be peepers gettin’ a peek at the goods just by holding the camera button.
E-Mail:
As a long time, devout Gmail user, I’d wrap up the entire e-mail experience thusly: pretty, but basic.
The horizontally scrolling view between sections (all, unread, flagged, and urgent) introduces a pretty pleasing way of perusing messages — but unfortunately, like just about every other smartphone OS that offers Gmail as one of the default configurations, it lacks everything that makes Gmail worthwhile. Archiving? Nope. Labels? Nope — just folders. Starring? Sort of; there’s flagging, but that’s local to the handset. As much as I want to cut Microsoft some slack (Gmail is, after all, a competitor to multiple Microsoft products), I just can’t. Gmail is just too prevalent to not support beyond the utmost basic functionality.
I’ll give the e-mail client one point, though: I can attach images to my e-mails after I start writing them. 3+ years later, that’s something my iPhone still can’t do.
Browser – Internet Explorer Mobile 7:
The subject of the browser is a complex beast, and one worth waiting to really dive into until it’s considered absolutely final. We’ll give it a proper run through once this thing goes gold — but our notes on it in its current state:
- For all the grief we’ve given IE Mobile in the past, IE Mobile 7 carries its own. It’s not the best mobile browser out there, but it’s certainly the best version of IE Mobile to date.
- Across about two dozen speed tests, both the iPhone’s Safari browser and the default Android browser beat IE Mobile 7 consistently. All handsets were on WiFi with cleared caches.
- Multi-touch pan and zoom behaves smoothly, and the kinetic scrolling (where pages scroll a bit based on how you flick’em) is spot-on
Surfing the Inconsistent Seas
There’s a problem with minimalism: At a certain point, you stop stripping away all the stuff the user doesn’t need to see and start stripping away the stuff they do. I’ve been using Windows Phone for a few days now, and there are still plenty of things I don’t entirely understand. Why does a certain group of pictures show up in its own splayed-out view on the top layer of the Photos hub one time, and not the next? Why is it that I can tap-and-hold a note’s icon in one view to bring up a prompt to delete it, but I can hold that same note’s icon until my thumb goes numb on another view without anything happening at all?
These aren’t the only inconsistencies. In single purpose applications, you access the settings screen by tapping a little ellipses (a fancy word for “…”) in the bottom right; in Hubs, you hold your thumb in any open space until the prompt appears. In one view, tapping the hardware search button will bring up a search option relevant to that context; in another view (even within the same application), tapping that same search button will bring up Bing search — and there’s never really any indication as to which you’ll be getting.
Conclusion:
I look forward to Windows Phone 7 with a dash of excitement, and a heaping cup of wariness. Tinkering with Windows Phone 7 is like finding out that the little girl who was kind of a punk to you in second grade somehow managed to grow up kind of cool — and to top it off, she’s actually sort of hot. But is she really that cool, or is she still that little punk deep down? Does she really get you, or does she just read your Facebook enough to pretend she does? Will developers build things for her that make her worthwhile? I think that analogy just fell apart, but you get my drift.
While lovely, Windows Phone 7 has an absolutely ridiculous mountain to climb. Microsoft is returning as an underdog in an arena where they once reigned as champion — and they’re an underdog with weights tied to their feet and a reputation of being too old to fight. They’re miles behind the competition, both in timing and functionality. While Microsoft was busy fiddling with Windows Mobile 6.5 and the travesty that was the Kin, Google managed to build Android’s name, get it onto dozens of devices, fill its Market up with 70,000 applications, all whilst giving the whole damn thing away for free to hardware manufacturers. Windows Phone 7′s biggest strength is that the set-in-stone hardware specifications prevent fragmentation from complicating things — is that anywhere near enough to convince handset makers to shift focus from Android and go back to paying royalties?
With these obstacles in mind and a few days of experience with the platform under my belt, I look at Windows Phone 7 the same way I’ve always looked at webOS: with restrained hope. Given a bit of luck, a monumental amount of resources, and an influx of developer interest, it has the potential to be a massive success. I don’t, however, think it will be.
I’ll give the e-mail client one point, though: I can attach images to my e-mails after I start writing them. 3+ years later, that’s something my iPhone still can’t do.
That’s not true: You can do this by using copy and paste
If you remember to copy and paste a picture on iOS, why not take the extra 3 seconds to click “Email as Attachment”?
The point here is that you don’t have to remember to copy/paste anything, you don’t have to exit/multitask out of the mail app, you just click a button, choose a picture, and then send your mail.
Sounds a lot simpler, and it’s something the iOS needs in the next iteration.
You mean it should do it the way Android does it
You would have to know what an attachment is to know what “Email as Attachment” does. Many phone users don’t know what an attachment is. It’s a phone, not a computer. It’s used by everyone, not by techies.
Dude. Don’t be a retard, the word “attachment” is associated with Email, not a computer. Phones have had email functionality for a while now, it doesn’t take a techie to realise that email means the same on a phone as it does on a computer.
Greg, Awesome post!
Thanks for an excellent review, Greg!
I discovered more about Windows Phone 7 in this post, than everything I’d heard up to this point.
+1
+2
Have to agree, this pre-review – or whatever – seems to be a lot less biased and thorough, fact based review than everything else I have seen.
I like that you keep an open mind, which is not easy, as we see on a daily basis with fan-boys yelping about how theirs is better than the other’s just based on that they are not familiar with a device or service after the three minutes of using it.
Bravo on the journalism creds.
Wow, I though preview would just be a preview. Sorry, but couldn’t really reach the end of the post and I wonder how long the ‘actual review’ could be?
What ever the OS would prove to be, I always thought,
Windows phone 7 = awful name
Don’t worry, within 4 iterations they’ll rename it to something like “whoneOS”..
How about Windhone7
I like the version number, even though it kind of invites an expectation of tandem updates of the mobile OS along with the desktop/laptop OS. Sounds like a sticky situation to me.
Maybe they should move away from “Windows”. It doesn’t seem like there are going to be any “windows” in it’s OS.
How about HUB OS? Since its based on hubs.
It’s KIN 3.
MG is not very happy about this
I don’t think MG cares about this one bit… and neither does anyone outside of MS and few dozen tech geeks across the globe.
I predict they’ll sell at LEAST a couple thousand of these in 2011. Hey, that’s way more than both KINs combined!
Oh hi, I’m the entire business market who will be tempted by the low prices, office integration, and brand reliability.
The prices will not be any lower than iPhone and Blackberry, which are the mainstays in business in the US right now. There isn’t any room to undercut a $99 iPhone. Especially not with a product with so many fewer features. See the KIN as an example.
Microsoft’s “brand reliability” is not better than Apple and RIM. Not generally speaking, and especially not in mobile.
Maybe Microsoft Office integration would be interesting if you could copy and paste. But as it is, you are better off on iPhone or Blackberry again, where you have full-featured Docs to Go. On iPad you already have iWork and it’s coming soon to iPhone. And iOS supports USB and Bluetooth keyboards so a productivity user can actually touch type.
Also, business won’t typically embrace a new platform for at least a year. How are they going to switch from iPhones running Salesforce and WebEx and thousands of other business-focused apps to Windows Phone 7 with no apps?
So it is an uphill climb for Microsoft. I don’t see the compelling feature here for consumers or business that will get them to switch.
Henry, the business market won’t buy WinPho 7 devices because:
1) None of the WinMo 6.5 apps will work on ver 7. That’s an automatic deal breaker right there.
2) Business users will want copy&paste and multitasking functionality; they already have that in version 6.5.
3) Business are very hesitant to change operating systems. Many corporations skipped Vista; what makes you think they’ll jump into an OS as wildly different as WinPho 7?
Oh stfu. It’s getting old, dick-bag.
The body looks a lot like Samsung I8910 (Omnia HD)
I look forward to a Windows Phone 7 device :)
Two things that totally cooled me off were the browser and poor availability. What’s the point in trying to beat anyone if you’re gonna sell it only in 17 countries?
That’s your big complaint? Who cares if you are in one of the 17 countries. Geez.
Bring back the KIN.
Four reasons why I think this Windows Phone 7 will succeed:
1) Business: Although people focus on iPhone and Android, I think Blackberry is the elephant in the room that may initially suffer the most from the WP7 introduction. MS have the technology to tightly integrate with their own back-office systems. This will take the WP7 user way beyond just corporate email and into CRM, SharePoint and other key business applications. This is a big attraction to the corporate market.
2) Developers, Developers, Developers! : MS is pushing hard in the development community to foster interest in building phone applications. They have created a great development experience and offer free tools. In addition, current MS developers can build on their existing technical skills and do not need to learn a new language/SDK to create phone applications.
3) Commitment: I think MS is committed to this platform and will not pack-up if the first quarter sales don’t match expectations. MS will continue to throw money and resources at this market until they see success, as they know it’s a key future market.
4) Contracts: Unlike the PC market, many phone users are only as loyal as the length of their carrier contract, so getting users to switch platforms, is not as challenging as the desktop market.
1.) This has always been the case and has never transpired. Why are we to believe it will now?
2.) Until there is sufficient installed base this is irrelevant
3.) They’ve been committed and have been losing ground in mobile for a decade.
4.) This last point makes even less sense than the previous 3. The fact that the average consumer changes handsets every 18 months has nothing to do with the challenge of getting consumers to adopt a new platform.
You obviously copied your last three points from a comment you made when the Palm Pre was introduced…
Ned: Thanks for the kind words. It’s actually the first time I have ever commented on Techcrunch, so I think you’re flaming the wrong the person.
Anyway as they like to say here. Have a great day!
So my final comment is inaccurate. Your argument is still incredibly toothless.
Point 4 is an important one. Your reference to 18 months is significant. With 2-year contracts and hardware subsidies, that 18 months puts you into the window when most “good customers” can get a subsidy if they’re willing to re-up for another full 2 years. Failing that, after 18 months your ETF is probably pro-rated down to a point where it’s worth it to switch for a lust-worthy device.
With that in mind, we have to wonder how much of the WP7 target market will be at a point where they can migrate to it at a reasonable price. Does it qualify as “lust-worthy?” Between the iPhone and the various Android models we’ve seen in the last year, a lot of potential WP7 owners are locked into a device already. That being said, the smartphone market is expanding, so I see WP7′s biggest hope as pulling in people upgrading from a feature phone. Doable, but still a serious challenge.
Great point. In fact, better than the original comment.
> Business: Although people focus on
> iPhone and Android
Android does not even have encryption, it is not used in business at all.
> MS have the technology to tightly
> integrate with their own back-office
> systems.
iOS has better Exchange integration than Windows Phone 7.
> This will take the WP7 user way beyond
> just corporate email and into CRM,
> SharePoint and other key business
> applications.
iOS already does this with thousands of business-focused 3rd party apps. Salesforce is the obvious example.
> This is a big attraction to the corporate
> market.
Which is why they’re buying so many iPhones and iPads.
> Developers, Developers, Developers!
Are almost all making iOS apps in full desktop-class C. They’re taking their existing C apps, copying them into Xcode, and in a very short time they’re deploying apps for iPhone, iPod, iPad.
> current MS developers can build on
> their existing technical skills and do
> not need to learn a new language/SDK
> to create phone applications.
My understanding is that’s only true for the small minority of Microsoft developers who use Silverlight and XNA, and none of them are mobile developers.
> Commitment: I think MS is committed
> to this platform and will not pack-up
> if the first quarter sales don’t match
> expectations.
Like KIN?
> MS will continue to throw money and
> resources at this market until they see
> success, as they know it’s a key future
> market.
Maybe Microsoft will, but will HTC and Samsung? Will Verizon and Sprint?
Apple takes 52% of the profit in mobile phones right now, and rising. Not just smartphones, but all mobile phones. All the others are dividing up 48% and falling. No matter how much Windows/Office monopoly money Microsoft may have to burn, in the mobile market, things are tight. There is a lot of pressure.
> Contracts: Unlike the PC market, many
> phone users are only as loyal as the
> length of their carrier contract, so
> getting users to switch platforms,
> is not as challenging as the desktop
> market.
That is true in phones, but not in smartphones. Users are very loyal to iPhone, Blackberry, and high-end Android (about 25% of Android). But the users you can lure away from their phones are lured by features, and Windows Phone 7 is behind in features by far.
That is just plain cute, in bullets even!
One of the problems in reviewing a “phone” such as this is that Apple really changed the game for the average consumer.
In the Apple world, a “mobile phone” is the gestalt of:
hardware
operating system
applications and how you acquire them (iTunes store)
In both the Windows and Android worlds, these are separate items. It makes the reviewers’ tasks so much more difficult.
This is EXACTLY the case. I’ve been trying to explain this same concept to folks in the Xbox 360/PS3 debate for years. The 360 generally wins out because XBOX Live so dramtically skews the concept of what a video game console should be.
Also reviewers tend to be techies and most users are not. With all of the nerd energy around Android v2.x, that is only 25% of Android phones, which themselves are just a tiny part of the overall market. Android v2.x users are the tiny minority of people who want their phone to act like a PC. Most people hate PC’s. The vast majority of people who walk into an Apple, AT&T, Verizon, or Sprint store to buy a phone find the iPhone challenging. Apple has classes on how to use your iPhone and people go to them. It’s hard to get a techie to understand that and calibrate their ease-of-use meter accordingly. Mike Arrington says you should buy an Android phone for your grandma. That is ludicrous. If you get her an iPhone, you should still hide about 90% of the apps in folders on secondary screens.
That is why when I read a review of a phone and the reviewer was confused by it in any way that is a huge alarm bell because most of the potential users of this phone do not have anything like the experience of a MobileCrunch reviewer. If a phone is consumer-ready, reviewers should find it to be totally painless. For Windows Phone 7 to confuse a MobileCrunch reviewer or for Droid X to make the Gizmodo reviewer say it feels malicious to the user those are show-stopping problems.
Seriously, sell your AAPL now, it is gong to fall.
@Ivan – remember the iPhone was released to one country, the US starting June 07, then 5 more countries the end of 07.
Whoa! it actually looks nice, I would buy a device but with a little better hardware, but overall IMO the OS as improved drastically…
The black backgrounds are actually because that uses a lot less battery life on an oled screen, where the battery consumption is proportional to the overall brightness.
But this device does not have OLED. Will most Windows Phone 7 devices have OLED? That seems unlikely. OLED is very expensive and this is a low-end system.
Low end system? Now I know your high. One to many tokes off the iPhone bong. The hardware is not a release canidate and the min specs required from Microsoft are definetly not low end.
Competition is always a great thing!
Yes, and if Windows Phone 7 is ever competitive, that will be great.
I’ve yet to hear a bad review of one of these. I look forward to geting my hands on one. It will be real interesting to see the mobile landscape a year from now.
Um, this review was rather negative on it.
Here’s another bad review:
http://www.boygeniusreport.com/2010/07/19/microsoft-windows-phone-7-preview/comment-page-1
And another:
http://www.infoworld.com/d/mobilize/windows-phone-7-dont-bother-disaster-211
InfoWorld Galen Gruman = Apple fan boy.
The infoworld guy doesn’t have a phone and is reviewing it from demos! How stupid do you have to be to take that as a review? Especially when people who actually HAVE the phone are giving detailed opinions. (T say nothing of the fact that he gets a lot of factual, not subjective, things wrong.)
You know the Apple fanboy thing is tired when you’re applying it to InfoWorld columnists. Give it up already. Apple is leading in mobile technology. You don’t have to be a fanboy to use their gear or recognize that it is setting the standard. The reason their sales are so good is they have users from every walk of life, with every kind of technical experience. Half of iPad users are Windows users. Most of Apple’s users are new in the last 3-4 years since the Intel Mac and iPhone.
Windows Phone 7 has to compete with iPhone for both consumer and business users. Pretending iPhone doesn’t exist just gets you another KIN … great reviews before it launched, sold 8000, killed after 6 weeks. At almost exactly the same time, iPhone 4 sold 600,000 in its first hour, 1.7 million in its first weekend, and 3 million in 3 weeks, limited by the fact that they ran out of stock.
I know Microsoft is not used to competing, but that is why reviewers should be even tougher on them pre-release. The Windows Phone 7 reviews have a lot of ifs and buts in them. I don’t know how you see this review here as positive, actually. The reviewer specifically says he’s treating it with kid gloves because it’s not done, but it’s not going to get much more done than this. And even so, there are a lot of complaints here.
No HTML5 is a fatal flaw. There are like 100,000 cross-platform mobile HTML5 apps that iOS, Android, Palm, some Nokia and soon some Blackberry all run. With Windows Phone 7 having no native apps of its own, it really, really needs to be able to run HTML5 apps. No YouTube? That is crazy. YouTube is right there for free on the Web but Windows Phone 7 can’t run either the PC version or the mobile version. Ugh.
So if a reviewer were to take the gloves off and really compare this thing to what is out there shipping right now, there’s just no way to put a good review on it. The good reviews that you see are all being way, way too kind. The competitive market will not be so kind.
Galen Gruman was executive editor of Macworld for 3 years 5 months – if that brings any more credibility to his piece in Infoworld.
As a developer, one of Microsoft’s problems getting this off the ground is their marketplace policy. They are charging developers $99 a year, and limit that to 5 free apps? In theory, this sounds like a nice strategy to limit crapware, but in reality, its more barriers to developer adoption.
How can they expect developers to invest in a completely unproven platform, especially considering their terrible history in mobile? As a developer, why would I pay Microsoft anything to gain entry? At a minimum, they should be doing all they can to attract as many legitimate developers as possible. Most developers are likely to spend their time on the iOS or Android platforms, and wait to see if WIndows Phone 7 materializes. If this is how it goes down, Microsoft is screwed (again).
That’s the most valid point I’ve read to date. The success of a mobile platform is now dependent on its app market. There is still time for MS to change they’re policy for developers, and I wouldn’t be entirely surprised if they did so.
Microsoft needs to be very loose with the developer phones. They should be practically giving them away to anybody who commits to doing an app.
I am a small time developer, but if they gave me a phone to use for development, and gave me free access to the market, I’d likely spend time on writing my app for it. But, despite Microsoft claims of developers, developers, developers, people like me are sitting on the sidelines.
Not only that, but there is no HTML5. So they have shut out all of the cross-platform mobile apps and developers out there. That means it’s native Windows Phone 7 apps or nothing. On iPhone, even with its huge native developer support and desktop-class tools, you always had the choice to deploy HTML5 for free from your own server, using whatever tools you like, and also have Android, Palm, Nokia, Mac, and soon Blackberry compatibility. It’s a huge omission for Windows Phone 7 to be missing HTML5 when the environment is FREE. They could have done an IE9 mobile based on WebKit and if they wanted to, sub in the real IE9 engine when they finally finish it. To launch their new rebooted phone platform without HTML5 just shows they are prioritizing The Microsoft Way over actually making a competitive device. They tie one leg up under them and then lose the race and everybody says how could that happen? Tiny Palm had HTML5 a year ago. Android has had it for 2 years. Apple for 3. Blackberry OS 6 has it. It is just plain crazy for Windows Phone 7 not to have it, and it will be a major reason for its failure.
I for one can live without the thousands of crap apps written for the iPhone. And once again we are dealing with an unfinished os here.
Why would Microsoft, or any UI creator for that matter, CHOOSE to design an interface where the characters frequently run off the side of the screen? I don’t see myself getting around this. Just because the iPhone is orderly doesn’t mean that they have to make Phone 7 disorderly.
Well it lets you know there is more to explore. It does not seem disorderly but bold and modern. Personally I absolutely love it.
The way you know there is more to explore is if you see a list of 5 items and the 6th is half cut off, not if you see truncated text on some buttons.
They even do this:
- Explore Word
- Explore Excel
- Explore PowerPoir
Why not this:
Explore:
- Word
- Excel
- PowerPoint
This is basic stuff.
LOL.
“It has no HTML5 support and no native youtube app, so effectively you can’t watch youtube, the most popular video site in the world, using WM7.”
MS fan: Personally, I love that you can’t watch youtube!
I have to agree, that “extend headings off the side to indicate a next horizontal screen” is a lousy metaphor. At first glance it just really looks like a bug in the display. This totally seems “different for the sake of being different” as opposed to better, clearer, or more intuitive. NOT a good sign.
This is absolutely intuitive!!! Even your iBrain wonders what else is over there.
“Pre-Review,” bit of a misleading of a title name.
“I look at Windows Phone 7 the same way I’ve always looked at webOS: with restrained hope. Given a bit of luck, a monumental amount of resources, and an influx of developer interest, it has the potential to be a massive success. I don’t, however, think it will be.”
Sums up very nicely.
The only prescription :-
Get cozy with Sprint and T-Mobile and both or three promote the hack out of it.
Finally someone comes up with something fresh, Apple style hopefully will not last for the next decades. Looking forward to seeing some new ideas, typography looks nice on the screenshots. Hope it lives up to the expectations, but it sure looks much better than Android in its first version.
> in its first version
People are not going to be shopping for phones and giving Windows Phone 7 points for looking better than Android looked in 2008.
An important point was brought up: Google is giving away Android for free.
Microsoft doesn’t do free. That’s utterly antithetical to their core corporate culture. That means handset makers will need to pay MS for this OS. Are they going to find it so compelling vs. free Android that will automatically plug into those 100,000 existing apps?
I could see them giving it away or even *paying* handset makers to adopt Win 7 – at first. But those companies would have to be awfully dense to not realize that that would rapidly go away and MS would start charging for the OS again. It’s what they do. Google is supported by ads and it can afford to give away an OS.
I think Microsoft would glady give away the OS in exchange for transactional revenue from appstore, etc.
Android is not really free. The OEMs do not pay to Google, but they end up paying anyway, thanks to cross patent licensing between various OEMs and MSFT. HTC, for instance, specifically entered into a licensing deal with MSFT so they can continue to release Android phones.
Android is not really free. Google offers no protection from any liability the handset maker incurs by using it, or for any of the patents or copyrights it may violate. So HTC pays Microsoft a patent royalty on every Android device it ships, and HTC has been sued by Apple for something like 25 different patent violations, which may cause them to have to stop shipping a number of their Android phones.
Microsoft is promising some protection for Windows Phone 7 handset makers, so the idea would be that any liability that Windows Phone 7 creates would be handled by Microsoft and defended with their large patent portfolio.
Essentially, Windows Phone 7 costs a little money, but you get a patent pool that guarantees you don’t get your pants sued off later. This is sort of like H.264 versus VP8. With H.264 you pay a small price but it gets you a patent pool with no liability, whereas VP8 is free but you are going to get sued later no matter what.
I’m a designer and the UI looks great! Really interesting. Sadly though Microsoft is still Microsoft. The phone will not succeed for the following reasons:
-Some dumbass at corporate probably thought it was genius to tightly integrate all microsoft’s other products and shut out the others. So what do you do if you don’t have a Zune pass, Xbox Live account or want to use Google maps or search? Oh you can’t. Great idea if you had the most popular or best offering in any of those areas, but Microsoft doesn’t. Quit jamming your products down our throat, this for me is the biggest reason I won’t be buying the phone. I don’t need another device that does everything but is compatible with nothing.
-Microsoft is licensing the software to other phone companies. Great idea if each manufacturer could customize the way the UI looks to differenciate from the competition. But they can’t so all their phones will look almost the exact same on the inside.
-No multitasking, I can already imagine the android adds now. Also not very friendly for developers. Think about all the limits imposed on a developer who’s app stops running when navigating away, think content streaming and 3rd party media players, geo location, etc. Firefox won’t even be making a browser for WinMo7 because of their imposed restrictions.
-Lastly, I hate to say it because I love the UI but definitely too progressive for the main stream.
Also IE7 instead of HTML5. That is the ultimate shut-out. The whole mobile Web won’t run on this phone.
I’d like to respond to some of your comments:
1) Most people won’t care if it’s Google Maps or Bing Maps. As long as it has good navigation and maps, people won’t care. All they care about it how well it works and the features tied to it.
2) The Hardware manufacturers are able to add some of their own apps to the phone. In the past, companies would rape a phone and put tons of crap on the phone. MS is allowing for some apps, but limits it to just a handful to prevent users from getting App Crap.
3) WM7 does allow for multitasking for native apps. Listening to Zune, looking at email, and browsing the Web would be just fine. It’s just third party apps which won’t be able to multitask out of the gate. Updates to follow shortly after release should allow this.
4) The UI is gorgeous IMO and by playing with it a little bit it becomes fairly intuitive. Granted some areas respond differently than others by what you do, it’s just like any UI it has a few intricacies that users will easily learn with a minumum amount of time.
Cheers!
RE Smooth: To #2, THANK YOU! Verizon is NOTORIOUS for their crap bloatware they load up on phones, effectively making awesome phones horribly unusable.
LMFAO….This is such a riot when iFans start talking about Microsoft Jamming things down their throat. Apple is now and always has been the most closed system around. Zune and XBOX live are huge draws. Zune kicks iTunes all over the place for value.
Fantastic pre review. Thanks!
I’m quite looking forward to this, If it’s interface is indeed lifted and slightly tweaked from the Zune I think I’ll enjoy this immensely.
From what I’ve seen of their moves these past few weeks, I think MS understands what is going to be necessary to overcome the mountain in from of them with WP7. I wish they first address the missing features and make sure the habit of bugs, hangs and memory leaks is in the past. I need something really for my next smartphone.
I would wanna see MS providing HTML5 support to its mobile browser. Thats one thing which would be a real good addon to this device. I also hope WinMo7 stands up to the expectation as its creating! The OEMs Hardware manufacturers will definitely play a big role in it!
Good Luck WinMo..!
Cheers’
Vijay | MS-MVP
Yeah.. great review,
It looks so futuristic gadget, awesome design with update multiple feature..
Thanks for sharing this powerful information.That’s very helpful and interesting.
ebagseller is the best online shoping.
Windows, zune, Microsoft-anything-is for born losers. Microsoft is a dinosaur and not relevant to anyone or anything. All they can do is copy others and pay for puff piece reviews-wink wink.
For real? Because as a user of BOTH iTunes and Zune, the Zune kills iTunes. There’s a reason I have both an iPhone and a Zune and it’s not because I’m independently wealthy.
Zune Marketplace is genius. The 10 free downloads (which I then OWN and can do ANYTHING with) essentially covers the monthly subscription cost (which allows me to download pretty much anything I could ever want). Zune HD maybe a little lame (I don’t know, I don’t have one), but I do have a 120 GB Zune which cost less than an iPod and has more movies, music and battery life than I could ever store on my iPhone.
And I know everyone has their preferences, but don’t assume a product sucks when you exhibit absolutely zero knowledge of it or how well it works.
There are legions of us that have been waiting for Microsoft to embed Zune in a phone. Zune is so far ahead of iTunes in value it’s not even funny. Microsoft still has a virtual lock on the desktop and is still more profitable than Apple. Microsoft will succeed in the mobile market just as they did in the Gaming arena. Once they’re on the right track they are a Giant, and they’re definetly on the right track again.
if MS start throwing money at erviewers maube but would it not loose any and all credibility when that was announced? i know for a fact that erviews got payed to be gentle to vista and it got out and look how vista went, Not only despite the fact that product wasent ready for prime time at all but the mantra “it is the best windows we ever shipped” was falsely used and there are lawsuites proving it.
so .. with this in mind will MS ever change or will only the surface change?
thanks… for the information
When is this phone out and with what carrier ?
Thanks
Microsoft is inept.
The closed nature of the WP7 platform will stop it from being adopted in China (beyond niche status).
Android is sweeping across China. The Chinese government likes it because they can always change Google’s services to Baidu.
Windows Phone 7 is locked to its hardware with DRM. It is more closed than even iPhone. OEMs and networks are forbidden from changing the Bing Button to any other search engine (can’t even be changed to Google).
Love the camera feature…
This looks like a good smartphone if you don’t care about apps. Maybe in the future this will change but everytime there’s an iPhone app around the corner you always get this one person that says “So when is the Android app coming??” I’m pretty sure there will be some decent apps for Winmo 7 but for independent developers it’s going to be hard to convince them to make their stuff on another platform when they already have a contract with the iPhone and those apps also work on iPod touches.
Great article. It looks darn awesome, especially the UI.
If Windows phone 7 wants to succeed, it needs to get rid of all the managed code that slowed windows vista and windows 7.
http://www.edepot.com/iphone.html
Then they need to look at all the hardware features of the iPhone 4 in the iPhone Secrets page above and improve it on everything, especially the resolution and screen size. THEN they have some hope of competition.
Ummmm windows 7 is slow? Last time I checked, my PC launches photoshop CS5 in about 1.5 second. The bloatware itunes pops up instantly, as in 1 second. Thats slow to you?
wow..i hope i have it
Thanks for the preview. It gets me excited to see the thing moving forward – can’t wait to own one!
As for the “sea of black” as you call it, I think it’s a good thing, seeing as the AMOLED displays of today do not consume any electricity when “displaying” black pixels. Therefore, black saves energy. White, on the other hand, will probably shorten your battery life to about 70%.
NO COPY/PASTE? WHAT? I honestly hope that it will get implemented before the release. That is something I cannot imagine life without. I hate remembering anything that can be remembered by someone/something else.
Plus, I hope the phone asks for my consent before it mixes up all my contacts from the web.
Do you know how many hardware buttons it has in its current stage?
wow i hope i have it hehe ^^
MS is fully aware that their first release of WP7 will not be up to the full standards of today’s smartphones. They even said it themselves. I do not believe they expect to grab a substantial amount of market share with the first release of WP7. R&D takes time.
I believe that the Droid is currently the class of the smart phone market. Froyo 2.2 (Droid) is far faster that IOS4. Google is rolling out a new programming language platform that will allow developers to utilize the creation of Droid apps much easier. If google hasn’t caught up to apple already they are within cm.
Reading through the comments, I see many apple fan boys and few truly objective opinions. You give a customer a front facing camera that only works on a strong wifi connection and they think you’re God. By the way, as I’m sure many of you know, the uk had this feature for years and it has not revolutionized anything. It’s basically just a gimmick by apple to give you the impression it is way ahead of the curve.
I currently own a phone running mobile 6.5. I really thought long and hard before I decided I was going to become a Droid owner. Especially, given that WP7 is supposed to be on a rumored HTC phone with a 1.5 ghz processor and a beast of hardware features.
It basically boils down to this, if you believe that apps makes the phone then the iphone is your choice. If you believe power makes the phone then Andriod is your choice. For me, if I feel I am missing a certain app, I can create it. But, I cannot increase the power of the phone. Besides, as the popularity of a particular phone increases, so does the apps for that phone. Developers will become more and more interested as the potential to make more money grows.
Unfortunately, WP7 will not be mature when it is first released. MS knows that and we know that. For this reason alone, I will not buy one. Although, I am anxious to see what it will be capable of when it eventually becomes a mature OS. I think MS has created a very good starting point. Remember when iphone was first introduced, while every other phone had copy and paste, multitasking, it did not, yet it managed to do very well in sales b/c it was something different. I believe this is what MS is thinking may work again, only in their favor.
Why talk about an unreleased product and judge its failure or success? Let is release within a couple of months and the results will be visible to everyone.
I can’t wait til this phone comes out! I’m siked.
hey i simply want to say that this stuff never gets old, love it, carry on the good information, its better than working for a living, cheers
It’s gonna be an opened platform, (not open source). Of course apps are gonna be native, like Androids or IOS apps. I can just get a free development tool from MS and develop anything I want for the Win7Mo using .NET mobile and SQL Compact. Engineers would love it, since IPAQ is used by many for engineering work, such as quality control (SPC) etc.. etc…
now just waiting for this cool device with new fresh look and cool GUI of Windows Phone 7, but the looks of Samsung above was a bit ugly, i like the design at http://www.windowsphone7.com, it’s just simple and nice.
now Microsoft brings a totally different mobile os compared with previous wm version, with new fresh look user interface and great features, i think many consumers or users will like it, but does it support adobe flash in browser? how about copy & paste, events repeat reminder or multi tasking?
Bigger screeen. That’s what I want to see.