Windows Phone 7: Why It's a Disaster for Microsoft

[Woelfel]

Wait, what? Back in 2007? Wasn't multitasking added in IOS 4 which released this year? So Apple in 2010 gets multitasking, all praise Jobs, Windows Phone 7 gets released without it 4 months later and somehow Apple has redefined the market so far that MS can't catch up?

That's exactly what he's saying. lol!

[Argi]

You don't need multitasking with how the backstack works together with the back button. Seriously, go try it before complaining. It works much better than Apple's multitasking implementation for when you say, receive an SMS you can just click the bar to view, then press back once to go right back to where you were in the previous app.

[XIII]

Android is an inconsistent mess, and I say that as a user of the OS who also thinks it's a great mobile OS.

but it's disconnected. It's so modular everything feels disconnected, it doesn't feel like a phone, it feels like a PDA that has a phone module you can start, and an SMS module you can start... you can hate WM6.5 as much as you want, but at least the phone parts where a lot more integrated into the OS and it acted like a proper phone OS. Then there's all the other nags, bad programs causing crashes, the fact that all programs fill up the entire root of your memory card with their own folders instead of having an app folder on the memory card where all the app can put their stuff (you know like /AppData on windows, you'd think they would have learnt this by now). The terrible multi tasking, where apps will close by themselves with no control by you what apps are running or closed.

WP7's "multitasking" is a lot better than that, at least you know the other apps are "paused" when not on the screen then, which makes a lot more sens then killing your browser at random times because it's not active. I don't get the problem with WP7's multitasking anyway. background apps get "paused" but all live tiles apps can still run, so you don't have iPhones problem with music apps and such. what more do you really need ?

Well, you are entitled to your own opinion. IMO, Android is much better than WM6.5 in term of customization, availability of apps. If it can do what I want and have all the apps I need then why would it be a mess ? It is not like we don't want WP7. MS simply abandoned us, HD2 users. Moving to Android would be the sensible thing to do than to stay with an outdated and crippled POS...

[HawkMan]

MS didn't abandon anyone. you bought a WM6.5 device. as I previously bought a WM6.5 device with my Diamond2. There was no note in the box that said this will work with WP7, a completely different phone OS. no in fact they where quite specific in saying that WP7 would not be back ported to old devices.

some of the OEM claimed it "could" happen, but it's not going to, so if you're going to blame anyone, you need to blame yourself mostly and maybe a little bit HTC. And for that matter WM6.5 is still an awesome and highly capable phone OS, it just doesn't happen to have a very good marketplace. But onthe other hand it's the only OS out there with true multitasking. somethign everyone seems to thinkis super important, as if they can actually do anything in that game that's running in the background.

So stop playing the wounded chilc, you bought a WM6.5 device. you're not entitled to an major OS upgprade.

[Vice]

I don't believe that Microsoft can bring enough value to the mobile market to make their offering worthwhile. At the moment everything Windows Phone 7 does you can get on iOS and Android which are already mature platforms with large followings and vibrant ecosystems when it comes to 3rd party software development.

Windows 7 lacks a silver bullet there isn't really anything it does better than anything we already have it just exists to fill a void in Microsofts product lineup and I don't think that is enough.

[jakem1]

I don't believe that Microsoft can bring enough value to the mobile market to make their offering worthwhile. At the moment everything Windows Phone 7 does you can get on iOS and Android which are already mature platforms with large followings and vibrant ecosystems when it comes to 3rd party software development.

Windows 7 lacks a silver bullet there isn't really anything it does better than anything we already have it just exists to fill a void in Microsofts product lineup and I don't think that is enough.

Actually, I think there are a number of things that WP7 offers that sets them apart from their competitors:

- XBox Live

- Zune Pass

- Office & Sharepoint support

- A modern UI

- A solution to the app-centric model that makes dealing with common tasks more cumbersome.

[Vice]

Actually, I think there are a number of things that WP7 offers that sets them apart from their competitors:

- XBox Live

- Zune Pass

- Office & Sharepoint support

- A modern UI

- A solution to the app-centric model that makes dealing with common tasks more cumbersome.

Xbox Live? really? That is what people have an XBOX for, Games on Windows Phone 7 will be no different to Games on Android or iPhone, they already all share the most popular games like Angry Birds.

Zune Pass? - You mean the thing that is only available in the United States? - From the Googling I've done I can't find any mention of this working for anyone not in the united states and I checked the Zune site and I also can't see any UK based pricing, even on the en-GB sub-directory. Wiki also says the availability is US only but this could be outdated.

Office & Sharepoint? - I don't think these are amazing things. What exactly does Office give the device?

If you call what Windows Phone 7 has a good UI then you have been suckered in by the marketing. Its UI is incredibly basic, too basic.

And I don't think App-Centric models were a problem to be solved. If you need to do something you install an application that can do it. It works fine and it's how Windows Phone 7 does it anyway. If you want Streaming Video you'd install the Netflix Movie app (if it exsisted) again your being sucked in to the marketing.

I have to reiterate that it brings nothing new to the table. Everything on offer has already been done on Android and iOS. Windows Phone 7 lacks sparkle simply offering what other phones already have isn't enough.

[IrfanL]

Everyone looks for different things in there phone. So you cannot say WP7 can be for everyone or rather for very few. Only time will tell.

I am a longtime WM6.1 phone user (HTC Touch Viva, which is 1/3 the price of iPhone 3GS mind you). I was waiting for MS's next big thing (WP7) which up till now is not launched in this part of world. However, apart from its UI I am hearing a number of short comings that have been highlighted even in this thread. My expectations were to have a better UI, better onscreen keyboard, browser, and application store. Other than browser which I am not sure how it will work with site I visit, I think they have covered it.

There are also some unexpected goodies and badies such as facebook/live integration, Zune, Xbox live (if it works) are great things to have. On the other hand, no VPN support (come on), secured exchange?, no copy-n-paste (I use it allot). However, things like multitasking and unremoveable MicroSD are trivial issue for me. Because necessary background services/programs are still running, eg. activesync, messenger, music player etc. As far as MicroSD is concerned, in my HTC handset you have to open it up to remove it and in two years I have not removed it.

BTW, all this is my opinion and can be complete BS. So please dont bust your brains, iPhone rulez even I admit it.

[WelshBluebird]

Xbox Live? really? That is what people have an XBOX for, Games on Windows Phone 7 will be no different to Games on Android or iPhone, they already all share the most popular games like Angry Birds.

Zune Pass? - You mean the thing that is only available in the United States? - From the Googling I've done I can't find any mention of this working for anyone not in the united states and I checked the Zune site and I also can't see any UK based pricing, even on the en-GB sub-directory. Wiki also says the availability is US only but this could be outdated.

Office & Sharepoint? - I don't think these are amazing things. What exactly does Office give the device?

If you call what Windows Phone 7 has a good UI then you have been suckered in by the marketing. Its UI is incredibly basic, too basic.

And I don't think App-Centric models were a problem to be solved. If you need to do something you install an application that can do it. It works fine and it's how Windows Phone 7 does it anyway. If you want Streaming Video you'd install the Netflix Movie app (if it exsisted) again your being sucked in to the marketing.

I have to reiterate that it brings nothing new to the table. Everything on offer has already been done on Android and iOS. Windows Phone 7 lacks sparkle simply offering what other phones already have isn't enough.

Xbox live on the phone connects to your Gamertag, so its like an extension of that

Zune pass is available in the UK. £8.99 per month (so cheaper than spotify).

And personally, I really like the UI of it.

(coming from an iPhone user).

[Quattrone]

I am smelling that WP7 will be another disaster like the Kim. Look at the number of people who already bought the phone, less than 50,000.

[Vice]

Xbox live on the phone connects to your Gamertag, so its like an extension of that

I don't really think that is a big draw, so it connects to your gamertag so what? lol - What benefits does this afford the gamer? - iPhone has its gamer thing with achievements, and android has that flintleaf thing with achievements. And I'm sure Wii and PS3 owners outnumber 360 owners. I don't have a Live account for example.

Zune pass is available in the UK. ?8.99 per month (so cheaper than spotify).

Really that is quite affordable.

And personally, I really like the UI of it.

(coming from an iPhone user).

I don't really know how anyone can like it really. It is just big plain boxes, very large rudimentary icons that represent the software on the phone. And when you open the apps they are very basic as-well. You know what the UI reminds me of, a terminal window from 1985.

[IrfanL]

I don't really know how anyone can like it really. It is just big plain boxes, very large rudimentary icons that represent the software on the phone. And when you open the apps they are very basic as-well. You know what the UI reminds me of, a terminal window from 1985.

Thats called user preference. :shiftyninja:

[Vice]

Thats called user preference. :shiftyninja:

Well yeah people have there personal choices about things and that is fine. I'm a UI designer this is what I do day in day out I make user interfaces for all manner of software programs be them desktop applications or for integrated systems and I don't think that the UI on Windows Phone 7 is usable long term. I think the basic look they are going for and the UI Guidelines that they want developers to follow will get thrown under a bus pretty fast in favor of usability and functionality.

I mean really I don't know how you could make a lot of apps work on the phone from a usability standpoint. The way they want buttons spaced out, the way they want backgrounds behind apps it just .. sometimes the apps feel to me like they are trying to be a MySpace page, if there was music playing when you opened something that would be the cherry on top. Although maybe that is what Microsoft is aiming for the Social Networking generation *shrug*

[BajiRav]

I don't really think that is a big draw, so it connects to your gamertag so what? lol - What benefits does this afford the gamer? - iPhone has its gamer thing with achievements, and android has that flintleaf thing with achievements. And I'm sure Wii and PS3 owners outnumber 360 owners. I don't have a Live account for example.

Really that is quite affordable.

I don't really know how anyone can like it really. It is just big plain boxes, very large rudimentary icons that represent the software on the phone. And when you open the apps they are very basic as-well. You know what the UI reminds me of, a terminal window from 1985.

Apple still hasn't figured out the online part of the iOS gaming. Their implementation (as per reviews) is as bad as the Wii's. XBL set apart Xbox from others and MS intends to bring the #1 console gaming service to phones, what is there to complain?

Well yeah people have there personal choices about things and that is fine. I'm a UI designer this is what I do day in day out I make user interfaces for all manner of software programs be them desktop applications or for integrated systems and I don't think that the UI on Windows Phone 7 is usable long term. I think the basic look they are going for and the UI Guidelines that they want developers to follow will get thrown under a bus pretty fast in favor of usability and functionality.

I mean really I don't know how you could make a lot of apps work on the phone from a usability standpoint. The way they want buttons spaced out, the way they want backgrounds behind apps it just .. sometimes the apps feel to me like they are trying to be a MySpace page, if there was music playing when you opened something that would be the cherry on top. Although maybe that is what Microsoft is aiming for the Social Networking generation *shrug*

If you are a UI designer, then go and use it or borrow someone's phone for few mins and give it few mins of going through different parts of the OS.

As every single review has said, the UI is what WP7 sets apart the most. Calling it basic and something from 1985 is just insulting the UI designer in you. I own one and admittedly I like MS stuff more than Apple's but the pictures truly don't do justice to the fluidity of the UI.

Every single person including some iPhone users who have seen my phone came out impressed with the phone even with all its so called fallacies (two have already bought one after looking at mine!)

[Osiris]

Well yeah people have there personal choices about things and that is fine. I'm a UI designer this is what I do day in day out I make user interfaces for all manner of software programs be them desktop applications or for integrated systems and I don't think that the UI on Windows Phone 7 is usable long term. I think the basic look they are going for and the UI Guidelines that they want developers to follow will get thrown under a bus pretty fast in favor of usability and functionality.

I mean really I don't know how you could make a lot of apps work on the phone from a usability standpoint. The way they want buttons spaced out, the way they want backgrounds behind apps it just .. sometimes the apps feel to me like they are trying to be a MySpace page, if there was music playing when you opened something that would be the cherry on top. Although maybe that is what Microsoft is aiming for the Social Networking generation *shrug*

You sound like a pretty unimaginative designer then. There have been some great apps that have made use of the background and panaroma UI whilst others have opted for simple contrasting colours to produce apps that are very easily navigatible and highly efficient. To be fair I actually had the same doubts about the sort of apps we'd get because not every app is conducive to panorama spreads with backgrounds etc but looking over the marketplace ive been surprised by some of the nice designs out there. Much like iOS, Andriod and of course the o/s that brought the damn table to begin with, WinMo; there are a range of apps from lovely use of UI elements to utter crap.

[George P Global Moderator]

I am smelling that WP7 will be another disaster like the Kim. Look at the number of people who already bought the phone, less than 50,000.

Wow, do you have some inside sales info from MS? Any official sorces? And please don't link to that BS theStreet post from their anon analyst who, if he/she is even real is probably just blowing hot air. The only thing we know for sure is that it's hard to find one for lots of people, sales is something no one can talk about until we actually get real numbers from a real source and not some anon poster who's name we don't know or from where the numbers he/she has come from.

[PGHammer]

You sound like a pretty unimaginative designer then. There have been some great apps that have made use of the background and panaroma UI whilst others have opted for simple contrasting colours to produce apps that are very easily navigatible and highly efficient. To be fair I actually had the same doubts about the sort of apps we'd get because not every app is conducive to panorama spreads with backgrounds etc but looking over the marketplace ive been surprised by some of the nice designs out there. Much like iOS, Andriod and of course the o/s that brought the damn table to begin with, WinMo; there are a range of apps from lovely use of UI elements to utter crap.

And if you think the design is so bland, grab the darned SDK and try designing some apps yourself! The entire set of WP7 dev tools (including an emulator) is absolutely free (and you aren't even limited, by either licensing or tools, to WP7; you can use the same tools to design apps for XB360 or Windows itself) for the downloading, and will run on any version of Vista or 7 except Starter. (The only other mobile platform with free dev tools is Android, and *those* tools are locked to the platform.)

There is one application that decidedly has set a new standard for WP7 apps - Bejeweled Live from PopCap. (There are plenty of videos of it around; take a glimpse at them.) It absolutely smacks down Bejeweled 2 + Blitz for iOS (and there is no Bejeweled for Android yet), and it looks every bit as slick as Bejeweled Blitz for Windows (or Facebook) and the forthcoming Bejeweled 3 (Blitz, Twist, Live, and the forthcoming 3 are all based on the same code, with the exception of the iOS version, which is based on the old Bejeweled 2 code). PopCap's devs themselves said that Live is a port - however, it's easily the slickest mobile game out there for any platform.

iPhone has the App Store and Android has the Market - however, how many of the games or apps take real advantage of the capabilities of the hardware underlying the OS? (As bad as iOS apps are at this, most Android apps are worse.) While Android devs have to deal with a wide range of hardware, iOS devs largely has no excuse (as there is little difference hardwarewise, except for the graphical capabilities, between the various iOS platforms, and apps on the iPod touch can look better than they do, given the hardware inside, let alone the iPhone 3GS).

Given the hardware the OS runs on, when apps suck, I blame the developer.

[PGHammer]

Apple still hasn't figured out the online part of the iOS gaming. Their implementation (as per reviews) is as bad as the Wii's. XBL set apart Xbox from others and MS intends to bring the #1 console gaming service to phones, what is there to complain?

If you are a UI designer, then go and use it or borrow someone's phone for few mins and give it few mins of going through different parts of the OS.

As every single review has said, the UI is what WP7 sets apart the most. Calling it basic and something from 1985 is just insulting the UI designer in you. I own one and admittedly I like MS stuff more than Apple's but the pictures truly don't do justice to the fluidity of the UI.

Every single person including some iPhone users who have seen my phone came out impressed with the phone even with all its so called fallacies (two have already bought one after looking at mine!)

You may have a Windows Live ID and not realize it.

In addition to cross-compatibility with XBLA/Windows Live (the two have always used the same system), the ID system also encompasses Hotmail, MSN, and the old Passport system (my Windows Live ID is my old passport.com address; it also doubles as my Windows Live/XBLA GamerTag, and I've never owned any sort of Xbox). In fact, it can be used throughout any of Microsoft's services (I also use it for TechNet, MSDN, and Connect as well), and that's what it is *really* about - one ID for all.

[Flawed]

It's even worse than I first thought. I feel sorry for anyone that purchased this junk OS.

[mrp04]

I originally didn't think much of this OS, but after playing with it at the Microsoft Store at the Mall of America this Sunday I was really impressed!

I really liked the Dell Venue Pro and if it had AT&T bands, I would have walked out of the store with one. That phone was beautiful and had a pretty nice physical keyboard. I'm not going to buy another phone without a physical keyboard so it really limits my choices.

Once this OS gets copy and paste and true multi tasking, I will definitely look into buying one.

[+Chsoriano Subscriber²]

And I don't think App-Centric models were a problem to be solved. If you need to do something you install an application that can do it. It works fine and it's how Windows Phone 7 does it anyway. If you want Streaming Video you'd install the Netflix Movie app (if it exsisted) again your being sucked in to the marketing.

Um... I've had a WP7 device since launch - and I've had the Netflix app installed on it since then. Fail much?

[HawkMan]

It's even worse than I first thought. I feel sorry for anyone that purchased this junk OS.

Well thought out and written argument I especially liked how you covered the... oh wait.. nothing.

with a post like that' you're pretty much just saying "I'm a troll who hasn't tried the OS but it's Microsoft and I have an iPhone so it's gotta suck hard"

[George P Global Moderator]

Well thought out and written argument I especially liked how you covered the... oh wait.. nothing.

with a post like that' you're pretty much just saying "I'm a troll who hasn't tried the OS but it's Microsoft and I have an iPhone so it's gotta suck hard"

His logic, for lack of a better word, matches his name. You shouldn't even bother with those posts, there's no meaning to it. Let the haters hate, I'll just talk with those who have enough sense to actually put some real thought into their opinion.

[BajiRav]

You may have a Windows Live ID and not realize it.

In addition to cross-compatibility with XBLA/Windows Live (the two have always used the same system), the ID system also encompasses Hotmail, MSN, and the old Passport system (my Windows Live ID is my old passport.com address; it also doubles as my Windows Live/XBLA GamerTag, and I've never owned any sort of Xbox). In fact, it can be used throughout any of Microsoft's services (I also use it for TechNet, MSDN, and Connect as well), and that's what it is *really* about - one ID for all.

Did you misquote me? I am well aware of what Windows Live ID aka passport aka .net passport is. That's how long I have been using it (well technically my hotmail account predates MS' acquisition).

[Woelfel]

If you think that earning achievements on iPhone or Android is the same as Xbox Live, then you have no idea what achievements are to Xbox players. Oh I forgot to mention that these achievements are for the phone, xbox, and on games for windows live. 3 platforms in which you can gain points to the same ID. If anything, Xbox Live is their "killer app" for them. Comparing the number of Wii owners and PS3 owners to Xbox owners means nothing (oh and Xbox has more consoles sold than PS3 just fyi by a couple million) as iPhone and Android don't have game consoles, so that was an irrelevant point.

The UI is very usable, I don't know how you can think it's not. I guess you have to use it. Every person I showed the phone to knew how to unlock the phone and move around without me saying anything (and not nerds either, I only showed it to 1 CSC grad). If they don't look "cool", that's a preference but saying that the design is horrible from a usability standpoint is definitely wrong.