“There’s no kind way to say it: Windows Phone 7 will be a failure,” Galen Gruman writes for InfoWorld. “Announced to much bravado in February as the platform that would breathe life into Microsoft’s mobile ambitions, Windows Phone 7 looked based on very early previews as if it might bring something new and exciting to the table. Back then, I noted that I was impressed by what I saw — with the caveat ‘so far.'”
“No caveats now: Windows Phone 7 is a waste of time and money,” Gruman writes. “It’s a platform that no carrier, device maker, developer, or user should bother with.”
“Microsoft should kill it before it ships and admit that it’s out of the mobile game for good. It is supposed to ship around Christmas 2010, but anyone who gets one will prefer a lump of coal,” Gruman writes. “I really mean that.”
“In Microsoft’s in-depth demo this week at the Mobile Beat conference, there’s no mistaking the big pig behind the gloss,” Gruman writes. “Seeing the UI in action across several tasks, not just in a highly controlled presentation, shows how awkward and unsophisticated it is — I had the same feeling you get when you got a movie based on a great trailer, only to discover that all the good stuff was in the trailer and the rest of the movie was a mess. A pig, in fact.”
Gruman writes, “The bottom line is this: Windows Phone 7 is a pale imitation of the 2007-era iPhone. It’s as if Microsoft decided in summer 2007 to copy the iPhone and has shut its developers in a bunker ever since, so they don’t realize that several years have passed, that the iPhone has advanced… Microsoft is stuck in 2007, with a smartphone OS whose feature checklist might match that era’s iPhone but whose fit and finish would look like a Pinto next to a Maserati.”
Oh, there’s more, much more (three pages worth) in the full article – very highly recommended – here.
MacDailyNews Take: Ballmer’s days are numbered. When the ax finally falls, in the spirit of one clueless sales guy buffoon for another, may they promote Kevin Turner to CEO.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Dirty Pierre le Punk” for the heads up.]
Windows Phone 8 anyone?
It’s good to be an Apple shareholder.
“contented sigh”
Par for the course, but the majority do not yet understand the pit M$ has kept them in.
Does anyone expect a different result and product coming from Microsoft?
Yeah, I didn’t think so…
When Ballmer goes, and Gates will come back to try lead a Job-like comeback under a hero’s return.
Paul the Octopus has clearly gone against this article.
http://windowsphonesecrets.com/2010/07/16/dont-bother-with-this-blog-post-disaster/
So, next up: ” We are working hard on our new mobile platform: Windows Phone “7 wonders of the World”, coming fall of 2011″.
Remember everyone, before venturing to a site called “windowsphonesecrets”, Think Before You Click!
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Look at IT guy’s post above. Mafia$oft opened up their wallets REAL QUICK this time.
Gates ain’t coming back to run this company.
“[A]wkward and unsophisticated”? In other words, just like every other Microsoft product.
Wowzers. I just read the article and thought he spelled it all out very well, but you should read the comments by the Micro$oft fanboys. They are lacerating the poor guy for merely speaking the truth, albeit with somewhat of an attitude. He concludes by saying that Micro$oft should simply get out of the mobile business entirely. His article backs him up.
Troy Barkman likes Windows Phone 7.
“Awkward and unsophisticated”? Sounds great. People will love it. That kind of thinking is how Microsoft achieved a 90+% Windows marketshare…
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A great quote from the article:
“No chance of a come-from-behind victory this time
Microsoft has not only just made an imperfect copy of an old iPhone, it has not kept up with the current mobile OS crop nor moved ahead of any of them. I can’t tell you how much Windows Phone 7 feels like the early 1990s’ Windows 3.1, a clunky attempt to copy that era’s Apple System 7.”
I suspect this will be another Microsoft Death Throw, just in time for Christmas.
It seems kind of sick to stand by and applaud as someone goes into convulsions as they die. But with crapware like Windows Phone 7, it’s really applauding the death of something much less than human: The death of a parasite.
I look at Microsoft’s strategy and I like it — I like it a lot!
BSOD in your pocket.
Even if Gatesy did come back, he could not succeed. You cannot hold an industry like telecom’s feet to the fire like you can corporate IT and channel partners. Those days will forever remain in the 20th century and will finally die with the birth of app computing devices like the iPone and iPad.
Zune Tang? Zune Tang? Paging Zune Tang!
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This is a perfect way for all of you who keep telling us to just return our iP4 if we can’t get it to make and maintain phone calls to understand the stupidity of your remarks. There aren’t any alternatives to the iP4 that Steve Jobs presented to us at WWDC.
We were promised the ‘best ever’ iPhone by Steve Jobs and he then proceeded to sell us a piece of hardware that was crippled by poor design.
I don’t want any other kind of phone – I want the one Steve promised.
Surely with all those PhD scientists and engineers working in the $100 million lab, they could make a phone that would reliably send, receive, and make phone calls.
To quote Jobs, bullshit on his claim that antennas cannot be designed to work.
Another lie and he will prove it when he rolls out on the next stage proudly grasping (any way he wants) the revolutionary iP5 and announces a wondrous breakthrough in Apple engineering that has somehow magically figured out how to make a phone that works.
Translation: Steve learned an invaluable lesson with the iP4 fiasco – he learned to listen to his world class engineers.
“Predictiong” sez: “When Ballmer goes, and Gates will come back to try lead a Job-like comeback under a hero’s return.”
Actually, the telling details is that this week Bill Gates cleaned out his office and entirely LEFT Microsoft behind. He is now completely done with it. Over. Checked out. GONE.
I’ve run into this phenomenon before, on two occasions in fact. I call it ‘The Narcissist End Game‘.
Here’s how it works: The leader of an organization is so insipidly narcissistic and insecure that they can’t bear the thought of leaving behind a system that will soon forget him as it forges onward into the future. Therefore, the narcissist sets up the organization’s demise by putting an incompetent in line as his successor. The narcissist then departs and lets the gears turn. The end result is the catastrophic failure of his once wonderful organization, with everyone saying:
“Oh, how we pine for the days when [insert narcissist here] was running the place! Oh how we miss him! If only he could return and save the day! Oh Oh Oh!”
Get it? Sick stuff. And it is very real.
@Predicting
Don`t think that`l happen, Bill`s no genius but he was smart enough to pull the chute in a timely manner. He did`nt leave because he was bored or wanted to become some humanitarian hero, or ride a white pony into the sunset, he left because he saw the writing on the wall. Like a professional athlete retiring at the top of their game so as to not suffer the humiliation of the ride down. He threw Ballmy the keys, wished him all the best and washed his hands of the whole mess. He won`t be back.
“Windows Phone 7 should have been Microsoft’s “man on the moon” project, but now it’s clear that the Windows Phone 7 was Redmond’s equivalent of the bungled Hurricane Katrina response effort.”
That about wraps this up in a nutshell! ROTFLMFAO
“When Windows Phone 7 dies, will they ask who the next of Kin is? Kin 1 or Kin 2?” Dr Seus
Good article, this was especially funny:
“If the iPhone is the platinum standard, Android is the gold standard, WebOS is the bronze standard, and Symbian and BlackBerry tie for tin. Windows Phone 7 is clay — a clay pigeon, in fact.”
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Microsoft is dying the slow, unaware death of the dinosaur it is. They are going to have to fragment and reinvent themselves to survive. If the keep trying to play this “me too” game with every emerging market, they are doomed.
For MS to survive they must:
Ditch Ballmer
Split into 3 entities: an OS company that makes windows, a game company centered around the xbox, and a software company that writes cross platform tools and apps.
Quit trying to play catch-up and big bully, and instead focus on making world class products, and they can survive.
With technology, three years ago was another era.
What a load of crap article, it’s info world..what do you want,
As an Apple fan and iPhone user, I sometimes just can’t believe the garbage that this site links to.
Sometimes You guys make Gizmodo look like the New York Times.
@Predicting and chew
People so often expect to find a connection between wealth and smarts, but it’s never that simple.
Not only is Bill Gates not smart, he is technologically illiterate. He is notable for being driven, and having been at the right place/right time to exploit an opportunity with the tools his daddy gave him, to whit: how to steal and get away with it, how to craft a mine field of a contract, how to make predatory partnerships while acting like a naive geek, and how to ignore regulations and morality. That’s it.
Paul Thurott is actually one of the most objective journalists out there.
He calls Microsoft to task all the time, he spent more than his share of time criticizing pre Windows phone 7 phones, and adimited to loving his iPhone .
The guys a strait shooter, if he talks possitively about Windows phone 7, he’s not being a fan boy, he’s actually objective about what he reports.
The Apple side of things could use some of the same.
Kenny says it best…
Bingo m159!
Kin 3
VistaPhone?
Maybe Ballmer and Michael Dell should just switch jobs for a few years?
@ Perfect…
Get your head out of your ass already. A few new iPhones are having a problem with the antenna (in weak signal areas) and you believe this is a wide spread problem and that every person who bought one of the 3 million iPhones sold to date is experiencing this issue? Sorry but there are bound to be people trying to use their phones in areas with very weak signals any phone can be affected by the way it’s held.
In my home, where I get a fairly weak signal, I can hold my iPhone 3GS in a specific way and cause the bars to drop. I can do the same with a friend’s cheap Samsung (AT&T) phone as well. This is not a problem with the iPhone 4, but rather a problem with the signal coming from the cell towers.
If this really were a serious wide spread problem, a helluva lot more people would be complaining and returning their phones. And there wouldn’t be a 3 week back order for them either.
You’re a moron, that simply wants to hate on Apple.
I have a feeling Jobs will be doing a few cartwheels of his own when MS releases the newest pos…
To be fair, when they release the windows phone 7, they should do a side by side review with the original 2007 iPhone
After seeing what MS did to the ZuneHD roll out and support. The concept of the dual screen management device called couier getting killed. The Zunehd is not a bad device. And I love mine! But it got kicked out the launch door and then that door slammed right behind it very hard. And was left to flounder.
Would suspect WP7 will be DOA anyway. Why go with WP7 with android out there many generation beyond it? WP7 looks like another Vista. As in OOPS! Need new VISUAL Cool App’s Mobil OS!!! Lets see.. Take the Zune HD interface. Take what we have from its CE and add in last version of 6 phone parts… Yes.. It will work… No it wont…
Look at Kim systems. Sheech! All that money, time effort and killed super fast… Any one would be nuts to deal with MS at this point. A true bag of pain.
MS main problem is sticking to and completion… Its been a major problems for them decades! Except for a few things they have failed big time to plan and stay the course.
MSFT is lost w/o day-to-day leadership of BG, but he’s been loyal to his CEO Harvard friend. MFST meeds to move out of any DOS related OS, adopt new, like APL did when AJobs put aside the original Mac OS to Jons brillent “NEXT” OS, now baisis for OS X. Courage. Confidence. Genius all a part of Jobs. BG has grown to have all.
Lets not get down on Ballmer, secretly he’s on Apples payroll
M$ should have bought WebOS and Palm when they had the chance. At least they would have got a modern OS to play around with.
M$ problems are that they are dealing with an ancient OS that is crippling everything they try and do. They are stuck in the mud and can’t do anything right.
I hope they continue to try to make crap because it lowers their profit margin and their respect in the market.
Joe07
“Paul Thurott is actually one of the most objective journalists out there.”
Dude… I laughed so hard I blew coffee through my nose.
Very good, I assume that was tongue in cheek (satire)
Yes?
<beat>
Hope so…
….otherwise: one of the vapid trolls ever (more-so than even our resident “stealth-mole-troll” thelonious (whose troll was at least brief))
They still have that monopoly. Remember how crappy Windows 3 was yet MS kept gaining huge shares.
Then MS blatenly copied the Mac with Windows 95, gained 98% of the market. Yes it was copying the Mac to catch up. Windows 7 is copying the iPhone of the past Sounds familiar doesn’t it? All MS has to do is provide free tools to ad functionality that only works for their Office/Outlook/Intranet/Web. No one should just dismiss MS with this market. These guys are geniuses in figuring out how to lock products to their cash cow monopoly approved Windows OS.
Softie will buy RIMM. It’s “cheap”. Gives good revenue stream and can go exist becuase of entrenched business use base and lowcost entry level phones.
DogGone, I agree and disagree, yes webos was better than winmo, but isn’t that like cow poop tastes better than dog poop?
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Both are hopelessly flawed (though for different reasons) and neither has much of a chance in a market dominated by iOS & blackberry (and at least in the US android mobile, android can’t get much traction in the world market)
MS is a software ONLY company for christsakes… if they can’t write software, what the hell can they do? The only reason MS should have been considering palm was for the patent portfolio.
Softie will buy RIMM. It’s “cheap”. Gives good revenue stream and can co-exist because of entrenched business user base and low cost entry level phones. $80 share. Before Win 7 roles out.
I keep track of macdaily almost on a daily basis. I own both apple and windows based platforms. I have truly enjoyed my iphone 3g for the last 2 years, money worth spent.
I didn’t believe all those reports of the iphone 4g “attenuation” problem until yesterday I got hold of one.
I was holding it like I hold my 3g to surf and from 2 bars went to searching in about 1 minute. It was insane.
Practicaly I don’t mind cause I always use cases (if I am going to spend 720 euros for a glass phone I will ofcourse use a case) but the truth be told the problem looks real. Doesn’t happen with my 3g nor the 3gs’s plenty of my friends have. Nor any other phone.
I am a doctor and reception in hospitals is usually bad so I am pretty confident that it would be pretty unusable without a case.
I will end up buying it a month or so when it becomes officialy available in my country but I am really unhappy with Apple and they way the company handled the issue. Over the years I had come to expect way more.
I just hope that Apple doesn’t decide to roll out an updated phone in 4 months time (and watch my 720 euros go down the drain). That would make me sell even my old 1st gen nano and never buy anyting with an apple logo.
@ Jubei:
“MS blatenly copied the Mac with Windows 95, gained 98% of the market”
Uh, that’s because Mac competed with DOS which was already on 90% of the computers at that point. Windows 3 and 95 surpassed the Mac OS, because they both could be installed on most of those computers. At that point in time, most computers were sold to the enterprise and the enterprise bought “IBM”. Consumer spending didn’t pick up until computer prices came way down. And the first people who bought them were people who had experience using them at work.
“They still have that monopoly”
They have a monopoly on the desktop, which is completely incompatible with the mobile space. It doesn’t matter which mobile device is used. No one is tied to Windows. This is why Microsoft tries so hard to tie its technologies to Windows, it keeps people on their platform and keeps other platforms down. This doesn’t work in the mobile space where all is fair game.
Apple is the only company right now with a popular platform that runs on multiple devices; Media Player, Smart Phone, and Pad / Slate Computer. Not only can content be shared among these devices, but so can applications… and it’s the applications that count.
@ Joe07
LOLOLOLOLOL!!!!!
But back to the point… One of the software devs on the WinPho7 project recently left the company. This person has written hundreds of software titles, including games you’ve heard of and probably played.
This ex-MS developer moved on to greener pastures partly because of the exact same problems your read about in this article. I know this because they told me the whole story when they were at a party at my house last weekend.
WP7 is dead on arrival. Assuming it actually arrives.
I’ve never cared for Microsoft as a company, but there’s definitely an Apple slant to this article. However there are some very valid points made by the author. Several of which are a lack of features that I’m guessing most MS fanatics slammed the iPhone for also lacking; 3rd party application multi-tasking, copy & paste, etc… The puzzling (troubling) part of this feature lack, is that those features were available in WinMo 6.5 and earlier, why couldn’t they make it into Windows Phone 7?
Anyway, you can’t count any company out of a fickle market. Just because Microsoft’s market share has slowly eroded away, doesn’t mean they can’t, at some point, come back. Consumers switch mobile phones as often as they change their underwear, there is very little loyalty in this market. And unlike the computer market where IT departments determined which platform will be king (and remain there), individuals will determine which mobile platform is best for them and help keep the market moving forward rather than falling stagnant.
@Michael
“Anyway, you can’t count any company out of a fickle market. Just because Microsoft’s market share has slowly eroded away, doesn’t mean they can’t, at some point, come back”
No, I think they`re pretty much toast when comes to win mobile. They can`t strong arm competitors, they can`t slog the just good enough model anymore, they`re going to HAVE to bat 1000 just to get people to notice, something they`ve never done before and it`s looking like something they CAN`T do either.
Con,
I will take you seriously (though did you realize your posting name is english slang for fraud, cheater or scam artist?)
At any rate I am an engineer and constantly need to use my phone in areas of very low signal strength and I can tell you my experience is that the iPhone4 is no only noticeably better than my 3G or 3Gs was but is also normally one of the best in the group (several times I have had people on sites borrow my iP4 because it was the only one in the group able to place a call)
Yes I can force the phone to loose a couple bars (but that is similar to any phone including the 3G you had) if take it out of the case and put my hand over the gap. All in all I would say that for me the antenna issue is a non issue, and apparently (based on the return rates announced friday) virtually all the people who actually own an iP4’s agree.
@ Michael
“Consumers switch mobile phones as often as they change their underwear,”
Okay, first off – ew. You know anyone with a 2 year panty contract?
Secondly, yes, people switched phones all the time – when phones were all pretty much the same level of ‘shitty’. But they aren’t like that any more. They are personal computers and people actually care about them now.
The old game is over, but MS is still trying to win at it.
http://digg.com/apple/A_response_to_Droid_sheeple
Uncle Fester’s cousin
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he… yes I was being serious, thank you!
You are right about the Con, but it is mostly used in the states, when I was in the UK some used it cause Constantin was way too long for Brits to say!
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As for the phone ok, as I said it is not going to be an issue for me as well cause I will have it wrapped in a bumper case anyway.
However my point was that it is an issue and I think that Apple should have handled it better. I am not a PR expert nor do I have any proposal as to what they could have done better, not my job. As a consumer however it doesn’t feel right!
Cheers!
Microsoft mobile is an oxymoron.
Twenty-five years and countless promises later, to deliver a veritable desktop operating system, which was the culmination of a razor-like focus on the issues Microsoft so pridefully ignored for decades, will now yield to a mutually exclusive set of choices to take to the sky?
When pigs fly.
Windows 7 has done much to revitalize Microsoft’s hope for the future, but not before expending innumerable resources and suffering ridicule from every sector of society. Their new-found commitment however, is too little too late, for a world that has already discovered a vista beyond their windows.
The mobile paradigm is a powerful construct, yet to be fully realized by even our most nimble frontrunners, whose modus operandi has been to deliver us from the ball and chain that is the desktop.
In that light, why would we look for a mobile solution from a company like Microsoft, who’s very existence depends on the very thing we are trying to escape? Is that not like offering to give a scorpion a ride across the pond?
While Microsoft has been busy trying to bring you the ideal office, Apple has been devising ways to take the office with you.
The most significant trend at Apple, since its inception, has been to get small. Every aspect of their existence has been about reduction; doing more with less; efficiency and microeconomics, values infused in this company by the other Steve.
The original Macintosh was portable from the outset and every iteration since has been a balance of form and function and reduction, resulting in even more portable iterations.
Apple has been in lock-step with mobility; from its original computer to its meme-changing iPad, the culmination of their efforts has been a lesson for the ages. They are the epitome of efficiency in a world gone mad for excess.
Compared to the relative giants like Microsoft, Nokia, General Electric, and Exxon, Apple has accomplished more with less, for so long, they can do anything with nothing; that is to say, their products sell themselves because they just feel right. Each one brings with it an epiphany of the future and what it holds for our progeny.
Microsoft will go through several incarnations of Bill Gates’ before they realize a paradigm shift is necessary. In the meantime companies like Apple and Google will discover ways to bring corporate America along for the ride, by devising workarounds for 19-century business memes, like two cans and a length of string.
Go AAPL!
Interesting looking at old mad Thurrotts blog, that’s what they call honest objective debate eh? Well my call is that they don’t like it up em.
Why is Galen Gruman an authoritative voice when knocking Microsoft but not Apple? He’s been a mass of contradictions since he stopped working for Macworld magazine. He’s lost credibility with me- I don’t consider him objective, I consider him flaky and self-serving. (But I agree with this particular article.)
For the few who are still whining about the iPhone 4’s “antenna problems,” here’s an interesting anecdote: I was having lunch today with a good friend, and I was demonstrating the loss of signal bars on my iPhone 4 that has some in such a tizzy. When held in the so-callled “death grip” the iPhone 4 lost from 5 down to 2 bars. Then, I asked him what phone he was carrying, and he produced a Moto Razor. I asked him to hold it the same way he just held the iPhone 4, and what do you know? His Razor loss ALL its bars! My friend had never known it would do that.
Steve was right. It is a problem with all cell phones.
The race started when the iPhone car left the pits and crossed the starting line 3 years ago. After a few laps all the other competitors skidded off the track trying to keep up. Most of those competitors returned to the track with a better Android engine and started fighting it out for second place. Everyone updated their engines as quickly and as they could. The fight for second is good entertainment.
Then there is Microsoft. They didn’t even try to compete with iPhone. They just went with the status quo, falling further and further behind everyone, living off their corporate sponsorship. They got so far behind they pulled out of the race and started working on a new, from the ground up, car.
The rest of the competitors are adding up the laps in their sleek, new, 2010 models and Microsoft will get it’s new 2007 era model on the track by Christmas, maybe, if all goes well.
Should we tell them the race ends in November?
Well, Microsoft still has the large ongoing revenue and profit from Windows (for PCs) and Office to fund a money-losing venture in mobile computing. It’s not like Kin, where Microsoft has to actually produce and keep an inventory of hardware.
I predict Windows Phone 7 will be largely unsuccessful, but it will not be cancelled. Look at Zune; it’s not successful and it’s still around. If no phone maker (or wireless carrier) wants to pay Microsoft to use it (because Android is free and better), Microsoft will initially license it to them and PAY THEM to offer a selection, just like they are paying developers up front to create apps for Windows Phone 7.
And as long as Microsoft has money coming in from Windows and Office to compensate for losses in mobile, there will be Windows phones. And there will be a small group of users saying how much better the “next version” is going to be…
It has a dial.
@Joe07
you lost me at “Paul Thurott is actually one of the most objective journalists out there.”
Seems they’ve run out of other people’s ideas to steal.
@Macbart
It would seam many phones have this problem…
Samsung I9000 Galaxy S:
HTC Evo Signal Attenuation:
Droid Incredible:
Nexus One (after Google’s update to correct):
Nexus One:
Balmer Should be gone already
The iPhone and Android will eat Windows Phone 7’s lunch.
“Paul Thurott is actually one of the most objet d’art journalists out there.”
fify
I’m not sure about the death of microsoft. I wish it were so, but consider this. My previous employer (jr. college) has moved to all microsoft products for their web presence. They’ve moved to sharepoint, everything has to be done in aspx. They have banned any development using php, coldfusion, ruby…only aspx and only microsoft based products. I hear that many parts of the cms will only work with IE. They have sunk boatloads of money into this. I left for greener pastures partly because of this. It seemed like a spectacular crazy blunder to me, especially in this day and age. But they did it, and I’m sure there are other institutions that are the same sadly.
I think some heads of IT departments are afraid because M$ is the devil they know. They don’t know linux or unix and they’ll do anything they can to it out of their shops. Fortunately where I moved to we can use whatever works best and suits the job, be it php, coldfusion and even the occasional C++ aspx stuff. In addition macs, iphones and ipads are allowed. Not every place is like that.
“Balmer Should be gone already”
Bite your tongue.
May Franken-sweaty-putz reign for as long as it takes.
What do you mean “gone already”. Not me, I want to be able to watch him go down with the ship! Don’t you find any of this the least bit entertaining? It’s going to be a slow lingering death (see my post above) M$ will flail away for some time to come. In the long run they can’t stay the same M$ many of us know and despise and survive. In the near term yes, I predict irrelevance in 3 years, last gasp is farther down the road.
Even if it was a SMASH hit (which it won’t be) Msft still wouldn’t make a lot of money.
Msft sells current Win Mo licenses at $15 to 18 a pop.
With free Android I doubt they can charge more for WP 7.
Msft sells fewer Win Mo licenses than iPhones.
Apple makes 500 – 700 per iPhone. (Apple was charging 29 for a bumper!)
Because it’s not a big money maker the Barons of Windows Desktop and Lords of MS Office who make the billions think it’s a joke, and will try to sideline it (a la dead KIN phones) as they don’t want their top dog positions (prestige, salary, bonuses, power) in the company disturbed.
WP 7 = Dead Duck Walking.
@ MDN Take
> Ballmer’s days are numbered… may they promote Kevin Turner to CEO.
Actually, when it get really bad for Microsoft, I think Bill Gates wants to do a Steve Jobs impersonation and make a comeback to save the company HE founded.
There’s only old meat in that time capsule.
I don’t know. but I am just fine with my iphone 3Gs. I don’t need to worry about how bad windows 7 mobile will be or not. by the way, windows 7 is pretty nice. I actually like it a lot.
I just hope Ballmer stays on long enough so that it’s long as it takes.
Nowadays Micro$oft is so predictable that whichever way you read the tea leaves you will never veer far from the truth: Micro$oft is bonks.
Micro$oft’s fingers are too deep into every tech pie that if it were to act in one way it will affect the others. It is so loaded with legacy products that it is not able to act with speed. That’s Micro$oft quandary.
Con,
I am not sure I agree that they handled the PR so badly. Perhaps they could have reacted more quickly, but that is not Apple. They tend to remain silent and work. You never hear the childish snide comments (like moto and nokia have recently made) or pompous blowhard nonsense (of Balmer, calling apple “a rounding error”) coming out of Cupertino. They simply continue to turn out fantastically clever, meticulously crafted, industry upturning and game changing devices. Over and over again.
If other companies want to compete they might consider innovating, rather than trying to make (usually pale) copies of Apple products, often years behind. (as is, apparently, the case with winmo 7)
The IP4 is so clearly (head and shoulders) the best smartphone on the market. That some in the press found one (fairly trivial) flaw and blew it completely out of proportion, I think caught Steve by surprise.He kept expecting reality to dawn on most of the press (without Apple having to call it it for what it was, hyperbole) When it became apparent that either there were a tremendous number of apple haters in the tech press, or someone is spreading a huge amount of money around. (And it may not be a competitor, hedge fund management firms have millions, even billions, to gain via the slingshot or snapback effect by foment ing the market (even though fomenting the market is clearly illegal the FTC appears to be turning a blind eye to the activities of some))
Do not make the false press make you anxious about purchasing an iP4, the phone it is absolutely the best that is available. (ask almost anyone who <actually> owns one)
Perfect? No, nothing is.
But it is far, far ahead of the pack.
Microsoft…yet again the Clay Standard of technology.
I hope Microsoft get’s its act together, even to the extent of just copying Apple like they did with Win7 copying OSX. We don’t need MS to be innovative, just to do a feasible copy of Apple that is usable by a large chunk of the marketplace. Why? Apple has gotten arrogant, and it’s no good for Apple users when Apple rides rough shod over its users with no competition. I don’t like Microsoft products, but I need them to give Apple some competition.
@Zune Tang
Poor fellow, what a pity: your beloved platform is dooooooooooooooooomed!
I just found out that Ballmer died seven years ago. He’s just now realizing it.
@chew
Notice that nobody has demonstrated this problem w/ the Motorola Droid (and now Droid X). Not even Jobs himself…. Why wouldn’t you use the single second most successful smartphone model on a competitor’s network to prove your point?
I think Job’s press conference really damaged Apple’s credibility or honesty…
Statement from Motorola’s Sanjay Jha, former head of Qualcomm’s chipset division:
Motorola Inc Co-Chief Executive Officer Sanjay Jha also said his devices don’t have the same antenna shortcomings as the iPhone 4.
Phones with the antenna on the outside of the chassis — the design used by Apple’s latest model — are more likely to have reception issues if they’re held a certain way, Jha said on Friday in an e-mailed statement. Motorola’s Droid phones compete with the iPhone 4.
“It is disingenuous to suggest that all phones perform equally,” he said. “In our own testing, we have found that Droid X performs much better than iPhone 4 when held by consumers.”
@Wireless
“Motorola Inc Co-Chief Executive Officer Sanjay Jha also said his devices don’t have the same antenna shortcomings as the iPhone 4”
Tell that to his customers..
http://androidforums.com/motorola-droid-x/124825-droid-x-has-same-reception-problem-iphone-4-a.html
http://androidforums.com/support-troubleshooting-droid-x/124078-droid-x-signal-problems.html
I think droid lemmings will soon overtake Apple fanboys for sheer gullibility and hypocrisy.
just FYI to all: the author is the former executive editor for Macworld.
seeing is believing… so lets wait for it… i dont expect Windows Phone 7 to be revolutionary, but Microsoft is putting lot of $$$ and efforts behind it hence need to worry (little bit).
@Perfect
Still trying to sell an Antennagate story? What kind of ditch sh!t are you smoking? I knew when the bitching and moaning about the iPhone antenna started that it was overblown BS designed at one thing — the only chance the competition had to keep selling their smartphones, even though they didn’t have the amazingly sharp screen, the crisp response to touch, the extensibility that comes with having the ITunes App Store right there at that touch.
It’s not a bad strategy, mind you. If people didn’t need the phone function, they’d save themselves a ton of money with an iPod Touch, or get a little more functionality and ease of use from an iPad along with a much bigger display. So you have to attack the phone if your goal is to bring done the iPhone 4, as a product.
But Jobs had the data. He showed it. It was pretty compelling as far as functionality of he phone goes. I’ve been using mobile phones daily for probably 15-17 years, but my first was in 1983. Every mobile phone I have ever used has dropped calls, or been unable to complete them. Those include the iPhone (3 of them), but also include phones from US Cellular (Mototola Razr), Verizon (Palm Treo — far and away the worst of any phone/network I have ever used, and the reason I would not now own an iPhone if Verizon had taken the opportunity to be the exclusive carrier), RIM Blackberry, Sprint, Bell Atlantic, and probably another one or two others.
It appears from return rates and calls into Applecare, that people that actually use the iPhone 4 vs. those that test it in inferior lab settings and inferior/inadequate/inept sets of tests for the conclusions they are drawing, the real-life empirical evidence of my own, and of others, dissuades me from believing that all the hype of the iPhone 4 antenna is nothing but inferior competition doing anything they can to even the playing field. It’s a lot cheaper to run smear campaigns than it is to envision and then developed the advanced technology and R&D platform that is able to consistently expand and develop the technology.
So smear away, Mr. (oh so far from) Perfect. We know who you are and what your real motives are.
Painful to see this happen but the company is lost.
@con
Go buy a HTC or motorola. You will have a new model every other week.
Get John Scully he will get it done………NOT!!!!!!!!!
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Wireless Test Man
“Motorola Inc Co-Chief Executive Officer Sanjay Jha also said his devices don’t have the same antenna shortcomings as the iPhone 4.”
Yes it has different shortcomings….
The droid x is not a a great phone- it has serious call and voice quality issues (and wifi issues and…), Moto did locate the antenna in the top of the phone so grip problems are minimized, problem is it appears that it is too small. (huge signal quality on the order of 20-30% customers, far above the miniscule (1%) of iPhone owners that have reported signal attenuation problems on the iPhone)
The other problem (typically) with top antenna phones is they radiate the most microwave energy into your brain (of any other location- ie proximity to head/brain) and this is a non trivial issue, particularly with moto who have been in hot water on this issue before.
Truthfully the moto droid is not a great unit, if the iPhone had never been made, the droid-x would not even be in my top 4 phones
though in reality… if the iPhone had never been made, the droid-x would not exist, moto would still be pushing some razr POS on us.
“there’s definitely an Apple slant to this article. However there are some very valid points”
Of course there’s an Apple slant to the article. The author of the article used to run Macworld magazine. The article is heavily biased.
Still, there’s no way I’m buying a Windows Phone 7…
Just some anecdotal evidence to throw in the mix. I just got back from a local Apple Store– there are probably 5 on the general vicinity here in S. Florida. I went to get an adapter and to reserve my iPhone. The store was swamped. There were lines five and six deep to reserve and to pick up an iPhone.
This phone will be everywhere very soon. And when some of the games start to take advantage of the gyroscope, I suspect it’s going to get a new round of attention, this time all oohs and ahs.
Courier should never have been ended…
Let me insist… Ballmer’s days are numbered.
“There’s no kind way to say it: Windows Phone 7 will be a failure”. Kind or otherwise!
No offense but what a pathetic bunch.
Rob,
I hate to break it to you but courier was never ended, because it never was. It was just smoke and mirrors, hollywood special effects, no working prototype ever existed (or ever could have). Like apple’s “Knowledge navigator” (and the “flying car” concepts of the 50’s and 60’s) it was just pie in the sky nonsense.
MS doesn’t stand a snowball in hell’s chance in the mobile market at this point. The really amusing thing is they are so blinded by hubris they can’t even see that.
This is highly offensive to pigs. Pigs are highly intelligent animals, and we Apple shareholders can be grateful to the MS Board for not choosing a real pig to run the company instead of the faux-porker Ballmer. A pig would not have made so many stupid mistakes and would be a much better dancer.
When is Microsoft going to realize that Ballmer is KILLING the company.
Ever since Gates left there has been zero innovation at Microsoft…
Zune, Kin.. At least Windows 7 is pretty good (I boot camped it on my Macbook.
You know what. I could be superficial and bash MS but with some perspective I wont bet anymore to some company failure for me to be right or pick what could be considered as a right choice.
This is because as a consumer but mostly as a human being I understand we all benefit from competition. I can’t understand what is happening inside MS and why they are not able to compete successfully, but I hope they will with their future products.
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