“Funny things happen when you’re no longer championing the least popular phone platform out there: you stop using it,” Owen Williams reports for TNW.
“Joe Belfiore is technically the Corporate Vice President, Operating Systems Group at Microsoft, but he took a year off starting in October 2015 for a worldwide trip,” Williams reports. “Belfiore, who is currently in Kyoto, has been tweeting pictures of his trip and posted a single tweet that gave away his phone of choice — Apple’s iPhone.”
Williams reports, “There’s a plethora of replies from people pointing out that he’s using an iPhone, and giving him grief for not making the Windows platform better.”
Read more in the full article here.
Hey, strangers! Today in Kyoto we stumbled across a HAIR SHRINE! I paid my respects, thinking of all of you! pic.twitter.com/BpsfA4lHKJ
— Joe Belfiore (@joebelfiore) January 26, 2016
“Honestly, the truth is that it would be weird if Belfiore wasn’t using an iPhone,” Vlad Savov writes for The Verge. “Firstly, the man’s taking a year-long hiatus from his day job, and there’s no way he could ever feel like he was off duty if he was running around using devices and software that he could help change and refine.”
Savov writes, “Most importantly, though, to compete with the iPhone, Microsoft’s mobile chief needs to know how the damn thing works and what makes it so attractive to so many.”
[In comments below The Verge‘s article, Belfiore himself replies, in part: [On a 9-month leave-of-absence, I have a HUGE AND UNUSUAL opportunity to get to know these products deeply. To understand the benefits and drawbacks of a full ecosystem like Windows, Android, iOS — you have to LIVE IN IT. You have to feel its strengths and weaknesses, be let down, be delighted. And you can’t do that just “playing around” with a device for a couple of days. You have to learn the UI, upload your photos, use cross-device apps and tools… all of it.]
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: No excuse need be made by anyone for choosing to use the world’s most advanced operating system in the world’s most advanced smartphone.
P.S. Having a fun week so far, Microsoft P.R. Department?
SEE ALSO:
New England Patriots’ coach Belichick: Microsoft Surface breakdowns are common – January 26, 2016
Microsoft pays $400 million for product placement; Surface tablets fail during Patriots vs. Broncos playoff game – January 24, 2016—
Nick Cannon tweets his love of Samsung Galaxy S6 camera – from his Apple iPhone – April 17, 2015
Beleaguered Blackberry gets caught tweeting from an Apple iPhone – January 13, 2015
After appearing on stage with Samsung, Adam Levine tweets from his Apple iPhone – September 8, 2014
Samsung presenter Rachel Riley is an iPhone user – September 3, 2014
Clueless Samsung wishes best of luck to Landon Donovan in the World Cup – June 25, 2014
Samsung endorser LeBron James’ Samsung Galaxy phone shits the bed – March 13, 2014
Oscars host Ellen DeGeneres uses sponsored Samsung onstage, tweets from her Apple iPhone backstage – March 3, 2014
Samsung gets caught yet again with celebrity tweeting Galaxy ad from their Apple iPhone – December 3, 2013
T-Mobile USA CEO tweets ‘I don’t know what I’d do without my Samsung Note 3′ – from his Apple iPhone 5s – October 22, 2013
Tennis player David Ferrer accidentally tweets Samsung Galaxy S4 ad from his Apple iPhone – April 30, 2013
Oprah tweets ‘love’ of Microsoft’s Surface from her Apple iPad – November 19, 2012
[Thanks to MacDailyNews readers too numerous to mention individually for the heads up.]
Every product this guy has worked on has spectacularly failed. It’s not at all surprising he’d avoid Microsoft devices like the plague.
…can’t make this stuff up…
Not sure he still has a job to go back to…
“To understand the benefits and drawbacks of a full ecosystem like Windows, Android, iOS — you have to LIVE IN IT. You have to feel its strengths and weaknesses, be let down, be delighted. And you can’t do that just “playing around” with a device for a couple of days.”
BTW – Nice photo
If anyone has has a chance to turn around the Windows Phone experience it’s this guy. Microsoft should do everything in its power to hold on to him . . . and give him the power to make decisions!
Not sure Apple’s employees go about “living in” Android or Windows Phone ecosystems to improve the iPhone….
Apple isn’t the underdog.
When Apple was the underdog in the computing world, I guess all their top executives had Windows on their desktop so they could “live in” the Windows ecosystem and learn from it….
Right?
No, I mean the underdog in having a quality product. Apple was always in the lead in that category. And Microsoft was trying to “live in” the Mac world. Where do you thing they got Windows from?
So when Apple had a quality product in its Mac, Windows executives were putting Apple on their desktop to “live in” the Apple ecosystem so they could improve Windows?
Give it up, Steve. This argument makes no sense and Belfiore should be ashamed of making it.
That Microsoft guy is right. You do have to live with a device to understand it, whether it’s your device of choice, the iPhone for me, or your device of understanding the competition, Android for me. I work in mobile. I have to know both. And only by knowing both can I appreciate the iPhone as much as I do. That Microsoft guy has to know all of them cause it’s his job to make his devices better.
Somebody make this guy CEO of Microsoft!
He will be so ready for the job this October after one whole year of vacationing and sleeping in. lol
Haha FAIL! Yes that deserves the old FAIL saying! 😛
The only thing funnier than that he was caught are all the excuses for him using an iPhone.
It’s one thing to try a competitor’s product so you can copy everything about it that’s better, but you can easily do that in a lab, spending time analyzing the device.
All this could just blow over if later he is found to be using an Android device for his tweets.. Any person who has learned how to properly debate topics know you have to be conversant with the opposing arguments to strengthen your own.
That reminds me when Lebron James was shilling for Samsung and using an iPhone
Off with his head!
I guess nobody remembers Microsoft was outed doing the same thing with an iPod just prior to releasing the Zune with a square click wheel square while copying the entire hierarchical flow of the iPod OS. So very original … and brown!
every one of my turds is very original, and…..
Belfiore said, “…a full ecosystem like Windows…” in the context of mobile devices.
Is the man deluded, or what?!