Déjà vu: Waiting On Windows Phones
Remember when you first heard about this new operating system that Microsoft was showing off called “Windows Phone Series 7” and it looked so slick and had great features and you were really into it and then you learned they were talking about a product almost a year away from release? And so you waited and they started to show off devices but were cagey about actual release dates. And you waited and they announced European availability. And you waited and finally some US availability on some carriers. And you waited and finally it’s available for your carrier. And the whole time you were as patient as you could be but somewhere inside it was killing you that it was taking so long to release the dang thing while the rest of your friends blew through the latest iPhone and 500 Android models in that same period of time.
The official release of Windows Phone (internationally) was October 21, 2010. That’s just shy of 8 months ago for those of you counting. And what are we doing today? We’re waiting because that super awesome upgrade is going to come out that will change everything. Of course, there’s no firm date for its release and we hear that testing devices are going out to developers soon but the only word about general availability is ‘Fall 2011’ and considering it’s just the beginning of Summer there’s more waiting in our future.
And just like last time new devices are coming out for other platforms but what about Windows Phones? Nothing on the horizon. Manufactures (even the big Nokia) are doing what we’re doing…waiting on Mango. So the rest of the industry continues to kick out new hardware and those of us in the Microsoft camp are left twiddling our thumbs, just like we did a year ago, frustrated that a company that can do so many spectacular things always takes so long to do it while the rest of the industry somehow manages to react quicker.
Maybe one day they’ll get the memo and be the top dog again. I’m waiting for that day…
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Here here. And here’s to my fantasy that they will change the name of the OS to “Metro” or “Metro, Windows Phone” rather than the plain lousy and uninspiring “Windows Phone”. I can dream.
@D-Money: then you can have a Metro on Metro PCS and use it while taking the Metro 😉
I agree tyhat Windows Phone should have been canned and replaced with something with less meaning (Bing, Zune Xbox all mean nothing but work well as names). Too late now though…and as I say that Zune is being rebranded as Live. Maybe it’s not too late.
This wait will do nothing but kill off MS users like all of their other smartphone actions.
MS totally killed compadability with WM & WP7 and later. (There goes a bunch of users that can’t trust MS phones. IOS and Android grows.)
They wait over a year to release another OS. (There goes a bunch of users .)
Less than Six months after WP7 release, they release info about the mango fix all software which will be another year. (There goes many other users who tried to stick around)
Software has a accounting life of 3 years and MS takes half that time to just create and release their software. They have no idea what they are doing. They makes Android seems like a well oiled software machine.
Good luck with all of that.
@RowdyC: Google doesn’t take the time to optimize jack. They are in a constant beta state.
Apple does yearly things too. Alhough I understand people want updates now the very fact that iOS5 is coming this Fall and not in the next couple weeks or month is significant.
I’m ecstatic with my Windows Phone right now and so I don’t feel the burn of waiting impatiently for an update to save my user experience.
Like you never had to wait for an ios. Oh wait, ios is copying features from wp7. Maybe waiting is not so bad after all.
@RowdyC: I get almost 12 to 15 hours of medium use out of my wp7 device before having to recharge. My friend has an android device and he said that he gets about 4 hours before having to recharge his phone. yea for android.
I am too waiting for Nokia Microsoft Windows Phone 7/8.
If Microkia Windows Phones look anything like this orange phone. I am in heaven!
http://youtu.be/lLlMu5ahB3M <–advance to 1:38 and take a look at that flat camera. They did the comparison to the ifruit and Nokia blew ifruit out of the water and into a garbage can.
NOKIA 4.5 AMOLED SCREEN, DUAL CAMERA, I DONT CARE ABOUT 4G CUZ I DON’T WANT TO PAY $20 FOR IT… BEING IT ON NOKIA……..
@RowdyC:
– The thing with that is that most cell phone contracts are 2 years in length (U.S., I’m talking). Waiting/Redesigning the entire OS didn’t drive people away forever (some folks couldn’t wait, so they ended up going Android, sure)
– Saying that a lack of backward compatibility drove a lot of people away is presumptuous. WinMo numbers were low before WP7 came out, the majority of the people already left when it did. You could argue that Android’s popularity spawned from the people that were done with WinMo/Apple and wanted nothing to do with AT&T.
– Talking about the depreciation of software in terms of OS Development is just retarded, flat out. Don’t skim accounting books for buzz words and completely look over concepts like time differentiating factors and R&D costs (and the time/resources it takes to have reliable information). Good grief. And for the record, MS’s cash cow is still licensing. For example, Microsoft’s “relationship” with HTC. WP7, unlike Android does have a cost to OEMs AND MS makes money on every Android device they sell. Same holds true for Samsung. Meaning aside from HTC’s homebrew, Dumb Phones and Bada, MS makes money on damn near every HTC phone you see and about 45% of the phones Samsung has sold into the retail channel. That’s the same Microsoft that was the market leader in Mobile OS’s 7-10 years ago. The same Microsoft you said has “no idea what their doing.” Right. Fanboy or not, just look shit up.
Ecosystems are becoming just as important as devices. Google and Microsoft are partners with damn near everyone (even each other). Apple to some degree is right there with them, but they are becoming what people hated MS for, a necessary evil you have to work with in this space. Ironic.
/end mini rant
***
If I have to play the waiting game to get the device and OS that i want, so be it. After all, It’s not uncommon to have to with smartphones. If iPhone users could patiently wait a year for 3G, wait ~2.5 years for MMS, Copy/Paste, 4 years for multitasking and about 5 years to get a notification system change; I can wait 6 months for copy/paste and ~12 months for “multi-tasking”…I guess because it’s MS, people (are allowed to) bitch more about it…who knows.
Regardless of what all of you MS ball lickers say or think, the software is not popular. You may love it but you are in a very small percentage of smart phone users. One or two things don’t make an OS loveable by the masses and that is what MS don’t get. They have had enough time since the release of WM7 and have spent a lot of money on R&D, and marketing but they are not making any head way. Those are the facts and try to explain that with all your research but nothing will change. They are still dead last and the user acceptance pace since release is no where close to IOS or Android. Put that in your crack pipe and smoke it (you have to smoke crack to suck MS nuts).
@RowdyC:
*cracks neck*
Ok. At no point did I say that the OS gained wide scale acceptance or even notoriety. Hell even ooo-doofuses such as yourself, still call it “WM7.” I spoke about cell phone contract length (to which you didn’t have a comment for), I spoke about backward compatibility != the reason why people didn’t pick up WP7 (another time where I mention that the OS or it’s predecessor wasn’t popular) and I spoke about what MS is currently doing/responsible for/getting money for (also to which you had nothing relevant to add).
You picked the wrong one sir…
– Fight
@rowdyc.. U dumb….with 11 hardware total, you expect it to be close with IOS and android, obviously you don’t own one so troll some where else….wp7 is the best platform ryt now PERIOD……
Not a troll by any means. Been here before you and will be around after you. Anyone of fuzemobility “OG’s” can vouch for me. (What’s up DK, and the two Dougies!!!” I choose to add where and when I see fit. How bout you newbie.
In business, measuring success means profit. All else and the stuff you’re bringing comes out of a cow’s ass. MS can do what they want but until the numbers say anything else, it’s a failure. Don’t give me the crap about what they’re doing and planning to do, or want to do, and blah, blah, blah. So far this aint working. And if you know MS like most people know MS, if this doesn’t work, there is no telling what those geniuses would do. If Nokia did not jump on-board with WM7 , countdown to shutdown was highly likely.
So wait on your new OS, like some WM7 users still waiting on the 1st update, and like MS waits on customers as the other part of the smartphone world moves forward.
Good luck with all that.
@rowdy everything u said is true, But u have to realize 11 devices with 3m sold worldwide think!!!!!! I think that’s a good number… 11hardware and ur already upset and trolling..
Don’t come here and say wp7 is a Failure, cuz I know in ur heart u like the Platform…
So shut the hell up and get one…..ur correct ita business,u will expect disappointmentsssss.. Like what you said MSFT can do everything… You wait and see…. Enjoy ur iphone
…..
@rowdyc: Samsung sneaked in some secret hardware revisions to the Focus without telling Microsoft and as a result, the original release of the SSL update (as with the original release of NoDo) doesn’t work properly on all Focus versions.
@Dead Ed
I don’t own an Iphone or any apple products. There you go again over stepping your boundaries. When grown people talk you should listen and keep your kiddo comments to yourself or tell your unknowlegable friends who don’t know crap.
11 phones and in over a year and only 3 million sold is not a postive stat. Please don’t bring that up again as that is a failure when compared to any OS. AT THIS TIME WP7 IS A FAILURE. If you can get your tongue out of MS a-hole, maybe you could see that but now the only thing you’re looking at is MS ass checks or nuts (based on the way you like doing it). By the way, what flavor is that brown MS kool-aid?
I will only get a MS phone if they prove it is nota failure and the only way to prove that is to get users to buy your phones on a consistant basis. MS is too iffy to invest and watch them change platforms or kill the product. Been there, done that, wrote a book about it and not going there again with MS. I would have purchased the Focus instead of my Cappy I would be shit out of luck with having an updated product.
@RowdyC: I will only get a MS phone if they prove it is nota failure and the only way to prove that is to get users to buy your phones on a consistant basis. MS is too iffy to invest and watch them change platforms or kill the product. Been there, done that, wrote a book about it and not going there again with MS. I would have purchased the Focus instead of my Cappy I would be shit out of luck with having an updated product.
Dude read what you said… You sound like a GOP.. It wasn’t MSFT fault about the Omnia and focus.. Its samsungs fault!!! 3M people worldwide is the count whether you believe or not .. I’m a Wp7 because I’m unique,I have the best games,apps, stable platform, simple and unique… Nokia/msft how can you say MSFT wp7 will fail.. I dont understand the grudge you have against MSFT ….
d-money: How come when I say they should change the name, everybody cuts me down?
Hi Ed. Firstly I vouch for RowdyC (obviously).
So, you think 3m is not in fail territory? How about that for every hundred people buying a smart phone (Android, iPhone, Blackberry and WP), only one of those get a WP? Is that good? Any idea why any mention of WP sales figures is absent from any document or announcement dished out of Microsoft? You wouldn’t report those numbers either. Well, I suppose you would, but not the stuck-up suits of the world.
Note that that 3m figure is not 3m people who got tired of their iPhone or Google phone or Blackberry. Many more people are buying smartphones every day that used to not own one. That is not a big fat pile of converts. Don’t let a handful of blog comments of former Android users who are so happy they tried WP make you think that that’s actually what’s going on with even half of that 3m. Besides, what you should be more interested in at this point is not two or three million but the change of the share of new users of each platform over time. Right about now WP is catching about 55% less than it did at its peak. May was its worst month, before that March was its worst month.
The MS ball lickers, as RowdyC put it, who are willing to acknowledge what I just said would counter back that the lull is because everyone is waiting for Mango including, as David K I think just suggested, OEMs. Got news for you — nobody (except some bloggers) knows what Mango is or gives a shit about it and its five hundred whatever. The best thing about Mango to me is that there’s a small chance that Microsoft might just change the whole name again from Microsoft Windows Phone to simply Mango. That would help. All the features, those APIs? What’s the big deal, you’ll maybe get to run Photosynth? Fantasizing about getting TomTom one day, that that will bring in the masses? I thought your phone’s already so fantastic. In fact I tried one out for a while and had a rather positive experience. Any negative contribution to sales, like enough of a contribution to push it and lock it into fail territory, as a result of either Mango or contract cycles is totally overstated. You’re simply running out of people who just haven’t seen your commercials yet.
Nokia and Mango will not go down as exceptions to Microsoft’s extensive history of all things mobile falling flat. Remember I said that (fifty times). But hey Ed, if you’re in the mood, maybe put your money where your mouth is here.
@Doug Simmons: 3 million is not a bad number for an 8 month old brand new os… 11 hardware…. come on now dude… in your eyes its a failure, but for us end users i think its a good thing… msft is not catching up when it comes to innovations.mango will be the major selling point of wp7.. it will be realease worldwide with new hardwares and features that are un announce..wp7 is for new customers.. iphone fan boys and andriod fan boys can stay where they are. if some of them switch..WELCOME..
@rowdy and doug.. you guys talk so much crap.. YOUR CRAP TALKING WILL EAT YOU… YOU WILL SEE….