Microsoft’s Netflix Promo Shows Welcome To Macintosh In Queue
I was just looking at the Windows Phone 7 YouTube Channel and decided to re-watch the WP7 App preview (the one that had Netflix, Twitter and Flixster, etc) and look at what’s in their instant queue. Yup, it’s Welcome to Macintosh. “This entertaining documentary delves into the world of Apple Inc., the groundbreaking company responsible for, among other things, the iMac, the iPod and the iPhone”. Think they were watching this when getting inspiration on how to build WP7? man this is too easy of a target…
And so you can see it with your own eyes go to the :36 mark:
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davidk
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@cjc: 1) sandboxing of apps 2) no multitasking on v1 3) no copy and paste on v1 4) closed marketplace 5) no changes to the UI 6) no third party keyboards
anyone else want to chime in and throw me a few? I agree the end product is nowhere near the same, but people have pointed to a lot of under the hood simularities between them
I can’t think of two more different platforms than ios and windows phone7…in what way do you believe wp7 was built on the inspiration of ios? maybe in the sense that microsoft began with the question “what really sucks about ios and how can we design something totally different?”
There is a difference between similarities and design functionality. Some of what your stating as ispiration “copy/paste” has more to do with programming priority (ios has copy and paste now) just because there are similarities doesn’t mean the end product was derived from ios. if you want to make that argument try it on android. from what I’ve seen of wp7 I see almost zero ui functionality derived from ios.
ok maybe pinch to zoom, but that’s just credit to apple for mainstreaming a superior design element.
@cjc: It has seemed clear from early on that MS took a look at what made iPhone successful and tried to pattern WP7 after many of those elements. Tight controls over hardware (especially) and software, for one thing. One big marketplace. Decisions regarding the working of the OS that emphasized stability over user freedom (no or limited multitasking, etc.).
Ever since I first heard about WP7, it’s been either general knowledge or a widely accepted belief that MS tried to pattern WP7 after iOS, not in the specifics of the interface (which I think is pretty different), but in a broader design philosophy that dictates a pleasant user experience, even if at the cost of some functionality.
I’m not a fan of some of the decisions they’ve made, but it’s clear they’re trying to more closely follow in the footsteps of iOS rather than Android/Windows Mobile.
@wayne I can see some of your points (Central App location, hardware controls) and I think microsoft was pretty open about changing their focus of windows mobile. I still am not convinced they specifically taylored mp7 after ios as opposed to adopted the traditional ui expereince most phone companies have implimented for years. The iphone was a success because it was excellent hardware released by Apple and had a reason to keep people coming back (Itunes). I guess I was more taking issue with the supposed reference to WP7 being designed to offer an ios experience from a ui design and function standpoint. I’m still not convinced a lot of the functionality will be implemented at a later state probibly in a convoluted leveled product release microsoft tends to do with all their software.