On the fence: Scary emails from DavidK edition
I wanted to let you all in on some of our email chaos amongst the staff. I think it represents the departure of a great deal of what constituted many user’s reasons for choosing Windows Mobile. We were discussing Android fragmentation and it made me a little uneasy with what he said about the new Windows Phones that will be coming out this holiday season. He started with this little gem:
“can’t wait for WP7 so 100% of it’s users are running the latest build:)”
This is what scared me. I got glimpses of forced OTA updates that brick my phone (because MS has def F’d my PC royally with those). That as well as the fact your basically allowing MS to have admin rights on your phone! When Apple did it I said it was a bad idea. I’m no fanboy and I’m not going to be some wishy-washy douche bag on it either. MS you suck for doing this. I don’t want you to decide what apps should go on my phone. I don’t want you to have the priviledge to revoke things remotely from my phone. I’m an intelligent person that likely knows anywhere from 10-20x more information about the phone than the monkeys you’ve probably got pushing the “screw the consumer” buttons over on your server side. All this rage is coupled with the fact that your fancy-schmancy metro bullshit can’t do anything but change colors. DavidK’s sense of customizability is limited to the following in scope:
I’m sure you’ll find a way to do something fancy with WP7. I bet there will
be a way to change the UI to some degree – probably smaller tiles so there
are more per page or something. Ultimately the UI is part of the OS so it’s
not going to be easily replaced. It’s not an app launcher – the live tiles
are all integrated so any replacement UI would need to hook into all of the
same things. It can easily be done if a real developer takes the time, but
no one on XDA will build anything that good and the real developers won’t
spend their time cause they won’t be able to sell it…
You’ll get over it when you get updates to your phone and don’t need to
flash your ROM cause the manufacturer is too lazy to upgrade your device…
Double no bitches! That is not customizability. That is the facade of choice. Marketing bullshit as gold is as old as religion itself and this is no different. I understand what you’re doing and why you’re doing it. I just don’t know if I want to participate in trying to out-douche Apple. And saying that dev’s won’t be able to sell a UI? Tell that to SPB, makers of the best selling WinMo app for at least 3 or 4 years. Those guys have been stomping ass all over the place selling a 30.00$ app, and Microsoft, in all of Apple’s infinite wisdom, have decided to remove the bread and butter from one of the most polished and quality app makers they have. It’s getting harder and harder to hold onto the fence between Android and WinPho7. My dreams of off-the wall linux based phones are going vaporware so I’ve only got a few questions left for making my decision on phones and only one that can be answered at the moment. So Doug Simmons, how you living buddy?
Related Posts
About The Author
“I don’t want you to decide what apps should go on my phone. I don’t want you to have the priviledge to revoke things remotely from my phone.”
Yup, my thoughts too. I’m really going to watch how WP7 plays out. If it’s a square apple, I’m in trouble: I don’t care for Apple’s delusions of grandeur, and Google’s all-pervasiveness is creeping me out.
So … can you Europeans educate us on Symbian?
Where to start. OK, you own a PC. If you don’t want an update decline it…works on a PC, works on a phone. If you want the update you get the latest software without any hacking. I doubt many Android users decline the updated software as an aside…
As for an inability for a dev to sell a UI – that’s not figurative. That was literal. Marketplace for WP7 will prohibit this. There cannot be UI repalcements for WP7 so none of the larger developers will make them.
Back to the point – the one advantage of sideloading would be the ability to use ‘native’ apps instead of maaged apps. The obvious downside is stability as they’re not going to be reviewed by MS so you get what you get. And for multitasking- same thing. MS wants the initial release to be light on battery and not crash Thus the restrictions. You know I use WM6.5 and like the openess…I could use some games that are as serious as the apps they’re showing off for WP7 though. And if that means you secure the devs and make enhanced ways to ensure their apps can’t be ripped off and add credibility to their apps (since you’re assured they use standard apps, won’t crash, etc) I think it attracts devs and attracts regular users. Yes, some power users think they want to hack their phones…and you’ll find a way to. But from what I’ve seen on the development side for a platform months away, they already blow Android away. They look better and do more and the marketplace won’t have 30,000 shitty free apps. Yes, more paid apps but you get what you pay for – quality apps. I want an marketplace with good apps- not lots of apps.
Those are a lot of predictions DavidK, and that hasn’t been your strong suit lately. “Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.” Mr. Lincoln
Sure hope somebody offers me free upgrades for my 46 “quality” paid apps.
And FYI, “nothing” MS does is light on battery or resources. They don’t understand the concept. So after all of their stuff gets booted up on this new wonder phone, there probably won’t be much room to run anything else. Hence, the need for the restrictions. As soon as someone comes up with a 5GHz processor, maybe the platform will become more open. Not a prediction, just a good guess.
“I got glimpses of forced OTA updates that brick my phone (because MS has def F’d my PC royally with those).”
@ Matt Anderson,
I just want you to know that when I saw this story:
http://www.mobilecrunch.com/2010/06/28/sprint-kills-the-htc-evo-update-in-light-of-bricked-handsets/
… I thought of that quote of yours, above.
Thought I must admit, I came here hoping it had been Doug Simmons who had said it. 🙂
@Wayne – And this is why I want my phone to have an option to decline OTA updates. Hopefully I’ll be running cracked software that will keep me out of the loop on those updates anyway. Good ROM chef’s seem to check their stuff for more stability than a good deal of manufacturers do. When I downloaded WinMo 6.5 for my Epix I knew that some things would not work properly. Samsung put out an update that permanently crippled the GPS and didn’t tell anyone till about 3 or 4 weeks after they put it out.
I read this, and all I could think of was “This guy is nuts.”
You sound like a gossip blogger. Your credibility is lost when you yell “double no bitches!” in an article.
Also, platform fragmentation *IS* a problem. Anyone who dismisses it is just naive. Windows Mobile suffered it, and Android already is feeling it’s effects. If you have to hack the newest version of your software on to your phone, your platform is starting to fragment.
@Max – You are correct sir. I am what most people call nuts. As for credibility, this is not my endgame. In my chosen profession blogging isn’t going to get me dick, however I will continue to use this avenue to spice up your bland (and rather narrow if you think that was over the top) literary experience on internet blogs. My goal is to make your brain hurt because you actually used it to think about things instead of processing advertising information. Plus it got you reading AND you even felt strongly enough to leave a comment so we all win, and fragmentation is a problem that I’ve actually written about before. There is one big problem with your theory of NOT hacking the newest OS version. Look at Microsoft’s high tech specs for the OS. Yeah they’re awesome but they will eventually fade into yesterday. They will want newer faster stuff and it will be capable of way more. Are they going to cripple the OS by doing this legacy support nonsense like they did with WinMo? I doubt it. They’re eventually going to cut the bottom out of this thing iPhone style. WTF are you going to do then? Ditch your phone just cause it’s not the newest. NO! Hack that thing and make the most out of your consumer dollar. Everyone who sells you a product just wants your money and your goal as a consumer is to give them as little as possible while getting as much as possible. Don’t let me down.