yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Windows Phone 7 General] vangrieg:
I've seen it. What's so spectacular about it?

But that again is your assessment, nothing more.

Partly they do because they want to differentiate, yes. Partly are forced to do it because barebone OSes are ugly and lack basic functionality (like codecs, Exchange etc.). So yes, it's a mixed story, I'll give it to you, but they'll save tons of money and they'll love it.

There will be phones, that is known even now. There will be thousands of apps, too. Some will be missing of course, but the crap stuff that sells on AppStore and Market will be there in no time for sure. There will also be games, some of them big - Microsoft is hiring devs to work on Halo, for example. While this won't be another iPhone soon, but it'll certainly beat the hell of Android in some respects (gaming, Office/Exchange, music).
[Windows Phone 7 General] shaundalglish:
I doubt you've seen it, but it shows how far they're ahead, not only ahead of Microsoft, but anyone else - and much more importantly, it shows they're moving much faster than anyone else.

While Microsoft and Apple are still working on basic stuff like copy&paste and multitasking, Google is working on the next big things - how long until MS/Apple will have the same powerful voice controls, the OTA application installations, the crazy OTA APIs and all the other crazy stuff Google is doing now?

This is new, great stuff that nobody has done before. What new stuff is Apple doing? Multitasking? Folders? Custom backgrounds? And Microsoft? Removing multitasking? Removing custom backgrounds? Removing copy&paste? Great!

I may be wrong but I'm expecting a majority of phone customers to make the same assessment, and that's my point.
[Windows Phone 7 General] vangrieg:
Any specifics you want to point to? Relevant to the thread?
[Windows Phone 7 General] shaundalglish:
Updated the above already with specifics. It's mainly the sum of lots of small new improvements that noone else has done so far, while the others are only trying to catch up with the basics.
[Windows Phone 7 General] vangrieg:
There's also stuff they're catching up with - GAL lookup, Exchange security policies, accessing Market from the browser, enabling JIT compilation in the VM (they made it look like a breakthrough, I'll give them credit), etc. Or the great innovation - allowing installing apps to SD card on devices with like 512 megs of flash memory, hallelujah. Yeah they have some cool APIs, but so does Microsoft - Sync Framework is a great thing for cloud based apps, and Silverlight allows making apps "average consumer" will love a breeze. Yeah, Google has some crazy stuff, but they're also lagging in some things that are crucial for some users. Nothing is perfect, and Android isn't an exception.
[Windows Phone 7 General] shaundalglish:
Exchange is proprietary... you can hardly call licensing proprietary stuff "catching up". On the other hand, they're the only ones who have Flash.

They're not lagging behind in anything crucial. Not at all. Actually, they're ahead at almost everything. It's like for every one feature where they're behind, there are one hundred features where they're ahead.

The APIs Microsoft has now are a joke.
[Windows Phone 7 General] vangrieg:
Well they suck at things that matter for me. Exchange and multimedia support are examples. To end this Android discussion (in which I have little interest), I'll say just this: when Android was released it was ultimate utter crap, put on an ultimately crappy unsellable device. A year later it became decent, with hardware worth considering. With FroYo it'll become very good, and the hardware selection will finally include top tier stuff. WP7 is in much better shape in terms of consumer features and it will come on really nice hardware from day one. And it can only get better. Android didn't fail, and there's no reason why WP7 should. There's more than enough to get traction. There's also a long way to go, but that's true for every platform, and there's nothing that can't be done by Microsoft in relatively short time to catch up if they are serious about the market and dedicate enough resources.
[Windows Phone 7 General] vangrieg:
This is largely true. However, they are enough to cover 99% of AppStore/Market functionality. There aren't too many things critical to platform success that are missing (VoIP being the only big one I see). Alternative browsers aren't a dealbreaker, multimedia support is better than competition out of the box, Exchange and Office are built in etc. They say that the reason for limitations is that they don't want to expose stuff that's half ready; if that's the case I don't see why the situation can't change rather fast, and it certainly doesn't constitute a "complete FAIL" with what they have.
[Windows Phone 7 General] shaundalglish:
Nonsense. They don't suck at anything. They have full Exchange support now and their media support is the best of any mobile OS.

How does that matter, two years later, when everyone else has nice hardware as well and is even better than WP7 in terms of consumer features...

It doesn't matter how Android was in 2008. WP7 will be compared against the Android of 2010 and it doesn't have the slightest chance. And Android is by far the fastest developing OS, so let's see if in 2011 or 2012 WP7 will be competitive - I bet it won't.
[Windows Phone 7 General] vangrieg:
I guess Google has a reality distortion field of its own. Anyway, enough of this Android talk for me.
[Windows Phone 7 General] shaundalglish:
There is no reality distortion field, maybe you should just stop lying to yourself and stick to the facts? Or do you avoid unpleasant facts like you avoid unpleasant conversations?
[Windows Phone 7 General] MooGoo:
I think some people here are confusing WP7's FAIL for market place failure. Until MS lifts the restrictions and limitations they imposed on the platform, it will be a failure in the eyes of many here regardless of whatever market share it attains.

I share this view, but think it is a big mistake to count Microsoft out. They have a rich history of entering markets late and significantly behind, then through sheer stubborn determination (and the occasional monopolistic business practice) proceed to trounce the competition and eventually dominate.

Think Windows, Office, Internet Explorer, Xbox; pretty much all their major products. Many companies have long rued the day they wrote off Microsoft. Steve Jobs has learned this lesson personally; he may be sitting atop a pile of money today, but back in the 90s when Apple was on life-support and he had been forced out of his own company, Steve Jobs was a bitter man and Microsoft was to blame (see Robert X. Cringely's Triumph of the Nerds, should be required viewing for all of humanity).

Hopefully Stevo has not forgotten this and behind his outward arrogance realizes that Microsoft is a significant threat, lest history repeat itself.

And it should be noted that very often Microsoft's first forays into a market are sub-par efforts that are entirely outclassed by the already established competition. This was the case with Windows and Internet Explorer. Both applications were jokes in their infancy, but they got much better very quickly. The pace of development of early versions of Internet explorer in particular was astounding. In the course of 2 years MS released 4 major versions of their browser which by that point was clearly superior to the floundering Netscape Navigator.

Unfortunately MS also has a bad habit of letting their products stagnate after they achieve dominance. Internet Explorer 6 is a criminal example of this behavior, and the same fate fell upon WinMo. Now MS is paying the price for their neglect by having to start from scratch in an area that they should have far more traction in.

Just things to keep in mind really. Whatever one might think of WP7, it is not something that should be dismissed.
[Windows Phone 7 General] vangrieg:
Or Windows Mobile. :)
[Windows Phone 7 General] shaundalglish:
MooGoo, you are of course right, but would you want to wait three years for your next phone?

Shouldn't we care about what is now or at least within the next few months, rather than what will be in a few years?

Unless you work for Microsoft, shouldn't you care about how good a product is, rather than whether it will succeed in the market or not?

(buying a phone because everyone else buys it is rather stupid, no?)

Of course Microsoft can put a lot of money into Windows Phone and maybe they will catch up some day.

But one thing is for sure: It's not going to happen anytime soon.
[Windows Phone 7 General] vangrieg:
That would be silly fanaticism, and nobody is talking about it.
[Windows Phone 7 General] shaundalglish:
If that happens, WP7 will be a huge success (for Microsoft):

http://wmpoweruser.com/?p=16530

People who buy Nokia phones buy them because of the name. They have no clue about what software runs on them. And Nokia is still #1 in smartphone sales. WP7 on Nokia phones would probably kick WP7 into the 10 million phones per quarter range - like the iPhone and Android.

On the other hand, I just don't believe that will happen. Nokia has its own OS.

And of course, that would not make WP7 a better product.
[Windows Phone 7 General] lordcanti86:
Yeah, it's stupid. Sadly it happens all the time.
[Windows Phone 7 General] thx1200:
Then why does the iPhone have battery problems if a locked down system solves all this magically?

Ahh... The "Chewbacca Defense" of the WP7 apologists: Power Users Don't Matter (TM).

The "excuses" I'm refering to are the various statements along the lines of 'we can't give you unmanaged code access, multitasking, etc. because it will make the user experience bad ZOMG'.

I don't even know how to reply to the senseless analogy stretching MSDOS rambling. I get more tech calls from IT users with their iPhones (largely due to Exchange) than the entire sales staff (for ANY support matter) who have Touch Pro 2 and Treos. Who should be more savvy? Why device is supposed to be easier to use?

Bull****. Is Google giving incentives to sell their phones? Yes. Is it "risk free" for the OEM? No! Are you kidding? Do you think Google pays them to manufacture a million units so they don't have to take the risk of a device that didn't sell? Or what about the software investment (SenseUI)? Or the advertising (Droooiiiid)? It's hardly risk free. And there are alternatives (Symbian, Palm Pre, and WM6.5). But Android market share is rising. Why? It's a great platform. It's not because it's the only thing out there. If users were as dumb as you portray them, WM6 and Symbian never would have lost market share. They should all basically be splitting evenly.

They've already licensed Exchange. Yet, they are playing catch-up there, but I agree with the rest of your point and think the totality of the OS outweighs the drawbacks on the Exchange side. Especailly since there are great 3rd party solutions for the features that are lacking. With the announcement of 2.2, it seems Tasks support and full device encryption are all the only major hurdles that are left (calendar sync is in, so is remote wipe). And i'm not even sure WP7 will support encryption out of the box (I haven't heard either way - if somebody knows, I'm curious), even though WM6.5 does and has for so long. Throwing out old code is never a good idea. Experienced project managers KNOW this. Charlie Kindel apparently doesn't -- which is odd because he does have a long resume.

It will get better with time, sure. But we're not talking about three years from now. What will Android look like then? iPhone? Hell, even WebOS (if it exists)? Symbian? They will improve too. This discussion isn't about the OS in two years. Right now, WP7 RC is lacking and is fail. It might succeed in the market (I have my doubts), but it is FAIL.

WP7 will have the most gorgeous looking fart apps released to date!
[Windows Phone 7 General] shaundalglish:
You are right, the iPhone actually has the worst battery life (especially the 3G) among all smartphones, despite being the only one that doesn't multitask.

And it doesn't even have a smaller battery.

That's something I'm sure about. Silverlight is perfect for this purpose!

You nailed it.
[Windows Phone 7 General] vangrieg:
It doesn't solve everything magically, but it gives you more control, that's all I'm saying.

They do, but I can see business sense in deprioritizing them.

I didn't say it was risk free. And you also put my words out of context - I was saying that it's not lack of restrictions that causes Android growth. Yes, it's a great platform. No, platforms don't lose or gain market share because users are dumb, I never said that. Yes, Google shares marketing expenses, including in the Droid case. I also talked about the lipstick stuff (Sense). Yes, planning inventory and production volumes involves taking risks, regardless of the platform, which is completely irrelevant to this discussion.

We are talking about different things then. It's not a FAIL if it succeeds in the market as far as I'm concerned. I (and the "most of us") never bought the iPhone but it's a huge success nevertheless. If you don't like it - oh well, pass on it and get something else. I'll do that with v1.

Which is what matters to get market traction. What they'll do with it remains to be seen.
[Windows Phone 7 General] dallasjim:
Fart app aside (damn, how good is it anyway?), I cannot understand why MS has prevented customization. I have a HD2. The necessity to differentiate between the needs of a 15 year old girl and a 40 year old business executive cannot be overcome. I am a professional money manager. I think Windows OS 7 is out of the park. Phone 7 is a total miss, Blackberry vs WP7? I would gladly use Android on my phone but I will not use WP7. What am I missing???
[Windows Phone 7 General] :
Dead truth.
[Windows Phone 7 General] vangrieg:
I see so many 40 year old plus execs with iPhones around in business meetings it's not even funny. And do you think Exchange and Office are there for 15 year old girls?
[Windows Phone 7 General] :
You must be pretty high up in a lot of companies. :P

However, them using iPhones shows what? I know many companies who distribute Blackberry phones to employees who would originally rely on a beeper. Executives using an iPhone shows nothing other than that person prefers an iPhone than any other phone AT&T has to offer.

Exchange and Office doesn't automatically make the phone appealing to business users. ;) Everything exchange has to offer, Google has as well. I also trust Google a tad bit more with ANYTHING. That's just my personal preference, though. I understand a lot of people like using exchange. However, yes, 15 year old girls can use it just as much as a 40 year old business user can. An older persons use may be more business orientated, but that means nothing when it comes to terms of usage.
[Windows Phone 7 General] ElAguila:
I was hoping that it would would have had sd card support. With the Zune interface on it, I was hoping for an all in one alternative to the iphone and this looked like it could be it. I have a couple of 16GB microsd cards with music and movies that I use when traveling. But they will be useless with this phone. So hopefully the 32GB model with be within price limits.
[Windows Phone 7 General] vangrieg:
I meet with a lot of them, yes. Meetings don't require working there, fortunately.

It's just an illustration of the fact that 40 year old plus execs can use the same stuff that 15 year olds are using and be happy about it.

Google will have it since FroYo, not now. HTC has it, but with limitations, and Moxier has it, but not Google. You trust Google in what they're doing? I'm OK with what they're doing, too, but I won't rely on HTC software for anything important anymore for sure. No, Exchange and Office don't automatically make it appealing, I never said that, but their presence differentiates the feature set from a 15 year old offering.
[Windows Phone 7 General] sad0felix:
Come on, guys. Be realistic.

It was on the way since long time.

Apple already demonstrated that mean people are brainless Pavlov's dogs, whose tongue sticks automatically out as long as they spot some nice colors, some nice animations and some impressive features, regardless if they, all together, are exclusively esthetic and completely clueless.

And they succeeded.

They succeeded so badly that mr Jobs' (and his staff) delirium of omnipotency scaled up by 100s, until now, with the iPad, that's really ridiculous and whose market failure will hopefully teach them to step back to earth.

In the meanwhile, look around, what did the others do?

Follow. Who more, who less.

They all follow, like sheeps.

Microsoft can't resist. Their marketing guys are right. Normal people don't want to bother with ROMs, radios, cabs, user unfriendly buttons, homebrewed graphics ...

They just want an iPhone that hopefully doesn't cost as much as.

So it's natural that WinPhone7 will be ****ty iPhone like.

And do not worry about software limitations. Let go the first generation and you will have hundreds of hacks, tweaks, pirate marketplace and whatever else you need.

-----------

What I think is that first WinPhone7 will proceed in pair with WinMo 6.5.x.

Many PDA and SP producers know what their business, valuable, customers want.

And will go on selling old good WinMo for quite long.

Look at death of WinXP, MS wanted it to die 4 years ago. They cutted it just a few months ago.

After that time (less than 1 year, I guess), they will pay a lot of money to some very expensive consultant, that will tell them to make a pro version of WinPhone7, maybe WinPhone7 SP1, or 7.1, or whatever else, but Pro.

And the limbo bubble will pop, and all the WinPhone7 phones will get their damn SD slot, Office, Multitasking ... ecc. ecc.

If not?

Linux is ramping up.
[Windows Phone 7 General] gerryjoson:
Hope so.

And XP still isn't dead, you can still get it on business systems [dell,HP,Lenovo] but you have to buy either vista or W7 with it, I ordered a new workstation a week ago with XP and W7, it would really make me laugh if they did something similar with downgrade rights for WM/WP7, it's a bit of clever marketing where the continuing popularity of the outgoing OS is counted as success for the new one...even if the user had no intention of using it. I have three copies of Vista that have come with downgrade rights [as well as one slightly used retail version], and the disc packages have never been opened...do you reckon they counted those as sales?
[Windows Phone 7 General] :
Well, yes. But the iPhone differs majorly from any WM phone. That's all I'm saying.

Honestly, when I said this I was thinking from an Android point of view. :P Google does have everything Exchange has to offer in sync with Android phones under your email. I'm not trying to argue, but point out what they do not have.
[Windows Phone 7 General] GAMERIG:
KIN already is DOA!!!!

I just curiously visited their sites of MSFT KIN Forum, WOW! there are millions of posts which are complaint about their KINS!

the touch screen is not working

I need answers, and I need them now!

I'm feeling started to be concern about WP7 will has many issues like KIN...
[Windows Phone 7 General] XaaR_:
I think that the main direction is right, but it is a bit unnecessary to enforce that much limitations on the system.

I'm actually planning on buying a WP7 device asap, most because I want a phone where I can develop apps and hopefully earn some money. Therefore an iPhone is out of the question, I wont buy a Mac to be able to develop. Android market have a huge downside, no possibility to charge for any apps over here, and I don't wanna skip my own home region. Other pros with the WP7 is that I like the Silverlight/WPF framework, which isn't available on any of the other devices.

As for multitasking, there have been alot of debate on that. And for now it looks like the Main thread (UI thread) is suspended when you leave the app, but other threads are left in the background, until system resources are needed.

This isn't the best system but I'm happy if I can return to my last used app and have a 3rd party music player in the background.

Sure, it is alot of things MS could have done better, but I think that this will do. After all, I'm 100% sure that this device will be Jailbroken to. Just give the crackers a moment.
[Windows Phone 7 General] speed_pour:
While I'm not going to disagree with this, I will say that when I "defend" WP7 on the basis that it's a 1.0, I'm emphasizing the fact that the PLATFORM is not a fail simply because it's lacking certain feature. Many people marked Android as a failure because it was using Java for all apps, and now WP7 for using silverlight. These are platform decisions, which I agree they should be heavily criticized and arguably mark it a fail. However, many people's reasons for marking this a fail have to do with very fleeting aspects that are certain, if not blisteringly obvious, to change in the short term.

I'll agree that the OS isn't even close to finished (nor will it be at release), but that's systemic of ALL products these days. Think back to 15 years ago, there wasn't even a Windows Update yet because companies released a product that was for all intents and purposes FINISHED, only needing the service packs for the understandable and reasonable bug fixes. These days even Sony pushes firmware updates to the PS3 every few weeks (of course, Sony is one of the worst offenders of sell-now-and-finish-later). While iPhone OS and Android were certainly criticized for coming out less than complete, I sense that MS is again taking a much larger bashing than others. Frankly, why is nobody hammering on RIM for releasing the Blackberry Touch OS in a barely functional state or WebOS for...well, forget WebOS, the rest of the market has ;)

The 'clean break' argument isn't complete BS to all developers as you think it is. MS has been criticized for more than a decade for allowing old APIs to exist and maintaining backwards compatibility despite complications and inevitably growing problems, and an increasingly bloated and complex SDK. I'm not singing the praises of the "clean break", only pointing out that there's definitely going to be some fans in the developer world. If you're following some of the well-known MS bloggers (ScottGu, Hanselman, etc.), it's starting to become clear that there are some serious fans of the WP7 development platform. Most would agree that from a technical standpoint, it would have been difficult (but not impossible), to introduce this environment on top of the WM6 platform without requiring even more powerful devices than WP7 already does. It's a poor comparison, but if you remember the performance changes that occurred when DirectX was given direct hooks into the kernel in the release of Windows ME and later in XP when compared against Win98 and 2000, the difference is profound. Considering the market that MS is trying to hit, that performance shift was necessary given that WM6 has had a really terrible track record with graphics performance and a weak API for graphics development. Again, I'm not saying a "clean break" was the BEST choice, but it is understandable and not entirely undesirable.

btw, sorry to quote this far after the original post