In all honesty when I started this blog I planned to spend most of my time blogging about the iPhone. After all, it’s my primary phone and the number one phone that we repair (by far). So for all you iPhone addicts out there, don’t worry, we’ll get back to you soon. But the fact is the biggest news in the smartphone world right now is the Windows Phone 7 demo that went down yesterday.
My Thoughts on Windows Phone 7
I must confess that I am not yet on the list of top bloggers to receive demo hardware from Microsoft. I’m probably going to have to get 10-12 posts up to reach that status. So for now, you’re going to have to settle for what I’ve gleaned from the more prestigious nerds in cyberspace about this product. If you’re interested in a great read from people that actually played with the phone, I recommend checking out the Engadget reviews on the subject.
My immediate second hand impression: Incredible start with amazing potential. However, we are still a long way away from a finished product. In other words, I’m really excited to see where this thing is in August (which is about when it will have to be officially released so that it can hit the holiday shelves).
Since I love analogies, let’s do a sports one here. If this new OS from Microsoft, and it is a completely, 100% new phone OS from them, ends up looking and working as good as the hype from yesterday indicates that it might, I think that Microsoft has put itself in the same league as the iPhone.
Now before you start bashing me over this one, listen up. Just because the 2003 Detroit Tigers were playing in the Major Leagues, that didn’t mean they were anywhere near as good as the New York Yankees of that year (for the non sports fan, the Tigers had the second worst record in baseball history with 119 losses and the Yankees played in the World Series that year). But the fact is, the Tigers were still a pro-baseball team and would have beat the snot out of any college team.
To continue the analogy, the Windows 6.5 and previous mobile phones were the equivalent of a little league team – and not a very good one at that. Blackberry, Palm, and Google are all mid-tier college baseball teams.
The point is, right now Apple is leaps and bounds ahead of the competition. I think, if Microsoft can deliver on the promise it showed yesterday, they will still be behind Apple but they’ll be getting much closer. Let us not forget that the 2003 Tigers turned into the 2006 Detroit Tigers who defeated the Yankees in the first round of the playoffs and ended up playing in the World Series.
The Good
Here were some of the highlights for me on the new Windows Phone 7:
- Great interface. Elegant, finger friendly (finally), unique, and a complete and total deviation from anything Microsoft has released in the phone market before (though it is very similar to the Zune HD interface).
- Aggregation of social media. From what I can tell you no longer need to launch your email, then your text messages, then Facebook, then Twitter… It looks like (and I could be wrong about this) the idea is that you don’t have to launch each separate “app” to see what your friends are up to – you just scroll through your contacts and everything they’ve written or done publicly is right there for you.
- XBox Live integration. There are a lot of questions about how this will work (you’re phone is a lot different than an XBox), but if they do it right, it could make Microsoft a legitimate contender to the iPhone’s greatest strength: The App Store.
- Multiple manufacturers. This has been great for PC users and I would expect the same for the smartphone. If HTC, Samsung, Sony-Ericsson, LG, and more all start putting this on phones, you’ll see the price of these things drop quickly and features go up (much like what happened to PCs in the 90′s).
- Multiple carriers. AT&T, T-Mobile, Verizon, and others will be carrying these devices. Just like multiple, competing manufacturers would mean lower hardware costs for consumers, multiple carriers will me lower cost cell phone plans.
The Unknown
You’ll notice a lack of “The Bad” or “The Ugly” in this piece for one simple reason, we really have no idea. Microsoft is months away from releasing this product so the software isn’t complete and there is no hardware for it yet. So here’s what we really need to nail down:
- Will it do multi-tasking? This is my biggest gripe with the iPhone. I really want to be able to have Pandora playing while I check out a text message or email and I don’t want my Scramble 2 game to be ended because I took a phone call.
- Will it support multiple form factors? This is an interesting question because it has a huge impact on developers. If I’m going to write an app, I don’t want to have design for different screen sizes, slide out keypads, scroll wheels, touch/non-touch, multi-touch/no multi-touch… You get the idea. I honestly think it would be a mistake for MS to allow too many and too different of platforms.
- Can manufacturers customize the interface? Will developers be able to create customer interfaces and widgets? Will they be able to write their own software for the phone? This could be good or bad depending on how much variation the manufacturers are allowed. After all, the PC would not have been a success if using a Dell was a completely different experience than using a Gateway. I want it to be easy to switch devices but I also want manufacturers to express some creativity. It’s a fine line.
- Can a user customize the interface? Presumably the answer to this is yes so a better question might be: How much will a user be able to customize the interface? I like being able to put the things I use frequently in an easy to access spot. I hate it when the manufacturer assumes they know what’s best for me.
- Will this be a good device for businesses? Microsoft’s bread and butter has always been the business community so I can’t imagine them releasing this thing not ready to go for that customer base. Exchange, Excel, remote services, IT administrator friendly… While the average consumer might not care about these things, they are critical to most business people and that is a huge market segment.
- What software is going to be on here? Will it have some sort of Mobile Office? Will it do all the video and music stuff of the Zune (including things like the Zune Pass)? Will it allow easy access to popular Internet content? Again, most of this stuff is probably, “Yes,” but until we see a finished product, we’re not going to know.
- How obtrusive is the Bing search going to be? In all the stuff I’ve read I haven’t seen this one yet. I know that Bing is going to be the default search engine and there’s no doubt Microsoft hopes to parley a good phone experience into millions more Bing users. Will I be able to switch to other search engines? How about other browsers?
I could keep going on and on but the point is this: The first impressions of this device are fantastic! It has HUGE potential and I think Microsoft is on the verge of putting themselves right back into the thick of the smartphone game. Let’s hope they can go that last 13.1 miles of this marathon and make it work.