Microsoft begins Windows Phone 7 media blitz with new teaser ad - Page 2

The movie was made in 1962 and the scene is one of the most famous in the history of cinema.

Dude, LoA came out in 1962. The overwhelming majority of the audience at that showing have probably seen the movie scores of times.

Thus, the people at the theater would be familiar with the iconic "desert" scene, and would thus understand the point of the commercial.

After that lengthy buildup, anything less than Jessica Alba dancing semi-nude in front of a blue lagoon would be a let down.

I can't be the only one chuckling at a Microsoft ad that employs a mirage to announce its forthcoming Revolution.

Reminds me of one in the Seinfeld ad series where Gates squirmed around trying to dislodge his wedgie. Microsoft blew a huge wad of cash on those turds and we were left scratching our heads.

OMG! The positive comments compelled me to watch the ad. Are we seeing the same thing? The concept is awful! The execution? Horrible! Associating your product with a mirage? Boneheaded! Even if referencing an iconic film, fail?

Son, please read my previous response. I am aware that it was run during Lawrence of Arabia, but are you as short-sighted as Microsoft that you would think it would only run in that screening room? When it gets posted online it makes no sense to the viewer, especially the younger viewers who are most likely the people who they want to buy the phone. Wake up, Kurt Cobain is dead, the nineties happened already, it's a whole new millennium. That's the problem with Microsoft, they still think they are in their heyday.
Why not run it during a tech heavy movie or sci-fi movie? Wouldn't that make more sense?
Microsoft, throw $500 million my way. I'll put you on the right track. I've quit the advertising game already, but for that much scratch I would reconsider.


Thanks Addabox, you clearly understand it's Brie time baby, these guys are still dreaming about Gorgonzola.

Your opinion would have more credibility if you actually backed it up with some kind of argument or reasoning. We're mostly big fans of Apple products on this forum, but that doesn't mean that we hate on every other company/product. It's one thing to dislike a trailer - it is what it is. But I'll reserve judgement on Windows 7 mobile since I've never used it or seen it in action.

It appears that you've already 'let 'er rip' enough with that Brain Fart of a Tirade

At least something a bit different, not a copycat like Android.

I wish them well too. It is nice to see competition and have alternatives. Plus Microsoft's approach is a bit different from all the me-too iPhone knock-offs.

Two points, one minor.

This thread has attracted a fair number of first time and/or really low posters. It is a bit odd.

Your point would make sense if this is the ONLY ad MS ever ran. That will not be the case. This was a targeted ad - yes it will hit the internet, and lots of people will see it, and lots of people won't understand it because they have not seen the movie (much to their loss IMHO).

But, you would have to be delusional to think that this is the only WP7 add that will be run.

Every iPhone ad (and now, every iPad ad) focuses like a laser on what the product can do. Apps are the star. Every Droid ad, every Palm ad, and now every Windows Mobile ad, shows everything BUT the products' apps in action. Instead, their ads are all stylin' and marketing BS.

I guess if you buy into the garbage, or you just hate AT&T, you're buying a Droid or Palm or whatever. But everyone who's tired of the kind of marketing hype that's dripping from those terrible Droid ads, and can live with AT&T, is just not gonna buy anything but an iPhone.

Here's the part I don't understand.

Apple was criticized for not including copy/paste, and multitasking 3 and a half years ago! Since then, they have added both (I personally don't care much for multitasking, but copy-paste was essential for me. Thats when I springed money for the iPhone).

But Windows Phone has neither (nor do they have Flash, but I am okay with that). WTH are people simply ignoring all those articles screaming about lack of multitasking/copy-paste on a phone coming out now, 3 years after the original iPhone and many months after the iPhone already has those, as well as a well entrenched, and popular App Store?

I liked the ad, actually very clever and impressive for Microsoft.

Slogans:

It's the Zune of smart phones.

It's a steaming pile of Does.

. . . oh wait, that last one has been taken.

That will be debuted before the Secret Cinema showing of the lesser known, but still critically acclaimed "'Lawrence of a Labia".


I don't think they are. I haven't read an article where the lack of copy and paste and multi-tasking hasn't been highlighted as an issue.


That's not a bad thing from a product perspective! The Zune is actually quite a nice device.
It's not so good as far as sales go though.

Do you take the time to read through all the posts before you jump on someone's back? Of course not, so don't be a smart aleck because someone posted an observation you don't like.

Troll.

Microsoft's strategy is to show up to the game with nothing really game-changing, but at least competitive (or anti-competitive, if they can get away with it), then keep revising versions relentlessly until their main competitor stumbles. It's how they took the market away from Borland, IBM, Netscape, Palm, and Sony's Playstation. They wait for the other guy to stumble.

The problem is: what happens when the other guy doesn't slip up? Examples: Google with search engines, and Apple's iPod.

My Dad worked with IBM mainframes and I had no interest in what he did. It was Greek to me. The first time in my life I ever used any computer was a Mac Plus back in 1986. It was at a college where I was working at the time. I asked to play with it and someone said, "go ahead, you'll figure it out." I sat alone in that room and five hours later came up for air to realize that the sun had gone down and everyone had left. I just plain got sucked into to the world of that OS and was lost in it. The best word I have ever found to describe that first experience was . . . magical.

You too, huh? I was holding out for full-frontal though

The "Revolution" already came. It was called the iPhone.

This is ain't no revolution. It's a minor disturbance. Once again, too little, too late for MS.

LOL!

Here's another slogan:

The Pontiac Aztek of smart phones!

Of course, I agree. I was referencing more the Johnny Come Lately aspect of that device, and the hole it created for itself that it has never been able to get out of.

most articles mention the lack of C and P and multitasking.

OTOH, since you mention this, it is a bit hypocritical for many here to criticize the absence since many people vehemently defended the absence of said features in the iPhone (multitasking would drain the battery, result in system crashes, it was unnecessary, etc).

The irony is a lot of these same negative comments were made about the iPhone when it first came out. Many of us said don't criticize it before it comes to market. I say the same thing about this Windows phone.

do you have to press the start button to switch it off?

Microsoft. Pathetic as usual. You know everything about money and nothing about people.

On the cut and paste issue, all of us who defended the lack of it, will indeed bash the WinFon7 for it because it was made out to be a massive issue then - 3 years ago for heavens sakes - and one of the few issues that iPhone could be attacked on. How can MS make the same mistake 3 years on??

And rest assured, bashing of the WinFon7 on that one will be the least of its worries. There are so many other things wrong that cut and paste will be neither here not there...

You wonder that the ad agencies don't deliberately misdirect MS advertising..

It's a conspiracy! At'em MS Fanboys!

Windows Phone 7

This Changes Nothing... All Over Again

I don't like the phone UI and even in context, this ad sucks. It's nice that Microsoft are consistent though so you know to expect it.

I reckon they deserve some kudos for not just ripping off the iPhone UI like most competitors but I don't think it works. Their font choices are bad and the navigation is not intuitive as there are no visual indicators about where off-screen content is nor how much of it there is. The advantage to this is they support devices with different screen resolutions but we'll see how that fragmentation works out for them.

cut and paste came in iOS 3 (slightly over a year ago, not 3 years ago) and multitasking came in iOS 4, which is a couple of months ago.

BTW, for an OS that is not public yet, and that you have probably not ever use, what, in your opinion, is wrong with WP7?

Mind you that statements similar to "I don't like the UI" are not particularly valid, as they represent your own particular preference, which may not apply to everyone.

Help me out here,

A dark creepy mirage approaches me, from the East, across the sand dunes, and it says it is a revolution, in Arabic looking font, with Arabic sounding music track ... right?

Am I supposed to identify?

Am I supposed to spit up my grits and call the boys to lock and load? ...

Oh! I am supposed to buy an iPhone knock-off !!!!

Now I get it ! Eddy Bernais would be proud

With copy & paste they are between a rock and a hard place. Copy & paste allows for "lazy" development. With no c&p developers are forced to integrate their application with the available base functions of the phone (i.e. using launchers and choosers to access email, sms, phone and media functions).

I believe they intentionally left c&p off the list of release features in order to improve the overall user experience, and I think Apple's lack of c&p was for the same reason.

I think the v1 release of WP7 lacks multi-tasking and raw sockets for the same reason as well.

For example. The "lazy" way to implement, lets say, a stock price alert application using traditional PC orientated methods would be to have the application run in the background polling the server for data, then when an alert occurs presenting that data in a copy and paste aware form to the user.

The correct "mobile" way to write the application is to register the alert with the push notification server, then when the push notification occurs present the data to the user in a way that can interact with the base functions of the phone (i.e. send to email, sms, save to the cloud or post to Facebook/Twitter).

Obviously c&p, multi-tasking and raw sockets are all essentially functionality for a modern smart phone, and Microsoft will have to include them at some point.

I tend to think, at this point at least, the trade off of an improved user experience is worth the lack of functionality at this time. If 12 months go by without an update I might not be so reasonable though

Ok, here is some help. Real simple. But first, I have to ask, how old are you and have you ever seen the film.

So here you go.

1. The teaser was shown at a special showing of the movie Lawrence of Arabia. The movie debuted in 1962, and is 5th on the AFI's list of top 100 films. It is AFI's #1 epic film of all time.

2. Here is the link to the imdb summary of the film.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0056172/plotsummary

3. The desert scene, on which the commercial is based, is one of the most famous in film history, and is in the ranks of "rosebud" and "frankly my dear . . "

Given 1, 2, and 3, the commercial was a bit of targeted advertising aimed at a specific audience.


Is that sufficient help?

Obviously, performance and stability is an unknown as the new windows mobile OS isn't final yet, but I have to say that this is a very good looking interface - intuitive, very clean, nice fonts and some very good features in the mail client that are, frankly, better than on either android or iOS.

Am I alone in thinking iOS looks a little dated and cluttered. Been looking at some very good youtube comparisons, starting point below

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wblCTPMcmAM

Anyone who watches that video and doesn't genuinely believe that windows mobile mail handling is better than iOS, really has been on the apple juice.

Not criticising apple, but it is time to up the ante, this is genuinely going to leave the iOS looking like a poor second cousin in terms of aesthetic and functionality.

The font is clear, modern and easy to read. I'm not sure what the issue is with that. The main font problem I see is the over-sized titles. Sure it looks pretty, but it also uses up about 20% of the limited screen real-estate on the phone.

The main screen and application list lack scroll indicators. I don't think the list launcher will work well with 50 applications installed, but then again neither does iOS. My iPhone is pretty bare and everything sits on the main page (with a games and utils folder) but with the iPad I've resorted to using search to launch an application that isn't on the main page, and WP7 will work much the same way.

Everywhere else there seems to be indicators. The "text off the screen" method doesn't seem to be a particularly intuitive way to indicate there is more content, but then again click-the-icon-until-it-wiggles-if-you-want-to-move-or-delete-it isn't particularity intuitive either... sometimes the most intuitive way to do things needs to take a back seat to the most functional way to do them.

If you watch this email client comparison you should realize why there is a certain amount of interest in WP7 (especially compared to the Android UI).



I thought the screen resolution was locked to 800 by 480, at least for v1?

You have obviously never seen the movie. If you had, you would understand the brilliance of the commercial, even if you do not like MS

To simplify things, in the movie, Lawrence went back into the desert to save some laggards who could not make it through - the laggards were going to die. Everyone assumed Lawerence was nuts, and that he would die in the desert. In other words, everyone thought it was game over for Lawrence.

Pretty much everyone on this board, and many in the press, feel the same way about MS.

However, Lawrence comes out of the desert, having rescued the people (this is the scene in the commercial). He overcame the odds, proved everyone wrong, and succeeded in the face of the widespread belief that he was a goner.

MS is saying the same - they have returned, in spite of what everyone may think or write, and they will prove everyone wrong.

Heck, MS may be wrong, they may blow it, and it may be too late, but nonetheless, this was a smart piece of commercial making, if one has seen the movie.

Yep. iOS needs to update their mail app pretty quickly. I like the look of the iOS mail app better, but the WinPhone7 mail app features are better, IMHO.

And I actually think it was a cool marketing idea at the beginning of a screening of the movie.

And I'm an Apple fan boy.

Although I do agree that video demonstrates the WP7 email client very well I'm hesitant to call it "better" at the moment because it's missing a few key features (e.g. combined inbox and server based search). I do think it illustrates why a number of people are interested in WP7.

I also think it's a very enterprise\\business orientated email client. Most non-business like folk would be wondering what "flagged" and "urgent" emails are and why they are given the same amount of attention as "read" and "unread".

The email client, along with the Office and SharePoint integration is why I think WP7 poses more of a risk to RIM than Apple or Google. Have a look at this Blackberry 6.0 / WP7 comparison. If my choice was between those two I know what I would go with.

The email client comparison video you posted is actually a part of a series:

• WP7 Start Screen, Camera, and Settings
• WP7 Browser Comparison
• WP7 Email Client Comparison
• WP7 Text Message
• WP7 Photography Features

I disagree. They are doing something different rather than copying what has been established. For that alone I love WP7 and want to give it a try. They also seem set to do a better job than Android.
I'm gonna get me an iPod touch, my next smartphone could very well be running WP7. I'm no Apple- hater or Microsoft fan, I just like buying gadgets and trying new stuff.

Here's the deal - sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic - Arthur C Clarke

Now the key phrase here is sufficiently advanced - if apple keeps creating the newest UX and best then they can IMHO call it magic - and we all know that magic comes from the root magi - who were the three wise men. One of those three, if you pull back the hood, you'd discover the ancestor of Steve Jobs and in the manger is a jesus phone!