How many do you expect for them sell? Smartphones are not the only phones being sold and this is not a smartphone, but a highly specd feature phone and these phones still do sell quite well.
If the Kin and Kin two can be had for under 100 bucks and say a messaging/data package for 30 combined (this can't stream video iirc) this would be a pretty good deal in my opinion.
Uh huh. And if the next iPhone costs a nickel and comes with free data for life, that'll be a huge win.
Probably should wait for pricing information before you use it as a point in the Kin's favor.
You can really tell who the trolls are here, the hardcore trolls aren't even posting in this thread because they know it's a fail, the wannabe trolls are all saying "hey this could be big"...
Strangely I see most of the trolls posting... though we don't necessarily think of the same tribe of trolls.
Ok seriously the small kin design really sucks... who wants a round phone... the bigger one is more like any other slide phone but i like that polished look... overall the phones are ugly and small.
The only videos I've seen are of attractive young people having fun times in the city, courtesy of MS' Kin site. There's virtually no information there.
Yeah, the site isn't the best. But after seeing those videos there are walk-through videos available where they show specific tasks.
Quote:
Originally Posted by addabox
Anyway what does "efficiency and experience" mean for social networking? Are my social networking behaviors a churning mass of time sensitive, cross-compiled updates that require efficiency?
Just some examples I've seen: you get status updates of your friends on the home screen (called Kin Loop). You can "collect" almost everything like websites, mails, photos, videos, contacts to the spot at the bottom of the screen (called "Kin Spot"). Then hit the spot and choose how to send/share. No need to jump from app to app. I imagine it is quite difficult to share a website via Facebook on the iPhone. You have to copy and paste stuff from one app to another. But I may be wrong.
I don't say that we need it. I will not need this kind of phones either. But there are a lot of different kinds of people out there. And here in Europe, A LOT of people are waiting for the Zune Pass which seems to be coming to Europe when Kin will be available later this year.
Edit: Oh and I forgot: a physical keyboard does really improve the experience of chatting, texting and stuff like that.
Uh huh. And if the next iPhone costs a nickel and comes with free data for life, that'll be a huge win.
Probably should wait for pricing information before you use it as a point in the Kin's favor.
Even if they sold the current 3GS at 3G pricing it wouldn't come with a cheap data package (30 minimum not including text messages which is another 20 tacked on) and some people simply ARE NOT going to pay that much.
Feature phones are typically far cheaper, as well as their data plans. If VZW decides to charge a full data package there would be zero reason to buy this, but I doubt they would
So Microsoft is back stabbing its "partners" yet again. I do not get the strategy...these terrible devices, that lack games, use the horrible Zune service which has failed miserably in the marketplace, and have no 3rd party support are going to compete with the existing WinMo makers, the upcoming Windows 7 Phone Series makers, and somehow are going to compete against the iPhone and Droid. LOL. Give me some of what Ballmer is smoking!
You sound like you're already well provided
I don't see how's MS backstabbing partners. This is not to compete with WP7 units. It is completely different class. Sharp was obviously willing to bite the bullet and give this a go, but if it proves successful, I haven't noticed that MS wants to keep it exclusive - others might get same platform as well. I don't really think that too many are lining up at present.
This will - to my opinion - boil down tot he price. If those are cheap enough, they could do reasonably well; not every parent is willing to spend on iPhone or Nexus1 sort of device for teen kid; I know I wouldn't. Additionally, I believe it was mentioned somewhere that these phones will be easily traceable from the web... if that means parents will be able to locate kids position on Bing map/Google map, it looks to me as a nice bonus for many parents.
Shape is OK. For kids. iPhone does look a bit too serious for that target group, imho.
These phones would make sense if they were introduced by Motorola, Nokia, Samsung or some of those players which try to cover wide range of products. Lame strategy for Microsoft.
Oh, and note how MS is covering their ass? "It's our phone but it's actually Sharp and distributed by Verizon". Just in case it fails. Compare their positioning with this:
Quote:
?Apple should pull the plug on the iPhone... What Apple risks here is its reputation as a hot company that can do no wrong. If it?s smart it will call the iPhone a ?reference design? and pass it to some suckers to build with someone else?s marketing budget. Then it can wash its hands of any marketplace failures... Otherwise I?d advise people to cover their eyes. You are not going to like what you?ll see.?
I don't see how's MS backstabbing partners. This is not to compete with WP7 units. It is completely different class. Sharp was obviously willing to bite the bullet and give this a go, but if it proves successful, I haven't noticed that MS wants to keep it exclusive - others might get same platform as well. I don't really think that too many are lining up at present.
This will - to my opinion - boil down tot he price. If those are cheap enough, they could do reasonably well; not every parent is willing to spend on iPhone or Nexus1 sort of device for teen kid; I know I wouldn't. Additionally, I believe it was mentioned somewhere that these phones will be easily traceable from the web... if that means parents will be able to locate kids position on Bing map/Google map, it looks to me as a nice bonus for many parents.
Shape is OK. For kids. iPhone does look a bit too serious for that target group, imho.
I guess you are blind? This is a phone or am i mistaken? A semi-smart phone which makes calls, listens to music, and can get to the web sure sounds like competition for the other Windows phones to me. Sure, if the phones are given away for free, which they most certainly will since no one will buy them, and somehow Verizon does not charge their normal rates, hey it might happen lol, and only like $10 a month for a data plan, sure these might sell.
Although I love my MBP and most things Apple...I had to laugh, having read the article's headline on appleinsider, after having read Engadget's, BGR's and Gizmodo's articles...I know that this website is pro-Apple, but I don't think that it even pretends that it's not unabashedly subjective and highly critical of all things non-Apple. "social media phones for kids" --> this is the first and only article about the Kin phones today to have such a negative tone to it - dismissing the Kin phones as those befitting of "kids."
Nothing read negative to me. It's MS expressed demo for this product.
What's this? A well-balanced article from Prince about a competitor -- and it isn't laced with venom? Sheeeeeeeeeeeeeet, what has the world come to? That being said, this should be great for tweeners on up to high schoolers -- nothing more, nothing less. College-age kids are gonna want something a bit more versatile.
Ummm perhaps the reason AppleInsider hasn't penned this article 'laced with venom' is ... well .. The features themselves are more than sufficient to get the job done.
Quote:
- This product, it seems, will be built on a small, specialized version of Windows Phone 7.
Okay..
Quote:
- The company didn't outline any third party developers working on applications, or clarify whether the Kin phones would ever run external applications or apps designed for the Windows Phone 7 models the company hopes to release this winter.
Uh... APPS ... are they even important?
Quote:
- Kin phones evidently won't work with Windows Phone 7 apps, as Microsoft spoke of both as completely separate product lines, just as it positioned the Zune and PlaysForSure music players are separate products each running their own incompatible music DRM
Ah yes, nothing beats a good ole fashion Total Fragmentation Strategy!
Quote:
- Just like Zune and PFS, the new Kin, Zune and Windows Phone 7 are all based on the same Windows CE core operating system.
- According to PC World report by Ginny Mies, the new phones don't offer any photo or video editing tools
What would be the point since they don't have... Oh wait!
Quote:
- No calendar support, no universal inbox
Kid don't do email or make appointments and no sense in confusing their tiny little brains by offering those features...
Quote:
- Can't upload photos or video to Twitter
What for without a camera..... Crap I did it again!
Quote:
- No support Flash
Hey they got one right!! Clearly a design error...
Quote:
- No support for Silverlight.
This is where that fragmentation strategy shines.. If you want one of your technologies to really become popular try your best to release SOME products that include it and then SOME that don't. Just not sure what the point is but some MS fan will certainly point it out.
Quote:
- Their storage memory also can't be expanded.
Steve is dialing up the Apple Patent Lawyers as we speak! Developing an unexpandable device is patent protected, heck it's gotta be! See that, I can poke fun at Apple too.
Quote:
- In addition to being targeted at young people (the same audience as Microsoft's existing T-Mobile sidekick), a verizon executive joined the stage to emphasize that it expects the new models to also to parents "or anyone who is all about photos and video."
'...anyone who is all about photos and video.... PROVIDED they don't want to modify and/or upload them to Twitter.
Microstupid is trying once again to fragment and categorize the consumer tech market by age group, etc. FAIL.
One device. All you need is ONE device that represents a solution for ALL. Apple's done it.
Now, if Zunes were actually designed correctly with a viable App ecosystem, MS *could* have the "kid" market covered (sans phone features) like Apple does with the iPod Touch. MS FAILED there as well.
Also, if these are supposed to be tween phones marketed at kids, they should be basically free with a contract and that data contract has to be like 20 bucks or something before it would even be worth it.
The design is a bit off too. The round one is obviously supposed to be a "girls phone" (there are several phones marketed in that form to girls already), and the long one is the "boys phone" I guess, but they both seem to only come in black??? Tweens don't want a black phone IMO.
It's the network! That's right...the main advantage of the Kin phones is the network! These phones will hopefully never find their way on to America's most horrible network - the big BLUE. Stale.
The main and only reason why I will not get an iPhone any time soon is AT&T. Say what you want, but I'm going for the Android rush...it may not have the visual sophistication of APPLE, but as long as it syncs to Snow Leopard, that's all I care about. And I'm one of many Verizon users who loathes AT&T, after having been there, done that...
Comments
How many do you expect for them sell? Smartphones are not the only phones being sold and this is not a smartphone, but a highly specd feature phone and these phones still do sell quite well.
If the Kin and Kin two can be had for under 100 bucks and say a messaging/data package for 30 combined (this can't stream video iirc) this would be a pretty good deal in my opinion.
Uh huh. And if the next iPhone costs a nickel and comes with free data for life, that'll be a huge win.
Probably should wait for pricing information before you use it as a point in the Kin's favor.
You can really tell who the trolls are here, the hardcore trolls aren't even posting in this thread because they know it's a fail, the wannabe trolls are all saying "hey this could be big"...
Strangely I see most of the trolls posting... though we don't necessarily think of the same tribe of trolls.
The only videos I've seen are of attractive young people having fun times in the city, courtesy of MS' Kin site. There's virtually no information there.
Yeah, the site isn't the best. But after seeing those videos there are walk-through videos available where they show specific tasks.
Anyway what does "efficiency and experience" mean for social networking? Are my social networking behaviors a churning mass of time sensitive, cross-compiled updates that require efficiency?
Just some examples I've seen: you get status updates of your friends on the home screen (called Kin Loop). You can "collect" almost everything like websites, mails, photos, videos, contacts to the spot at the bottom of the screen (called "Kin Spot"). Then hit the spot and choose how to send/share. No need to jump from app to app. I imagine it is quite difficult to share a website via Facebook on the iPhone. You have to copy and paste stuff from one app to another. But I may be wrong.
I don't say that we need it. I will not need this kind of phones either. But there are a lot of different kinds of people out there. And here in Europe, A LOT of people are waiting for the Zune Pass which seems to be coming to Europe when Kin will be available later this year.
Edit: Oh and I forgot: a physical keyboard does really improve the experience of chatting, texting and stuff like that.
Uh huh. And if the next iPhone costs a nickel and comes with free data for life, that'll be a huge win.
Probably should wait for pricing information before you use it as a point in the Kin's favor.
Even if they sold the current 3GS at 3G pricing it wouldn't come with a cheap data package (30 minimum not including text messages which is another 20 tacked on) and some people simply ARE NOT going to pay that much.
Feature phones are typically far cheaper, as well as their data plans. If VZW decides to charge a full data package there would be zero reason to buy this, but I doubt they would
So Microsoft is back stabbing its "partners" yet again. I do not get the strategy...these terrible devices, that lack games, use the horrible Zune service which has failed miserably in the marketplace, and have no 3rd party support are going to compete with the existing WinMo makers, the upcoming Windows 7 Phone Series makers, and somehow are going to compete against the iPhone and Droid. LOL. Give me some of what Ballmer is smoking!
You sound like you're already well provided
I don't see how's MS backstabbing partners. This is not to compete with WP7 units. It is completely different class. Sharp was obviously willing to bite the bullet and give this a go, but if it proves successful, I haven't noticed that MS wants to keep it exclusive - others might get same platform as well. I don't really think that too many are lining up at present.
This will - to my opinion - boil down tot he price. If those are cheap enough, they could do reasonably well; not every parent is willing to spend on iPhone or Nexus1 sort of device for teen kid; I know I wouldn't. Additionally, I believe it was mentioned somewhere that these phones will be easily traceable from the web... if that means parents will be able to locate kids position on Bing map/Google map, it looks to me as a nice bonus for many parents.
Shape is OK. For kids. iPhone does look a bit too serious for that target group, imho.
Oh, and note how MS is covering their ass? "It's our phone but it's actually Sharp and distributed by Verizon". Just in case it fails. Compare their positioning with this:
?Apple should pull the plug on the iPhone... What Apple risks here is its reputation as a hot company that can do no wrong. If it?s smart it will call the iPhone a ?reference design? and pass it to some suckers to build with someone else?s marketing budget. Then it can wash its hands of any marketplace failures... Otherwise I?d advise people to cover their eyes. You are not going to like what you?ll see.?
John C. Dvorak, 28 March 2007
"Have you seen the 'kin phone?'
I am surprised this project wasn't killed long ago .....
PS On a positive note some M$ executives will see this as an opportunity to knife their colleagues in the back and progress up the corporate ladder.
You sound like you're already well provided
I don't see how's MS backstabbing partners. This is not to compete with WP7 units. It is completely different class. Sharp was obviously willing to bite the bullet and give this a go, but if it proves successful, I haven't noticed that MS wants to keep it exclusive - others might get same platform as well. I don't really think that too many are lining up at present.
This will - to my opinion - boil down tot he price. If those are cheap enough, they could do reasonably well; not every parent is willing to spend on iPhone or Nexus1 sort of device for teen kid; I know I wouldn't. Additionally, I believe it was mentioned somewhere that these phones will be easily traceable from the web... if that means parents will be able to locate kids position on Bing map/Google map, it looks to me as a nice bonus for many parents.
Shape is OK. For kids. iPhone does look a bit too serious for that target group, imho.
I guess you are blind? This is a phone or am i mistaken? A semi-smart phone which makes calls, listens to music, and can get to the web sure sounds like competition for the other Windows phones to me. Sure, if the phones are given away for free, which they most certainly will since no one will buy them, and somehow Verizon does not charge their normal rates, hey it might happen lol, and only like $10 a month for a data plan, sure these might sell.
Most kids want a real phone...an iphone.
Although I love my MBP and most things Apple...I had to laugh, having read the article's headline on appleinsider, after having read Engadget's, BGR's and Gizmodo's articles...I know that this website is pro-Apple, but I don't think that it even pretends that it's not unabashedly subjective and highly critical of all things non-Apple. "social media phones for kids" --> this is the first and only article about the Kin phones today to have such a negative tone to it - dismissing the Kin phones as those befitting of "kids."
Nothing read negative to me. It's MS expressed demo for this product.
What's this? A well-balanced article from Prince about a competitor -- and it isn't laced with venom? Sheeeeeeeeeeeeeet, what has the world come to?
Ummm perhaps the reason AppleInsider hasn't penned this article 'laced with venom' is ... well .. The features themselves are more than sufficient to get the job done.
- This product, it seems, will be built on a small, specialized version of Windows Phone 7.
Okay..
- The company didn't outline any third party developers working on applications, or clarify whether the Kin phones would ever run external applications or apps designed for the Windows Phone 7 models the company hopes to release this winter.
Uh... APPS ... are they even important?
- Kin phones evidently won't work with Windows Phone 7 apps, as Microsoft spoke of both as completely separate product lines, just as it positioned the Zune and PlaysForSure music players are separate products each running their own incompatible music DRM
Ah yes, nothing beats a good ole fashion Total Fragmentation Strategy!
- Just like Zune and PFS, the new Kin, Zune and Windows Phone 7 are all based on the same Windows CE core operating system.
So I got that goin' for me, which is nice.
- According to PC World report by Ginny Mies, the new phones don't offer any photo or video editing tools
What would be the point since they don't have... Oh wait!
- No calendar support, no universal inbox
Kid don't do email or make appointments and no sense in confusing their tiny little brains by offering those features...
- Can't upload photos or video to Twitter
What for without a camera..... Crap I did it again!
- No support Flash
Hey they got one right!! Clearly a design error...
- No support for Silverlight.
This is where that fragmentation strategy shines.. If you want one of your technologies to really become popular try your best to release SOME products that include it and then SOME that don't. Just not sure what the point is but some MS fan will certainly point it out.
- Their storage memory also can't be expanded.
Steve is dialing up the Apple Patent Lawyers as we speak! Developing an unexpandable device is patent protected, heck it's gotta be! See that, I can poke fun at Apple too.
- In addition to being targeted at young people (the same audience as Microsoft's existing T-Mobile sidekick), a verizon executive joined the stage to emphasize that it expects the new models to also to parents "or anyone who is all about photos and video."
'...anyone who is all about photos and video.... PROVIDED they don't want to modify and/or upload them to Twitter.
Yea looks like a winner from where I sit...
MS obviously read this survey about iphone potential to high schoolers.
These aint it.
Microstupid is trying once again to fragment and categorize the consumer tech market by age group, etc. FAIL.
One device. All you need is ONE device that represents a solution for ALL. Apple's done it.
Now, if Zunes were actually designed correctly with a viable App ecosystem, MS *could* have the "kid" market covered (sans phone features) like Apple does with the iPod Touch. MS FAILED there as well.
Look at the iPad.
From 2-year olds . . . http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pT4Eb...ayer_embedded#
To doctors . . .http://www.9to5mac.com/epocrates-doc...rvey-345965443
ONE great device well-supported by developers. It's all you need.
Kids want the hottest sh*t around.
Yea but not EVERYONE was wearing Levi's growing up... and it was the 'other kids' that were sportin' LEEs that proved just how cool we were...
Kids want the hottest sh*t around.
These aint it. ...
I agree.
Also, if these are supposed to be tween phones marketed at kids, they should be basically free with a contract and that data contract has to be like 20 bucks or something before it would even be worth it.
The design is a bit off too. The round one is obviously supposed to be a "girls phone" (there are several phones marketed in that form to girls already), and the long one is the "boys phone" I guess, but they both seem to only come in black??? Tweens don't want a black phone IMO.
Yea but not EVERYONE was wearing Levi's growing up... and it was the 'other kids' that were sportin' LEEs that proved just how cool we were...
Hehe . . . ok, fair perspective.