During a time when tempers flare over middle eastern culture, Microsoft's "creative" team has decided to pay homage to "Lawrence of Arabia" in a terribly long teaser ad for yet another iPhone competitor. Hello?! Does your team understand the concept of a teaser ad? Do they realize that the people they are targeting probably have no idea who Lawrence is or WTF he's doing in Arabia?
I don't see anything revolutionary about their UI .. it looks absolutely terrible
You can always find someone who will say that regardless of the phone
In any case WP7 isn't just a new UI, it's a new mobile phone paradigm. If you're just looking at the UI though I would say that "metro" is certainly unfamiliar. I have reservations about the wasted screen real estate on over-sized titles, but apart from that it seems very consistent, responsive and functional.
If it's "terrible", it's only in an aesthetic sense which is obviously open to opinion. However I wouldn't call the UI a "revolution" either, not on its own.
Pause this email client comparison on the opening screen and see what you think about the "look" of WP7 compared to two of the other smart phone heavy weights.
Microsoft is competing more directly against android than against apple, so I think this is probably a net plus for apple
I think MS is going after both, and to be honest, I think that Apple is taking it somewhat seriously, as they just added features that MS has had for awhile.
Zune has had social networking since its introduction in 2006, and iTunes just added Ping.
Xbox Live has been around for awhile and Apple is introducing its own Game Center.
MS is not going to lure away Mac users, as the ecosystem is just too coherent.
However, if you are Windows user, and if MS can make the whole thing (Office, Exchange/Enterprise, Zune Marketplace, and Xbox Live) all work the way Apple has, then I think they stand a fair chance of converting iPhone users to WP7.
...you have a nice teaser ad - I echo the sentiments expressed upthread about it being nicely more subtle than their previous efforts. Whether they target specifically Apple/iOS or Google/Android really is immaterial. They have to bring their best game to this showdown if money can buy it - they will get it done marketing-wise. Creativity ans effectiveness are another matter, where they have shown themselves to be, well dubious. Kind of like the new Droid 2 commercials - the target demographic for the robot hands was a bit blatant.
Now with that all tidied up, they have more to be concerned with where Android is concerned than Apple, especially as more and more handsets have Android on them, compared to Apple. Because Google has taken a page out of the Microsoft strategy book - they may well be the most likely target, and since the Android marketplace lags behind the App Store - it becomes the "low-hanging fruit", or for those more "circle-of-life" inclined the lagging wildebeest. We'll see how this plays out - glad I have a ring-side seat for this.
Newtron - you are just one vast pool of negativity here aren't you. Jumpin' in harshing everyone's mellow. Dude I KNOW you get your rocks off doing this, I mean any attention is better than none I suppose, but still...
During a time when tempers flare over middle eastern culture, Microsoft's "creative" team has decided to pay homage to "Lawrence of Arabia" in a terribly long teaser ad for yet another iPhone competitor. Hello?! Does your team understand the concept of a teaser ad? Do they realize that the people they are targeting probably have no idea who Lawrence is or WTF he's doing in Arabia?
This has "Kin" written all over it.
You should read the article. The teaser was introduced at a special showing at LoA. Thus, everyone there would be familiar with the scene.
Spot on here. 'Magical' as a word used to describe a piece of aluminium and glass, is the worst advertising buzzword I've seen. Hate it so much I cringe when I realise that my iPad was so brainlessly used by Apple's marketing. It isn't magical, it's great, but that's no good either.
Apple should have just introduced the iPad and explained it. Their use of 'magical' makes them pine for user support. Pathetic.
You should read the article. The teaser was introduced at a special showing at LoA. Thus, everyone there would be familiar with the scene.
I know that. But it was meant to hit the web as well. It's not 1995, you can't think so small anymore. You don't think they were expecting it to hit YouTube or Facebook or Vevo? C'mon.
I can't believe I'm on a APPLE forum and everyone is pretending that this Microsux P.O.S. is going to be anything but another ZUNE, Windows Vista, Windows 2000 failure! Where are all the Macintosh people? We've got nothing here by MS fanboys!
Ok, I'll say it. It's appropriate that Microsux picked a mirage for their commercial since that's what their success will be like with this cell phone!
OK, MS fanboys, let 'er rip!
Maybe because Mac Fanboys are a rational bunch? Maybe we don't judge something until we see it. Being a fan doesn't instantly make you a fanatic. I hate baseless comments (or trolls trying to incite them), so it is a good thing there isn't too much of that here. Personally, I think Microsoft is way behind, but I'm not going to judge them until I see what they have done. It will probably be yet another platform that will be difficult to share code with though... Every platform has their own language and runtime. Not a bad thing because it forces UI guidelines to be followed for each platform, but it is more work. Developers are going to grow tired of supporting the weakest platforms though, so there will only be a handful of winners in this game or a lot of platforms depending on web applications for their functionality. Apple has by far the strongest SDKs, so targeting other platforms starts with deciding what features to remove because they take too much work or are impossible to implement on other platforms. Games are usually the easiest to port (if they don't use a special form of input) because OpenGL makes for easier porting.
Unless you're hip to the Lawrence of Arabia thing, the ad just reads as "Arabic." Combining Arabic with "Revolution" at a time when anti-Islamic sentiment seems to be on a steep rise strikes me as a puzzling choice (yes, I realize there's a world of casual and unfounded association there, I'm talking about the usual uninformed passions at large).
I mean, people got crazy about the shape of a proposed Flight 93 memorial, finding a semi-circle to be suspiciously crescent like. I wonder how long it takes some group to declare MS in league with Bin Laden?
MS right now is under extreme pressure to raise its stock price so re-doing up a cell phone seems like the best fit for that over saturated corporation.
And the reason I think this will fail is because they are relying on 3rd party cell phone makers to make the phones(lots of then and in different flavors) and then market them like crazy to get large sells so they can then tout that they have this BIG smart phone presence on the market.
I just don't see this ending well for MS. Not at all. There is way too much Android trash on the used market by the same bozos that'll be cranking out windows phones. How does that makes since?
Yeah, Windows Phone 7 would have been revolutionary if Microsoft had come up with it before the iPhone came out. Now, more than 3 years later, it's just another me-to OS.
I have seen the movie and David Lean created a more believable mirage with a 1960s Panavision camera than Microsoft did for this advertisement. That's saying something.
GTSC
That's because he didn't "create" it. He was in the desert. He filmed it.
Not bad. Don't like "revolution." Don't like the typeface it was in. Didn't think the music was relevant, either.
How explicit is the echo of "Lawrence of Arabia"? Is this a motif that will recur? If so, why? If not, why not?
The "Revolution" of 'Awrence -- see the movie -- was undertaken by British military intelligence, and then coopted by the British after the war. Is that the kind of echo they want?
Comments
This has "Kin" written all over it.
I don't see anything revolutionary about their UI .. it looks absolutely terrible
You can always find someone who will say that regardless of the phone
In any case WP7 isn't just a new UI, it's a new mobile phone paradigm. If you're just looking at the UI though I would say that "metro" is certainly unfamiliar. I have reservations about the wasted screen real estate on over-sized titles, but apart from that it seems very consistent, responsive and functional.
If it's "terrible", it's only in an aesthetic sense which is obviously open to opinion. However I wouldn't call the UI a "revolution" either, not on its own.
Pause this email client comparison on the opening screen and see what you think about the "look" of WP7 compared to two of the other smart phone heavy weights.
Microsoft is competing more directly against android than against apple, so I think this is probably a net plus for apple
I think MS is going after both, and to be honest, I think that Apple is taking it somewhat seriously, as they just added features that MS has had for awhile.
Zune has had social networking since its introduction in 2006, and iTunes just added Ping.
Xbox Live has been around for awhile and Apple is introducing its own Game Center.
MS is not going to lure away Mac users, as the ecosystem is just too coherent.
However, if you are Windows user, and if MS can make the whole thing (Office, Exchange/Enterprise, Zune Marketplace, and Xbox Live) all work the way Apple has, then I think they stand a fair chance of converting iPhone users to WP7.
We shall see how it all plays out though.
Now with that all tidied up, they have more to be concerned with where Android is concerned than Apple, especially as more and more handsets have Android on them, compared to Apple. Because Google has taken a page out of the Microsoft strategy book - they may well be the most likely target, and since the Android marketplace lags behind the App Store - it becomes the "low-hanging fruit", or for those more "circle-of-life" inclined the lagging wildebeest. We'll see how this plays out - glad I have a ring-side seat for this.
Newtron - you are just one vast pool of negativity here aren't you. Jumpin' in harshing everyone's mellow. Dude I KNOW you get your rocks off doing this, I mean any attention is better than none I suppose, but still...
During a time when tempers flare over middle eastern culture, Microsoft's "creative" team has decided to pay homage to "Lawrence of Arabia" in a terribly long teaser ad for yet another iPhone competitor. Hello?! Does your team understand the concept of a teaser ad? Do they realize that the people they are targeting probably have no idea who Lawrence is or WTF he's doing in Arabia?
This has "Kin" written all over it.
You should read the article. The teaser was introduced at a special showing at LoA. Thus, everyone there would be familiar with the scene.
Do you like magical better? That one disgusts me.
Spot on here. 'Magical' as a word used to describe a piece of aluminium and glass, is the worst advertising buzzword I've seen. Hate it so much I cringe when I realise that my iPad was so brainlessly used by Apple's marketing. It isn't magical, it's great, but that's no good either.
Apple should have just introduced the iPad and explained it. Their use of 'magical' makes them pine for user support. Pathetic.
You should read the article. The teaser was introduced at a special showing at LoA. Thus, everyone there would be familiar with the scene.
I know that. But it was meant to hit the web as well. It's not 1995, you can't think so small anymore. You don't think they were expecting it to hit YouTube or Facebook or Vevo? C'mon.
Do they realize that the people they are targeting probably have no idea who Lawrence is or WTF he's doing in Arabia?
It was shown prior to a Secret Cinema showing of 'Lawrence of Arabia'.
I can't believe I'm on a APPLE forum and everyone is pretending that this Microsux P.O.S. is going to be anything but another ZUNE, Windows Vista, Windows 2000 failure! Where are all the Macintosh people? We've got nothing here by MS fanboys!
Ok, I'll say it. It's appropriate that Microsux picked a mirage for their commercial since that's what their success will be like with this cell phone!
OK, MS fanboys, let 'er rip!
Maybe because Mac Fanboys are a rational bunch? Maybe we don't judge something until we see it. Being a fan doesn't instantly make you a fanatic. I hate baseless comments (or trolls trying to incite them), so it is a good thing there isn't too much of that here. Personally, I think Microsoft is way behind, but I'm not going to judge them until I see what they have done. It will probably be yet another platform that will be difficult to share code with though... Every platform has their own language and runtime. Not a bad thing because it forces UI guidelines to be followed for each platform, but it is more work. Developers are going to grow tired of supporting the weakest platforms though, so there will only be a handful of winners in this game or a lot of platforms depending on web applications for their functionality. Apple has by far the strongest SDKs, so targeting other platforms starts with deciding what features to remove because they take too much work or are impossible to implement on other platforms. Games are usually the easiest to port (if they don't use a special form of input) because OpenGL makes for easier porting.
It was shown prior to a Secret Cinema showing of 'Lawrence of Arabia'.
And that font looks more like "Aladdin" than "Lawrence of Arabia." Someone made a mint on 5 minutes worth of "creative."
I mean, people got crazy about the shape of a proposed Flight 93 memorial, finding a semi-circle to be suspiciously crescent like. I wonder how long it takes some group to declare MS in league with Bin Laden?
creatively, I like it. Definitely un-microsoftie.
However, they need to get people to know how the UI works, otherwise it's just going to fade back into the mirage it came from in that ad.
And the reason I think this will fail is because they are relying on 3rd party cell phone makers to make the phones(lots of then and in different flavors) and then market them like crazy to get large sells so they can then tout that they have this BIG smart phone presence on the market.
I just don't see this ending well for MS. Not at all. There is way too much Android trash on the used market by the same bozos that'll be cranking out windows phones. How does that makes since?
You should read the article. The teaser was introduced at a special showing at LoA. Thus, everyone there would be familiar with the scene.
Dude, it was shown BEFORE the movie.
I have seen the movie and David Lean created a more believable mirage with a 1960s Panavision camera than Microsoft did for this advertisement. That's saying something.
GTSC
That's because he didn't "create" it. He was in the desert. He filmed it.
Not bad. Don't like "revolution." Don't like the typeface it was in. Didn't think the music was relevant, either.
How explicit is the echo of "Lawrence of Arabia"? Is this a motif that will recur? If so, why? If not, why not?
The "Revolution" of 'Awrence -- see the movie -- was undertaken by British military intelligence, and then coopted by the British after the war. Is that the kind of echo they want?
Do they realize that the people they are targeting probably have no idea who Lawrence is or WTF he's doing in Arabia?
Do you realize that the people they are targeting were attending a screening of Lawrence of Arabia?
Read the article.
Dude, it was shown BEFORE the movie.
The movie was made in 1962 and the scene is one of the most famous in the history of cinema.