The company also committed $500 million in promoting the WP7 launch, the same amount Apple spent on advertising for all of its products combined last year.
The anti MS spin is to be expected and generally amusing, but seriously actually get the facts right. Microsoft has a $500 million marketing budget for the entire company, not a $500 million budget for promoting WP7. Every article of MS irrespective of if it's about Bing, Kinnect, Office or Windows 7 seems to quote this figure. All it shows is they have a lot of products and therefore spend a lot of money on advertising.
Plus it's not like they have actually reached the same level of advertising the Apple do on one product. I haven't been able to go a day in the last few months without seeing an iPad advert. WP7 ad's I see around once a week.
Quote:
Originally Posted by esummers
They also have not paid their app developers (payments don't start until March next year) and have not reported number on app sales.
Payments are coming in the last week of Jan, a month earlier than what they told developers when you signed up to develop an app. Stats are also already available.
Reading through the article though this doesn't actually sound that bad. Obviously there not going to have overnight success, these things take time for early adopters to buy the phones and recommend them to others.
The anti MS spin is to be expected and generally amusing, but seriously actually get the facts right. Microsoft has a $500 million marketing budget for the entire company, not a $500 million budget for promoting WP7. Every article of MS irrespective of if it's about Bing, Kinnect, Office or Windows 7 seems to quote this figure. All it shows is they have a lot of products and therefore spend a lot of money on advertising.
Plus it's not like they have actually reached the same level of advertising the Apple do on one product. I haven't been able to go a day in the last few months without seeing an iPad advert. WP7 ad's I see around once a week.
Payments are coming in the last week of Jan, a month earlier than what they told developers when you signed up to develop an app. Stats are also already available.
Reading through the article though this doesn't actually sound that bad. Obviously there not going to have overnight success, these things take time for early adopters to buy the phones and recommend them to others.
Incorrect. MS announced they would be spending £500M in the launch of WP7 ALONE!!!!
Incorrect. MS announced they would be spending £500M in the launch of WP7 ALONE!!!!
Did they actually announce anything? I always thought that number was based off an estimate from some banker dude that did some consultancy for Microsoft.
If not, you seem to be confusing love with buying stuff, which given our collective search for meaning and satisfaction in stuff, that's understandable but misguided. I love my Mum dearly but I show that by phoning, visiting, helping her with chores, reading to her, taking her for walks, cooking her dinner, sending cards, helping her with financial stuff and just sharing tales, jokes, stories and memories. And being there as best I can should she need me. Not by buying her an iPhone4!
Love aside, if I was her, i'd take the iphone over ^^
Okay, he said March, and your blog says Feb. I think the point here is, the app developers aren't getting paid in a timely manner. Would you go through the effort of developing an app for a company that may or may not pay you in 3-6 months time? (With only 4000 apps in the store, that should answer the question.)
Makes you wonder if M$ did something like this, because they wanted to give themselves 6 months before pulling the plug if sales sucked. And of course, then not pay any of the app developers. That's just pure speculation on my part, but with Ballmer at the helm, nothing is out of the realm of possibility.
No the point, clearly missed by you, is that all of this wild, slanted reporting about developers not getting paid until 2011 was put forth like there was some kind of problem or change in policy. When in fact this was the documented plan all along, documented BEFORE you could submit any apps. That is the point.
In fact that same blog had a recent post stating that developers will now get paid in January and that the app for tracking your app sales is now up and running.
No the point, clearly missed by you, is that all of this wild, slanted reporting about developers not getting paid until 2011 was put forth like there was some kind of problem or change in policy. When in fact this was the documented plan all along, documented BEFORE you could submit any apps. That is the point.
In fact that same blog had a recent post stating that developers will now get paid in January and that the app for tracking your app sales is now up and running.
It doesn't matter if you're right, don't you get it? This is an APPLE FAN SITE. People come here because they WANT slanted news, and opinions over facts.
AI is a great place to get Apple related news from a single source, but if you want a fair conversation about anything an Apple competitor does, you're barking up the wrong tree.
They know, and they don't care. This sort of irrationality is everywhere. For me, it's in sports. I know the Redskins suck, but I'm still a fan and if I reported news for them, it would be slanted
Not surprising given their bizarre advertising campaign declaring WP7 phones to be phones you won't want to actually use.
Their ad campaign is clearly bad. Oh, but not for the reason you stated.
See, the ad campaign is actually saying you can get what you want to get done, in shorter time than other phones, so you won't have your head buried in your phone while life passes you by. Actually pretty brilliant, and appeals to a lot of people.
Here's the thing though (and why I say it's clearly bad): It was lost on you, and since the masses are morons, the message will be lost on them as well.
So basically, you're a good example of why their ad campaign is too smart for your average drone consumer.
You state that "Microsoft launched WP7 across 60 carriers in 30 countries, including all four major US carriers.", however, I don't know about international numbers, but WP7 is only available from AT&T, and T-Moblie in the US. WP7 does not currently run on CDMA networks and therefore isn't available from Verizon or Sprint.
You state that "Microsoft launched WP7 across 60 carriers in 30 countries, including all four major US carriers.", however, I don't know about international numbers, but WP7 is only available from AT&T, and T-Moblie in the US. WP7 does not currently run on CDMA networks and therefore isn't available from Verizon or Sprint.
Oh but that's just a minor detail. You can't expect people who pass themselves off as journalists to know to look into such a thing
How many words in that ridiculous article? Feeling threatened much?
The fact is the best days of the iPhone are over, it will not take over the world, whether it loses to Android or Windows phone 7, and is back on the way to OSX irrelevance.
This will in fact break Apple, as their iTunes media dominance will also be killed, as they rapidly become a minority media player.
Apple's vertical model has failed once again, no wonder they are now selling the iPhone in Sams club.
If you're counting operating system numbers, you need to include iPod touch and iPad sales with the iPhone as they run the same operating system and the same apps.
Microsoft Wndows Phone 7 was dead on arrival. Horrible UI, horrible software, bland cloner phone hardware, and locked to the super expensive proprietary Microsoft OS.
Windows Phone 7 is far from dead on arrival. Microsoft may be slow, but they are relentless. Remember the Xbox? Horrible initial sales, no game library and everyone predicted it would be gone within a year- now Xbox is one of, if not the best selling game console out there.
I'm no Microsoft fan, but they've really impressed me with Windows Phone 7, and I've used most of the phone OS's out there- (WebOS- Palm Pre, Android- Evo 4G, iOS- iPhone, iPhone 3G, iPhone 3GS- no Blackberries though ). As someone who has used WP7 (an HTC HD7) as their daily driver since launch, here are the pros and cons as I see them from a consumer standpoint:
Pros:
1. Facebook Integration at the OS level. If you're not a Facebook user, you won't care about this, but the way Microsoft has implemented this is really fantastic. You can import all your FB contacts or just the ones in your phone's contact list. One tap on the people hub and you can look at your FB newsfeed. Contacts show their FB profile picture which saves you the hassle of assigning pictures to all your contacts (something the average user probably won't waste their time on). It's easy and quick to update your status, write on friend's wall, comment on their status, look at their pictures and comment on them. The Pictures hub automatically shows all your albums from Facebook- this is fantastic! It has saved me the trouble of having to sideload a lot of my pictures onto my phone, saving my internal storage for other things (music, apps, etc...).
2. UI innovation and responsiveness. You may like the metro UI or hate it, but I love it. I love the finger friendly tiles, and this OS is the first that is just as responsive as the iPhone, if not more so. Multi-touch gestures are smooth and fluid- there is simply NO LAG in the OS at all. Microsoft is to be commended on this. I can't tell you how many times I wanted to scream at my Evo for either lagging or choppy performance. Even my iPad skips a beat every now and then since upgrading to iOS 4.2. Not Windows Phone 7- buttery smooth and incredibly responsive- it is both fun and a pleasure to use.
3. Xbox Live integration. The games are coming. Apple clearly has a lead in the mobile games department, but the Xbox live community is bigger by far than Apple's Game Center. Additionally, many of the top iPhone games are already being ported to WP7 and have Xbox Live integration (Fruit Ninja, Pocket God, etc...) as well as some great original titles (The Harvest). I am not an Xbox user, but I must admit, I have fun tracking my accomplishments, tweaking my avatar, etc...
4. Live Tiles and a lock screen that actually tells me something. Why Apple does nothing with its lock screen is completely beyond me- there's so much wasted space. WP7 will show you your next appointment and number of text and email messages without having to unlock the phone. I also love the live tiles. The calendar tile (icon) displays your next appointment, the Weatherbug tile shows you the temperature, contacts show their latest FB status or uploaded picture- there's just more information available. They aren't as good as full blown Android Widgets, but get the job done and done well.
A physical back button and a physical camera button. You can wake the phone by depressing the camera button for 3 seconds and it's ready to shoot. Sure beats having to hit a button, unlock the phone, find the camera icon, and tap it. Also, having a back button is one of those things that you don't miss until you have one. For example: You're looking at your twitter timeline. There's a link, so you click it. It opens Internet Explorer. You read the page. You tap the back button and your back in your twitter app. It's so much easier- app developers don't have to include a built in web browser. Apple's implementation of multitasking is good, but the lack of physical buttons makes it feel clumsy- having to double tap the home button to bring up a list of apps, and then tap an icon is an extra, cumbersome step.
Cons:
1. No Cut, Copy, or Paste. Really???
2. No direct USB sync with Outlook. Not a big concern for me since all my contacts are in Gmail, but I understand this is a huge concern for a lot of people.
3. No multitasking or fast app switching. Kind of feels like iOS pre iOS4. At least the OS is smooth and responsive, but this needs to be implemented ASAP.
4. Skydrive integration with Office. When you sign up for a live account (necessary to purchase apps), you also get a skydrive account with 25GB of free storage. Why can't you use this to store Office documents??? This doesn't make any sense.
5. No multiple calendar support for Exchange, Gmail, or Windows Live calendars. WP7 can only sync the primary calendar of each of these services. Really??? This is a STUPID limitation that will hopefully be overcome soon.
6. No turn by turn directions in Bing maps. I know this is coming soon, but after having this in Android, I really miss it.
I'm sure there are other things I have missed, but those are the biggies for me. Oh, and BTW, your other comment, "locked to the super expensive proprietary Microsoft OS"???????
What do you think the iPhone is locked to? iOS is anything but open. This is not a criticism of Apple, just pointing out the fact that people who use a phone tightly locked down to one corporation (Apple) shouldn't throw stones at someone because they use a phone tightly locked down to another corporation (Microsoft).
If you're counting operating system numbers, you need to include iPod touch and iPad sales with the iPhone as they run the same operating system and the same apps.
He?s only counting thing that make the iPhone look bad. Why else would one compare HW to an OS?
MS still would not reveal numbers that actually matters.. How many sold to end-users?
EXACTLY! Who does Microsoft think they're dealing with? idiots? They don't think we can tell the difference between the number of units shipped to carriers and the actual number of units sold to end-users? They're obviously skirting the issue. They have no problems touting their Kinect sales. I guess the only people they'll fool are the the people who actually end up buying one of their phones. I give Microsoft credit for an interface that doesn't mimic iOS. At least they didn't go the Android route and copy iOS. But, they're setting themselves up to be an app-limited platform. That user interface wouldn't be very useful if you had more than apps. It would be a pain in the arse to navigate through 20 apps with huge tiles and no folders.
If you're counting operating system numbers, you need to include iPod touch and iPad sales with the iPhone as they run the same operating system and the same apps.
That graph comes from an Apple Insider article. I did not make it.
Everyone knows iPod sales are waning. Unless Apple releases an Itunes app for Android (and hell freezes over) Apple will start losing music retail market share.
Comments
Good catch. MS stated a CDMA-based version won?t come until mid-2011.
Maybe it won't come at all if GSM modules will be returned back.
The company also committed $500 million in promoting the WP7 launch, the same amount Apple spent on advertising for all of its products combined last year.
[ View this article at AppleInsider.com ][/c]
The anti MS spin is to be expected and generally amusing, but seriously actually get the facts right. Microsoft has a $500 million marketing budget for the entire company, not a $500 million budget for promoting WP7. Every article of MS irrespective of if it's about Bing, Kinnect, Office or Windows 7 seems to quote this figure. All it shows is they have a lot of products and therefore spend a lot of money on advertising.
Plus it's not like they have actually reached the same level of advertising the Apple do on one product. I haven't been able to go a day in the last few months without seeing an iPad advert. WP7 ad's I see around once a week.
They also have not paid their app developers (payments don't start until March next year) and have not reported number on app sales.
Payments are coming in the last week of Jan, a month earlier than what they told developers when you signed up to develop an app. Stats are also already available.
Reading through the article though this doesn't actually sound that bad. Obviously there not going to have overnight success, these things take time for early adopters to buy the phones and recommend them to others.
The anti MS spin is to be expected and generally amusing, but seriously actually get the facts right. Microsoft has a $500 million marketing budget for the entire company, not a $500 million budget for promoting WP7. Every article of MS irrespective of if it's about Bing, Kinnect, Office or Windows 7 seems to quote this figure. All it shows is they have a lot of products and therefore spend a lot of money on advertising.
Plus it's not like they have actually reached the same level of advertising the Apple do on one product. I haven't been able to go a day in the last few months without seeing an iPad advert. WP7 ad's I see around once a week.
Payments are coming in the last week of Jan, a month earlier than what they told developers when you signed up to develop an app. Stats are also already available.
Reading through the article though this doesn't actually sound that bad. Obviously there not going to have overnight success, these things take time for early adopters to buy the phones and recommend them to others.
Incorrect. MS announced they would be spending £500M in the launch of WP7 ALONE!!!!
Incorrect. MS announced they would be spending £500M in the launch of WP7 ALONE!!!!
Did they actually announce anything? I always thought that number was based off an estimate from some banker dude that did some consultancy for Microsoft.
I assume you're joking
If not, you seem to be confusing love with buying stuff, which given our collective search for meaning and satisfaction in stuff, that's understandable but misguided. I love my Mum dearly but I show that by phoning, visiting, helping her with chores, reading to her, taking her for walks, cooking her dinner, sending cards, helping her with financial stuff and just sharing tales, jokes, stories and memories. And being there as best I can should she need me. Not by buying her an iPhone4!
Love aside, if I was her, i'd take the iphone over ^^
Okay, he said March, and your blog says Feb. I think the point here is, the app developers aren't getting paid in a timely manner. Would you go through the effort of developing an app for a company that may or may not pay you in 3-6 months time? (With only 4000 apps in the store, that should answer the question.)
Makes you wonder if M$ did something like this, because they wanted to give themselves 6 months before pulling the plug if sales sucked. And of course, then not pay any of the app developers. That's just pure speculation on my part, but with Ballmer at the helm, nothing is out of the realm of possibility.
No the point, clearly missed by you, is that all of this wild, slanted reporting about developers not getting paid until 2011 was put forth like there was some kind of problem or change in policy. When in fact this was the documented plan all along, documented BEFORE you could submit any apps. That is the point.
In fact that same blog had a recent post stating that developers will now get paid in January and that the app for tracking your app sales is now up and running.
May I suggest www.rif.org
Why is building 1.5 million unsold phones a milestone? Is the next milestone dumping these things in a guarded Utah landfill for a tax write off?
Utah? NO! Nevada? Yes!
No the point, clearly missed by you, is that all of this wild, slanted reporting about developers not getting paid until 2011 was put forth like there was some kind of problem or change in policy. When in fact this was the documented plan all along, documented BEFORE you could submit any apps. That is the point.
In fact that same blog had a recent post stating that developers will now get paid in January and that the app for tracking your app sales is now up and running.
May I suggest www.rif.org
It doesn't matter if you're right, don't you get it? This is an APPLE FAN SITE. People come here because they WANT slanted news, and opinions over facts.
AI is a great place to get Apple related news from a single source, but if you want a fair conversation about anything an Apple competitor does, you're barking up the wrong tree.
They know, and they don't care. This sort of irrationality is everywhere. For me, it's in sports. I know the Redskins suck, but I'm still a fan and if I reported news for them, it would be slanted
Hehe, why don't you get one for yourself? Did your parents torture you when you were young and now you want the revenge it with Windows phone?
Have you even tried one of these phones? They're STUPID simple. The camera app is a good example. Really easy, which is what old people want.
Not surprising given their bizarre advertising campaign declaring WP7 phones to be phones you won't want to actually use.
Their ad campaign is clearly bad. Oh, but not for the reason you stated.
See, the ad campaign is actually saying you can get what you want to get done, in shorter time than other phones, so you won't have your head buried in your phone while life passes you by. Actually pretty brilliant, and appeals to a lot of people.
Here's the thing though (and why I say it's clearly bad): It was lost on you, and since the masses are morons, the message will be lost on them as well.
So basically, you're a good example of why their ad campaign is too smart for your average drone consumer.
You state that "Microsoft launched WP7 across 60 carriers in 30 countries, including all four major US carriers.", however, I don't know about international numbers, but WP7 is only available from AT&T, and T-Moblie in the US. WP7 does not currently run on CDMA networks and therefore isn't available from Verizon or Sprint.
Oh but that's just a minor detail. You can't expect people who pass themselves off as journalists to know to look into such a thing
How many words in that ridiculous article? Feeling threatened much?
The fact is the best days of the iPhone are over, it will not take over the world, whether it loses to Android or Windows phone 7, and is back on the way to OSX irrelevance.
This will in fact break Apple, as their iTunes media dominance will also be killed, as they rapidly become a minority media player.
Apple's vertical model has failed once again, no wonder they are now selling the iPhone in Sams club.
If you're counting operating system numbers, you need to include iPod touch and iPad sales with the iPhone as they run the same operating system and the same apps.
Microsoft Wndows Phone 7 was dead on arrival. Horrible UI, horrible software, bland cloner phone hardware, and locked to the super expensive proprietary Microsoft OS.
Windows Phone 7 is far from dead on arrival. Microsoft may be slow, but they are relentless. Remember the Xbox? Horrible initial sales, no game library and everyone predicted it would be gone within a year- now Xbox is one of, if not the best selling game console out there.
I'm no Microsoft fan, but they've really impressed me with Windows Phone 7, and I've used most of the phone OS's out there- (WebOS- Palm Pre, Android- Evo 4G, iOS- iPhone, iPhone 3G, iPhone 3GS- no Blackberries though
Pros:
1. Facebook Integration at the OS level. If you're not a Facebook user, you won't care about this, but the way Microsoft has implemented this is really fantastic. You can import all your FB contacts or just the ones in your phone's contact list. One tap on the people hub and you can look at your FB newsfeed. Contacts show their FB profile picture which saves you the hassle of assigning pictures to all your contacts (something the average user probably won't waste their time on). It's easy and quick to update your status, write on friend's wall, comment on their status, look at their pictures and comment on them. The Pictures hub automatically shows all your albums from Facebook- this is fantastic! It has saved me the trouble of having to sideload a lot of my pictures onto my phone, saving my internal storage for other things (music, apps, etc...).
2. UI innovation and responsiveness. You may like the metro UI or hate it, but I love it. I love the finger friendly tiles, and this OS is the first that is just as responsive as the iPhone, if not more so. Multi-touch gestures are smooth and fluid- there is simply NO LAG in the OS at all. Microsoft is to be commended on this. I can't tell you how many times I wanted to scream at my Evo for either lagging or choppy performance. Even my iPad skips a beat every now and then since upgrading to iOS 4.2. Not Windows Phone 7- buttery smooth and incredibly responsive- it is both fun and a pleasure to use.
3. Xbox Live integration. The games are coming. Apple clearly has a lead in the mobile games department, but the Xbox live community is bigger by far than Apple's Game Center. Additionally, many of the top iPhone games are already being ported to WP7 and have Xbox Live integration (Fruit Ninja, Pocket God, etc...) as well as some great original titles (The Harvest). I am not an Xbox user, but I must admit, I have fun tracking my accomplishments, tweaking my avatar, etc...
4. Live Tiles and a lock screen that actually tells me something. Why Apple does nothing with its lock screen is completely beyond me- there's so much wasted space. WP7 will show you your next appointment and number of text and email messages without having to unlock the phone. I also love the live tiles. The calendar tile (icon) displays your next appointment, the Weatherbug tile shows you the temperature, contacts show their latest FB status or uploaded picture- there's just more information available. They aren't as good as full blown Android Widgets, but get the job done and done well.
A physical back button and a physical camera button. You can wake the phone by depressing the camera button for 3 seconds and it's ready to shoot. Sure beats having to hit a button, unlock the phone, find the camera icon, and tap it. Also, having a back button is one of those things that you don't miss until you have one. For example: You're looking at your twitter timeline. There's a link, so you click it. It opens Internet Explorer. You read the page. You tap the back button and your back in your twitter app. It's so much easier- app developers don't have to include a built in web browser. Apple's implementation of multitasking is good, but the lack of physical buttons makes it feel clumsy- having to double tap the home button to bring up a list of apps, and then tap an icon is an extra, cumbersome step.
Cons:
1. No Cut, Copy, or Paste. Really???
2. No direct USB sync with Outlook. Not a big concern for me since all my contacts are in Gmail, but I understand this is a huge concern for a lot of people.
3. No multitasking or fast app switching. Kind of feels like iOS pre iOS4. At least the OS is smooth and responsive, but this needs to be implemented ASAP.
4. Skydrive integration with Office. When you sign up for a live account (necessary to purchase apps), you also get a skydrive account with 25GB of free storage. Why can't you use this to store Office documents??? This doesn't make any sense.
5. No multiple calendar support for Exchange, Gmail, or Windows Live calendars. WP7 can only sync the primary calendar of each of these services. Really??? This is a STUPID limitation that will hopefully be overcome soon.
6. No turn by turn directions in Bing maps. I know this is coming soon, but after having this in Android, I really miss it.
I'm sure there are other things I have missed, but those are the biggies for me. Oh, and BTW, your other comment, "locked to the super expensive proprietary Microsoft OS"???????
What do you think the iPhone is locked to? iOS is anything but open. This is not a criticism of Apple, just pointing out the fact that people who use a phone tightly locked down to one corporation (Apple) shouldn't throw stones at someone because they use a phone tightly locked down to another corporation (Microsoft).
Sorry for the long post. Peace.
Have you even tried one of these phones? They're STUPID simple. The camera app is a good example. Really easy, which is what old people want.
Only "old people" want easy? So what do all those not-old people want, needlessly complicated?
deleted
Only "old people" want easy? So what do all those not-old people want, needlessly complicated?
When did I say only old people?
Why did you reply to me?
If you're counting operating system numbers, you need to include iPod touch and iPad sales with the iPhone as they run the same operating system and the same apps.
He?s only counting thing that make the iPhone look bad. Why else would one compare HW to an OS?
MS still would not reveal numbers that actually matters.. How many sold to end-users?
EXACTLY! Who does Microsoft think they're dealing with? idiots? They don't think we can tell the difference between the number of units shipped to carriers and the actual number of units sold to end-users? They're obviously skirting the issue. They have no problems touting their Kinect sales. I guess the only people they'll fool are the the people who actually end up buying one of their phones. I give Microsoft credit for an interface that doesn't mimic iOS. At least they didn't go the Android route and copy iOS. But, they're setting themselves up to be an app-limited platform. That user interface wouldn't be very useful if you had more than apps. It would be a pain in the arse to navigate through 20 apps with huge tiles and no folders.
If you're counting operating system numbers, you need to include iPod touch and iPad sales with the iPhone as they run the same operating system and the same apps.
That graph comes from an Apple Insider article. I did not make it.
Everyone knows iPod sales are waning. Unless Apple releases an Itunes app for Android (and hell freezes over) Apple will start losing music retail market share.
http://www.tuaw.com/2010/05/17/mac-s...od-sales-down/
It is inevitable.