This is a particularly sad post. Calling out people because they have a different opinion than yours? We don't need biased group think.
If you want to know Microsoft's design principles, just go to the source: Bill Buxton and Albert Shum http://bit.ly/jkxZjv
Fascism? Really?
Thank you for calling my post out as particularly sad. I should say that I'd like to see Microsoft succeed with their different approach.
I'm not calling out people for their different opinion, I'm calling them out for having, or allowing, bad taste.
On their OPERATING SYSTEM!
The operating system on your phone or your computer is where you live with your machine.
So. Would you like to live in a house that is painted those colors? You would? Ok, I say you have bad taste. I would not want to hang out at your house and have glass of wine and a smoke. I would go crazy around those colors, like I go crazy when I have to use certain computers.
Yes we've been living under beige fascism -- Terence McKenna's term -- and now there's pastel fascism in the works, only I'd like to change it to animated pastel fascism. Fascism is about misleading and oppressing people with bad symbol systems. It's time to lift the burden of junk computing from the world, which has dragged us down for 25 years.
Microsoft is trying to get it. The video you link to shows two elegant guys working from the wrong direction -- from the left brain -- to design an OS. It's like they've analyzed a good user experience (guess whose) and come up with principles and strategies to "impliment" a new one. It doesn't work that way with art, which is what an OS should be. You design from the heart, or at worst from the whole right/left brain.
Microsoft, change your colors! Be more Zen and less zany!
By coincidence, Gruber links today to an exact contrast of the two designing styles, as evinced by their videos:
I have an HP AIO running a 64-bit version of W7 Home Premium. It uses an ultra-low voltage AMD Athlon II 250u @ 1.8GHz. Dual Core. Integrated GPU and 4GB DDR2 800 RAM. SATA II HD.
It ain't no rocket ship. It never gets hot like my 20 inch iMac Core 2 Duo (2GHz) did, but the fan purrs constantly. iTunes can push the CPU to its limits, and it is way slower than my iMac when it comes to converting music files.
I am more than happy with the system, as the screen is viewable. I had to part ways with the iMac, as my eyesight is not compatible with the Mac OS X accessibility features. Even now, I am pushing my visual limits to type this post.
With all that said, W7 is hunky - dorry. I consider my $500 closeout HP to be very useful. Think of it like the old Geo Metro. Press the accelerator to the floorboard and wait. Day to day tasks are no problem, and I know the limits of the machine. I am quite positive W8 will work fine, probably better.
It is nice to see a few open minded folks posting here. Not sure why AI even posts MS stuff here. Many posters will never have a kind word for the other side. Apple is still a better system, but MS is moving right along. They are loosing ground when it comes to being blind friendly, and Apple is gaining.
Actually, I just finished reading the 1998 book "Barbarians Led by Bill Gates" last night, and it described this interface along with saying Microsoft had been working on it since 1996. The only detail not mentioned was that it would use multitouch.
One of the authors of this 1998 book worked on tablet PC's for Microsoft in the early 1990's.
Indeed if we all actually think back to the 90s windows 95 and 98 could both have a webpage as the wallpaper. The future of windows was going to be integrating the internet into it. But then they were taken to court and the plan was put on hold, and they were ordered to make is possible to uninstall ie. Now the rest of the world has caught up and googles releasing an os with only a browser, they should be allowed to continue the dream.
Just to be fair though I think if googles os ever gains market share the eu should order then to give you a browser choice.
This answers quite a few questions that people have been posting.
Quote:
Originally Posted by nikon133
I can't see a reason why MS could not update their SkyDrive to match whatever iCloud will be doing. It already offers 25GB of free storage for anyone with MS Live account (which is also free to get).
I've got absolutely no doubt that they could, I'm hesitant to say they will though.
Microsoft have traditionally had a problem with product synergy mostly due to internal politics.
Microsoft seem to have most of the pieces. Lets say they pulled together Zune Marketplace, Zune Pass, Xbox Live Gold, Games for Windows, Skydrive, Live Mesh, Office Web Apps, Media Player sharing and Windows 7 libraries... then add the new Windows 8 Marketplace and they would have a pretty kick ass cloud services platform.
That said, there are some interesting things happening with the Airport base stations that I commented on here.
Microsoft could also create a private/public cloud mesh using an ARM based Windows Home Server appliance... however that would require hardware as well.
Well, this will be first Windows for tablets, so that part will be the most interesting - how well will it work, and how well will it sell? Additionally, what approach will MS take - sell to anyone interested (likely), or sell exclusively to one brand (Nokia?)... or differentiate somehow premium brand (again, Nokia?) from all the other me-toos.
Regarding profit, revenue... I'm not that sure. So far we basically had traditional PC market on MS side versus traditional PC market on Apple side significantly helped by iOS growth. With Windows 8, MS will finally do significant push into tablets, and by that time WP7 will be more mature and, hopefully, well supported by Nokia. Of course there are so many unknowns there, but considering number of Nokia-faithful I know, I wouldn't be surprised to see WP7 getting respectful market share once Nokia starts selling.
All in all, MS has more new markets to "conquer" than Apple at this stage, and should they be successful, more profit and revenue to gain. But all this is purely academic - of all knowns and unknowns, one thing is very certain - both companies will do more than well for years to come.
Um, no. This is NOT the first tablet edition of Windows. Try googling "Windows XP Tablet Edition".
Microsoft has been doing 'tablet' OS development for more than 10 years. It took Apple only a few months to sell more iPads than Microsoft had sold it's tablet edition over all that time.
Microsoft is a follower company. If Apple and Google didn't show them which direction to go, the UI on your phone would look very much like WinCE 6.0, and the current 'tablet' version of Windows would just get a touchup and shipped again [hell, they would still market that turd as "optimized"].
Microsoft is a follower company. If Apple and Google didn't show them which direction to go, the UI on your phone would look very much like WinCE 6.0, and the current 'tablet' version of Windows would just get a touchup and shipped again
I see just about every large company as a follower and a leader. The result depends on your point of reference.
Microsoft had been developing smartphones and tablets for 7 or 8 years before Apple came along and said "I think we can do something better"... which spurred Microsoft into action to improve their software... and so on and so forth.
I see just about every large company as a follower and a leader. The result depends on your point of reference.
Microsoft had been developing smartphones and tablets for 7 or 8 years before Apple came along and said "I think we can do something better"... which spurred Microsoft into action to improve their software... and so on and so forth.
But Microsoft hasn't been a leader. They made Wince (if ever there was a product name that suited it, this was it), which was a me-too OS, that didn't advance the cell phone market in any significant way. It just enabled similar features and capabilities as the competition, just using Microsoft-only API's in an (failed) attempt to dominate the cell phone market. WinPhone7 is similar, they make an touch OS for a candybar phone, with a large touchscreen and several buttons along the bottom. Everybody and their dog is making a phone like this, just like when MS came out with Wince 1.0, they used the current popular form factor back then.
Hell, when somebody else comes out with something new, they ridicule it (see Balmer when iPhone 1.0 was announced). Only once they realized that Apple was kicking their nuts into their head did they try slapping a touch UI onto Wince 6 (see Wince 6.5). And after that turd, they started on WinPhone 7, a me-too touch OS. And they are still losing marketshare.
But Microsoft hasn't been a leader. They made Wince (if ever there was a product name that suited it, this was it), which was a me-too OS, that didn't advance the cell phone market in any significant way. It just enabled similar features and capabilities as the competition, just using Microsoft-only API's in an (failed) attempt to dominate the cell phone market. WinPhone7 is similar, they make an touch OS for a candybar phone, with a large touchscreen and several buttons along the bottom. Everybody and their dog is making a phone like this, just like when MS came out with Wince 1.0, they used the current popular form factor back then.
Hell, when somebody else comes out with something new, they ridicule it (see Balmer when iPhone 1.0 was announced). Only once they realized that Apple was kicking their nuts into their head did they try slapping a touch UI onto Wince 6 (see Wince 6.5). And after that turd, they started on WinPhone 7, a me-too touch OS. And they are still losing marketshare.
Like firefly I see that as being the same for all large companies as well. Look at Apple TV, that didn't really advance thing other than having a nice interface and hasn't been an amazing success. At the same time MS released stats this week showing 40% of the time spent of Xbox's is for things other than playing games.
The iPhone also isn't 100% origional. For a start the touch interface was less about Apple inovating and more about them buying fingerworks. The home screen with it's grid of icons is obviously influenced by the fact the most popular phone from the 5 years before all had a grid of icons for their menus.
Its very hard to find an example of a large company releasing a product that isn't influenced by other popular products or was the result of purchasing another company with a good idea.
Like firefly I see that as being the same for all large companies as well. Look at Apple TV, that didn't really advance thing other than having a nice interface and hasn't been an amazing success. At the same time MS released stats this week showing 40% of the time spent of Xbox's is for things other than playing games.
The iPhone also isn't 100% origional. For a start the touch interface was less about Apple inovating and more about them buying fingerworks. The home screen with it's grid of icons is obviously influenced by the fact the most popular phone from the 5 years before all had a grid of icons for their menus.
Its very hard to find an example of a large company releasing a product that isn't influenced by other popular products or was the result of purchasing another company with a good idea.
You are confusing 'influenced' with 'derivative'. Yes, the phone has a speaker and a microphone. And a plug for a microphone/headset. Apple's iPhone reset the mobile phone industry. Balmer was dismissing it as a toy. Other's said it was impossible (to make the device work that well, be that small, and last that long on a battery). Now, everybody is making phones DIRECTLY DERIVATIVE of the iPhone. And everybody is jumping on the iPad bandwagon as well. And for some reason, app stores all seem to work similar to Apple's [yes, there were 'stores' that sold 'apps' before Apple's, but the experience is so completely different, it's like comparing an original model-t with a new Ferrari].
Hell, EVERYBODY wishes they could do OS updates to their phones the way Apple does. But for some reason, Apple doesn't have to vacuum the balls of the carriers dry like the rest of the industry does [including Microsoft] to get updates out.
And to try to claim they 'bought' their way into the game by buying Fingerworks [which was developing touch screen technology] is ridiculous. If you want an example of this [only done in a completely boneheaded way, wasting more than a billion dollars], Microsoft buying Danger, then shipping the Kin as the result would be on point. Putting together a device like the iPhone when nobody else made anything like it before, and buying a company working on developing a better part to be used with it is something entirely different. Apple had boatloads more work to do to create the application environment to actually use that touch hardware. Microsoft on the other hand, dicked around with internal politics, and forced the Danger guys to port their work to use Wince "because we told you to".
You are confusing 'influenced' with 'derivative'. Yes, the phone has a speaker and a microphone. And a plug for a microphone/headset. Apple's iPhone reset the mobile phone industry. Balmer was dismissing it as a toy. Other's said it was impossible (to make the device work that well, be that small, and last that long on a battery). Now, everybody is making phones DIRECTLY DERIVATIVE of the iPhone. And everybody is jumping on the iPad bandwagon as well. And for some reason, app stores all seem to work similar to Apple's [yes, there were 'stores' that sold 'apps' before Apple's, but the experience is so completely different, it's like comparing an original model-t with a new Ferrari].
Hell, EVERYBODY wishes they could do OS updates to their phones the way Apple does. But for some reason, Apple doesn't have to vacuum the balls of the carriers dry like the rest of the industry does [including Microsoft] to get updates out.
And to try to claim they 'bought' their way into the game by buying Fingerworks [which was developing touch screen technology] is ridiculous. If you want an example of this [only done in a completely boneheaded way, wasting more than a billion dollars], Microsoft buying Danger, then shipping the Kin as the result would be on point. Putting together a device like the iPhone when nobody else made anything like it before, and buying a company working on developing a better part to be used with it is something entirely different. Apple had boatloads more work to do to create the application environment to actually use that touch hardware. Microsoft on the other hand, dicked around with internal politics, and forced the Danger guys to port their work to use Wince "because we told you to".
Ballmer dismissing it as a toy is no different to Steve Jobs dismissing the concept of smartphones ever being better than individual devices. CEO's irruspective of their real beliefs will always say negative comments about other companies products.
I didn't say Apple bought their way into the game, I said the touch screen technology and the way you interact with the phone wasn't an origional idea by Apple but one they purchased. Products large companys bring out tend to contain a lot of ideas from smaller companies that they've bought, there's nothing wrong with it.
What Apple did with the iPhone was take the idea of smartphone that predates them although unpopular. Combine it with the popular phone interface layout of a grid of icons. Add in the touchscreen technology that they had purchased. Use the low powered processors developed by ARM so it could be thin and light. Then polish the whole thing off with OS X/Web 2 style of design. Yes they we're the first to do it and it switched us away form flip phones but they we're still influenced.
WP7 in the same way is influenced by continuing the same concept of having a big touch screen, but the software side of things is different. Rather than a grid of icons it has large panels that can either be just an icon or show information, then there's the whole text off screen and sideways swiping. I would challenge you to actually find a screen in both WP7 and iOS that actually look the same/similar (obviously the calculator doesn't count).
Android devices are a different story, some are origional and others are just complete copys of an iPhone.
WP7 in the same way is influenced by continuing the same concept of having a big touch screen, but the software side of things is different. Rather than a grid of icons it has large panels that can either be just an icon or show information, then there's the whole text off screen and sideways swiping.
I think WP7 is more than a different look, it's a different mobile phone paradigm. It is task based (as opposed to app based) and has common functionality, cloud integration and data aggregation built in to achieve that goal.
1. Solves the Windows touch user experience (UX) problem.
2. Will give a more consistent feel and UX between Windows PC's, tablets, and phones.
3. Uses HTML5, which might prevent Chrome OS from gaining too much traction and might also prevent WebOS from converting Windows users.
Cons:
1. Too little; too late.
2. Very little interest shown in Windows Phone 7 so far and let's not forget that whole Zune sales problem.
3. Although it looks a lot like WP7, apps aren't compatible and don't use the same coding languages. Would make sense if they allowed these apps to eventually work on Windows Phone.
4. Users hate change. Sometime they even react negatively when small changes are introduced. This is a big change from Windows 7 and what's worse is it could go completely unused by most users who choose to use the legacy UI. Didn't they learn anything from the consumer reactions to Vista?
5. Use of HTML5 could actually help Chrome OS and WebOS because HTML5 apps can easily be modified to work on those platforms or on the web.
Although it looks a lot like WP7, apps aren't compatible and don't use the same coding languages. Would make sense if they allowed these apps to eventually work on Windows Phone.
Sure they are! (but I'm making a few assumptions here based on what we know! )
Windows 8 rendering is supported by IE10.
IE10 supports the Silverlight plugin... and since the DoJ anti-trust oversight has ended I don't think Microsoft will have any issues bundling the Silverlight plug-in with IE10.
Microsoft brought XNA into Silverlight on WP7. I think games written in XNA will be able to completely run within the IE10 Silverlight plug-in.
This means Microsoft just need to support the WPx XNA/Silverlight runtime in Windows 8 and they will have cross platform compatibility.
Just Windows with a tablet skin running on top. I "get it", because it still allows you to run the entire Windows catalog, but I'm still unimpressed.
I wonder if it isn't sort of an "emulation of Windows API in HTML5" layer?
It seems like the writer is unaware that Microsoft is FOLLOWING the industry with this, and that the "touch" interface is going to be in Lion and Apple has been working to bring the IOS features to not only the desktop, but also Airport.
Well, when it SHIPS, then we can see if it is something awesome. I don't know how this is really going to improve things for users or developers though. Sounds like just a "skin" or another "virtualization" layer -- which Microsoft has invested heavily in.
Comments
@Flaneur #120
This is a particularly sad post. Calling out people because they have a different opinion than yours? We don't need biased group think.
If you want to know Microsoft's design principles, just go to the source: Bill Buxton and Albert Shum http://bit.ly/jkxZjv
Fascism? Really?
Thank you for calling my post out as particularly sad. I should say that I'd like to see Microsoft succeed with their different approach.
I'm not calling out people for their different opinion, I'm calling them out for having, or allowing, bad taste.
On their OPERATING SYSTEM!
The operating system on your phone or your computer is where you live with your machine.
So. Would you like to live in a house that is painted those colors? You would? Ok, I say you have bad taste. I would not want to hang out at your house and have glass of wine and a smoke. I would go crazy around those colors, like I go crazy when I have to use certain computers.
Yes we've been living under beige fascism -- Terence McKenna's term -- and now there's pastel fascism in the works, only I'd like to change it to animated pastel fascism. Fascism is about misleading and oppressing people with bad symbol systems. It's time to lift the burden of junk computing from the world, which has dragged us down for 25 years.
Microsoft is trying to get it. The video you link to shows two elegant guys working from the wrong direction -- from the left brain -- to design an OS. It's like they've analyzed a good user experience (guess whose) and come up with principles and strategies to "impliment" a new one. It doesn't work that way with art, which is what an OS should be. You design from the heart, or at worst from the whole right/left brain.
Microsoft, change your colors! Be more Zen and less zany!
By coincidence, Gruber links today to an exact contrast of the two designing styles, as evinced by their videos:
http://daringfireball.net/ (about Red Pop, don't miss it -- ok, here's a direct link to the exemplar video; notice the colors he has around him: http://red-pop.com/#!prettyPhoto/0/ )
Not with Windows 7 Starter Edition, you mean.
I have an HP AIO running a 64-bit version of W7 Home Premium. It uses an ultra-low voltage AMD Athlon II 250u @ 1.8GHz. Dual Core. Integrated GPU and 4GB DDR2 800 RAM. SATA II HD.
It ain't no rocket ship. It never gets hot like my 20 inch iMac Core 2 Duo (2GHz) did, but the fan purrs constantly. iTunes can push the CPU to its limits, and it is way slower than my iMac when it comes to converting music files.
I am more than happy with the system, as the screen is viewable. I had to part ways with the iMac, as my eyesight is not compatible with the Mac OS X accessibility features. Even now, I am pushing my visual limits to type this post.
With all that said, W7 is hunky - dorry. I consider my $500 closeout HP to be very useful. Think of it like the old Geo Metro. Press the accelerator to the floorboard and wait. Day to day tasks are no problem, and I know the limits of the machine. I am quite positive W8 will work fine, probably better.
It is nice to see a few open minded folks posting here. Not sure why AI even posts MS stuff here. Many posters will never have a kind word for the other side. Apple is still a better system, but MS is moving right along. They are loosing ground when it comes to being blind friendly, and Apple is gaining.
Gee, guess that is all I got to say about that.
Actually, I just finished reading the 1998 book "Barbarians Led by Bill Gates" last night, and it described this interface along with saying Microsoft had been working on it since 1996. The only detail not mentioned was that it would use multitouch.
One of the authors of this 1998 book worked on tablet PC's for Microsoft in the early 1990's.
Indeed if we all actually think back to the 90s windows 95 and 98 could both have a webpage as the wallpaper. The future of windows was going to be integrating the internet into it. But then they were taken to court and the plan was put on hold, and they were ordered to make is possible to uninstall ie. Now the rest of the world has caught up and googles releasing an os with only a browser, they should be allowed to continue the dream.
Just to be fair though I think if googles os ever gains market share the eu should order then to give you a browser choice.
This answers quite a few questions that people have been posting.
I can't see a reason why MS could not update their SkyDrive to match whatever iCloud will be doing. It already offers 25GB of free storage for anyone with MS Live account (which is also free to get).
I've got absolutely no doubt that they could, I'm hesitant to say they will though.
Microsoft have traditionally had a problem with product synergy mostly due to internal politics.
Microsoft seem to have most of the pieces. Lets say they pulled together Zune Marketplace, Zune Pass, Xbox Live Gold, Games for Windows, Skydrive, Live Mesh, Office Web Apps, Media Player sharing and Windows 7 libraries... then add the new Windows 8 Marketplace and they would have a pretty kick ass cloud services platform.
That said, there are some interesting things happening with the Airport base stations that I commented on here.
Microsoft could also create a private/public cloud mesh using an ARM based Windows Home Server appliance... however that would require hardware as well.
I just took an old project and pivoted it to make easy to develop applications for windows 8.
Check it out at http://metrodynamis.com
Is very very alpha
Well, this will be first Windows for tablets, so that part will be the most interesting - how well will it work, and how well will it sell? Additionally, what approach will MS take - sell to anyone interested (likely), or sell exclusively to one brand (Nokia?)... or differentiate somehow premium brand (again, Nokia?) from all the other me-toos.
Regarding profit, revenue... I'm not that sure. So far we basically had traditional PC market on MS side versus traditional PC market on Apple side significantly helped by iOS growth. With Windows 8, MS will finally do significant push into tablets, and by that time WP7 will be more mature and, hopefully, well supported by Nokia. Of course there are so many unknowns there, but considering number of Nokia-faithful I know, I wouldn't be surprised to see WP7 getting respectful market share once Nokia starts selling.
All in all, MS has more new markets to "conquer" than Apple at this stage, and should they be successful, more profit and revenue to gain. But all this is purely academic - of all knowns and unknowns, one thing is very certain - both companies will do more than well for years to come.
Um, no. This is NOT the first tablet edition of Windows. Try googling "Windows XP Tablet Edition".
Microsoft has been doing 'tablet' OS development for more than 10 years. It took Apple only a few months to sell more iPads than Microsoft had sold it's tablet edition over all that time.
Microsoft is a follower company. If Apple and Google didn't show them which direction to go, the UI on your phone would look very much like WinCE 6.0, and the current 'tablet' version of Windows would just get a touchup and shipped again [hell, they would still market that turd as "optimized"].
Microsoft is a follower company. If Apple and Google didn't show them which direction to go, the UI on your phone would look very much like WinCE 6.0, and the current 'tablet' version of Windows would just get a touchup and shipped again
I see just about every large company as a follower and a leader. The result depends on your point of reference.
Microsoft had been developing smartphones and tablets for 7 or 8 years before Apple came along and said "I think we can do something better"... which spurred Microsoft into action to improve their software... and so on and so forth.
I see just about every large company as a follower and a leader. The result depends on your point of reference.
Microsoft had been developing smartphones and tablets for 7 or 8 years before Apple came along and said "I think we can do something better"... which spurred Microsoft into action to improve their software... and so on and so forth.
But Microsoft hasn't been a leader. They made Wince (if ever there was a product name that suited it, this was it), which was a me-too OS, that didn't advance the cell phone market in any significant way. It just enabled similar features and capabilities as the competition, just using Microsoft-only API's in an (failed) attempt to dominate the cell phone market. WinPhone7 is similar, they make an touch OS for a candybar phone, with a large touchscreen and several buttons along the bottom. Everybody and their dog is making a phone like this, just like when MS came out with Wince 1.0, they used the current popular form factor back then.
Hell, when somebody else comes out with something new, they ridicule it (see Balmer when iPhone 1.0 was announced). Only once they realized that Apple was kicking their nuts into their head did they try slapping a touch UI onto Wince 6 (see Wince 6.5). And after that turd, they started on WinPhone 7, a me-too touch OS. And they are still losing marketshare.
But Microsoft hasn't been a leader. They made Wince (if ever there was a product name that suited it, this was it), which was a me-too OS, that didn't advance the cell phone market in any significant way. It just enabled similar features and capabilities as the competition, just using Microsoft-only API's in an (failed) attempt to dominate the cell phone market. WinPhone7 is similar, they make an touch OS for a candybar phone, with a large touchscreen and several buttons along the bottom. Everybody and their dog is making a phone like this, just like when MS came out with Wince 1.0, they used the current popular form factor back then.
Hell, when somebody else comes out with something new, they ridicule it (see Balmer when iPhone 1.0 was announced). Only once they realized that Apple was kicking their nuts into their head did they try slapping a touch UI onto Wince 6 (see Wince 6.5). And after that turd, they started on WinPhone 7, a me-too touch OS. And they are still losing marketshare.
Like firefly I see that as being the same for all large companies as well. Look at Apple TV, that didn't really advance thing other than having a nice interface and hasn't been an amazing success. At the same time MS released stats this week showing 40% of the time spent of Xbox's is for things other than playing games.
The iPhone also isn't 100% origional. For a start the touch interface was less about Apple inovating and more about them buying fingerworks. The home screen with it's grid of icons is obviously influenced by the fact the most popular phone from the 5 years before all had a grid of icons for their menus.
Its very hard to find an example of a large company releasing a product that isn't influenced by other popular products or was the result of purchasing another company with a good idea.
Like firefly I see that as being the same for all large companies as well. Look at Apple TV, that didn't really advance thing other than having a nice interface and hasn't been an amazing success. At the same time MS released stats this week showing 40% of the time spent of Xbox's is for things other than playing games.
The iPhone also isn't 100% origional. For a start the touch interface was less about Apple inovating and more about them buying fingerworks. The home screen with it's grid of icons is obviously influenced by the fact the most popular phone from the 5 years before all had a grid of icons for their menus.
Its very hard to find an example of a large company releasing a product that isn't influenced by other popular products or was the result of purchasing another company with a good idea.
You are confusing 'influenced' with 'derivative'. Yes, the phone has a speaker and a microphone. And a plug for a microphone/headset. Apple's iPhone reset the mobile phone industry. Balmer was dismissing it as a toy. Other's said it was impossible (to make the device work that well, be that small, and last that long on a battery). Now, everybody is making phones DIRECTLY DERIVATIVE of the iPhone. And everybody is jumping on the iPad bandwagon as well. And for some reason, app stores all seem to work similar to Apple's [yes, there were 'stores' that sold 'apps' before Apple's, but the experience is so completely different, it's like comparing an original model-t with a new Ferrari].
Hell, EVERYBODY wishes they could do OS updates to their phones the way Apple does. But for some reason, Apple doesn't have to vacuum the balls of the carriers dry like the rest of the industry does [including Microsoft] to get updates out.
And to try to claim they 'bought' their way into the game by buying Fingerworks [which was developing touch screen technology] is ridiculous. If you want an example of this [only done in a completely boneheaded way, wasting more than a billion dollars], Microsoft buying Danger, then shipping the Kin as the result would be on point. Putting together a device like the iPhone when nobody else made anything like it before, and buying a company working on developing a better part to be used with it is something entirely different. Apple had boatloads more work to do to create the application environment to actually use that touch hardware. Microsoft on the other hand, dicked around with internal politics, and forced the Danger guys to port their work to use Wince "because we told you to".
You are confusing 'influenced' with 'derivative'. Yes, the phone has a speaker and a microphone. And a plug for a microphone/headset. Apple's iPhone reset the mobile phone industry. Balmer was dismissing it as a toy. Other's said it was impossible (to make the device work that well, be that small, and last that long on a battery). Now, everybody is making phones DIRECTLY DERIVATIVE of the iPhone. And everybody is jumping on the iPad bandwagon as well. And for some reason, app stores all seem to work similar to Apple's [yes, there were 'stores' that sold 'apps' before Apple's, but the experience is so completely different, it's like comparing an original model-t with a new Ferrari].
Hell, EVERYBODY wishes they could do OS updates to their phones the way Apple does. But for some reason, Apple doesn't have to vacuum the balls of the carriers dry like the rest of the industry does [including Microsoft] to get updates out.
And to try to claim they 'bought' their way into the game by buying Fingerworks [which was developing touch screen technology] is ridiculous. If you want an example of this [only done in a completely boneheaded way, wasting more than a billion dollars], Microsoft buying Danger, then shipping the Kin as the result would be on point. Putting together a device like the iPhone when nobody else made anything like it before, and buying a company working on developing a better part to be used with it is something entirely different. Apple had boatloads more work to do to create the application environment to actually use that touch hardware. Microsoft on the other hand, dicked around with internal politics, and forced the Danger guys to port their work to use Wince "because we told you to".
Ballmer dismissing it as a toy is no different to Steve Jobs dismissing the concept of smartphones ever being better than individual devices. CEO's irruspective of their real beliefs will always say negative comments about other companies products.
I didn't say Apple bought their way into the game, I said the touch screen technology and the way you interact with the phone wasn't an origional idea by Apple but one they purchased. Products large companys bring out tend to contain a lot of ideas from smaller companies that they've bought, there's nothing wrong with it.
What Apple did with the iPhone was take the idea of smartphone that predates them although unpopular. Combine it with the popular phone interface layout of a grid of icons. Add in the touchscreen technology that they had purchased. Use the low powered processors developed by ARM so it could be thin and light. Then polish the whole thing off with OS X/Web 2 style of design. Yes they we're the first to do it and it switched us away form flip phones but they we're still influenced.
WP7 in the same way is influenced by continuing the same concept of having a big touch screen, but the software side of things is different. Rather than a grid of icons it has large panels that can either be just an icon or show information, then there's the whole text off screen and sideways swiping. I would challenge you to actually find a screen in both WP7 and iOS that actually look the same/similar (obviously the calculator doesn't count).
Android devices are a different story, some are origional and others are just complete copys of an iPhone.
WP7 in the same way is influenced by continuing the same concept of having a big touch screen, but the software side of things is different. Rather than a grid of icons it has large panels that can either be just an icon or show information, then there's the whole text off screen and sideways swiping.
I think WP7 is more than a different look, it's a different mobile phone paradigm. It is task based (as opposed to app based) and has common functionality, cloud integration and data aggregation built in to achieve that goal.
1. Solves the Windows touch user experience (UX) problem.
2. Will give a more consistent feel and UX between Windows PC's, tablets, and phones.
3. Uses HTML5, which might prevent Chrome OS from gaining too much traction and might also prevent WebOS from converting Windows users.
Cons:
1. Too little; too late.
2. Very little interest shown in Windows Phone 7 so far and let's not forget that whole Zune sales problem.
3. Although it looks a lot like WP7, apps aren't compatible and don't use the same coding languages. Would make sense if they allowed these apps to eventually work on Windows Phone.
4. Users hate change. Sometime they even react negatively when small changes are introduced. This is a big change from Windows 7 and what's worse is it could go completely unused by most users who choose to use the legacy UI. Didn't they learn anything from the consumer reactions to Vista?
5. Use of HTML5 could actually help Chrome OS and WebOS because HTML5 apps can easily be modified to work on those platforms or on the web.
Although it looks a lot like WP7, apps aren't compatible and don't use the same coding languages. Would make sense if they allowed these apps to eventually work on Windows Phone.
Sure they are! (but I'm making a few assumptions here based on what we know!
Just Windows with a tablet skin running on top. I "get it", because it still allows you to run the entire Windows catalog, but I'm still unimpressed.
I wonder if it isn't sort of an "emulation of Windows API in HTML5" layer?
It seems like the writer is unaware that Microsoft is FOLLOWING the industry with this, and that the "touch" interface is going to be in Lion and Apple has been working to bring the IOS features to not only the desktop, but also Airport.
Well, when it SHIPS, then we can see if it is something awesome. I don't know how this is really going to improve things for users or developers though. Sounds like just a "skin" or another "virtualization" layer -- which Microsoft has invested heavily in.
Still a lot of questions about this new OS
http://www.windows8update.com