A few days ago, on October 11, 2010, Microsoft finally unveiled its brand new mobile operating system – Windows Phone 7. 7 days later, today on October 18, my Opera feed is still filled with stories on WP7. There’s no doubt that Microsoft has successfully created a huge buzz surrounding WP7. And why shouldn’t it ? From what I see, WP7 is one of the best mobile OSes out there.The feedback was mostly positive but of course there was also a bunch
of people who thought that Windows Phone 7 will be a failure. Here’s a run down on some of my thoughts and some reactions from the blogosphere after the launch of Windows Phone 7.
I will start the run down with the positives.
[ad#Google Adsense-1]
The most intriguing factor about Windows Phone 7 is the consistent experience it will be delivering. Microsoft has set very strict guidelines for manufactures so that the user doesn’t feel any kind of lag or sluggishness while using a WP7 device. Also the OEMs cannot change the home screen drastically unlike Android. They can only add custom hubs to start page (which can be removed). This ensures that the user has a consistent experience whether they are using a device from HTC, Samsung, LG or Dell.
The new Metro user interface hasn’t changed a lot form what we saw in February. It is fast, slick and has some cool animations. Although Microsoft doesn’t allow lot of scope for customization of its interface unlike Android, the user can add, remove and move around the built-in as well as application hubs as desired. You can read more about Windows Phone 7 hubs in this post that i did on February.
Updates are rolled out through Microsoft. One of the big problems about Android was that only a very few devices could have been updated directly. For others the updates were rolled out through the OEMs. We can still find many devices running Android 1.6 even now. With Windows Phone 7, the updates will be rolled out by Microsoft and all devices will be updated at once regardless of their carrier or manufacturer.
Xbox Live Integration. You can now connect your Xbox live account to your Windows Phone and get your avatar, achievements and points on your WP7 device. EA has already announced 4 game titles including NFS and The Simps for Windows Phone 7.
Below are two excerpts from two different posts by two popular gentlemen.
It’s too bad, really. Windows Phone 7 looks great to me. I believe Microsoft really nailed the overall design philosophy behind it. Windows Phone 7 is about communication, not apps. That’s a key difference and one that I, as a Droid X owner, greatly appreciate and understand. This platform is in a way the Google of mobile OSs in that it wants you to get your information as quickly as possible. Awesome, but it’s still a few years too late.
I think the screen shots I’ve seen are interesting, but look, the world doesn’t need another platform. Android is free and open; I think the only reason you create another platform is for political reasons.
The former is by Tech Crunch’s Matt Burns and the latter ‘s by Andy Rubins of Google, in an interview to PCMag. The essence of both of the excerpts are same – Windows Phone 7 is too late to arrive.
Now I couldn’t resist laughing at both of the above posts especially the latter. Considering the fact that Google’s work on Google TV is considered a bit late, the statement from Google’s own Vice President of Engineering is quite amusing and if you ask me – funny.
Manan Kakkar has written an excellent post on The Next Web on the WP7 – late entry topic. Read it here. As the author of the post says, its not the date of entry into the market, its the quality of the product that matters.
No comments:
Post a Comment