
Microsoft Launches Windows Phone 7 But Does Anyone Care? - stevefink
http://techcrunch.com/2010/10/11/microsoft-launches-windows-phone-7-but-does-anyone-care/
======
eogas
I think it's fantastic. As someone who has done a decent bit of iPhone
development, I can definitely say that I prefer developing in VS with C# than
XCode with Objective-C.

It's disheartening that so many bloggers are dismissing this awesome platform
simply because Microsoft is "late to the game", yet they forget how successful
Android has been. At this point, it looks like Google and Microsoft are fresh
and new, whereas Apple is trying to prolong the life of an old platform.

~~~
mikeryan
I think the fear for Windows being "late to the game" isn't that MS will have
a hard time getting mindshare, but I think they are going to have a hard time
getting "developer share".

Basically if I'm going to develop my hip new mobile app that's ready to take
over the world I'm going to start with Android and iPhone and wait and see
what OS I'm going to tackle next, and the way I'm going to figure that out is
by sales numbers and right now even there are more Palm devices then WP7.

~~~
gaustin
>I think the fear for Windows being "late to the game" isn't that MS will have
a hard time getting mindshare, but I think they are going to have a hard time
getting "developer share".

Microsoft already have huge developer mindshare. All they have to do is get
developers that already use their platforms to use yet another of their
platforms.

~~~
superjared
This is especially true since you develop for WP7 on proven and well-known
technologies (.Net-ish, C#, XNA). A great many developers are already
intimately familiar with these and will have little or no barrier of entry
with WP7.

------
luffy
I'm currently working on several applications for WP7. The development
experience for WP7 is a million-billion times better than it was for past
Windows Mobile operating systems.

\- The emulator is snappy and you don't need to mess around with ActiveSync.

\- I'm not a huge fan of the XAML (the Silverlight/WPF markup language), but
that is not an issue. I put a XAML place holder element in place and add
controls in C#

\- The built in controls look great and are surprisingly functional. I
specifically thinking of the Panorama control - which allows application
content to basically flow off screen. Some may find that style of having
content get cut off by the edge of the display off-putting, but its effective
if that truncated content is limited to titles.

\- putting XNA in there is great, mostly for familiarity's sake. You still
have to design for the phone differences (form factor, input, and library).
Porting games over from XBox live probably won't require an enormous app-
rewrite. Can't wait to see how this particular piece plays out.

The one drawback I can see has to do with Windows Phone store. I'm not really
sure what the story is there. Is app distribution really limited to the store?
How about enterprise apps?

I don't have experience developing iPhone or Android apps, so I won't comment
on whether or not WP7 is better in that department.

~~~
steverb
My limited number of contacts at MS tell me that an Enterprise deployment
solution is coming, but they couldn't get it done in time for the initial
release.

I hope it's better than Apple's solution.

~~~
allwein
What problems do you have with Apple's Enterprise deployment solution?

~~~
steverb
It's improved with IOS4 as you can now deploy wirelessly by having the users
visit a web site. With 3 the only way to deploy was using the configuration
utility or have the users install with iTunes.

What we keep begging them for is the ability to point out users at our own
enterprise app store, hosted on either Apple's servers or our own. It's also
what I keep telling MS whenever I get a chance.

------
makecheck
That article seemed incredibly long for something that failed to tell me even
a single thing about the phone, aside from it "looking great" or something.
Come on.

Though in a way, it almost doesn't matter. Microsoft _has_ to offer the
features of iPhone and Android to even be taken seriously, so we have to
assume that is just there. What they really need can't be seen through
promising text and screenshots, anyway: they really need _polish_.

Microsoft has been notoriously bad about leaving all kinds of holes in their
products, so that they look OK on stage but end up feeling clunky as hell. If
they are to have a chance this time, it is important that their phones feel
simple and logical; and, dare I say it, they should even be a _joy_ to use.
Microsoft will never earn my respect until they can prove that they get this,
and deliver it.

~~~
samstokes
Microsoft haven't launched a phone. They've launched a new version of their
phone OS.

------
runjake
The initial reviews have been great (even from Apple fanatics like Gruber,
Mossberg, and Pogue). The WP7 development environment is great and utilizes
APIs with a wealth of existing experience out there.

Sure they were late to the game, but from what I can see, they'll already
become a player. The same dismissals were issued against Microsoft for other
late-comers-that-became-hits like the XBOX series, Active Directory, and .NET.

~~~
daeken
I hate to say this, especially as an avid .NET fanboy, but I feel they missed
a huge opportunity here. If they would have layered a pure-managed userspace
on top of the CE kernel, they could've achieved extremely high performance
(shared GC and _seriously_ diminished task switching/IPC overhead) while
guaranteeing a huge degree of security at compile-time. In addition, they
could've much more easily moved the whole system to be orthogonally
persistent, which I believe will play a big roll in the mobile space as
tablets get more advanced, particularly.

The benefits of the OS being able to introspect completely on the applications
running on it simply can't be overstated. From a security, stability, speed,
memory use, and flexibility point of view, they missed the mark. It'd also
open up a lot of new avenues in terms of parallelism, which will be a big deal
in a few years as we get dual- and quad-core mobile chips. They're coming, and
yet again we're not ready for them.

I sincerely hope they go the pure-managed-userspace angle for WP8. If they do,
they'll have a tech stack that simply can't be beaten.

(Note: I'm a bit biased here, being the author of a pure-managed OS. But
seriously -- these guys really started the trend, why are they not taking full
advantage of it? They're already going mostly-managed...)

------
gte910h
Tons of people prefer the Microsoft environment.

Neither Google nor Apple have offered many of these people what they want in a
dev environment. Apple's required an odd language up until very recently, and
even the C# language you can write to doesn't do many of the things they're
used to doing C# in.

Android's development resources are capable, but Eclipse is a far cry from
Visual Studio...

I assume tons of people will flock to the Win7 Phones unless they are just
horrible once they get going.

Many game companies can target this platform much more easily than the
iPhone/Android handsets as it also works off XNA.

~~~
tomh-
The tools don't matter, it might be nice, but even though "tons of people
prefer the Microsoft environment" I can't recall the last time they produced a
product having superior user experience thanks to those tools. I can't name a
single website/webapp/desktop app that I enjoy using on a daily base made with
visual studio. I know a lot of the game companies use visual studio (c++) to
produce parts of their games, but I'm not sure which of the latest games are
produced using XNA.

My point is the tools don't matter as much as the strategy and decisions of
Microsoft in other parts of the ecosystem to attract talent to produce content
for their devices.

~~~
bananaandapple
I use windows 7 on a daily basis and I enjoy it! And I bet it's made with
visual studio.

~~~
sterwill
That may not be a safe assumption.

~~~
daeken
But it's a correct one. Razzle is used internally for building the kernel and
drivers, but the majority (I believe?) of the userspace is done using VS.

~~~
sterwill
I heard from a former Windows team member that Source Insight was popular a
few years ago, but things have probably changed.

------
acconrad
Not only is this article poorly written, but all of the subsequent TechCrunch
articles suck as well. As Homer Simpson once said, "You take forever to say
nothing."

------
vyrotek
I care. I actually want to try one out and hopefully get rid of my android
phone.

I must admit though, I'm mostly excited to write mobile apps in C# and use
XNA.

------
kenjackson
If you're writing a link-bait article about if anyone cares about a device the
day the devices are announced... that means people care. :-)

~~~
recoiledsnake
He even says 'eagerly awaited Windows Phone 7' to describe something that
supposedly no one cares about.

------
desigooner
I am a big fan of the UI. Snappy and minimalist. I know that Windows Phone has
music enabled in the background through the hub api for apps like Pandora and
Slacker, etc. All it needs is Copy/Paste (early 2011) and reasonable
multitasking capabilities atleast for certain apps. I think the most use of
Multi tasking for me on the iPhone right now is to toggle certain settings or
to do certain stuff during navigation. I don't really use it beyond that and
it's reasonable that most of the multitasking is done this way.

I've also played around with the Google Nexus One and the HTC Incredible.
While they're great phones in their own right, the touch screen experience
leaves a lot to be desired (atleast on those units) in terms of response time
and accuracy + the camera on nexus one is nowhere near the iphone 3GS, forget
iPhone 4.

Disclaimer: I have been using the iPhone since the past 3 years and currently
on the iPhone 4. I think it's time that I tried a new platform because I'm
simply bored of how the phone looks and how it operates (launch an app, exit
an app, etc. for everything). I like the way multitasking is implemented and
how well the camera performs. I've always had the craving for a hardware
keyboard and it seems like the new Dell phone with WP7 is a good replacement
for my phone, probably early next year.

------
loire280
The worst news about this phone is the web browser: IE7 based with IE8
technology. IE7's still-buggy, slow rendering; glacial Javascript performance;
no support for forward-thinking web technologies ("HTML5", canvas or webGL,
CSS3). I hope this doesn't take off, or this will ruin the currently fun,
Webkit-based mobile web development for modern smartphones..

Also, from a user's perspective: no Flash (at least initially) OR HTML5 video
tag support? It's like Microsoft's totally missed the last few years of mobile
phone flamewars.

~~~
kenjackson
In head to head comparison, the WP7 browser, in preproduction HW, performed
about on par with Android (Nexus One) and iPhone 4 browsers.

I'm sure that with IE9, they'll rev the phone with an HTML5 focused browser in
the future. But for todays web, I think a solid IE7/8 browser is something I'm
completely fine with. At least for a year or so.

------
16s
One aspect of the Windows phone that may be a big hit in corporations and
governments is whole device encryption. PGP (now owned by Symantec) can deploy
strong encryption to these Windows phones. Apple has always been difficult to
develop for in this area (lots of frequent changes ISP can't keep up) and they
tend to advertise to home users and I'm not sure about Android's whole device
encryption ability.

------
mmastrac
Microsoft's Kin failure is still in the back of my mind. What's to say they
won't kill this one too? Why take the development risk?

~~~
kenjackson
Big differences. MS is betting big on this, whereas with Kin it was a small
team that did it. Kin apparently had very little internal support. Kin wasn't
pushed by MS, but had a contractual obligation with Verizon. That's why Kin
launched on one carrier only. Apparently WP7 is launching on 60 carriers, with
9 or 10 different phones. The mobile, VS, Silverlight, XBox, Zune, and Office
teams are all apparently very engaged.

MS won't kill this. I wouldn't let that be a factor on doing development. Now
it may take a while for it to get consumer uptake. That may temper if you want
to develop for it. But given that this device should sell moderately well with
a good app store, it may have better ROI than the same app showing up in the
Android app store, even with the larger number of Android devices.

~~~
maguay
This time for Microsoft, it's win or die trying. And they know that.

------
jeroen
the article is at [http://www.mobilecrunch.com/2010/10/11/microsoft-launches-
wi...](http://www.mobilecrunch.com/2010/10/11/microsoft-launches-windows-
phone-7-but-does-anyone-care/)

------
TheIronYuppie
I'm with the crew that thinks it's pretty short sighted to just dismiss this
out of hand. Last time I checked, Xbox launched into a market place where
people change their consoles a lot less frequently, with a single ENORMOUS
player, and they've done pretty well for themselves.

The question is whether or not they get the amazing partnerships with HW/SW
that Apple has driven into the iPhone and let them crush design. Without that,
it'll be good, but not great and will not win the hipsters/design freaks.

------
drdaeman
I've heard WP7 has no compatibility whatsoever (so it's unable to run even
WM5/6 apps)? If that's true — am I understanding properly that MS is
introducing almost completely empty platform, which requires software to be
written yet?

I don't know whenever they will succeed or not, but it seems to be a hard task
to enter the market when all rivals already have quite strong positions
(including lots of software).

~~~
potatolicious
If anything I think that's the move they needed most - to toss everything out
and start new.

See for example: OS9 vs. OSX

The problem with MS, constantly, is that they have prioritized backwards
compatibility over just about everything else - often usability, stability,
and functionality. This has kept their platforms technologically backwards and
their usability an infamous joke.

It's about time that MS started fresh with a modern, relevant platform. I just
hope they can do something similar with desktop Windows.

~~~
Samuel_Michon
_I think that's the move they needed most - to toss everything out and start
new._

I wholeheartedly agree, and from everything that I've seen of WP7, I'm
impressed. MS has rethought the entire UI, and frankly, rebuilding from
scratch was the only thing they _could_ do to become relevant again in the
consumer mobile space. They've done away with the desktop metaphor, menu bars
and contextual menus, and yet they managed not to make it a carbon copy of iOS
or WebOS. I can't wait to test it.

However, just a side note about your comparison between OS9>OSX and WM6>WP7:
whenever there was a radical change in architecture, Apple provided a
transition period where the two coexisted. When Apple switched from 68k
processors to PowerPC, developers could build FAT Binaries that would run on
both platforms. When Apple switched from MacOS 9 to OS X, MacOS 9 apps could
still run within the Classic environment. When Apple switched from PowerPC to
Intel processors, PowerPC applications could still be run within a layer
called Rosetta.

~~~
kenjackson
Re backwards compat... I think MS did the right thing here making the
applications have to be managed. The WP7 managed stack seems really well-tuned
(especially for a mobile device).

Removing native code from 3rd party apps gives them several things:

1) Reduces incidence of memory leaks.

2) Less buggy apps w/ better type safety than C/C++.

3) Improved security. No buffer overruns or out of range subscript class of
vulns.

4) Can more easily statically analyze to determine resource usage and
inappropriate usage.

5) Can change the underlying HW platform and apps continue to run.

The only real issue I've seen with managed code in the past is perf. And from
the game demos I've seen, I think they may have fixed that issue.

~~~
charlesdm
WP7 seems really nice. However, since you have no native C++ support games
can't be ported from iPhone/Android. Basically you have to start from scratch
in XNA. Somehow I don't all that many games will be released on this platform.

~~~
kenjackson
I think you may be right. Although, I don't think that's a great loss. Outside
of literally a few games on iPhone, I think WP7 would do just as well with
their own batch of games. I think XNA is a very effecient platform so I don't
think developers need to port games. I wouldn't be surprised if there were
1,000+ games in mid-November.

------
DjDarkman
Give me a reason to care. Previous Windows Mobiles were crap and I am waiting
to see how is it better in any way than Android and iOS.

------
rbarooah
I hope it succeeds at least enough to give Apple some competition in
development tools.

~~~
Samuel_Michon
Apple doesn't need competition to motivate them. They've shown that by
reinventing the iPod every year even though there's no competition to speak
of. If anything, Apple is obsessive about innovating.

There's a major new version of the dev environment underway, Xcode 4, which
developers can already try for themselves:
<http://developer.apple.com/technologies/tools/whats-new.html>

------
amcl
I care. Competition is always good, regardless of whether I'd ever buy one or
not.

------
Anechoic
Will WP7 phones sync out-of-the-box with Macs?

~~~
usaar333
Don't believe so. Nor can you mount the media drive (as with Android). As a
Linux user, this'll keep me far away from Win7 phones (as it did with iphones)

