
Microsoft's Windows Phone 7 too little, too late - kqr2
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/10/24/BUUC1G00J3.DTL&type=business
======
pilif
What really concerns me about Windows Mobile 7 is the damage it's going to do
among mobile web applications. You see, right now, if you want to do a mobile
webapp, you can live in HTML5 land with working scripting, working DOM, good
CSS3-support and all other goodies.

Sure, there are differences between mobile browsers, but all major platforms
are now using webkit of some sort (and for those that don't, Fennec is
available which also works really well), so that's a solid foundation to build
upon.

And now WP7 arrives, brining us not IE9, not IE8, but IE7 (which by now is 4
years old already) in all its glory.

Up until today, you could get away by just ignoring WM6 and pointing the rare
user of that platform to Opera Mobile, but now, there's no more Opera Mobile
and the platform is about to get a lot more popular, so your app better works
in IE7 too.

This means to either provide two versions of your app, or go back to what we
have to do on the desktop too, which is progressive enhancement which
sometimes can really destroy the quality of your code and will, again, costs
hours upon hours of wasted effort
(<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1828586>).

Thanks Microsoft. Much appreciated.

~~~
robin_reala
We can only hope that either:

a) they release an OS update soon next year with an IE9 rendering engine

b) no-one buys the product

I actually suspect that both are likely, at least in Europe.

~~~
rbanffy
> a) they release an OS update soon next year with an IE9 rendering engine

Unlikely - Microsoft's strategy is to fragment every market it can't control
and prevent commoditization of the platform layer. The inclusion of a broken
IE was probably deliberate.

~~~
pilif
makes me think...

maybe it's time we developers stood up and said "no".

Let's stand together and declare that "working mobile web" just isn't a
feature of WP7. If you want the cool bling of todays mobile web, you'll have
to get any other phone aside of WP7. Any will do. Just not WP7.

~~~
thedeuce
That's fine, but you pay my salary to feed my family. Thanks!

~~~
pilif
what I meant was to shift our mindset. At least for me it has always been a
matter of honor to support all clients out there as equally well as possible
just because that's what we have done on the web ever since.

What I was thinking was to not do it this time around. Now if your customer
insists, explain the issue and add the IE tax (I'd say an additional 80% of
what you'd charge for the real-browser-only version). If your employer
insists, well, then you don't have too many options of course.

------
karterk
Too early to write them off too.

------
josephcooney
Even if Windows Phone 7 is not significantly better than the iPhone and
Android competition is a good thing, right? I've played with a device in store
and it seems OK-to-good in comparison to my iPhone 4 (which is quite good). I
think consumers will be better off if Windows Phone 7 is a credible phone
platform, regardless of whether they actually ever use it because it will keep
iPhone and Android improving.

~~~
melling
There is still Blackberry, webOS, and Nokia. Already lots of competition.
Adding Microsoft doesn't hurt but it's probably not helping much at this
point.

Also, I think Apple and Google know they need to improve, regardless of the
competition. They are both strong players vying to be the #1 in smart phones.

------
forgottenpaswrd
It seems like an interesting phone, and with all the money MS has they are
going to buy a lot of partnerships, marketting deals with it. A lot of people
could buy this thing and more important, will be used as an experiment for the
desktop.

I don't like it, through, I think the interface is so ugly(like the zune
external design), and the proof that MS guys had become lazy bastards that
just care about making stuff fast. Who knows, maybe people don't care about
detail.

------
akadien
This may give RIM some competition in the mobile enterprise space.

~~~
pilif
really? Isn't all the PR about WP7 really focussed on the consumer? You don't
read at all about the enterprise features (does it even have any?), but all is
full of Facebook, media sharing and stuff.

~~~
ghurlman
Office hub, SharePoint integration - yes, there's plenty there in the
enterprise space. I wouldn't be surprised if there wasn't a way to extend
Active Directory group policy to the devices already, or in the next update or
2.

------
DjDarkman
I found the UI unappealing and the heavy use of rotation effects amateurish.

Is this the best they can do? Draw rectangles...

Vertical list of applications??? Microsoft what have you been smoking?

And sorry but I just can't shake the feeling that the UI looks like some half-
baked demo.

Microsoft should have just copied the iPhone and Android, they would have had
a lot more success.

~~~
karterk
If they had done that, I am sure you would have commented here saying it looks
like a cheap imitation. Have you actually used the phone?

~~~
bad_user
That's my problem with Microsoft software ... they get hyped months or years
in advance with nobody actually using the damn product.

And when a product is hyped, you've got to expect a backslash when it doesn't
support basic functionality people got accustomed to.

I also think that if third-party integration like Twitter will be less than
what Facebook got ... WinMo 7 is basically screwed.

~~~
steverb
My understanding is that any app can register itself for any of the hubs, so I
don't see any technical reason why a twitter app can't go in the people hub.

No clue whose over-sight it is that the twitter app isn't already there.

