anyweb Posted October 22, 2010 Report post Posted October 22, 2010 Windows Phone 7 looks great At first I thought the name was OK. Now I realize it's really not. Android is an operating system, and the collective name for phones running Android is hence "Android phones". Windows Phone 7 is an operating system, so the phones are... Windows Phone 7 phones? Eeew. Some have suggested that they're just "Windows phones", but that's silly too; it could just as well apply to Windows Mobile phones, and in any case, they're not running Windows. OK, I know behind the scenes they're running Windows CE, but that's not "Windows" in the way that people generally understand the term. And there are no windows on this phone anyway. Its applications are all full-screen and chromeless. It's clear why Microsoft named it that way—Windows 7 is a hugely successful brand that the company wants to exploit the good name of—it just doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Shoulda just called it ZuneOS, made them into ZunePhones, and then not have to suffer some silly renaming process (a la iPhone OS to iOS) when shipping it for tablets. ZuneOS, ZunePhones, ZuneTablets. Yup yup. Will it succeed? Windows Phone 7 is seen as Microsoft's last roll of the die in the smartphone space. Windows Mobile is all but dead and buried, KIN already is dead and buried, and if Windows Phone 7 doesn't succeed, it's easy to see the company just cutting its losses and abandoning the market entirely. "Success" is ill-defined for a product like this, but a good start would be for Microsoft phones to no longer be regarded as a joke (or a nightmare), and year one sales numbered in the tens of millions. When the first rumors about Windows Phone 7 circulated, people were astonished that Microsoft were completely discarding Windows Mobile and starting from scratch. Not just starting from scratch, but releasing a product that would be feature-deficient relative to everything else on the market. But it's not clear that there was any alternative, and for a general-purpose, consumer-friendly smartphone operating system, Windows Phone 7 is, even with its flaws, streets ahead of Windows Mobile. Whether Redmond will win over iPhone and Android customers with this initial release is hard to say—though I know a number of iPhone users who are seriously considering the platform—but it probably doesn't have to, anyway. Most existing mobile phone users don't have a smartphone. If Microsoft can win them over, it doesn't much matter about other smartphone users. Yes, Microsoft is late to the game, but it's a game that's still in its early stages. The new interface is brave. The use of hubs in preference to dozens of discrete applications requires a different way of thinking about the phone, and some may find this change jarring. It all makes sense and has been implemented well, though, so I suspect that anyone who actually gives the phone a try will get it. The only thing that comes close to this aspect of Windows Phone 7 is webOS, and even it does not take the unification concept as far as Microsoft has done. The hardware is solid, and the specification is pitched at the right level: poor performance and bad animations will tend to sour people on the platform, and by pushing for a high specification, Microsoft has ensured that the user experience will be as high-quality as the software. If anything, I almost wish the company had been a little less conservative in this regard; something like the webOS touch panel would have afforded exciting possibilities, even if it is somewhat exotic or unusual. The fact that most of the problems I have with the phone are things it doesn't do at all (but which can be added in software updates), rather than things it does do but does poorly, is I think an indication that Microsoft has ultimately succeeded in its goals for the first Windows Phone 7 release. The platform will not do well in checklist feature comparisons, but when it comes down to human interaction and using the thing, this software is a winner. Microsoft doesn't often get version one releases right, but this time, it has got the release very right indeed. Windows Phone 7 looks great, works well, and is a treat to use. Market success isn't assured, but judged on its merits alone, this is a platform that absolutely deserves to succeed, and I really, really hope it does. read the entire review > http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/reviews/2010/10/windows-phone-7-the-ars-review.ars/ Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
