I’ve spent almost a full year with my LG Windows 7 smartphone now, so here is my look back on that year.
A Year With Windows Phone
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Category Archives: Mobile
Blocking Stores
Recently, after an Apple Terms of Service change the Audible and Amazon Kindle apps had to update their apps removing links to their respective online stores. I’m assuming this is to force people to use the iTunes and iBooks stores instead. I think this is anti-competitive in its own right, but there is another problem I see for Apple here…
Apple has deliberately ruined the user experience for me on their devices! I can now buy books easier on other devices than I can on the iPad.
I do not feel compelled to use Apples stores instead because I already use these other services.
I wonder if this will ever cause people to stop using Apple products?
The Mobile Web Browser
Remember back in the days of the browser wars? We chose a browser and that was what defined our web experience. In the end Microsoft won with Internet Explorer. They had the desktop marketshare and IE was integrated into the OS to the point that it was (arguably) the fastest and easiest to use. Eventually sites were just built for IE only, or Netscape Navigator only. But a new browser war is forming. In these “modern times” the web browsers are integrated into the phone’s OS as IE was with Windows 95, and we pretty much live with them the way they are: Safari on iPhone, whatever is labeled “Browser” on the Android and BlackBerry, Internet Explorer on Windows Phone, etc.. But a new battle for browser market-share is forming with Opera and Mozilla drawing battle lines.
This is How Microsoft Sells Windows Phone 7 To Me?
So Microsoft released Windows Phone 7 last week. I’ve talked about the phone before. I was pretty disappointed with their ads though:
YouTube: Season of the Witch
I’m baffled. The way the ad looks to me someone was texting while driving and almost killed everyone in the commercial! And then everyone is too busy texting about it to notice each other…
It’s time for a phone to save us from our phones is the big take-away line. The problem I see with this ad is that it condemns all phones as causing accidents and distracting people.
Microsoft: people love using their phones! I do, even my lousy Storm. Phones are distracting because they’re good. Sell me a phone I want to use and does the things I need. In a way, I think that is what you’re saying, but I’m seeing something different.
Windows Phone 7 Thoughts
Yesterday I saw a preview of a Windows Phone 7 (WP7, or #WP7 on Twitter) when Joey deVilla and John Bristowe were in town for a one day coffee and code at a Second Cup in downtown Edmonton.
I’m not going to do a big preview of the phone, I didn’t get that kind of access. I tried out a demo phone running Windows Phone 7 software. Engadget did a great preview with lots of details. Is Windows 7 going to kill the iPhone? I really doubt it. Will it kill Android? I think its likely to take a lot of market from Android, but I’ll talk about that later.
I’m not interested in Apps. WP7 will have Twitter apps, and has Facebook integration built in. Probably a lot of the popular iPhone and Android software will eventually get ported over to WP7. As a web developer I am most interested in the web browsing experience, and it looked pretty good. Continue reading