Manan Kakkar just blogged about how some of Microsoft's iOS apps are a bad thing for Microsoft, and how the SkyDrive app for WP7 is useless to him. I'd like to use this blog post as a response to some of his remarks, criticisms and rants.
Kinectimals for iOS leaves no USP for the Microsoft ecosystem in the living room
I agree with Manan that there was an implicit promise of Windows Phone working very closely with Xbox and Windows in a way that iOS and Android could not and would not. At the same time, you have to remember - Microsoft is clearly pitching Xbox as a platform. If they want the Xbox to become a platform, they will need many more consoles out in homes. At the same time, the reality is that most Xbox users are most likely users of iOS devices of some shape or form.
Giving a taste of how a mobile device can work tightly with the Xbox gives Microsoft several wins:
Exposes a Microsoft Studio game (in this case) to iOS users. If they don't have an Xbox and they like the game, they may start thinking about it.
Shows how Microsoft can integrate the mobile phone into its console. "With Windows Phone, the experience would be even tighter" could be the carrot.
If the iOS user already has an Xbox, they may be tempted to look at other add-ons for the game, perhaps other games, other content, etc. In other words, fueling the increased use of the console, leading to potential increase in revenues related to Xbox content.
All of these create the vicious circle of creating a bigger market for the console as well as selling more content off the console. For a platform company, is there a better recipe?
Microsoft is at a very interesting stage in its history. For the first time since it became the most dominant company in the world, it is facing a world where its operating system (note: not "software") may not be the most popular system. The world is moving towards smaller, lighter computing devices where so far, we have not seen Windows at all. Until we see Windows 8 succeed, we will continue with the argument that Microsoft is not a player in this new world where PCs will be outsold by smart devices which do not run Windows.
Why should I own a Windows Phone and not an iPhone, if the Xbox integration is going to be so tight with the iPhone?
First, I don't think every game is going to be made available on iOS. Kinectimals is one of those games Microsoft may be toying with, to see if there is any sense in pursuing that market.
So from a user perspective, you can be assured that Windows Phone will continue to have Xbox LIVE games which won't be on any other platforms, it will be the only platform with Xbox Achievements, and if there are games which get on iOS, Windows Phone will get them first for sure. It may not be a convincing argument, but frankly, if it were a convinving argument, Windows Phone would have sold way more than it has already.
Clearly, users don't really care much about Xbox on their phones enough to keep it a strict exclusive.
You bring one game, you have to bring all
I am not sure why they should be forced to bring every game with such tight integration. They chose this game just like EA Games or Pop Cap Games chose to bring one or two games to Windows Phone. I don't see any logical reason to bring every single title to iOS necessarily.
WP7 SkyDrive app is useless
This one confused me. Not because there is no basis for Manan's point. WP7 after all has an extremely efficient concept of Hubs which in fact avoid the need to have separate apps for each service. In that regard, my SkyDrive pics/vids can, and are available in the Pictures Hub. Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote can, and are available in the Office Hub. So I'd call the new SkyDrive app redundant in some ways, but not useless.
SkyDrive app provides a single place to see "your personal cloud". What about generic files on SkyDrive you may have uploaded, like for example, an AutoCAD file? Where would you find that file on the current WP7? Nowhere, actually.
SkyDrive app allows creation/modification of folders and deletion of files. Given that Microsoft is pitching SkyDrive against the likes of Dropbox and box.net, having a "drive" to access in one place would be better than spreading it all over the place.
SkyDrive app allows you to selectively share files/folders via links for read and read/write scenarios. Again, tying this back to using SkyDrive as a cloud storage option, it is easier to have all the stuff in one place.
Hubs are meant to make it easy to see and share stuff that you care about like Pictures, Music, Office docs, etc. The purpose of the SkyDrive app is not to just let you browse the stuff, but also allow it to be selectively shared with others.
Finally, I believe Manan has concluded that the app is useless because it does not serve two of his wishes (more than being really useless) - being able to save an attachment to SkyDrive, and being able to see files on other PCs and devices from SkyDrive. The former is a missing feature of the Mail application and perhaps of the OS itself (not exposing the file system) and the latter is a missing feature of SkyDrive the service. Neither is a shortcoming of the SkyDrive app.
By having an app, Microsoft can also rev it faster than the OS updates, much like Google's apps on Android which are now de-coupled from the OS itself.
I feel bad having the need to write a long response but twitter's 140 characters were just not enough to make my point.
Manan, cheers :-)
SkyDrive app? It's as if the Gods at Redmond have finally heard the prayers of the peasants! Not very useful on WP7 though.
Steve Ballmer moves Andy Lees out of his position as President of Windows Phone. Terry Myerson takes over for Andy Lees, who moves to an interesting role.
Freaking hilarious. Snarks aside, he has absolutely nailed the double standards Molly showed during the 2-week trial. She would rather have a broken Android than a Windows Phone. She did not like that there was no turn-by-turn navigation in Windows Phone, but has no reason not to let her friends choose the iPhone over Windows Phone, while iPhone does not have turn-by-turn navigation either. Nor does it have her other wanted feature, compose email by voice.
Can someone please let me know what she is trying to conclude? I didn't get it. Oh no, I did. She concludes, "I like Android". Sigh.
Windows Phone Mango has achieved RTM. This post looks at what are the key features missing from Mango, but are already available or announced for iOS/Android.
Windows Phone “Mango” has fixed several shortcomings in the initial release of Windows Phone 7. Here are some of my top annoyances with Windows Phone “NoDo” which have been addressed in Mango. Videos, Podcasts, Contacts History are some of these annoyances with fixes and enhancements made in what is referred to as Windows Phone 7.5
The Windows Phone bloggers have been active recently, for good and bad reasons. Just yesterday, the ESPN ScoreCenter app finally was released for Windows Phone so I thought it may be a good idea for me to look back at what I thought were missing features/apps for me going from iPhone to Windows Phone.
The list was something like:
Corporate email: I still don't have access to my work Exchange server and that is the single-biggest issue I am facing. I am completely handicapped without knowing what my next meeting is about and where it is. I am dying to get *some* access to my corporate Exchange server. (note: access to Exchange server is available but my company does not allow it outside of McAfee EMM app or Good Technology's app, neither of which are available on windows phone yet)
Notifications: I was looking for Boxcar type, clean and universal notifications. I did not get that yet, but a lot of the apps are slowly building some sort of indicators (Live tiles, toast notifications) and it can only get better. I am not missing it as much as I thought I would be.
ESPN: Done! Finally, it is here.
Hipporemote: There are many remote desktop apps but since I have my iPad with Hipporemote, I have not bothered to try any other apps. Don't miss this one too much.
Amazon: Done! Came a while back.
In-browser video/Flash/HTML5: Coming in Mango at the end of the year. Or maybe sooner? Who knows. Not there, but coming soon.
Hidden wireless networks: Not resolved and not sure if NoDo is going to resolve it. But I guess it's fine for now.
Now, what I am missing today:
Bank of America app: This has been made visible in public but I am not sure what the hold up is.
E*Trade app: This is not in order, but this is one app that I can use which is not yet in the Marketplace.
Liveshare is one app that was released for iOS, Android and Windows Phone at once. I would love more apps like that, especially the social ones (Instagram, anyone?) so that I can include my friends on other platforms in my mobile sharing life :-)
Not going to look at features that I feel are missing because that will make this a 15-page post :-)
I saw the post over at wmpoweruser.com asking its readers to come up with the dream Windows Phone ad. I have some ideas but I don't want to show my personal information, and I don't want to reset my phone to show dummy data, so here are my ideas.
Theme - to show how adding Facebook account lights up the phone: The shot starts with an extremely happy new owner of a Windows Phone. The next shot should zoom into a shot of the phone with the guy narrating what he is doing. And that is, entering his facebook information. The account setup is saved and he goes into the People Hub and sees facebook status updates and pictures. He then goes on to like a picture and comment on someone's status. And finally, he goes into the "Me" tile and updates his own status.
Theme - to show pictures hub: Again, the ad starts with a new owner excited about his phone. He tells his wife (or the wife tells her husband) that he is going to set up his windows live account which he had already linked to flickr. As he is saying this, the ad shows some screens from a PC showing windows live linking to flickr. Next shot shows the windows phone zoomed in, and him opening the Pictures hub showing all the past albums and pictures (swiping left and right should illustrate the fluidity of the OS). He then tells his wife how he didn't even remember uploading some of those pictures and is delighted to see them. Some sort of tagline should follow, saying how "glance and go" trumps app-in-app-out.
Theme - to show Music and Videos hub: Shot starts straight with the phone zoomed in, a la iPhone/iPad ads. The user goes into the Music and Videos hub and starts playing local music. Then he goes to Shazam and gets a song which has a link to the Zune Marketplace and that is clicked, to stream the song directly. Then show a YouTube video in the history which shows paused and starts from the previous spot. The glance-and-go tagline ends the ad.
Similarly, ads to show the unified calendar (not sure if showing some Google Calendar snippets will help), Lock screen info, XBOX hub (games, including turn-by-turn vs XBOX or PC), Maps, Office, and a general ad showcasing the apps like Cocktail Flow, Twitter, Yelp, etc. should be made.
Basically, I think the "Really" ads need to be extended, to show what comes next. As in, why are people with Windows Phone spending less time immersed into the phone screens.
I have written earlier about how I love windows phone enough to swap my iPhone, what I like about it and what kind of apps and games I have on it. It is time now, after about 2.5 months of use, to talk about what I don't like about it.
It has been well documented how windows phone 7 is neither windows nor 7. Having said that, as a user of a smartphone I still have the right to talk about what I don't like, from a functional standpoint and from a company/communication standpoint. Some of these points are minor, some major. Some are critical, and some not so critical. However, these are all the things that annoy me on a day to day basis, and hence they are listed here:
Marketplace search: It provides results from apps, songs, playlists, etc., and there is no way to filter.
Zune/Podcasts performance/crash: I listen to podcasts on the Zune player. There are times when I want to skip a few minutes forward. If I skip too many times, the Zune player crashes and the only way to get out of it is to restart.
Zune player last played mark: Often, after some type of crash, Zune player forgets where my last played mark was and resets to an earlier last played mark (or beginning of a podcast if it was not played before). That is very annoying.
Answering a phone in speaker mode: I don't like that I have to answer the phone and then click on the dropdown and then switch to speakerphone. Considering that I would do that typically in the car, that extra click on the dropdown is painful.
Live tiles are not really real-time updates. This could be an application developer problem or a Windows Phone restriction, but things like stock quotes need to refresh as close as possible to real time, and they don't.
Not enough Live Tile love. I don't know why, but there are not too many apps with Live Tiles and the ones there are, don't have cool-looking Live Tile updates. My benchmark was set with the Music tile and Pictures tile which updates itself with the last artist played and the last picture taken. Why can't, for example, a Google Reader client update with the favicon of the last feed?
Marketplace crash: The Marketplace crashes quite often and like the Zune player crash, the only way to get out of this issue is to restart the phone.
At-rest encryption, VPN: These are two "enterprise" features which I need to somehow connect to my work Exchange server. I sorely miss the inability to see my work email and calendar from my phone (after iPhone and Blackberry in the past, I am addicted!).
Slowness (or in this case, lack of) updates: Before the launch, I was led to believe that this thing is going to be run nimbly and that updates would be flying left and right. Sadly, it has been almost a quarter since launch and we only hear of the updates "coming in the next few weeks/months". Such open-ended timeframes are not only bad from a customer confidence perspective, but also show that the nimble and agile assumption I made was perhaps absolutely wrong.
Browser: So many things to like about the browser, but this is an annoyance post, so what I don't like is the lack of HTML5 (and related, <video> tag) support and being able to share links from the browser to twitter or facebook. There is a share button but I can only share to messaging but not to twitter.
Capacitive buttons: I cannot remember how many times I have inadvertently pressed the search or back button while doing something else on my Samsung Focus. The buttons should be forced to be activated while an app is open, so that they don't get pressed by mistake.
No universal silence mode. The ringer can be turned off with one button but if I want complete silence, there is no way to do it.
Related to the point above, if I reduce the volume to avoid loud sounds, for example, then my alarm volume also goes down. The alarm should have its own volume, to say the least.
Search in app list. The physical search button is supposed to the context-sensitive, but I have so many apps, that when I go to the app list from the home screen, often I just want to search rather than scroll. Not only does the search button not work there, but also, there are no letters to let me jump quickly from a to b to c, etc. Both, context-sensitive searching and the letter paradigm are Windows Phone's unique UI ideas. Why are they not implemented on the app list, I don't know.
GMail-Exchange-Archive-IMAP: I don't know who is at fault here but for whatever reason, I cannot delete (sent to trash) messages in my gmail account. I was somehow able to get that going on the iPhone but the effect here is to simply archive the message so it is out of the inbox but not from All Mail.
Report Spam: Again, I am not sure who is at fault here but I cannot report to Gmail spam from the mail client on the windows phone. I understand if that is not implemented as a standard EAS/IMAP feature, but I don't know if that has or has not.
(Edit: added 1/28) Screenshots, send link to twitter, etc.: There are so many times I like an app so much that I want to take a screenshot and show it to the world. There is no way to take a screenshot. Also, there is a share app option but it is only by email. I would rather share via twitter along with a link to download. There is no way I can evangelize the platform because the OS limits me in how far I can go with sharing.
(Edit: added 1/29) Videos taken on the phone have this weirdness that the "date taken" keeps getting set to the date when you download the images to the PC. Not sure when this changed, because a few weeks back I downloaded a whole bunch of pics/vids from a trip and those dates are intact. Very strange, which makes it extremely annoying.
(Edit: added 1/29) I may be in the minority here but I just have not been able to get my sync setup correct. I want to be able to sync music, pictures, videos, apps, etc. (everything except podcasts) with my home PC and *only* my podcasts with my work PC. While a guest relationship for syncing is awesome for those times when you need to quickly move stuff in and out of a PC which you don't normally use, the limitation of being in a normal sync relationship with only one PC makes it hard to do what I need to do. iTunes at some point made that change and allowed me to sync different items with different PC's (well, two at least) and it worked quite well for me. Hope Zune desktop changes in some way to allow me to automatically sync podcasts (only) with a second PC. I know I can do it manually within a Guest relationship, and I am going to do that, but it would be nicer if it works the way iTunes used to work for me. Zune sync-ing and the nightmares I faced, is a topic for a different post, after I master the nuances :-)
(Edit: added 1/30, based on input from @aharpaz): Forwarded emails send the original email as an .eml attachment. My note: reminds me horrifyingly, of the outlook express days :-)
I can't think of anything else that bothers me enough to put here. If I remember something else, I will keep updating it.
(I forgot to mention the games I have on my Windows phone in my earlier post. Here is that list (most of the games, I have tried first before buying, but at this time, I only one have trial on my phone):
Assassin's Creed (trial) Bejeweled LIVE Carneyvale Need for Speed Undercover Fast & Furious Adrenaline Flowerz Fruit Ninja Artisan Glow ilomilo Monopoly Oregon Trail Pocket God Project Sunburst Avatar Gadgets XBOX LIVE Extras
Blackjack Metro 21 Hangman (by JPG Solutions) Hearts Hungry Castaway Puzzle Touch Tic Tac Toe by Ximad
It is about 6 weeks and here is my update on my windows phone.
Two most common questions/gaps first: have not missed multitasking yet because of most of the apps being able to tombstone while inactive, and have missed copy/paste once when I wanted to tweet a link. Having said that, I am really happy with the rate at which apps are being added, and am hopeful that the bigger missing properties like ESPN and Amazon will come soon with their version of the WP7 apps. In the past ten days, I have walked through this phone with about 20 people who had never seen a Windows Phone before, some of whom had heard about it, and some of whom are already heavy Blackberry users. It was unanimous that the phone rocks. All of them were impressed with the Focus' screen, and how snappy the phone was. Not too many "got" Metro but all of them appreciated the aggregation (hubs) idea and how Facebook is deeply integrated into the phone. Cherry on top was the Zune Pass, unlimited, on-demand streaming of music. Here is a list of the apps I have on the phone as of today: Adobe Reader AP Mobile App Reviews AT&T My Wireless AT&T U-Verse Mobile Beezz Bollywood Beats Breaking News Cocktail Flow Color Sprouts Craigs7 Pro Cricket World Cup Directv Facebook Fandango Flickr Manager Flixster FML Foursquare GasBuddy Graphic.ly gReadie History Here HollywoodsHottest HSN Shop App Huffington Post Iheartradio IMDb KAYAK Last.fm Lyrics Metro Web Browser Mira TV MSN Money Stocks MSN Movies MyChannel9 Netflix Now (Samsung app) Photo Sharing (Samsung app) Photogram (Samsung app) Piano 7 PODCASTS! Project Emporia Retrevo Scores Seesmic Send to WP7 Shazam ShopSavvy Slacker Sound Recorder Tag Reader TED Top Cities 2011 Travelocity TWiT Twitter UStream Viewer Valpak weather Weatherbug Where Wipolo Wordpress Xkcd Yelp YouTube Lazy YouTube National Geographic Atlas
