The problem when discussing any new smartphone is the animal in the room, the iPhone. The idiom typically has it being an elephant, but I think in the case of the iPhone it's more like a Tiger. It's nice to look at, you can appreciate it, but given half a chance will claw your face off and feast on your carcass. This must be how the iPhone competitors must feel as it's market share and mind share tear their profits to shreds.
Anyone who has used previous Windows Phone releases would attest to the complete lack of mobile-centric design in large portions of the device. This was slightly mitigated by being a corporate centric phone and face it, corporations don't care about usability that much *cough* IE6 *cough*. With the design of the Windows Phone 7 (WP7) interface, they threw all that out and started from scratch, much to my delight. Their Metro user interface is a monument to the new Microsoft culture. It feels like the fruits of a corporate cultural journey that was started with the Office 2007 Ribbon UI. Microsoft is learning, and learning fast. Which is why it's unfortunate that they are late to the party.
At the workshop, as Nick was presenting various sections on application development, I couldn't help but feel as if they are late to a party that started with the release of the iPhone 3G. Apple grabbed the hearts, minds and wallets of the connected generation with the iPhone 3G. They mastered their hardware, grabbed a lion's share of the developer thought-space, and made every other device look obsolete in the process. Android has been fighting a rearguard action, slowly making inroads with each release, but they are still a long way behind.
It's a marketplace that has a dominant leader and a solid pack of contenders nibbling at it's heals. It is into their pack that Microsoft has thrown itself, jostling for a piece of the market share. WP7 is going to have to be so good for them to start to even think about biting into the iPhone's lead and I don't think that it is.
To be successful, WP7 is going to need a couple of things to happen:
- Marketing will need to be clear, concise and everywhere. Billboards, TV, Newspapers, Twitter, Facebook, Reddit and forums all need to be a place to generate buzz and interest in the phone.
- Updates will need to be frequent. One of Apple's key weaknesses, and Androids strengths is the speed at which OS updates are delivered. If Microsoft can harness this and do good updates frequently then this can only help.
- Developers will need to brought on board very quickly. Dev's such as myself should be a target, but getting current iPhone or Android developers to port their applications to WP7 must be a critical target. Not only will this generate talk, but it will reduce the barrier when migrating to WP7.
- Good quality phones are the last thing. WP7 is a great operating system, but having a clunky, slow, unattractive phone will make this less appealing as a consumer device.
It may seem like I'm being quite negative in regards to all of this, but there is so many things I like about WP7, whether it be the UI or the development experience (I may do a future post on my development experiences on both WP7 & iPhone).
So my concern is Microsoft is about 3 years too late to the party, and the party now has a resident Bengal Tiger.
As this is my first serious blog post, please excuse the slight lack of structure, I shall be working on it as much as possible into the future. Also, comments and discussion are most welcome, both here and on Twitter (@aperebus)
