Changed the water it drinks

No kidding, to Apple juice it seems!

Microsoft got it upside down

"Microsoft's best effort at creating a user-centric device" has turned into Microsoft's best effort at creating a device for itself, not end users.

Locking people into Microsoft's Marketplace is not a feature that benefits any end users. That's a feature for Microsoft's benefit only.

Forbidding 3rd party apps from accessing native code, while allowing Microsoft's own apps to access native code, is a feature not good for developers. It's a feature that gives an (unfair) advantage to Microsoft only (BTW, Mozilla will never port Firefox for this reason alone).

Windows Mobile 7 Series is everything that Microsoft ever wanted for itself, and nothing for end users.

Rogue apps and the core product...

What's painfully obvious from Windows Mobile 6.x is that the core OS is not protected from the applications. In the same way that an installation of Windows 98, (for example) could be screwed by the wrong version of a dll being called, or that newer apps over-loaded the older core files causing problems for older apps (if you follow my meaning there!), I've had a very decent handset (HTC Raphael) completely banjaxed by apps from the Marketplace, to the point where it has been taken back to factory state several times to remove all traces of the offending files.

This, at least, will be prevented by the lock-down of the new OS from deep-level third-party code. It's possible that the inability of the apps to interchange data is down to stronger sandboxing. Microsoft is at the beginning of a road that Apple took several years ago - yes, in time the ability for apps to multitask may be opened up (as is rumoured for iPhone 4), and the interaction between them may always have to be brokered by the core OS, but it is the right way to go compared to the current WM6.x model.

it's the mind-set

"Windows 7 is meant to be quieter, but the screen soon filled with ugly dialogs competing for attention, mostly from third-parties. It's this kind of thing that drives users to the Mac."

Mac lovers think the interface is wonderful. To the rest of us, it's a competing mess of inconsistent UI features, cluttered with lots of boxes (why do programs like Word and Graffle and the rest litter the screen with little detached controls?).

And worst of all, when those applications (third party or otherwise) want your attention, their icons start bouncing in the dock: that's sooooo anoying. It's right up there with <flash> in the bad-UI innovation stakes.

I don't want to start an is/isn't battle (again): just to say that it's horses for courses. Give me objective evidence that one is less cluttered/busy than the other, then I'll take notice.

User centric or loser centric?

I found recent software much more difficult to use for power users than ever before. The aim to let the computer illiterate to be able to perform his or her useless tasks is killing usability. Whatever task is outside the loser capability must be deeply hidden from the user interface, and the software must try to convince you you should not use it and let the computer perform some other useless action instead. I do not need nor Facebook nor Twitter. I need a device that performs what I need, not what the average loser may be driven to think he/she needs. And Apple is a master to drive users. That's why it was used by people in the image industry, but power users looked elsewhere.

interface is nice, but

I applaud Microsoft for the nice user interface, and the fact that they are putting more emphasis on usability. There is no doubt that they are very important parts of developing a new product, but the technology has to be there to back it up.

No amount of animated transitions between screens will make up for the fact that you cannot email and listen to music at the same time (multitasking), or have background messenger open.

Lacking features like cut and paste, and crappy cut down office applications practically hands over the remnants of their business customers to blackberry.

Alienating developers by excluding features they need to build applications makes sure that first line of third party applications will be lacking.

Silverlight means that you will need faster and more expensive phones just to keep up with native code on their competitors' phones.

Lack of open market, and inability to run your own apps alienates tech crowd, previous win mobile users, and anyone with half a clue to know how dangerous of a precedent shit like this sets for computing in general.

On the related Office comment. Most of the complaints about new Word are because of the new ribbon, and gimmicky 'user experience improvements'. Last thing people in professional environment need is some overzealous designer to change office so it is a pleasure for grandma to use, but cuts out all the professional features that people have grown to depend on. (because grandma does not need them)

Dumbed Down Design

I would hardly refer to Apple's attempts to create a UI as "Industrial Design", more like "Dumbed Down Design". It was not that long ago that it was MS accused of makingthings too simple, for idiots, and now they get slated for keeping things too difficult by the IT press. Bagger you barstewards, have you nothing better to write about?

iphone is not an innovation, in fact my HTC / Qtek running WM5 from 2005 had far more innovation 2-3 years earlier than the most recent iphones (so Apple's attempt at suing HTC is truly pathetic).

MS major problem has been in simply not marketing WMobile at all. They had a wide open opportunity and jobs et al need sacking for screwing this one up whilst also wasting time, at the same time, screwing up Vista, and screwing Office 2007 with useless ribbons.

These 3 errors will be the downfall of MS, unless they return to their core, undumb users and keep on marketing day after day after day. How dumb can someone be paying a thousand bucks for an iphone? The alternative of getting a cheap phone but with all yor data stolen by Google Android is also unpallatable.

C'mon MS, sort your crap out and get back to leading.

User Centric == DUMB

I have liked Windows Mobile since version 2003. It may not be the easiest OS to use, but it is extremely flexible.

A usability professor of mine in college once said that flexibility and simplicity are at odds with one another. By definition if flexibility is increased, complexity increases too. The opposite is also true; if complexity is decreased, flexibility decreases too.

Advanced (read: smart) users want flexibility and are willing to accept any *necessary* complexity. Novice (read: dumb) users want simplicity and are rarely willing to think about how to accomplish a task.

Microsoft has generally catered to the advanced users, which truth be told is a small user base. They have now switched to catering to the masses which is a predominately novice user base. Their actions make sense; wider market, more users, more money to be made.

By ignoring their traditionally advanced users, they may have lost them to more flexible platforms like Android. The majority of novice users are currently hooked on iPhones, M$ has to introduce some pretty compelling features to ween them off.

If M$ does in fact lose it's advanced users and does not steal market share from other platforms, they will become an odd duckling just as Palm's WebOS is today.

I think the best course for M$ is to take the middle road, improve usability while ensuring that advanced users can still hack the OS to their liking.

Industrial designers?

"Designers" designing a product means that function is following form = fail.

Let the engineers do the fundamental design. Engineers who understand usability always make the best stuff.

Innovation?

Is it just me, or is it odd that Microsoft has real problems competeing in markets it has no monoploy control over?

Just asking.

Premature.

"Its existence has everything to do with Apple and the way it has stolen Microsoft's market - in music downloads, in high-end laptops, soon in tablet computers"

Wow. I'm no great Ms fan, but that statement's rather sweeping isn't it? I mean since when has MS manufactured High end laptops? I thought it was the OS it did which, when I last check, still had more than 80% of the market.

And 'soon in tablet computers'. I assume that's referring to the iPad, which hasn't started selling yet, and doesn't have massive projections even so, especially out of the US. Again, not comparing like for like.

And when has Microsoft's market been centered on downloads?

MS still makes most of its money from its OS and Office which, despite some implication in the article, is far from dead.

This piece reads like an Apple Fanboi 'ignore the actual facts' article.

Note: I'm not saying anything about the MS phone here, I agree that MS is way behind on things that aren't its core product.

I see.

So they're going to continue to produce buggy, insecure and counterintuitive shite - but they're going to make it look pretty.

Sounds about right.

Stolen Maket

"everything to do with Apple and the way it has stolen Microsoft's market - in music downloads, in high-end laptops".... when exactly did Apple make a high-end laptop?