Re: Great looking phone...
Thanks for regurgitating the same old jab and the metro ux. Very creative and insightful. Really adds weight and credibility to your opinion...
HTC gave Microsoft a huge PR coup yesterday during the New York unveiling of the most stylish Windows Phone ever made. Redmond could certainly use some good news right now. Windows Phone shipments fell 9.4 per cent in Q2, as Microsoft's languid timetable, along with a less-than-clockwork rollout of Windows Phone 8.1, finally …
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This is quite obviously something which Microsoft is paying for – both HTC and Verizon and I'm sure both are happy as long as Microsoft pays them to do stuff. The biggest problem will be when reviews of the device with Windows goes up against the same device with Android. Verizon better have a good returns / boot-to-Android policy as this device is just begging to be sold as an Android flagship (the sales reps neglecting to inform users that it's actually got Windows phone) only for angry customers to return it when they can't get whatever apps they consider to be essential for it.
Yes it looks nice and the underlying hardware may be quite impressive.
Accountants might well be satisfied that this is the biggest windows phone that people in Europe and North America have never heard of.
But I doubt that's an accolade Microsoft are keen on.
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First of all, fifteen years ago there weren't any MacBooks around. Those would be Powerbooks, and a quick trip down memory lane will tell you that ALL computers were pricey back then. As for people willing to pay for luxury items, you could argue the same thing for Hermes bags: for less than 10% of the price you can get a bag with more functions and which is easier to carry, but still people will buy them....
I think the real gem in the article is that WinPho hast lost close to 10% in the last quarter. Listing all the missing features, I really have to say, i was considering having a look at a WinPho but now I'm pretty sure that's not going to happen. The lower end models don't do it for me, and the pricier ones, well, I can just get an iPhone and be done with it right?
Let's face it, Microsoft had a pretty good ida with the whole tiles thin, but they've squandered it so that now it really doesn't bring anything to the table anymore. if after three years of being on the market people still aren't buying it, clearly it's not enough of a differentiator.
What they should do it take it off of lifesupport. Either give me a phone that I can use, or stop making them. FFS use that cloud you're flogging to give me traffic updates coupled to my alarm so I can catch the bus on time, tell me about upcoming activities for this weekend, scour the social and dating networks to see if anyone might be interested. Do all that in the background, and yes, then I would certainly be interested. Till then, there is not enough for me to change my phone, and I don't trust MS to come up with a solution that'll work from start to finish.
Maybe you should really check out windows phone then. Because my phone shows extremely detailed public transport in Oslo with real time and alarms. It also has free maps with driving mode and free traffic updates there too. The only things I have a gripe with are the facebook app is behind it's android counterpart and the kindle app is pretty much abandoned and shitty.
" i [sic] was considering having a look at a WinPho but now I'm pretty sure that's not going to happen"
Why? Because someone said something about it? If something works, it works. If you want to join the Fanbodroids, then that's a different matter - WinPho is certainly not for you and your screenplay writing ways.
I bet you don't watch a movie until it becomes trendy enough to win an Oscar.
Technology isn't changing all that rapidly now Moore's law runs out of steam in a couple of years as far as current concept of smartphone goes - improvements should be sufficient to kill most of the remaining consumer camera market as quality jumps a step or two above current smartphone cameras.
Already for what most people want to do current phones ought have a good 3/4 years barring accidents. So yes, agree premium smartphones look like they are on their way out - if it wasn't for US carriers focused on selling expensive contracts that favor premium replacements every two years the trend would already be more visible.
The ratio of the price of the Macbook 15 years ago and the price of the Macbook today is similar to the ratio of the price of the average laptop 15 years ago and today. As well as the ratio of the price to manufacture either 15 years ago versus today. What matters to Apple as a seller of premium products is that it has the same margins. The lower price means that same margin translates into less profit per Macbook sold, but the lower price means they sell more of them, so they're fine with it.
If the $200 to manufacture today's iPhone was to drop to $100 in a few years (because smartphone technology starts to stagnate as they're "good enough" for almost everyone) then Apple could sell the iPhone for half what it sells for today and maintain their margin, but that lower price would probably mean they'd sell a lot more of them so they'd still be fine. They'd still be a premium priced product at that new lower price.
I think your argument affects Android phones much more strongly, because there are so many to choose from. If Samsung tries to maintain premium pricing (to pay for their ridiculous advertising budget) but consumers decide the random few S-xxx features they throw in with each new model are pretty useless and what they really want is Android, they'll look at HTC, LG and others and save money, and Samsung's sales drop. But those who want an iPhone are much less likely to see HTC and LG phones as an alternative, so while some marginally attached "I like the iPhone a little better than Android" customers may defect, those who consider iPhone to be clearly superior will be willing to pay a little more for it.
The economics of smartphones are interesting. If you add up the hours you spend using a phone over the two years (or whatever) you own it, it probably costs less than a dollar an hour even for a premium priced phone like an iPhone or Galaxy Note. The savings in going with one that costs half as much is less than a penny per minute of use. Where else can you upgrade something that is such a large part of most people's lives so cheaply? Compare with the difference between a premium car and a pedestrian one, which will be tens of thousands of dollars, and despite the longer expected time you'll own it such an upgrade is far more expensive even for those with very long commutes!
I just got a Lumia 930, and my colleague got the One M8 (Android). On the looks front even he conceded that the 930 has it hands down. The M8 seems well built, but it's not particularly "pretty".
The "app gap" is pretty much there. SkyGo and Virgin maybe MIA, but the overwhelming majority of users will be content with what's on the market. Even Barclays have a fully featured online banking client (at last!), eBay, Dominos, uTorrent, Plex, Vine, even El Reg has an app on the WP store. (Although it sucks). There really isn't much left at all now - I understand that the SkyGo app is in development and should be out in the coming months too.
Same with feature set.... Direct WiFi sync (lack of) is annoying, but if you use SkyDrive then that solves that. Better VPN support, text reader (e.g. SMS, web page reading out loud) and better attachment features for emails are the only things I can think of that I'd like to see. 8.1 latest update really has feature matched the current marketplace and added a few USP's too.
Like to see another OS in the mix maybe, the more that are pushing for market share the better. Just need MS to speed up development of WP and I see no reason why it shouldn't fly going forwards.
Not sure what the lie of the land is these days... will the HTC M8 get Nokia's HERE app suite? If not then sticking Nokia is a no brainer, if it goes then seems like a pretty good handset. Not sure about that flap though...
"text reader (e.g. SMS.."
My Winphone has read text messages out to me since I bought it last year. When I have headphones in anyway.
Personally, I think the unbundling of the audio (music, video, podcasts, third-party apps) under the "Music" tile was a bad idea; though now the podcasts feature does work in the UK (on the other hand, it took them long enough by which time I'd found a very good Podcast app to make up for the gap)
Installing apps on the SD card a good one, again a bit late to that party. Good for me; not because I fill my phone with apps but because I find that the free phone memory space gets slowly eaten up (I suspect the system caches photos from the social media notifications etc)
but the overwhelming majority of users will be content with what's on the market
You may very well be right but consumers don't seem to agree with you. Other companies have folded after spending as much on failing to get market share as Microsoft has done with Nokia. At some point shareholders, other than Mr Ballmer, will get impatient and require Microsoft to get out of the hardware game.
Glossing over the bugs in 8.1 is a mistake. Mr Orlowski wrote several glowing reviews of Windows Phone and of devices running it. His criticism of 8.1 is indicative of his disappointment of Microsoft's failure to correct bugs and quickly and judiciously add new features. Yes, Android users bitch about the lack of speed with which their particular device gets an update but that's only because Google keeps on pushing out new releases for vanilla Android devices.
Have you actually used one?? No? Then stfu!
I actually own a Windows phone. And it's the crappiest phone I've had, and I can't even palm it off on the wife. No one else wants it.
You have to be a big fan of Microsoft to put up with it.
(anon, out of shame)
I had an HTC One X, this led me to place HTC on my NEVER BUY FROM THESE IDIOTS AGAIN list.
Now they have Microsoft software as well. Super! It saves me re-evaluation time. Perhaps they could also incorporate something from BlackBerry and achieve a hat-trick of lameness.
Microsoft has a serious problem with staying on course while delivering fundamental functionality that shouldn't even be a question mark. Having issues playing audio is beyond stupid.
Does Microsoft know how to hire people that can manage and work in large teams? Or is it that they don't know how to hire programmers anymore? Seems like their development teams have been on a downward slide for a decade.
Probably I suffer some kind of design-daltonism, because I really can't see where's the beauty here. The droves of Android phones, the iPhone, and this one all look the same to me: glass slabs with rounded corners and the same 3 boring soft buttons at the bottom... this one is brushed steel instead of black or white, so I guess that's something... but in all fairness, what makes it different from a Galaxy or iPhone?
The only ones that try to at least *look* different are some of the Lumias and Xperias (I won't comment on their merits as smartphones, I'm only talking about the looks)
This phone could be the next HTC HD2! An awesome phone with a great development community.
Even now, the HD2 is capable of running Windows mobile 6.5 (it's Native OS), Android 2.3 - 4.4, Windows Phone 7, Ubuntu and Meego.
Obviously nothing will happen until the devs get hold of an RUU and sort any bootloader issues, but it's certainly looking promising.
I'm sure a lot of the mod community has thought along similar lines since this was announced. From what I've read the hardware is identical with only the OS being different so I would imagine that a port or dual-boot option will happen in time. This just makes my ability to hold out on buying the new One M8 harder though..
I've read some of these negative posts, mainly centred on the UI but also the personal attacks on those who like what they've bought and I just cannot decide if these are Fanbois or Fandroids (probably Fanbodroids*). I am pretty sure that none of them are over 17 since most of the mature Fonbodroids I know are grown-up enough to appreciate different tastes.
* Fanbodroid (n) Person who uses an i or Android device with more joy than is realistically not awkward
...and I'll say it again. I actually like WinPho. I have used it since v7 on the Lumia 800 and now have 8.1 dev preview update 1 ona 930.
Fast, smooth, not a resource hog and there are most of the big name apps are now present and correct and the day to day functionality is there as well. A special mention must be made about Cortana. I had a diary note in for a meeting and she (unprompted) popped up advising me based on the current traffic etc I should really be getting my skates on within the next ten minutes and would I like directions as she had them all ready. She is very very slick.
Where the app situation falls down now is not the big names but the 'hobby' apps. I do both astronomy and birding and the app choice for both is very limited compared to the big 2.
That said some of those in the hobby arena are really quite excellent (and I think it is fair to note that an awful lot of the apps on iOS and Android are pretty dreadful too).
Further the tightening integration between phone and PC just makes the overall package more attractive.
If you don't like it then fine but it does not mean someone else is an idiot for having a preference for it just as I do not think those that prefer Android are idiots (Jobsian fanbois on the otherhand - clearly a couple of bites short of a full fruit ;) )
I agree, I have an android tablet but my phone is a Lumia 925 and I love it. It's slim, light, does everything I need and I really don't care about the supposed "missing" apps. Granted some of the apps are poor (linkedin for example) but IMO the El Reg app is better than the Android one.
And the ultimate pro for me, Microsoft have binned Zune which was the biggest customer gripe that I saw about WP7. I don't care how pretty their hardware is or how many fanbois there are, I will not use Apple products because I will not use iTunes.
You have also summed up the big problem with things like Cortana; you are impressed by it doing things that Apple and Android have had for years.
I have a Nokia 520, and it does what I want for the right price, but don't have Cortana yet. Even when it comes, still going to just another catch up feature, but probably not quite as slick as the integration with Google on my Nexus 7 tablet. I don't use Siri, but it is a couple of years ahead of Cortana in development.
Thing is that the 520 is nice little low end phone; if they kept building up that modest success with small regular improvements, then maybe my next phone would be the next model up. Instead the newer devices in the range (like the 530), seem worse if anything, and the app situation is not improving; one app I used on WP8, is now defunct and no alternative is available.
I think phones like the HTC one, seem like afterthoughts - stick a model out there, same hardware but with WP and few Microsoft people might buy one, but given the same hardware for the same price could be running Android with more developed features and far more apps, I can't see any appeal (and that is from somebody with a WP8 phone)
One could imagine a world where different people had different beliefs about which OS was best, yet still held respect for others who believed in another OS, be the platform a mobile phone, a desktop or even a server.
Once people came to respect others preferences it might come to pass that there was peace across the universe, extending even as far as the darkest corners of planet Earth where it had been foretold that man shall usurp his foes at any cost.
In the meantime (I can't wait for hell to freeze over), wouldn't it be nice (?) if in the mobile world one could buy a device that came with a preinstalled OS (optionally) but one could choose another OS (iOS, android, windows, ...) without voiding the warranty.