Re: Too slow
From some perspective, Microsoft understood better what a smartphone is than Apple and Google.
I don't think so. In fact, they still don't understand it. MS idea is "Windows everywhere" and that's why they fail everywhere else.
...and just not be a Fisher Price interface with a lot of colorful candies to collect for the joy of the average fanboy luser
You are right on Fisher Price interfaces being bad. But MS did exactly that with WP7, and then hobbled their own desktop OS with it in Windows 8!
If anyone had a good idea on how to do a real smartphone UI, it was Symbian-era Nokia. In fact, most of the pre-iPhone smartphone UIs were pretty much good on giving useful information to their users.