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Comment by steverb | Hacker News Reader

Wow. I'm surprised that WP7 has 10%. I still haven't seen one in the wild except in the hands of developers.

It includes the predecessor Windows Mobile 6.5, which is probably most of that bar at the moment.

It includes Windows Mobile 6 phones. This is total user base share not quarterly market share. WP7 has much less than that.

WP7 is under-rated. I've seen more than a few in non-developer hands.

The only people I saw with a WP7 (3 of them in total) got theirs because it came with a free XBOX 360 at purchase.

If this is any indication it could imply that people with WP7 are not attached to the platform like iOS or Android users are.

Alternatively, it could be because WP7 is mostly focused on the U.S. and therefore has the weird two-year-contract-stagger effect going on. Couple that with the mass appeal of the iPhone and the ubiquity of Android on lower-end phones (remember, WP7 focuses on the high-end).

Just a point of reference, this is a chart from November:

http://www.linuxfordevices.com/images/stories/chitika_androi...

At that point probably close to 70% of all Android phones as measured by website traffic where clearly in the high end (Incredibles, Evo, Droid, Droid X, Droid 2, etc...).

If Android is dominating, it's doing from the top-down.

Or, perhaps they are attached to a platform: WP7 has some features for Xbox Live integration, which some groups (15-25 year old males I imagine) will find appealing.

I think it is under-rated as well, and I'll buy one as soon as they get one on Verizon.

But I still don't know any non-developers that have one, and only a few of those.

Under rated? I've toyed around with one. It's horribly confusing to use. Kudos for trying a new interface though.

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