Comment by Alcedes | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Alcedes | Hacker News Reader

This looks like Zune all over again. Let's go over some points. First the UI has been around for a few years on phones and has yet to catch on at all. Market share has actually shrunk even with positive reviews from the technorati. Data point 2: I'm seeing lots of comments on how the pricing is "worth it" because you get a full computing experience... err no, the RT model is ARM based so it will only run native metro apps. The fact that geeks reading tech sites get this wrong should be a huge warning sign for MS. Think of how confused a normal customer will be when trying to figure out what runs on what? Point 3: MS office Touch enabled as a throw in for free, great until you actually try to use it. Instead of re-imagining from the ground up for a touch interface (Apple Style), they decide to hack on a touch mode and call it a day. All reviews have been deservedly scathing. The silver lining if your a MS fan is this will be the end of Ballmer. I assume the reviews should be out within a week, should be interesting.

Windows Phone not doing well in the market is not an indication of the success of the UI. Most reviewers praise the UI.

Well, it certainly could be. There are reasons that exist as to why the phone hasn't been successful, and that has to be considered as a possibility.

Anyone with half a brain knows that that is not the reason. Microsoft came way too late to market with a 1.0 version product while everyone else was 3 or 4 revisions deep.

edit: a few more thoughts

The mobile phone industry had become an echo chamber, then Apple came in and made a clean break, dropped the cruft everyone else was clinging to and pushed the envelope. Apple changed the mode and completely shook up the market, Google was the quickest in responding while Microsoft was clearly caught completely off guard and is finally putting its best foot forward, but they are very late to the party.

That's some really revisionist history there, but don't be afraid to share some actual data instead of hyperbole.

Microsoft was busy with Windows Mobile 6.5(1) which after many years of revisions was complicated to use and in dire need of a complete reboot. Motorola was living high off the Razor (which I purchased at launch at $300) creating a million different versions of it until they watered down the brand name.

Apple even teamed up with Motorola to do an iPod phone(2), which I think stands as the poster boy of what was wrong with the industry at the time, the echo chamber I refer to, everyone was so caught up with refining the innovations of the past that they ended up blind sighted by the original iPhone and scrambling to catchup; Many say that Google was finally able to do that with the Jelly Bean release of Android, the much more polished look of the OS combined with Project Butter for an overall very refined experience. In Microsoft's case it's clear Windows Phone 7 wasn't what it need to be necessitating another reboot of the mobile OS, maybe the shared Windows kernel, Direct X, native SDK and product integration Microsoft is promising will be the push it needs.

The funny thing is I think Apple as of late is falling into the same trap the mobile phone industry found itself in before the original iPhone. Most everything out of Apple lately is iterative and not innovative; it's very difficult if not impossible to keep an innovative streak going and not get bogged down on endlessly refining the original innovative product.

From the wiki (1) "Ballmer also indicated that the company "screwed up with Windows Mobile", he lamented that Windows Mobile 7 was not yet available and that the Windows Mobile team needed to try to recoup losses."

(1)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Mobile_6.5

(2)http://www.engadget.com/2005/07/03/say-hello-to-the-motorola...

That's a much better answer.

I agree with many of your points, but want to point out that Apple's goal was not to introduce the iPhone and then continue to innovate it, it was to perfect it; which they are very close too. Furthermore, Techies want innovation, general consumers want design and function that works and looks good, period. They don't give a crap that you can touch your phones together and transfer a playlist, or "innovation" as some would call it. My prediction is Apple's next innovation will not be in the phone or music industry and it may not come for a while.

The sudden success of the BlackBerry and the iPods also had something to do.

Sony Ericsson was in the right path with their P800-P900-P910 line of smartphones running Symbian OS. Big Screen, behind a 'normal' but removable phone keyboard.

After the iPad success, Sony Ericsson abandoned the P line to produce walkman phones.

After the BlackBerry success, all smartphones were abandoned to make BlackBerry clones.

That's the echo chamber you mention. Thank his Steveness Apple had something else in mind.

I would think most people here on HN would wait a little bit to preorder the WIN8 tablets instead of the RT ones.

I'm not really sure why you'd go with an RT tablet unless the price was your only limiting factor

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