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> To be honest, that's a bit troll-ish, given that WP8 uses the same kernel and user interface as Windows 8 and given the functionality of the pre-installed applications.

I don't see how it's "troll-ish". To an end-user, the fact that WP8 uses the same kernel as Windows 8 means nothing. It might be an exaggeration but given the rest of the comment was relatively constructive, it's forgivable.

On the UI side, his major complaint is about information density (a common complaint about WP7/WP8 apps). That's definitely valid; and I say that having used WP8 (briefly) and not minding it so much (a feeling that could change over extended use).

As an iOS user, Windows Phone's aesthetics are definitely appealing (and the Twitterrific app on iOS channels some of WP8, I feel), but the lack of stand-out apps and games is the real killer. No Reeder, no Instapaper, no Instagram or VSCO cam, no Byword, Sword & Swocery, etc.

Similarly, it's interesting to me that Microsoft users will tout things like hardware in their devices. No iphone user mentions hardware because they don't care.

Is the device and its ecosystem a great experience or not? That's ALL that matters.

I hear about iphone hardware all the time. You've never heard praise for apple's mythical "build quality"?

Or the Retina display, or the 'more powerful GPU'...

Retina display was something that had never been done. Totally worth talking about.

My original point was anecdotal, so continuing on that, I've only heard game developers discuss the GPU.

Most reviews of the latest windows tablet discussed the hardware. This processor and that amount of ram... I couldn't care much less.

We should distinguish between visible hardware and invisible hardware.

Apple fans will talk about build quality or screen quality, but rarely about CPU or GPU stats. Apple doesn't even publish these, and you have to wait for third parties to figure out what the numbers are.

I'm sure that some people will talk about how great the A6 CPU is or whatever, but few such people actually know what they're talking about when they do it.

Not trying to make a value judgment here, but this is what I have seen.

Bingo.

The build quality is good but the designs are rubbish. They put glass on impact points, mount everything on ribbon PCBs which pack in and do their best to thwart repairers with funny screws and what can only be described ad a rats nest assembly.

Oh and the hardware is just so damn slow and heavy.

I've repaired a couple of 4s's for people and owned a 4 and they're just not very nice. If you've never had another phone then I get your point but seriously take a look elsewhere when you consider your next handset.

Everyone loves Apple hardware. The iPhone hardware has always been the best, but I think the latest Nokia and even HTC phones for WP8 finally provide some great alternatives. I've never been very impressed with the hardware for Android from an aesthetical standpoint.

>To be honest, that's a bit troll-ish, given that >WP8 uses the same kernel and user interface as >Windows 8 and given the functionality of the >pre-installed applications.

That doesn't matter. Microsoft had a quite good kernel with NT 4 already and Win7 has a fantastic stable kernel with many features. Win 8 has an even better kernel and yet the new metro store and start screen and all the other removed features and freedom make it a not a better OS to say the least.

710 user here. I've been given two iPhones since I got this. I really don't like iOS even compared to an older WP7.5 device.

The killer app for me is Nokia drive. There is literally nothing better out there.

Very interesting to hear about Windows Phone navigation. How does Nokia Drive compare to Google Maps?

Orders of magnitude better for navigation. Far more up to date data, faster, speed limits on it, proper accurate turn by turn and its 100% stand alone without a network connection for all features. I did try google maps on android but it was literally littered with mistakes, lag and shoots itself regularly.

Only thing it doesn't have is street view at destination but that's pretty useless to be honest at least in the UK as most of my destinations have no data availability.

You will only get this on a Nokia handset. The build in Bing maps is crap. I've got a lumia 710 and an 820 at hand (I'm testing the latter before i rely on it) and both map solutions are the same. You can get the 710 for literally nothing now - less than a galaxy ace, which is a hunk of crap compared to the 710.

I've used Nokia maps back in the Nokia 6303 days and its always been good. This is just a winphone port.

The general public is mostly ambivalent towards windows phones because it's just too late for Microsoft to be involved. It's nice that they saw the light and now believe design and usability are important but everyone already thinks of the smart phone world as being owned by iOS and Android.

Microsoft is famous for saying, "developers, developers, developers", but no sensible developer will build for Microsoft when network effects are already so well established. Microsoft would have to build something at least an order of magnitude better than Apple to get the world's attention and they haven't been capable of that for many years now.

Any life left in Microsoft comes from the inertia of people depending on Office. Even their latest OS got little more than a shrug from the world.

There are 6 billion mobile phone subscriptions in the world of which 1 billion are smartphones, which leaves billions of smartphones coming online in the coming decade. The smartphone market has most of its growth ahead of it. That growth will not be on iOS because apple doesn't do low-budget.

That growth will be mostly on android, but there's plenty of opportunity for it to be on windows phone as well. Microsoft has made some smart moves here. They've used windows 8 as a foot in the door to get people used to metro. The pc market may be shrinking, but there are still a billion pc's out there which will gradually be replaced with windows 8. They've also made sure that windows phone runs well on low budget devices (better than android even). And they've made sure that developing apps for windows phone is easy and cheap.

At this point i would not count microsoft out yet. Android is going to be the dominant player, but google seems not to care as much about the app ecosystem as microsoft. If google doesn't fix the piracy issues it's not inconceivable that windows phone becomes a more attractive platform for app developers. I hope this will be a three-horse race, as neither android nor iOS are a great fit for me.

Branding theory goes against your claims. It's not the oportunity that matters, it's the behavior and psychology of consumers.

RIM is dying for the same reason windows phone is a dud: both companies have failed to produce meaningful innovations and the public recognizes that.

First, there seems to be a lot of agreement that the Metro interface is innovative. I think it's also a meaningful innovation, but each to his/her own.

Second, pretty much everyone would agree that the early Android versions were not really innovative and pretty much a copy of iOS (which is certainly not the case anymore). Also, history is littered with inferior systems with little innovation that eventually won. So, it doesn't seem to be the case that the consumer necessarily chooses for 'meaningful innovations'. There's also price, branding, luck, etc.

Third, it is very strange to compare RIM and Windows Phone. RIM is more like Apple: one operating system, one device vendor. Windows Phone is more like, erm... Windows ;) or perhaps even Android: one operating system, competing device vendors. The dynamics are completely different, e.g. a phone vendor might choose to push WP or Android more, depending on what is offered in terms of differentiation, royalties, patent licensing costs, etc. Also, like the grandparent says, Microsoft as quite a popular ecosystem to leverage WP (Windows, XBox 360, Office, etc.).

First, too little, too late.

Second, Android's main innovation is being an open source OS available to anyone to use / adjust / distribute.

Third, the comparison to RIM is that the public doesn't expect meaningful innovation from Microsoft anymore. Even though Metro is a reasonable improvement, it's far from enough to make the public care.

When microsoft released IE everyone considered it a joke. It had no marketshare, nobody wanted to use it, and the common opinion was that microsoft was doomed beause netscape was going to make windows superfluous. What could be learned from what happened after were two lessons: (1) public opinion is not the end-all decider of a product's chances, and (2) when microsoft hooks something on the windows train it has incredible momentum, even when it doesn't seem like it. WP8 is hooked on that train in a way that previous windows mobile variants weren't.

IE won by force. The anoligy doesn't seem right.

Not just by force. IE 4 and 5 were better than what Netscape had on offer during that time. They were faster and had fewer JavaScript quirks.

Ah, the People hub. Its integration with social networks I think is an awesome, awesome feature that is not talked about enough. I honestly don't remember the last time I used the Facebook app on the phone. You just really rarely ever need it.