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Gruber's source: Microsoft only sold 503 Kins.
- credo 16y agowhy not provide the source http://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-rank-and-file-felt-embarassment-all-over-campus-from-kin-failure-2010-7 http://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-rank-and-file-felt-... Clearly Kin was a big flop, but the "only 503" sold claim lacks credibility. [edit] I see that I was mistaken on Gruber's source, thanks for the correction AlanH. (of course, I still think that the "503" claim doesn't have much credibility)
- alanh 16y agoThat isn’t the source, Credo. Gruber claims a source told him directly, on the HN submission's link.
- kenjackson 16y agoGruber's sources have been wrong before, at least one time I recall somewhat recently. I wouldn't put much stock in it.
- einarvollset 16y ago503 Service Unavailable. Heh.
- mcknz 16y agoAnd 500 of those were Microsoft employees.
- bluishgreen 16y agoclever, but how do you explain the rest of the 3 units!
- MartinCron 16y agoI doubt you were serious, but thinking about the Microsoft employees I know, it makes the 503 figure sound very dubious. The iPhone is a kind of forbidden love among (some) Microsoft employees. Many of them want to/feel pressured to use Microsoft technologies wherever possible. I would expect more than 500 to be sold just among folks in the Microsoft bubble. Unless it were just really terrible, and everyone knew that from the beginning.
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- vidar 16y agoMaybe they will become collectors items... but probably not given Microsofts ineptitude.
- mixmax 16y agoFrom the wikipedia entry on Kin: "The Kin was based on Windows CE" "Kin only supports email attachments, and does not support attachments to other media (like MMS)" "The handset does not store photos or videos. Instead, every photo and video taken on the Kin is uploaded to Microsoft's server" "There is no photo editing software for Kin." "Kin does not currently support playing video from sites such as YouTube or Hulu" "Kin has no app store and no 3rd party apps can be installed on Kin." "the Kin web browser does not support Flash web applications, and there are no games for Kin." "Kin has no calendar or appointment application, nor any ability to sync with Outlook calendar or Google Calendar" "Kin is unable to Instant Message (IM), or use any IM client" "There is no spelling correction or predictive text input on the Kin." "There are no MicroSD or memory expansion slots." "Kin will not sync or transfer contact lists from some non-Microsoft services (eg Gmail and Yahoo! Mail)" Wonder why it failed...
- teaspoon 16y agoTo be fair, iPhone launched with almost all of the same limitations. Not to say that today's Kin should be competing with yesterday's iPhone, but even today, none of those limitations is a dealbreaker for me.
- aroon 16y agoTo be fair, my first cell phone only displayed one line of text which was only numbers, didn't have a phone book, had terrible call quality, in addition to all the listed missing features. So the Kin is actually a great phone. Should have sold millions.
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- marknutter 16y agoThe iPhone also launched what.. four years ago? At the time, those limitations weren't such a big deal.
- mixmax 16y agoThat's true. The difference is that the Iphone lacked features because of Steve Jobs' desire to only do something if you can do it perfectly. The Kin lacked features because of politics. This is what will kill Microsoft.
- Zak 16y agoIt seems obvious to me from playing with one in a store that few people would look at both the Kin Two and the Android-powered LG Ally, which have identical prices for phone and service and pick the Kin. I think the only way it could have worked would have been for the Kin to have a much cheaper plan.
- rajbot 16y agoFrom the comments of a MS employee on the Mini Microsoft blog [1]: > A billion dollars wasted on Kin, 500 phones sold and a huge amount of ground lost in the mobile space. Two million dollars per user?? [1]: http://minimsft.blogspot.com/2010/07/kin-fusing-kin-clusion-to-kin-and-fy11.html http://minimsft.blogspot.com/2010/07/kin-fusing-kin-clusion-...
- ANINDIAN 16y agothis statement proved Gruber is an Complete Idiot of first order if he even cites 503 to be sales number. + ppl who comment without pointing this out are complete idiots as well
- makmanalp 16y agoI think the proper approach to something like this would be to build a social network and then introduce the device, not the other way round. You can't expect users to flock when the barrier to entry is the price of a device and the success of the network is questionable at best. If Facebook made a deal with a mobile device company (say HTC) and made a similar product, they'd be oodles more successful. Although the fact that our phones nowadays support apps and can browse the web makes this sort of moot anyway.
- jasonlotito 16y agoThe price wasn't theirs to set. The Kin was a pretty cool product for the market. The price, however, was unreasonable. Apple get's a free pass with the iPhone despite AT&T, but MS releases a good product, and people blame the phone companies issues on MS.
- sasidharm 16y agoPrices can be negotiated with the carriers. Remember the original iPhone's 600$ price tag? Infact, MS supposedly got a very good pricing deal with Verizon which they botched up by not meeting the agreed upon timelines.
- jasonlotito 16y ago> Remember the original iPhone's 600$ price tag? Yeah, it's still that high. > MS supposedly got a very good pricing deal with Verizon For the market, no. It was pretty clear when the product came out the pricing for the market it was going after was still too high.
- mithaler 16y agoAccording to the Engadget articles linked above, Verizon changed the pricing late in the development process because they smelled a rat on Microsoft's side and didn't trust them to deliver a product that would sell well. By all indications, they got wind of Microsoft's political struggles and at that point were as willing as Microsoft's managers to just fulfill their contractual obligations as quickly as possible and let the thing die quietly.
- patrickgzill 16y agoThere are 42 reviews of it on Verizon Wireless' site. Pretty amazing ratio if only 503 were sold. http://www.verizonwireless.com/b2c/store/controller?item=phoneFirst&action=viewPhoneDetail&selectedPhoneId=5291&reviewTab=true http://www.verizonwireless.com/b2c/store/controller?item=pho...
- tvon 16y agoThat depends on how many of the reviews are from real customers.
- tiles 16y agoThere's also ~215,000 fans on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/KIN#!/KIN?v=wall http://www.facebook.com/KIN#!/KIN?v=wall One could probably count up the number of comments which mention owning a Kin, to confirm whether 503's lowballing it or not.
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- AmericanOP 16y agoWow. It looks like MS has a staffer managing the Kin facebook group by actually responding to posts. Looks like they're putting their social media budget to good use. From the page: As you probably heard, we have made the decision to focus our efforts on the upcoming Windows Phone 7 launch, and will not ship KIN in Europe this fall as planned. We will continue to work with Verizon Wireless in the U.S. to sell KIN phones and support customers. (7 hours ago). Back to beating the dead windows mobile horse.
- borisk 16y agoMicrosoft Bob 2.0 :D With only 503 sold, it's almost a limited edition. I thought about getting one, but Ebay auctions for contractless Kins end over $150
- jasonlotito 16y agoWhere did the idea come from that the Kin was supposed to fight agains the iPhone? The product was good. The target audience is there, even still, but the pricing is where the problem was. But no, it wasn't going after the same market the iPhone is.
- josefresco 16y agoThe Kin was going after the iPod Touch crowd otherwise known as the iPhone minor-leagues. MS figured there were enough folks who needed the phone but not quite the full smartphone experience. Too bad it required a smartphone data plan at full price.
- jarek 16y ago> MS figured there were enough folks who needed the phone but not quite the full smartphone experience. Yes... > The Kin was going after the iPod Touch crowd ... but that's not the iPod Touch crowd.
- hapless 16y agoI've run into a lot of children and teenagers who own an iPod Touch. It's much easier to get parental funding/permission for a one-time cost than $30-50 month changes to the family phone bill.
- jarek 16y agoBut, again, those are not the Sidekick-user type of users Microsoft was going for.
- sekou 16y agohttp://www.engadget.com/2010/07/02/life-and-death-of-microsoft-kin-the-inside-story/ http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/02/life-and-death-of-microso... http://www.engadget.com/2010/06/30/what-killed-the-kin/ http://www.engadget.com/2010/06/30/what-killed-the-kin/ These two articles from Engadget explain what happened very well. Essentially the thing was dead and cannibalized before it was released, it's a very sad story.
- antidaily 16y agoApparently Passion Pit played the release party.
- tiles 16y agoIt was upon actually seeing the phone, that they got the inspiration to write a song called "The Reeling".
- MaysonL 16y agoI do wonder how many they made, and what will happen to them. Landfill, recycling, or remaindered?
- hernan7 16y agoSame landfill as the Atari "E.T." cartridges.
- Encosia 16y agoThey seem to still be trying to sell what's left. I heard a Kin ad on the radio yesterday and saw the ex-girlfriend ad on Hulu at some point this week. I guess the discontinuation doesn't really matter to most users, as long as MS keeps the Kin Studio site running (which I believe they are).
- kenjackson 16y agoI wouldn't trust Gruber's sources. There are other sources that put the number at more than 1,000, but less than 10,000.
- aaronbrethorst 16y agoI heard from a couple reliable sources that 1,000 < KINs sold < 10,000, too.
- sambeau 16y agoThis article quotes 500 from a Microsoft employee. While they may be quoting Gruber I find it more unlikely that they wouldn't have at least a ballpark figure. http://minimsft.blogspot.com/2010/07/kin-fusing-kin-clusion-to-kin-and-fy11.html http://minimsft.blogspot.com/2010/07/kin-fusing-kin-clusion-...
- coverband 16y agoThe total users of the Kin Facebook app (which requires the device to sign up) is around 9,000.
- reader5000 16y agoThey marketed it as a way to keep tabs on "your people" 24/7. Not sure that many people are that hyper-social, no matter how hip.
- Encosia 16y agoNot sure how conclusive or infallibly accurate this is, but it seems a lot more credible than the rumors people have been floating lately: http://pocketnow.com/rumor/actually-kin-sold-more-than-503-devices http://pocketnow.com/rumor/actually-kin-sold-more-than-503-d...
- illumin8 16y agoThis is most definitely false. Verizon was giving them away for free with a contract just to get rid of them, so I'm sure they got rid of more than 503.
- PanMan 16y agoPocketnow says 8810 were in use: http://pocketnow.com/rumor/actually-kin-sold-more-than-503-devices http://pocketnow.com/rumor/actually-kin-sold-more-than-503-d... Not a lot, but more than 503
- punchfire 16y agohe's wrong, there you go: http://pocketnow.com/rumor/actually-kin-sold-more-than-503-devices http://pocketnow.com/rumor/actually-kin-sold-more-than-503-d...
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- ptolemy 16y agothis guy is a fanboy whore..i know for a fact there are more than 503 sold... working for a carrier and all. He needs to get more credible sources.