4 ms·
Nokia's new phones look fantastic. But their last ones looked fantastic, too. I think this totally sums up Nokia (and Microsoft's) predicament. They're doing a
by Lewisham 14y ago
Nokia's new phones look fantastic. But their last ones looked fantastic, too.
I think this totally sums up Nokia (and Microsoft's) predicament. They're doing all the right things, and they still can't seem to catch a break.
Google's tactic of putting Android in the hands of companies who were being heavily burned by iPhone gave them ubiquity, and in America at least, the AT&T deal probably did more harm than good for Apple by forcing Verizon to push Android hard.
Now we have this two horse system: one that has all the apps and the cachet, one that has the rest of the handsets (and, with Jelly Bean, is really a strong offering against iOS) and there just isn't any room left for Nokia or WP8. I think Nokia is going to have to step into the Windows RT ring this holiday.
Microsoft thinks it knows how to play this game from its Xbox days: buy out developers until you get enough mass to make consumers stick. But the game is different when you have carriers screwing things up for you (no Nokia on Verizon this year, carriers blocking OTA patches) and a platform that is driven by app numbers rather than by hits in the same way the games industry is. It doesn't help that web startups are hitching their horse to iOS and then begrudgingly offer Android later (I'm looking at you Mint and Simple). Windows Phone just isn't in their roadmap anywhere.
My guess is the fate of Windows Phone and Nokia is probably tied to the success of Windows 8. If Windows 8 takes off, Windows Phone will get a halo effect and sales of that will follow. But even then, I think consumers are going to be weirded out by the fact that the stuff they have on their Windows 8 tablet doesn't appear on their Windows Phone 8 handset.
- vyrotek 14y agoI think consumers are going to be weirded out by the fact that the stuff they have on their Windows 8 tablet doesn't appear on their Windows Phone 8 handset. I'm not sure I followed this. Do you think people get weirded out by not having 'the stuff' on their iPad appear on their iPhone?
- Lewisham 14y agoMost iPad apps have iPhone equivalents, or are built and distributed as a single app for both platforms. Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8 does not appear to have this functionality. There was rumors of WP8 apps being usable on Windows 8, but I highly doubt it'll go the other way. Users should not be expected to see two devices, which have equal interfaces (just a smaller form factor) and realize they are different, especially seeing how iOS/Android has trained them to think they are the same.
- vyrotek 14y agoI was under the impression that the whole reason Microsoft was pushing 'the style formally known as Metro' on Windows, Surface and Phones was so that it would be possible to easily port apps across everything. I'm a .Net developer so I'm genuinely interested in this topic. I figured it wouldn't be as easy as just changing the UI dimensions, but I thought the new architecture with WinRT and stuff would provide enough commonality API-wise. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Phone_8 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Phone_8 Simplified porting of Windows 8 apps to Windows Phone 8 (compatibility with Windows 8 Metro apps) On June 20, 2012, Microsoft unveiled Windows Phone 8, a new generation of the operating system for release later in 2012. Windows Phone 8 will replace its previously Windows CE-based architecture with one based off the Windows NT kernel with many components shared with Windows 8, allowing applications to be easily ported between the two platforms.
- Lewisham 14y agoI think this is something we'll just have to wait and see on, AFAIK we don't know what the APIs and such on WP8 are yet.