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"Microsoft probably has people testing these things." It sure does. But what does Microsoft do with those recommendations? The company had a group test the Ki

"Microsoft probably has people testing these things." It sure does. But what does Microsoft do with those recommendations? The company had a group test the Kin devices, too. The group decided the devices were unusable, and Microsoft decided to launch them as-is anyways. http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2012/11/unreleased-internal-microsoft-videos-show-why-kin-crashed-and-burned/ http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2012/11/unreleased-internal-m...

kenjackson 14y ago
Actually they fixed the perf, which was the main complaint from those videos.
- Samuel_Michon 14y ago
  From the article: "These internal Microsoft videos, provided to Wired by a person who worked on the project, show focus groups testing the ill-fated Kin. According to our source, these are pre-production models that changed very little from the shipping product, although “performance improved some prior to shipping.” Watch them, and you can readily see why the project tanked: Kin phones just weren’t usable."
  - kenjackson 14y ago
    According to our source, these are pre-production models that changed very little from the shipping product, although “performance improved some prior to shipping.” This is obviously not true by just watching the videos. In the videos the delay between typing a number on the keypad and it coming up is something like 5 seconds. Watch any hands-on video after it launched and you can see no performance issues like that. Kin reviews noted some performance issues, but nothing to the degree noted by these videos. performance improved some prior to shipping I think that would be an understatement given how poor the perf in these videos were. It would be like doing a test group on the iPhone where dragging and tapping was delayed by a few seconds. There's no reason to even test that, because it will break everything else in the UI.
- bradwestness 14y ago
  I actually have a Kin One and I really like it. The web browser kinda sucks because it's based on IE 6 but the messaging and actual phone parts are great and I love the UI.

kenjackson 14y ago

Actually they fixed the perf, which was the main complaint from those videos.

Samuel_Michon 14y ago
From the article: "These internal Microsoft videos, provided to Wired by a person who worked on the project, show focus groups testing the ill-fated Kin. According to our source, these are pre-production models that changed very little from the shipping product, although “performance improved some prior to shipping.” Watch them, and you can readily see why the project tanked: Kin phones just weren’t usable."
- kenjackson 14y ago
  According to our source, these are pre-production models that changed very little from the shipping product, although “performance improved some prior to shipping.” This is obviously not true by just watching the videos. In the videos the delay between typing a number on the keypad and it coming up is something like 5 seconds. Watch any hands-on video after it launched and you can see no performance issues like that. Kin reviews noted some performance issues, but nothing to the degree noted by these videos. performance improved some prior to shipping I think that would be an understatement given how poor the perf in these videos were. It would be like doing a test group on the iPhone where dragging and tapping was delayed by a few seconds. There's no reason to even test that, because it will break everything else in the UI.
bradwestness 14y ago
I actually have a Kin One and I really like it. The web browser kinda sucks because it's based on IE 6 but the messaging and actual phone parts are great and I love the UI.