Windows 8....urgh

[Theblacksheep]

It lacks the substance and quality of the other phone operating systems. It lacks the long term plan also, it's basically a mash up claiming to be one thing and then backtracking quickly enough when something bad happens. I've no doubt it's successful, but it certainly isn't successful because of it's features. It's successful because the only alternative is an iPhone or a Blackberry and they are pretty much driven by fan base only hence their stagnant market shares. Android is a mass market phone and that's it, people choose it because it's pretty much the only phone around that isn't 500 quid or a black berry.

Have you seen an android phone before?

[creese]

It's not even the Linux of the smartphone world. The only people who defend it so passionately are for the most part, the same people who love Linux. The rest of the world sees it as nothing more than the replacement for Symbian. It's the gap filler. The meat in the room. It lacks the substance and quality of the other phone operating systems. It lacks the long term plan also, it's basically a mash up claiming to be one thing and then backtracking quickly enough when something bad happens. I've no doubt it's successful, but it certainly isn't successful because of it's features. It's successful because the only alternative is an iPhone or a Blackberry and they are pretty much driven by fan base only hence their stagnant market shares. Android is a mass market phone and that's it, people choose it because it's pretty much the only phone around that isn't 500 quid or a black berry.

Hmmm. I thought I bought mine as it does everything I would want a phone to do. From Sat Nav to listening to the Archers before I go to sleep. How wrong can I be? I've used a Blackberry or black berry and an iPhone, and I'm staying where I am.

[Domino]

Hmmm. I thought I bought mine as it does everything I would want a phone to do. From Sat Nav to listening to the Archers before I go to sleep. How wrong can I be? I've used a Blackberry or black berry and an iPhone, and I'm staying where I am.

Same.

I had an iPhone for years, I still have a Blackberry for work and the Android phone I have is head and shoulders above them both.

And, the most popular systems get the most development and have a longer lifecycle - so it doesn't matter how awesome people think windows phone 7 is if no-one's buying it....

[Arthur]

Requirements for tablets...

The company also disclosed some of the hardware constraints that Windows 8 tablets will have to follow. To get the new interface, tablets will have to offer a resolution of at least 1024x768. Anything lower and they will be stuck with a derivative of the classic Windows 7 shell. Increasing the resolution from the 4:3 1024x768 to the 16:9 1366x768 will additionally enable the "snap" side-by-side multitasking view that was demonstrated.

Mention was also made of boot performance; UEFI systems with SSDs were described as being able to fully boot, from cold shutdown to the Start screen, in under six seconds. Wake from sleep will be instant.

Microsoft also talked a little about the ARM version's compatibility with Windows. ARM Windows won't include an x86 emulator, and as such will not be able to run existing Windows programs. It is, however, the same operating system with the same APIs, meaning that it should be possible to recompile existing software and device drivers for ARM Windows with few difficulties. The same applications should, therefore, become available on both platforms, as should access to the same hardware.

With Windows 8, Microsoft is paying far more attention to the hardware, and providing far more guidance to hardware manufacturers. For example, the company has recommendations for how large to make the bezels on tablet computers to ensure that they're comfortable to hold. Combined with restrictions on the number of devices that can be brought to market, the message seems clear: Microsoft would rather have a smaller number of best-of-breed devices than the same kind of free-for-all as exists in the world of conventional PCs. (Source)

I can't find the link, but the non-ARM version of Windows 8 will have the same (or lower) hardware requirements as Windows 7.

[SYNACK]

Same.

I had an iPhone for years, I still have a Blackberry for work and the Android phone I have is head and shoulders above them both.

And, the most popular systems get the most development and have a longer lifecycle - so it doesn't matter how awesome people think windows phone 7 is if no-one's buying it....

Its a shame that WP7 has not taken off more but it has been their own fault thanks to junk api access and marketing. WP7 was launched in NZ first thanks to time zones but I only heard about it a day later from the news. I understand the android apprehention though, there are so many devices all with differing software and hardware. Unless you go with one of the known few top flight ones you can get easily stuck with a pile of poo. Likewise the UI can be different on each of the devices. This is not too much of an issue for me but in this instance I was recomending a phone for a family member. With the fixed min hardware spec of WP7 its really hard to get a bad phone. It was also half the cost of the similar speced android and has been a really good phone. A huge R&D department for UI does pay off.

When the next update is released with better API support I will probably buy one for myself to upgrade my Touch Pro 2. While they are still around anyway, I do hope that MS sticks with it which seems likely given their direction for Windows 8.

[CyberNerd]

I just found this interesting post on slashdot, detailing some of the fundamental issues with win7phones

I actually think WP7 will fail much worse than Vista. Vista was a bit sluggish but it run the old applications. WP7 can't, and that will be fatal. All the Windows Mobile users will move to Android where their apps already work. People who already have an Android or iOS device are very unlikely to switch to WP7. All the ISVs will end up on Android and/or iOS because it's easier to port an app to a platform where you can use C/C++ and native code than one where the whole thing needs to be in C# and Silverlight or XNA. Even Angry Birds needs a C physics library. In fact even if Microsoft allow C and native code I doubt the ISVs that used to support Windows Mobile will come back because the platforms already bad market share is dropping quickly.

E.g. Pleco - a Chinese dictionary - moved to iOS and (soon) to Android. They've dropped Windows Mobile and won't ever support WP7. When they dropped Windows Mobile the iOS version was outselling WinMo 10:1. They have core code in C/C++ which they can run on both iOS and Android (also on WinMo). No chance of it working on WP7 without rewriting in C#. And no chance of getting their handwriting and OCR libraries from third parties ported either.

Opera have dropped Windows Mobile and won't support WP7. Once again they have C/C++ code with a few third party libraries in native ARM. It would be almost impossible to port to WP7 and even if they did Microsoft have apparently said they won't allow alternative browsers in their app store.

In a sense WP7 is more like a console than a phone. Worse actually since XBoxes support native code as far as I know. Maybe they'll pick up games from the XBox ecosystem but I don't think that will make up for not having things like Opera and Pleco though. They've apparently offered Adobe the possibility of native code to get Flash ported and possibly will do the same for titles like Angry Birds. Still that's not really enough - Adobe haven't announced a ship date and Roxio, the Angry Birds publisher, have publicly contradicted Microsoft when Microsoft implied they had committed to porting. I.e. handing out native code passes for key applications is not enough to get people to support a platform which is obviously doomed.

Picture Vista with no back compatibility following on from XP which had 1/3 the market share of OSX. Imagine that all the software already worked on iOS. That's the situation WP7 is in - it's actually easier to run the apps you used on Windows Mobile on Android than on WP7. Even the IHVs like HTC prefer Android because it's free to them and there are no limits on things like the Sense UI. WP7 has ridiculous limits on how much value they can add and they need to rewrite all their WinMo software in C# to make it work.

I think the market share will drop rapidly and Microsoft will kill it. Just like Kin and Zune, both of which used the same software.

Windows Phones Getting Buried At Carriers' Stores - Slashdot

[localzuk]

It's not even the Linux of the smartphone world. The only people who defend it so passionately are for the most part, the same people who love Linux. The rest of the world sees it as nothing more than the replacement for Symbian. It's the gap filler. The meat in the room. It lacks the substance and quality of the other phone operating systems. It lacks the long term plan also, it's basically a mash up claiming to be one thing and then backtracking quickly enough when something bad happens. I've no doubt it's successful, but it certainly isn't successful because of it's features. It's successful because the only alternative is an iPhone or a Blackberry and they are pretty much driven by fan base only hence their stagnant market shares. Android is a mass market phone and that's it, people choose it because it's pretty much the only phone around that isn't 500 quid or a black berry.

I don't know which Android phone you used, but I've now had 2 android phones (the G1 and the Desire HD) and I love both of them. Stability isn't often an issue really, sure there are a few dodgy apps but there are on every phone. Quality? I'd say it is top quality personally. Android combined with the HTC sense UI is flawless. People buy iPhones because of the name/brand rather than the capabilites. People choose Android because it does what they want. I chose my phone because it fit in my price bracket, had a massive collection of apps to choose from, was fast, has a large screen and has user changeable batteries. What more do you want Android to do? Think of it like a car. iPhone is an Alfa Romeo, and android phones are VW, Skoda, Peugot, Renault, Vauxhall etc... They all do the same thing but the Alfa brand is more 'loved'.

[difinity]

@localzuk
I wasn't aware that iPhones broke down every other day !

[localzuk]

@localzuk
I wasn't aware that iPhones broke down every other day !

Lol, ok maybe not a perfect analogy but close...

[Cools]

Hmm looks like a mobile phone....
but..
it might be good if you can replace all the sides with shortcuts and have news feed updates..
it will save them little ***** from trying to hack it.

Less is more.. "You say no i say idiot proof."
lol

But it does look like windows 7 with a new front end.

[CyberNerd]

another interesting Windows 8 article:

Windows 8 for software developers: the Longhorn dream reborn?

Early this month, Microsoft dropped something of a bombshell on Windows developers: the new Windows 8 touch-friendly immersive style would use a developer platform not based on .NET, which Microsoft has been championing for the past decade. Instead, it would use HTML5 and JavaScript.

[Gatt]

Why not just call it Windows Tablet, and leave Windows 7 as is for another couple of years

[Arthur]

Windows 8: Hyper-V 3.0 and new VHDX virtual hard drive format discovered

Windows 8 build 7989 includes the following Hyper-V 3.0 features:

Storage

• Virtual Fibre Channel Adapter
• Storage Resource Pools
• New .VHDX virtual hard drive format (Up to 16TB + power failure resiliency)

Memory/Processor Enhancements

• Support for more than 4 cores! (My machine has 12 cores)
• NUMA – Memory per Node, Cores per Node, Nodes per Processor Socket

Networking Enhancements

• Hardware Acceleration (Virtual Machine Queue & IPsec Offload)
• Bandwidth Management
• DHCP Guard
• Router Guard
• Monitor Port
• Virtual Switch Extensions
• Network Resource Pools

The new VHDX format is capable of supporting disks much larger than the current 2TB restriction of VHD. Microsoft has created VHDX which is capable of supporting disks up to 16TB in size. The new format can only be used in Windows OS versions starting at Windows 8. The introduction of Hyper-V 3.0 could allow for self-contained App-V applications.

Why not just call it Windows Tablet, and leave Windows 7 as is for another couple of years

The last thing we need is a separate tablet edition of Windows. Microsoft tried that once before with Windows XP.

[Gatt]

The last thing we need is a separate tablet edition of Windows. Microsoft tried that once before with Windows XP.

We could extend that to "last thing we need is another version of Windows"

[zag]

Cool hyper-v improvements, that's the future right there!