Windows Phone Woes
Anyone who has been following the sad story of Windows Phone has got to be either very disappointed or very happy depending one which end of the Apple-loving spectrum you fall on.
As I mentioned in my earlier post, the idea of a Windows Phone got me very excited. The Apple phone is great - don’t get me wrong, but I’ve always been one of those anti-Apple guys. That said, I freely admit to owning two Apple Imacs, several Apple laptops over the years, a first generation iPod touch, a number of Apple iPods, and a gen 1 Apple tablet.
I had to draw the line at the iPhone as I was a long time Verizon subscriber and was not going to switch to the far inferior AT&T network simply to get an iPhone. Yes, the iPhone is on Verizon now, but I’ve moved over to U.S. Cellular so the wait begins anew. I do own and like the Android phone I have now, but it definitely feels rough around the edges. If the Windows phone had come to Verizon last fall, I would probably have one and still be on Verizon’s network.
The recent events around the Windows Phone has certainly dampened my enthusiasm. Even if a Windows phone were to come to U.S. Cellular now, I don’t think I would buy one. My main concern is that Microsoft simply does not seem to really “get it” when it comes to phones. The Windows Phone roll out last fall followed Apple’s iPhone introduction script in very depressing ways. First of all, it was not available on Verizon or Sprint. I’m not sure if T-Mobile had one at launch, but AT&T was certainly the flagship carrier. Secondly, like the first iPhone, it shipped with some major handicaps. No cut and paste, the search function in the Windows Phone store is a mess, and there simply were not a lot of applications available for it. This was not a huge problem for Apple three years ago as they were releasing something that was truly revolutionary for the time and people were willing to forgive the shortcomings. On top of this, Apple acted fairly quickly to correct many of the major limitations with software upgrades that it released on its timetable.
Microsoft was launching a phone into a post-iPhone world, and users already had a good viable competitor. There were very few really compelling reasons for the average person to choose a Windows Phone over an iPhone or an Android device. Perhaps the most compelling reason was that it was a chance for people who did not like Apple to get a feature rich phone. But, they already had that chance and it was the Android phone. None of this would have mattered too much in the long run had Microsoft chosen to roll out some software updates in a timely manner. Unfortunately, Microsoft made one other error – they ceded control of updating to the carriers. Sure, Microsoft might develop an OS upgrade, but the carriers had the ability to block that update from going out if they chose to. To no one’s surprise they chose to.
Microsoft had an update ready to go at the end of 2010, but for many users in the U.S., that update is only now starting to trickle out. Furthermore, while it addresses some of the shortcomings of Windows Phone, it won’t be until late this year or early next that Microsoft will have the next update available that will bring the Windows Phone into parity with the iPhone 4. All well and good except for the fact that by then, Apple will probably have the iPhone 5 that will once again relegate Microsoft’s offering to second class citizen status.
There have been some recent stories about how some of the major analysts see Windows phone taking the number two spot behind Android and ahead of Apple in a few years. They got there by figuring that Microsoft’s recent alliance with Nokia is going to mean that Windows phones will sell as well as Nokia’s Symbian based phones have sold. I think that this is a big assumption. Microsoft certainly has the talent, resources, and money to position Windows Phone as a major threat to Apple, but they are going to have to get their act together to do it. If history is any guide, Microsoft doesn’t have a great track record with consumer oriented devices (think Media Center, Windows Home Server, Zune, etc.) – the Xbox being the only notable exception.
I’m certainly not prepared to invest my money and my two year contract time into a Windows Phone today. We’ll see how they look in a few years. In the meantime, maybe Apple will consider cutting a deal with U.S. cellular. That iPhone 5 is sure sounding good about now.
iPhone, Windows Phone