Displaying items by tag: Windows Phone

Microsoft’s Windows 8 has been pushed to RTM and the lucky few with TechNet accounts already have this new software downloaded and installed. We are already starting to read the reviews and observations of people that are fascinated with the new UI and those that hate it. We will have our own review in a few weeks that will include traditional desktop, laptop and also a tablet PC. Still there is a lot of misinformation about the strengths of Windows 8 and also how it will fit into the market.  We were sent a link to what we have found to be one of the better comparisons of the pros and cons of Windows 8 and wanted to cover our take (based on experience in the IT industry) and also to add to their findings.

It seems that Nokia is taking cues from Microsoft and trying a little trash talk. For those of you that do not know what cue I am talking about here it is one where Microsoft’s president of Windows Phone, Andy Lees talked trash about both the iPhone and Android. He commented that Android simply hits you with “a grid of apps” and that with the iPhone he stated that Siri was not “super useful”. All of this was in a push for Windows Phone 7.x and in the end Lees got a new job inside Microsoft which simply says he is a “president of the Microsoft Corporation”

Microsoft has announced that they are getting rid of the Metro name for the Windows 8 “start screen”.  The sudden shift on the eve of the launch (the final version has been released to OEM partners and other manufacturers) is unusual and Microsoft’s answers for this change are not adding up. The original term Metro can be dated back to the UI used for the Zune players and in particular the ZuneHD. This style of slimmed down icon-free user interface that many people liked about the now discarded media player. After receiving good feedback on the Zune (and with many comments asking for a “Zune Phone”) Microsoft pushed some elements of the Zune UI into their Windows Phone product.

So Windows 8 has gone gold and has been shipped to all of Microsoft’s OEM partners so that they all can make the October 26th release date. This is supposed to be a good thing for Microsoft and their partners, but for some reason we just are not hearing the same type of excitement we did with Windows 7 or even Windows Vista. Before the Windows 7 launch we heard from many OEMs and vendors who were excited about the launch of the new OS, it fixed many issues that Vista had and was much faster to boot. This time we are getting responses like “we are not commenting on our Windows 8 plans” or another very generic statement.

Straight from the Black Hat Conference in Las Vegas we have some bad news for the Apple fans. It seems that the myth surrounding the security of the iPhone is starting to crack around the edges. This is something that we predicted would happen when the trend to use Smartphones for common net tasks first started appearing. It only make sense that malicious coders would start hitting out smart phones after all. I mean how many people use their phones for banking, personal and work email, store passwords to online accounts in their phones with password lockers and more. To be honest, considering the number of smart phones in use, we are surprised that it has taken this long.

Well looks like we were close to the mark with our comments this morning about a Facephone. If you remember we had talked about the rumors that continually popup about this legendary device and some of the “indicators” that have had analysts and journalists even claiming to know when one would launch. So far we have heard everything from it will be Nokia/Microsoft effort to an HTC/Android product. The problem was that most guesses about this were based on the simple fact that Facebook hired people from Apple and Palm. What they did not do was really look at what those people did and what they are doing at Facebook.

As we near the launch of two new phones the rumors are building again around a Facebook phone (dubbed the Facephone by many). This is a rumor is something we have covered on more than one occasion and while we still think that it would be a flop (for many reasons) the rumors are interesting when we take a look at their origins and the companies they involve. The latest one involves HTC as the potential partner with Android as the base OS. It comes on the heels of new information about the team of developers that Facebook has picked up from Apple and Palm.

Nokia is laboring under some false expectations with their Lumia phones and the upcoming release of Windows Phone 8. It seems that despite the lack of market share and a dubious demand for Windows Phone in general they feel that building exclusive deals with carriers is the way to go. We find this very odd considering that the numbers they have now are only due to the proliferation of Windows Phone 7 based Lumias in the market. If they were restricted to single carriers in every market they would not have the 10.9 million units shipped that they have now.

Hearing about a flaw in one product from a competitor in a product is sort of like asking your dog what food he likes best. You know you are not going to get a good answer and, of course, the dog is only going to stare at you and eat pretty much anything (including a bug…). So when we heard that a Microsoft Anti-Spam Engineer was reporting a new Android based email spam botnet we took it with a grain of salt (remember Microsoft has a new Phone OS coming out soon).

We all know that Microsoft is pushing a combined ecosystem with their move into Windows 8. This is something that has both good and bad parts to it (we have covered the bad at length so we will not go into too much detail here). On the good side there is the interoperability that may want from their collection of devices. People really do want the same experience on their mobile products (tablets, phones etc.) as they have on their desktop. Both Apple and Microsoft have been working towards this, but as of right now it looks like Microsoft will get there first with an operating system that has a similar look and feel across multiple platforms.