Austin360 blogs > Digital Savant > Archives > 2010 > October > 11 > Entry
Short takes: Windows Phone 7 and Dell’s new wares, ACL’s AT&T problem, GDC Online
There is much tech ground to cover today; rather than just give you links (like on The Linkdown) or flood you with a bunch of blog entries, here’s some short bits on what’s happening:
At a launch event today, the company introduced nine handsets for North America across the major wireless carriers, some of which will be in stores as early as November 9. It’ll also have AT&T U-Verse integration like Microsoft’s Xbox.
You can’t quibble with what Microsoft is trying to do and how far it’s trying to move away from Windows Mobile’s staid, boring legacy. The Phone 7 OS looks good and may perform admirably. But the problem with this launch is its timing; Android, RIM (BlackBerry) and Apple’s iOS have a huge head start and Windows Phone 7 will have to offer some pretty clear advantages for someone to give up their current purchased apps and abandon ship. Add to that Microsoft’s history of introducing products that on paper might be superior but that in practice are overly complicated and user-unfriendly and I’m not convinced they’re going to make huge headway in the mobile space, at least in the first year.
Then again, I didn’t think Bing as a search engine was going to be a huge success.
Clearest evidence that the software isn’t fully baked: you won’t be able to copy/paste with it until January. But, hey, it took a few years for Apple to introduce that feature for its iPhone.
As Kirk Ladendorf’s story points out in today’s Tech Monday, these new Dell devices haven’t exactly caught fire yet and I’m not sure a phone on T-Mobile competing against the rest of the new Widows Phone 7 lineup, iPhone and Android is going to either. But we’ll see. Maybe Dell knows something about the smart phone market that analysts and the rest of us clearly don’t.
As for their tablets, mini or otherwise, is it too late to catch up to the iPad already, which could sell 45 million units next year?
ACL and iPhone woes: In case you missed it, the comments on my blog post about cell phone data connectivity at Austin City Limits Festival were illuminating. It seems Sprint 4G users did well, as did users of Verizon MiFi devices, but AT&T iPhone users fared the worst.
Silver lightning: the fest is moving to mid-September next year, so it’ll be too hot for anyone to worry about late voice mails and data blackouts.
GDC Online: Because of some other work commitments I was only able to attend the Game Developers Conference Online for a few sessions and a keynote from Brian Reynolds of Zynga, but I was encouraged by what felt like a renewed emphasis on the world of online and social gaming and the presence of lots of young, growing Austin game studios.
Because the conference is geared to game developers, it’s not always something worth writing about for consumers of games, but I had some great short meetings with some game developers and saw more excitement and enthusiasm for new games than I have at previous GDC conferences.
Permalink | Comments (3) | Post your comment Categories: ACL Festival, Austin, Gadgets, Internet, Phones, Videogames
Comments
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By Ralph Thompson
October 18, 2010 1:10 AM | Link to this
great post thanks
By Mpowered
October 12, 2010 5:57 AM | Link to this
I am an iPhone user. This is an elegant and easy to use device with more apps than one can count. The only drawback is slow web speed and occasional dropped calls. One the next gen iPhone is available on Verizon these issues ought to go away. Droid and Blackberry have good products too so it figures to be tough for new entrants to compete.
By Jette Momant
October 11, 2010 5:13 PM | Link to this
Hello, Omar!
Thanks for the rundown.
Yes, Windows Phone 7 is a little late to the game but as mobile app developers at Mutual Mobile, we actually like Windows Phone 7 more than other systems such as the Android because it's more rigid. QA testing for Android is difficult because there are no minimum hardware specs and all these nuances. If we get a bug in one, it's difficult to test, because you have be device specific. Whereas Microsoft makes that fragmentation more contained, it you've developed in once, it may run slower, but any bug won't be device specific.
Also, Windows 7's ability to go on multiple smartphones will be a huge advantage.
Thoughts?
- Jette Momant
Mutual Mobile
http://www.mutualmobile.com