Sometimes 2 pictures can tell a story better than 1000 words. What is wrong with one of these 2 pictures?
DEATH WISH / Link
vs.
ON-A-ROLL / Link
Is the MS strategy so secret and mind boggling that I am simply not smart enough to comprehend its brilliance? Or is there a wattage problem in MS's Board Room?
.
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I can live with it adding $20 to the cost of a device. There are also things like TCO or similar that apply to a manufacturer and in turn to a customer.
The answer is yes. He is most definitely retarded.
Fact is that wimo could NEVER have been considered successful. Mostly because it is a piece of trash. Charging more [than nothing] for it is suicide -- especially when you compare it to the in-every-conceivable-way superior ANDROID, which is free.
I actually quite like their strategy of shooting themselves in the head. It means that they will die off faster.
Alright, let's do a recap:
-Android is 100% free, WinMo is not
-They are about to charge CARRIERS, so say goodbye to unlocked phones
-It's Windows Mobile, so say goodbye to Google services. If you like Bing, Windows Live and the rest, good for you, but most of us don't.
He is to Microsoft what Bush was to the US. He is arrogant, generally misoriented and strengthen the opinion the public has about Microsoft.
N1c0_ds said:
Alright, let's do a recap:He is to Microsoft what Bush was to the US. He is arrogant, generally misoriented and strengthen the opinion the public has about Microsoft.
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Wow, this is quite apt, and yet I have never made the connection before. Now that you've made it for me, there are thousands of 1:1 analogies that flow like a rain-flooded river out of my head.
His "Mission Accomplished" was his laughing off the iphone. That was the beginning of the end of staying relevant. Now, 3-4 years later, he's introducing his own iphone, but with one very clever and extremely significant difference:
He's calling his Windows Phone.
Ballmer has been blowing it for years! That's why XDA thrives fixing his OS and why Adroid is on the fast track.
I had 3 WinMo phones before my Hero and I thought it was amazing, I was really reluctant to switch to Android, and after using Android for 1 day I'm pretty sure I'll never use WinMo again. If someone paid me $100 to use WinMo instead of Android, I wouldn't; so asking people to pay THEM to use WinMo is just stupid.
It really starts to come down to the essence of this site
rpimps said:
I had 3 WinMo phones before my Hero and I thought it was amazing, I was really reluctant to switch to Android, and after using Android for 1 day I'm pretty sure I'll never use WinMo again. If someone paid me $100 to use WinMo instead of Android, I wouldn't; so asking people to pay THEM to use WinMo is just stupid.
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This is my exact experience. It isn't a punitive view. It has nothing to do with loyalty/disloyalty, or "they're late to delivering their new OS, so I will punish them by not using it". This has everything to do with how good the combination of HTC + Android is. There is not one thing I long for, there is nothing at all that I am missing using my HTC Hero running Android. HTC's SenseUI on top of Android (which i had never run before, nor even tried before, deciding I wanted to buy the Hero) works so beautifully right out of the box, and the Android market is filled with apps & utilities that make the device's functionality even greater.
I spent over 3 years here, a whole year before even registering, just to help make my T-Mobile MDA device useful to me.
I am saying this: Before my first touchscreen device, I had a very reliable Samsung clamshell device... Being very careful, while in the car I could hit a speed dial and get someone on the phone, activate speakerphone etc., and when the call was done, bullet-proof step to end the cal;. I could feel it in my fingers.
Entering the world of touchscreens, of which I am such a huge champion I have created an awards series in support of, I quickly discovered, to my immediate dismay, "I can't even make a phone call without having this screen up to my face"... But worse, put it in my pocket and for a year my friends are all angry "why do you keep calling me?". Try to get the phone OUT of my pocket to answer a call before it goes to voicemail, 9 times out of ten a touchscreen area gets pushed and call is lost.
Then the tiny tiny keyboard you use reading glasses to see so you can poke that stylus precisely... I was wondering, "what have I traded away for a screen that can browse the web?"
Again, 4 years ago, thankfully one T-mobile store salesperson in San Francisco told me about this site, kind of in hushed tones while inside the store as employee. When I first came here, like with many folks, it was an intimidating jungle, with caution signs everywhere: "READ THIS FIRST" "DON'T POST WITHOUT SEARCHING". I would finally come to what I thought would be straight-forward set of instructions: "A Newbie's Guide to Upgrading your T-Mobile MDA", only to encounter in the very first sentence "Make sure your phone ist HARD-SPL'd or you'll brick it"... "HARD SPL? What does THAT mean?" It took me well over 6 months, back then, to stop-and-go, stop-and-go-back, just then searching for "what is HARD SPL?" only to come to yet another thread saying stuff like "To make sure your device is capable of HARD SPL, it must be all ROMS after 63i850db247, not before or you'll brick your phone"... Read 100's of pages of thread and not one post saying "Yes, your MDA is fine for Hard-SPL". On and on it went til finally, after being slapped down a few times for asking questions (they would link me back to the very threads I already had plowed through), I got some help to get me started.
And THAT day began the pursuit toward USEFULNESS OF USING MY PHONE.
Admit it, more than 3/4 of this site has always been about compensating for what may have been a very fine underlying OS, but a terrible, terrible unfriendly user experience. I upgraded to the T-Mobile Wing before the iPhone came out and was finally at the spot where XDA-devs had created 1000 workarounds for those tiny menus you have to hold up to your face to see... They stripped out the inefficiencies of various WM software, and suddenly I could multi-task keeping Google Maps aways open, with contacts open, notes, music player, ans various utilities. Finally, for me, after 3 years I had a USEABLE PHONE that matched the promise of the ads and marketing.
In almost all cases, XDA-devs were generally NOT exploiting some fabulously smart feature of WindowsMobile, and making it better. They were taking poorly-thought out functionality and terrible UI, and adapting it to become useful. And when the iphone hit, then the paradigm of finger-based navigation changed everything, and XDA-devs created UIs that replicated the easier to "hit" target zones of the iphone interface. Lots of 3rd party shells, etc... But almost ALL of this was to correct deficiencies due to handicaps of what was core Windows Mobile. Still, to this day, people like Supbro, developer of iDialer, and his branch of iContact, have been correcting the stupidity of tiny text for adding a new contact.
I'm just saying: Here I am 4 years later, having had amazing functionality delivered to me thanks to great chefs here, great app & utility developers, and, let's all face it, GREAT ROMS from HTC which were broken apart to extract and enable yet MORE compensating UI fixes (like TouchFlo), all to FIX and mask over the terrible user experience of Windows Mobile.
THUS, when I got my Hero, and began to use it, and from DAY 1, it just works, and it's easy and intuitive, and with all these great widgets and real-time display updates, I realized even more: JEEZ! Finally an OS that is smarter out the gate. Yet Windows STILL had a year to come in and show the marketplace it had learned a thing or two, after the G1 introduced the world to Android. And all they could burp out, with all their resources and skilled engineers, was windows 6.5? And they had to even quickly abandon their explicit HONEYCOMB Ui after it was immediately, and rightfully ridiculed as
"THIS is your new thinking, Microsoft? Your honeycomb staggered alignment, and your start button at bottom center. THIS IS IT??"
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So Ballmer 6-9 months ago "gets religion" and admits (in that infamous private meeting widely reported throughout cellphone land) his whole company should have focused on WM7, and not gone down the 6.5 path, because they were already so behind their new-found competitors... And there was a HOPE, a spark, an ember left, that said, OKAY, MS has HUGE resources and money... so if they tackle this well, they could well turn everything around. But that delivery date for WM 7 was FEBRUARY 2010. Meanwhile many companies moved forward: Google, Motorola, HTC and we saw October, November, December just POUND the marketplace with success after success of Android products, coupled with HTC and Motorola keeping the competitive spirit alive which drives innovation.
JANUARY 2010, and Google comes out with NEXUS ONE --- full of problems, including Google's total fumble with the whole concept of "dealing with customers"... and HTC has had their Snapdragon-processor phone lines well in development as well... And now they've got phones in the marketplace right now much better than the Nexus One, with a new optical trackball, and other usability advances.
And so here we are in February 2010, the very time at which WM 7 was set to be IN THE MARKETPLACE wowing us with what we all hoped would be something re-invented, reviving their tattered brand. And now it's September 2010? Who here believes they'll make THAT date? But great, a little tease at a Mobile World Congress revives some hope that it will all be worth it.
That's 7 months from now! We will surely see in that time a whole new iteration of iPhone OS software. And who knows what from Android?
So I come not to bash Ballmer, but to question his brain-function. With all these deficits working against MS's comeback, he has the audacity to play chess with the marketplace and proclaim there will be add-on carrier fees for his company's new WM7 OS phones? I really meant it literally. Does this man have a screw loose?
Sorry for the BOOK length post, but for anyone reading it, tell me where I'm wrong?
XDA-devs SAVED THEIR ASSES for the past 3 years -- by enabling their crippled OS to do tricks that satisfied customer demand. And now that I bought the Hero -- because I liked what I saw -- and have used it for 4 months, I just don't see the point in wondering "what will WM 7 really be like?" -- because once I made that leap, I'm no longer dealing with 3/4 of the efforts of this great site devoted to COMPENSATION for what WM lacked. Maybe there are people with great sentimental ties to WM -- because naturally after working one's asses off to build off of it, and create great useful software products, features and utilities, there would be a lot of cognitive dissonance at play when contemplating where to continue your development efforts going forward.
And there IS sentimentalism that drives quite a bit of WM enthusiasm. ANd that's fine. But here I am 4 months into using my HERO, and I have yet to even feel the need to come here and root my phone and make it EVEN BETTER. I will, for sure... But I haven't needed to. It's all frosting or gravy for something that inherently works AS SHIPPED.
So that's my rationale. rpimps' prior post just flushed this essay out of me... yet what he's said in 2 sentences summarizes everything I just typed.
Choice is good. And for everyone who wants to stick with WM, I am sure there will be plenty of fruits to bare. But meanwhile I *use* my phone and depend on it right now, not 7 months from now. I'm not looking back.
galaxys said:
That's why XDA thrives fixing his OS.
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And that really is the summary statement about the genesis of and incredible growth of this great site.
If they want to sell WM they need to make it exactly the same as Android, and make a long press on the Home button bring up the usual WM task list to switch between running apps. I'd buy that.
I'm starting to get pretty sick of all this love for Android and how anything Android will blow WP7 out of the water. All this love for a dumbed-down smartphone. None of us have seen WP7, except for a few screenshots here and there and in my opinion it looks great. MS had to make some changes if they wanted to stay relevant, because what we forget is that the "power-users" make up a very small percentage of the buyers market. However, I really do hope that MS does not forget about us all together. All I know is that come December, I'll be rocking the new WP7 and not an Android. Theres my 2 cents.
Irishpride said:
I'm starting to get pretty sick of all this love for Android and how anything Android will blow WP7 out of the water. All this love for a dumbed-down smartphone. None of us have seen WP7, except for a few screenshots here and there and in my opinion it looks great. MS had to make some changes if they wanted to stay relevant, because what we forget is that the "power-users" make up a very small percentage of the buyers market. However, I really do hope that MS does not forget about us all together. All I know is that come December, I'll be rocking the new WP7 and not an Android. Theres my 2 cents.
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This is an actual question, not an argument - what are some things WM can do that Android can't? I use my phone for business functionality and I don't consider myself a member of the "general public" and switching to Android after 3 WM phones, I haven't found a single thing (aside from maybe quicker switching between running apps) WM did that Android doesn't.
Steve Balmber retarded?
Hmmmmmm
Limited vocabulary
Edit: WTF!?
He's bat**** effing insane! Thanks for sharing
You guys are jumping the gun on this. At least wait and see how things go before you saying game over for WM and jump ship.
Do you guys ***** that the desktop or laptop or netbook you just purchased cost you $25-50 more because it is running Windows7 compared to Ubuntu or another Linux build? No way!
So why are you going to moan about a measily ~$10 fee on your phone for running WM7. Heck you can probably run a dual boot setup on your WM7 phone to run both Windows and Android to experience the best of both worlds...just like some of us have done with our computers.
Hi all. I've decided to try and make some future Microsoft product "my idea", so I've submitted the following letter to them via billg [at] microsoft [dit] com. I just wanted to know if you guys had any input.
Flaming is sure to happen, and while I won't argue with you, I will probably wish your firstborn child is used as a shot put.
Dear Microsoft,
Lately I’ve been bombarded with commercial after commercial showing random people (and their self perceptions) stating that Windows 7 was their idea for one reason or another. I’m not completely disgusted by these or anything, but it started my mind on one of those winding roads a character in a story might have to take to get home, or to the girl, or to the climax, or… well I guess that is kind of repetitious – but the point is, I started thinking about the variety of Microsoft’s operating systems and the history they’ve had – rather, our history together.
I’ve used just about everything Microsoft has created… I started my computer “education” by soldering a few broken parts back together on a Commodore 64 I found in a dump, and then learning BASIC on it (the BASIC on the Commodore 64 was a variant created and licensed by Microsoft). Right now, I’m typing this in Microsoft Word, on a laptop that has Microsoft Windows Vista, being distracted by a cellular phone that runs Microsoft Windows Phone 6.5.
That was a mouthful when I read it aloud.
But the reason for this letter is not so much a history lesson, but a worry of what is to come. It seems the goal over there the past few years is some cross between being different and being more like Macintosh, or Google, or insert company name here, and I’m here to state that I don’t like the transformation the publicists and tech news sites are ranting and raving about.
A few examples?
- Most recently must be the attempt to remove the clipboard features from my phone. I say “attempt”, because I am willing to bet that will be brought back, either by you or some developers out there.
- Office 2007’s menu structure looks like someone tried to “make it better” and ruined it.
- Windows Vista and Windows 7 both look like some kind of cross-dressing Microsoft product who was “supposed to be a Mac”.
What happens when you become so close to the competition that nobody can tell you apart? Developers and IT teams may not like parts of Windows, but they are able adjust most of what they don’t like to work for them. If this path continues, and all of the contenders out there do the exact same thing, you’re really shooting yourselves in the collective foot by taking away your uniqueness.
I guess what I’m really trying to say is “different” does not equal “better”. Get back to your roots and make something that your current audience will buy. Put them above the “new customers” you’re trying to reach. It’s the same error that many companies make nowadays – neglecting the long time customers for some new ones. You end up losing great customers that way.
See, I am a man. There’s an expression stating that men marry women expecting them to be the same, and women marry men expecting that they’ll change. I feel like Microsoft is giving in to the women out there – the ones who complain about it being too hard to use or not pretty enough – and we have enough of that already. I’m not trying to hate on women out there, but maybe the movie Team America explained it best… something about assholes, dicks, and ******* (I won’t go into it, but watch the movie if you need an explanation). What we need is for Microsoft to be a **** again.
Good luck and happy creating,
(Name Removed)
P.S. This email was sent using Microsoft Outlook.
Thanks in advance for any feedback,
Drunk
oooh nice
so did they reply back and what did the email say?
anyway nice letter
no replies yet, but I just sent it last night.
Mad props for Team America reference =P
the whole my idea is just a commercial not a real deal imho
http://gizmodo.com/5477384/windows-7-was-my-idea-but-to-be-fair-i-dont-know-what-im-talking-about
I don't doubt that it is just a big marketing gimick, but I wanted to explain that it looks like they are listening to people's ideas - just the wrong ones.
I'm waiting for them to show the ads on TV which make the claim that W7 has fewer clicks so I can report it to the ASA.
Starting a program like solitaire with the mouse is either the same number (if you don't mind a 2 second wait) or one more click than XP/Vista.
As for getting to the network card properties that's a heck of a lot more clicks than Vista or XP.
W7 has some very well thought out features, but unfortunately it's got more that just aren't.
I hate MS for putting me in a position where I have to say I prefer Vista! Damn them! Damn them to Hades!
WM7 looks awful, and the restrictions they're putting on it make no user or business sense.
Office 2007 is appauling, what were they thinking? Why make an application which users have to refer to google in order to complete simple common tasks?
Don't expect a reply, Drunk, at least something that isn't just generically polite and thanking you for your thoughtful input.
You blended good points that resonate with much of their shrinking user base, made up partly by people who have no idea they're running Microsoft and also in part by people who are obsessed with modifying them, with that bit on genitals. They're not interested in us anymore, nor would they want to add a lot of attention to your letter by giving you something from them to paste on and spread around. They want to intercept people from buying the other phones with no regard to who's already buying their own phones, and you can't really blame them considering how fast they're still falling (down 4% last quarter) toward obscurity.
Just to offer myself as an example of others reading what you just posted and what may be on their own minds, considering I made two websites about the damn thing, I'd say I was a bonafide WinMo fanatic, one of the last expected to say adios, but I just did, a Nexus One, and not only will I continue to love and go nuts with it I will attempt to take others with me. It's brewing right here on XDA, the place you'd think would be the haven mainly for people who like to do what can mostly only be done exclusively with WinMo phones.
Actually I read this by mistake, forgot to get rid of all my WinMo rss feeds on Google Reader to which my phone's synced. Good read though, glad you posted it. So thanks.
But no matter how much rabble you rouse here nor what signs you wave in front of their Seattle office you won't stop this train, the general direction of which they've made it clear that they are taking with WP7 being mostly the opposite of what a lot of us want. They can't please everyone and they'd rather please would-otherwise-be customers of their competitors even at the expense of estranging themselves from part of their existing customers. On the bright side, in addition to there being other options (specifically the one I took), they claim they'll keep supporting existing versions of WinMo for at least a while, though not forever on new devices I don't think which will have unique hardware that if I heard correctly won't even have removable storage, not to mention any support for decentralized application distribution. You don't like the sound of what's coming but what's coming is in their opinion good for business and I suppose mine too. When you're already failing at this rate in such a critical time of penetrating a huge market with enormous potential that will be realized further and further every day, it's hard to come up with a dumb idea on how to do things differently. Not to mention I've seen quite a few extremists shrug off each new bit of bad news saying Whatever I'll still try it, and once they do, then Microsoft has got them for at least a long enough period of time to figure out how to keep them hooked while they intercept little bits of business from the others. Right now they're handing business away. It's a joke.
Making sure the likes of you and others on sites like XDA remain happy customers as they implement these drastic changes to their mobile operations is not high up on their to do list.
Just sayin'.
Doug
Can't say I don't agree with you on most of that. I honestly don't expect much of a reply... at most a blanket letter or something like that. I've also been working my way to other vendors. I've got some android variant on my TP2 now and Ubuntu on my laptop (both still dual boots, but it's a step that direction). I just didn't want it all to happen without my 2 cents' worth being thrown at them.
Thanks for stopping by.
I hear you man, I'm all about ranting. This and this in particular. Also this.
Take a look at that and mobilitydigest.com (basically the same with a less weird domain), you'd make a great writer. Perfect style, perfect background (impressive by the way), perfect fire in your belly. We can't yet offer you money but what we can give you is an audience. Let me know.
"but I wanted to explain that it looks like they are listening to people's ideas - just the wrong ones."
yeah with the whole win phone 7 seeming like being a copy of the features of org iphone sure sounds like they are getting bad advice
stream can be found here:
http://www.christianpost.com/news/google-event-october-2013-live-stream-free-nexus-5-release-date-event-start-time-watch-online-info-keynote-schedule-107392/
Time to pack it in folks... Nothing to see here.
[Update - 7:12 PM] The event should be underway now, but according to Geek.com writer Russell Holly’s post over on this Reddit thread, all this online hubub might be over nothing:
Nothing is happening tonight. There will be no live stream, no press conference, nothing. No one is coming out on stage with a mystery device in their pocket, and no one that I know has been given a N5 or N10 for review yet. For your information, while we do occasionally get those before they are available for sale we do not get them before they are announced.
I didn’t break an NDA. The Google Play team didn’t think I would react the way I did when I got the invitation, and neglected to include some kind of note asking me not to share it. I caused that team a lot of headaches this past week as a result. It was a communication error, and I jumped the gun. End of story, I promise.
It’s been a long month, and we don’t have too much longer to wait if what I am hearing is true. I’m sorry I screwed up and got everyone’s hopes up, and I’m pissed that I have to apologize because I’m just as excited about this phone as everyone else, but please take my word for it. Nothing is going to happen tonight.
I know, I know. “Why book Capital Cities?”
To be honest, I don’t have the answer to that. Big companies hire bands for small events all the time, and usually it really is because reasons. The price was right, the band was available, and that’s all she wrote. It happens, and it isn’t indicative of anything.
So there you have it. We’ll keep our eyes out for a live stream juuuust in case, but it might be best not to get your hopes up.
SOURCE
thanks for the link
THREAD CLOSED
I'm mimosa (or John in the default world). Been here before under various names off and on for years, but not in years. It's mimosa like the tree, not the drink. I live in Oakland, CA and am running for mayor (I'll keep the politics off here). I'm currently running a public benefit corporation with the aim of bridging the enormous devide between the public at large and the homeless.
Since getting covid and mennengitus last year, I became homeless after spending most the year in ICU in San Francisco. I was dumbfounded that most of this community can't change there ringtone if they even have a phone, let alone use the internet to look for work or housing.
Before the pandemic, I founded this company (Printing Properties Limited-corporate) along with the son of the founder of burning man to develop a "3d" concrete printer to drive the cost of housing down, so as to house the homeless. Rebuilding the printer is a goal of mine, but it has expanded to other areas as well.
I am interested in exploring/developing a mod that makes cell usage... less technical I guess is a way to put it... for the technological illiterate.
I just started a repurposing electronics division. I figure hands on application with electronics is easier to start with than trying to teach code strait out of the gate. I also repurpose batteries to use with solar/wind/geo-thermal energy systems.
Ill be here frequently now and, as you can see, love to talk. So feel free to send suggestions, advice, comments, and political banter my way.
Be good to each other,
John Marks
Welcome to xda.
Sad to hear about your recent problems.
Happy you survived 2020 and now part of the xda family.
I just rewatched a video about 3D concrete printing that YouTube found for me a few months ago.
It is an interesting project and it seems there has been quite a bit of advancement in the last few years.
If I knew before, I forgot that it started out in the early 2000's.
People getting confused with settings on devices is not a new thing.
I might be dating myself but, there were a lot of people who had 12:00PM flashing on their VCR.
Not sure about making cell phones less technical, maybe an app that can set the adjustments on a phone.
Nice easy to use UI with explanations of each option.?
Your repurposing division sounds interesting.
Are you recycling lithium/hybrid batteries?
From what I have read, their is advancement in that field also.
Best of luck on your personal/career endeavors.
Cheers.
The purpose behind this thread is to discuss what would be the best way to adapt technological so that it benefits all. By all, I mean old people, young people especially people who are not technologically savvy. People who are not experts at flashing ROMs and debugging ADB logcats.
We see examples of this problem almost every day. Ever tried helping someone over the phone, especially an older person, and get them to install an app using Google PlayStore? I have tried it and found the experience an eye-opener. Simple actions like swiping down to show the notifications or getting into the Settings to change some feature can be difficult for a person who does not essential spend the whole day playing around with the smartphone.
A simple user interface with almost no learning curve would be a great start.
Another factor could be screens with information in the local language, or may be screens that read out options that users touch. The Alexas and Siri's of the world also help to a great extent.
Don't you think a lot more can be done to make technology accessible and understandable to all?
Hi @ManojNairOnline! This is a great initiative. I personally live in a 27-unit cohousing and there are quite a few seniors living there. I'm their go-to-guy for all their Windows/Android perils. The average member of this forum can hardly imagine this but the digital world and its many interfaces can be quite scary to them. They hear about all these phishing/malware/etc horror stories in the news and when they see a popup on their device asking "Allow [app name] to make and manage phone calls?" they freak out. While that notification is usually just there for an app to "know" when to pause itself because a phone call is coming in, for people that do not understand this context it is very alarming.
Another major difference is that roughly the eldest 2 generations didn't grow up surrounded by electronic devices. My dad really struggles to get anything done on a smartphone while my 7yo plays with them. It's taken for granted by the younger generations as they haven't experienced it any other way. Even the current 35-45yo population can hardly remember how on earth we managed to get places and how we handled not being able to contact anyone at any given time about 20-25 years ago, let alone stay up to date with the entire world!
Let's first address the elephant in the room: Apple does this better. iOS is much more limited and simplified and thus more user friendly. Then again, Android has made major advancements in this respect as well. And with an app like BIG Launcher (featured on the portal, I have no experience with it) the user interface can become so much simpler. Taking a glance at 'Accessibility' (which should be its own menu and not hidden under 'System', OnePlus!) does hold a plethora of features to make our devices more accessible to people with a variety of disabilities. So yes, it could always be more understandable, but I think we're already working on that.
I haven't looked around yet but I'm sure there are some interesting projects to be found on XDA as well.
Agree with the comments @Timmmmaaahh! There would already be some threads on XDA with projects around this