Friday was my last day at Microsoft. I was working on the gaming story of the ill-fated Windows Phone 7. I've seen some depressing things from the phone teams, but I wanted to give the Kin team the benefit of the doubt for their unique approach. However, this review makes me genuinely embarrassed to say I used to work there. How do you even get a "Try again after restarting your phone" error message past a code review? My team certainly would not have allowed that.
There are some interesting things on this phone. I disagree with the reviews assertian that the dot is a bad idea, i think teens and tweens will jump on this. It seems very intuitive, much better than typing.
And bugs happen, my iphone crashed on me just last night, although it hasn't done that for months.
But the price is a bit of a funny one. You would think that MS would have worked a better deal with Verizon, a combined voice+data package for a lot cheaper. I mean, it is not like kids are going to want this phone, but as a cheap smartphone it might keep them happy.
I didn't mean to imply it is going to die. I mean that it is walking into a hostile environment: reviewers, carriers, developers, everything is against it and it hasn't even come out yet. Never mind the huge internal pressures. It's a scary place to be, even for a big team at a big company. I guess I choose the wrong phrase. I'm not sure how to describe it succinctly.
What I don't understand about Windows Mobile is how they squandered such a huge lead. I used to absolutely love my Windows Mobile 5 HTC phone back in 2005, there was nothing even close in terms of functionality, apps, hardware. In the 5 years since, while Apple and Google built entire new systems from the ground up, all Microsoft could come up with were some minor updates. What have they been doing all this time? Were they resting on their laurels thinking they had won the market?
> Were they resting on their laurels thinking they had won the market?
Absolutely. Microsoft has totally stagnated, and only now are they going "oh crap..." and realizing that the market has moved on. Nobody thinks of Microsoft products as being truly innovative or groundbreaking. It's an unfortunate consequence/abuse of the clout that they've had in the technology space in the past few decades. Grow too big for your own good and blanket the marketplace with mediocre products.
However, I am going to stay far, far away from specifics. I've still got a lot of friends there. Most people work very hard and really care about their product. I wouldn't want to cause any trouble for me or for them.
The gaming/Xbox tie-in seems so obvious. I think we all expected to see this on the Zune HD and that's still mostly a work-in-progress. I can't decide if Microsoft is scared to leverage the Xbox brand or scared to delude it. As far as the price goes clearly these devices were conceived at a time when SmartPhones were $200+ and there may have been a bigger market for limited functionality devices at a lower price point. The one thing that stands out to me is the Kin Studio. I would like to have a similar feature on my iPhone.
Kids don't have $80/month, but their parents do -- and anyone who has visited your average high school will see that it's all about haves & have-nots. You think those kids in high school driving around in a mustang actually paid for the car?
