Nonetheless, I feel that Windows Phone 7 is dead in the water, and they better start putting their eggs in the Windows Phone 8 basket in a hurry. Even more important than OS quality now is Apps - quality and quantity. Windows Phone 7 has already lost the app war with iOS and Android.
In order to make Windows Phone appealing, a couple ideas would be:
1. Better commercials that are clever but primarily show you the functionality of the phone, and what it does better than the competition.
2. Design a killer phone. The current Windows 7 phones are cute. Whoopedy doo. They need a phone that looks and feels cutting edge. By going with Nokia they've basically resigned themself to going after the former flip phone market. Someting like the new Motorola Razr for the Windows Phone would give it more appeal.
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Nonetheless, I feel that Windows Phone 7 is dead in the water, and they better start putting their eggs in the Windows Phone 8 basket in a hurry. Even more important than OS quality now is Apps - quality and quantity. Windows Phone 7 has already lost the app war with iOS and Android.
Really? That Nokia Lumia 800 looks fantastic, if the hardware was bumped up and it ran Android I would pay a lot to get one. I cant believe you think the Razr looks better, I know looks are subjective but the Lumia looks like nothing else.
What's interesting about MS's approach is that it is more like Apple's than Google's, since Android takes the "walmart" approach.
Honestly? The only thing they can do IMO is to buy out HTC and/or a few app developers like Rovio or Chillingo. Do the xbox strategy of buying your way into the market by acquisition of major market players.
Buying out app developers isn't going to help. So they get exclusive rights to Angry Birds (never going to happen, but let's imagine it did)... so what? People aren't spending hundreds of dollars on these for phones for a single $1 game.
As others have said, they just need to focus on enterprise, and as I've already said, they need to release phones on Verizon (largest carrier in the US).
For a non-power user, it typically is.
Isn't that Verizon's fault? I've never heard anywhere that MS was only releasing the one phone there, more that Verizon only was wanting the one phone.
I agree on shifting all marketing resources to Windows 8 being smart.
Something in regards to apps that I haven't seen anyone talk about yet is pricing parity. They absolutely have to have the apps people want, but if you have to pay five bucks for an app on Windows Phone that only costs one dollar on Android, that will kill WinPhone faster than anything I can think of. Maybe that's just me?
I'll just say that Nokia phones have always looked like garbage to me. I've NEVER owned a Nokia phone. I picked Ericsson over Nokia in the late 90's. The 21xx, 51xx/61xx always looked like generic garbage, IMO. When I went Sprint in 1998, I picked a Sony Z100, a Samsung SCH-2000 and finally a Motorola StarTAC that I stuck with until I went with smartphones. IMO, the StarTAC was the best phone I ever owned. It was definitely the 'wearable' phone.
In 2002, when I started using smart phones, I never considered a Nokia device. They always looked more kiddie and not something a professional should tote around. The trend continues to this day.
I think a lot of people think that Nokia hasn't succeeded in the US market because of marketing. They're wrong. It's because, to most Americans (IMO), their phones look like toys.
Hate to turn it in to a Nokia bash, just wanted to voice my agreement with jiffy. Nokia needs to grow up, design-wise. Again, IMO.
EDIT: Just to be totally fair, I went to phonearena.com and went as far back as it would go, 1998, and browsed Nokia's selection. I sold phones from '97-'03, so I'll admit that I missed a good deal of selection from '04 or so up to the present. I'll give Nokia this: They have the balls to try things, at the very least.
Having said that, though, I wanted to force myself to try to find at least a couple of phones that I could say 'I wouldn't really mind.' I found the 6131:
http://www.phonearena.com/phones/Nokia-6131_id1481/photos?image=5608
and the 6275:
http://www.phonearena.com/phones/Nokia-6275--6275i_id1746
There were a lot of phones that were... close... But when I'd click through to see bigger pictures, there would just be something weird with them. It would have a weird shape or hump, it would have stupid music controls on the side. One big turn off for me that seemed to be prevalent from '02-'05 was shaping the number keys weird.
Anyways, I just wanted to make sure that, with what I said above, that I felt it was an absolute rule from my perspective and it totally is. I don't want to derail this in to a Nokia design discussion and, of course, everything I'm talking about is subjective. Further discussion would probably warrant a separate topic.
I was only talking about the Nokia Lumia 800 specifically.
The only thing I can see when I look at the Lumina 800 is the huge plastic border around the glass. Then I think to myself 'You made that border just so you could release different colors and have them wrap around like that, didn't you...
Yeah but theres a ton of other phones that all look pretty much like the Razr but without the fugly angles at the corners.
Fact is that Nokia have made something that looks really minimalist and fresh and nothing like anything else out there. Its why the tech sites that are usually a bit sarky about WP7 are salivating over the white lumia 800.
Buying out app developers isn't going to help. So they get exclusive rights to Angry Birds (never going to happen, but let's imagine it did)... so what? People aren't spending hundreds of dollars on these for phones for a single $1 game.
As others have said, they just need to focus on enterprise, and as I've already said, they need to release phones on Verizon (largest carrier in the US).
Really? That Nokia Lumia 800 looks fantastic, if the hardware was bumped up and it ran Android I would pay a lot to get one. I cant believe you think the Razr looks better, I know looks are subjective but the Lumia looks like nothing else.
The only thing I can see when I look at the Lumina 800 is the huge plastic border around the glass. Then I think to myself 'You made that border just so you could release different colors and have them wrap around like that, didn't you...'
I guess my point was that I have a fundamental problem with just about every Nokia design.
Yeah but theres a ton of other phones that all look pretty much like the Razr but without the fugly angles at the corners.
Fact is that Nokia have made something that looks really minimalist and fresh and nothing like anything else out there. Its why the tech sites that are usually a bit sarky about WP7 are salivating over the white lumia 800.
It's both their faults.
Windows Phone 7 doesn't have LTE capabilities yet.
Verizon doesn't want a non-LTE phone.
Situation will be rectified this summer and if I were a betting man you'll likely see the Lumina 900 on VZW by November. By then, though, everybody will be wanting WP8 and the hardware bump that's likely to come with it.
The real push comes with Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8. Microsoft is just biding its time until then.
No, I think Windows Phone will end up being a failure. They don't really offer any compelling reason to abandon the big two established players. The price isn't appreciably lower and the capabilities are the same as the others (which of course are continuing innovating). The interface does look enticing, but it's not that important.
Interface is important to a lot of people. Why do you think the iPhone was so revolutionary? It certainly wasn't its capabilities - the first iPhone lacked very common features like 3G, GPS, MMS. It was the interface.
Someone should tell AT&T the Titan II and Nokia 900 don't really have LTE in them.