Danny Tuppeny, UK based developer, recently posted an article on his blog that outlined his experience with Windows Phone 7, which was not presented in the brightest colours. It outlined how he was impressed with the platform, but was ultimately disappointed with how Microsoft has come about their entry into the competitive mobile market.
Most notably in his post was the sheer frustration with regards to the UK launch of WP7 - this is the sole issue I found with WP7 when I made the purchase. The UK launch of Microsoft's newest portable offering was barely noticed. In fact, asking a few people I know who are technically in-the-loop about WP7 at the time as to whether they were considering making the investment, I was surprised to witness how little they knew about the potential "iPhone killer".
As well as the experience mentioned above, Danny also encountered issues with the OS itself on numerous occasions (like many of us). One of the listed problems is the pre-NoDo update failing on his colleagues device and then ultimately "bricked". Summing up the rest of the article as negativity with his lack of confidence in the platform as a user is preventing himself from developing apps and devoting much required time and investment.
Fast forward four days to the present and Danny has updated his blog detailing that Brandon Watson, Director and Ben Lower, Senior Product Manager, both from the Dev Platform & Ecosystem, have contacted him about the original post he wrote which received good coverage. Although it had to take negative PR to get attention surrounding current thoughts that are present in majority of the WP7 user bases' minds, it was a positive sign of potential progress. Especially after an article Eric Hautala posted a while back suggesting that Microsoft is listening to users and is learning valuable lessons.
The run-down of the conversation that took place between Danny and the Microsoft employees is as follows:
- Weak UK launch and lack of knowledge down to disconnection from US. Something Microsoft has to work on, especially since Apple has an army of experts in their array of stores.
- Retrieving error logs from devices is only possible on developer builds, not retail builds.
- Microsoft will consider publishing release notes/a change log per update to improve transparency.
- Big update experiencing delays due to the company being "big and slow", which seems like a terrible excuse. Improvements required asap.
Reading through both posts that Danny wrote up, I am in full agreement with him on majority of his points, and understand his frustration (as I'm sure many of you do too). I - for one - am hoping that Microsoft really is listening to not only developers, but end-users and is taking all feedback seriously. For them to have such a platform as Windows Phone 7, it's only fitting to get it right to do the OS justice. Sooner, rather than later.
Source: Danny Tuppeny; via MobilityDigest
