The Latest and Greatest
Mobile World Congress is a show that allows OEMs and carriers to show off their latest and greatest, and an event where they typically show off what's next.
Android phones and tablets ruled this year's Congress, but Windows Phones are conspicuously absent.
That's a bad thing right? Maybe not.
The latest 'droids have spectacular tech specs-dual core processors, 3D cameras, and glittery GPUs abound.
The latest and greatest in mobile is put into every Android handset.
That sounds spectacular on paper, but people who attended MWC all seem to have reached a similar conclusion: while these phones seem great at first glance, the user experience is sorely lacking.
Even Honeycomb, Google's newest OS, was noted to be a little on the slow side.
So how does Windows Phone 7 fit into this? If you look at what has gone into every Windows Phone put out so far, the specs are far from cutting-edge.
Two-year old processors and substandard clock speeds are part of every phone released thus far.
These limitations are put into place by Microsoft themselves, so how can they possibly hope to compete with the latest and greatest from Android? Simple put, Microsoft has made Windows Phone 7 the latest and greatest, albeit in a different sense.
The phones that make up their ecosystem are the last phones to get their processors, the last phones to get that resolution and the last phones to get their cameras.
Nothing about the phones themselves is cutting edge, so one would think that Android would beat Windows Phone hands down; yet, Microsoft's customer satisfaction ratings are more than 20% higher than those of Android.
There's one reason for this shocking difference between the two: the experience.
While Android is powerful, it's slow and just not as smooth as Microsoft's alternative.
Additionally, many manufacturers layer their own (often buggy) software on top of it, which certainly doesn't help.
The transitions aren't consistent, there are glitchy apps, and the interface as a whole isn't very unified.
To be clear, I'm very aware that there are ways to rid a 'droid of this software, but the fact remains that it has little coherent design language, and the operating system still feels choppy at best.
I'm also aware that Android is probably intrinsically a little more powerful than Windows Phone-consumers don't care.
They don't care if their OS is open, or if it does true multitasking.
Ultimately, what does matter do the consumer is the experience.
This is where we get the greatest from Microsoft.
They've really put together a unique OS that is everything the average smartphone buyer could want.
It's fast, efficient, pretty, and gets you where you want to go without feeling like a rusty nail.
I've touched on this in a recent article, but customers don't need an operating system that's technically better.
All they want is a fantastic, smooth experience on their phone.
While Windows Phone is late to the party, it's definitely one of the latest and greatest operating systems out there.
Android phones and tablets ruled this year's Congress, but Windows Phones are conspicuously absent.
That's a bad thing right? Maybe not.
The latest 'droids have spectacular tech specs-dual core processors, 3D cameras, and glittery GPUs abound.
The latest and greatest in mobile is put into every Android handset.
That sounds spectacular on paper, but people who attended MWC all seem to have reached a similar conclusion: while these phones seem great at first glance, the user experience is sorely lacking.
Even Honeycomb, Google's newest OS, was noted to be a little on the slow side.
So how does Windows Phone 7 fit into this? If you look at what has gone into every Windows Phone put out so far, the specs are far from cutting-edge.
Two-year old processors and substandard clock speeds are part of every phone released thus far.
These limitations are put into place by Microsoft themselves, so how can they possibly hope to compete with the latest and greatest from Android? Simple put, Microsoft has made Windows Phone 7 the latest and greatest, albeit in a different sense.
The phones that make up their ecosystem are the last phones to get their processors, the last phones to get that resolution and the last phones to get their cameras.
Nothing about the phones themselves is cutting edge, so one would think that Android would beat Windows Phone hands down; yet, Microsoft's customer satisfaction ratings are more than 20% higher than those of Android.
There's one reason for this shocking difference between the two: the experience.
While Android is powerful, it's slow and just not as smooth as Microsoft's alternative.
Additionally, many manufacturers layer their own (often buggy) software on top of it, which certainly doesn't help.
The transitions aren't consistent, there are glitchy apps, and the interface as a whole isn't very unified.
To be clear, I'm very aware that there are ways to rid a 'droid of this software, but the fact remains that it has little coherent design language, and the operating system still feels choppy at best.
I'm also aware that Android is probably intrinsically a little more powerful than Windows Phone-consumers don't care.
They don't care if their OS is open, or if it does true multitasking.
Ultimately, what does matter do the consumer is the experience.
This is where we get the greatest from Microsoft.
They've really put together a unique OS that is everything the average smartphone buyer could want.
It's fast, efficient, pretty, and gets you where you want to go without feeling like a rusty nail.
I've touched on this in a recent article, but customers don't need an operating system that's technically better.
All they want is a fantastic, smooth experience on their phone.
While Windows Phone is late to the party, it's definitely one of the latest and greatest operating systems out there.
