I guess I live in some alternative reality where my HTC desire is actually much more enjoyable to use than an iphone. I can see how iphone users could enjoy their device more, I just wish they would extend the same courtesy.
fanboy ranting aside I dont think I could trust microsoft to give me a nice computing experience again, even if some people like it superficially, there must be something wrong in there.
Maybe, for certain definitions of "outperform". I can't watch the video right now (at work), but no HTML5 or modern JavaScript engine means that it'll fall behind the web very quickly unless Microsoft provides updates.
Personally, I doubt that MS will provide those updates. The reason they keep IE6 outdated is because large companies want it that way; that can't handle epic change or their apps will break. If MS is marketing this phone to businesses, you can bet that the browser won't change much.
The comparisons are about load/render speed of normal websites (like Engadget) and scrolling/zooming – not really about HTML5 or Javascript performance at all.
I wouldn’t say that anyone outperforms anyone else in that video – all three phones seem to be doing those tasks equally well (save for choppiness on Android).
They keep IE6 outdated? I thought they released IE7, IE8 and now IE9 after that.
I don't think companies are going to develop for just IE mobile like they did for IE6. And how exactly does adding support for HTML5 break the HTML for older web apps?
Their strategy relies on fragmenting the browser space. So, they have various subsets of various versions of HTML, each supported by a different browser on different platforms. All that so you can't deliver web applications easily.
Companies who swallowed their poison pill in the early 2000's and built their intranets dependent on IE 6 are feeling the pain now, having to deploy intrusive security measures that don't really secure anything while shouldering the cost of "upgrading" the apps to browsers that run on the OS they want to deploy.
MS isn't marketing the phone to businesses. WP7 isn't shipping with support for 'enterprise' features like domain enrollment (though it does support Exchange, to some degree).
Also, let's say that companies start buying WP7 phones for employees, and that they pay to build a mobile-friendly version of some internal webapp. If you were designing/coding a site today, and knew you didn't have to support IE6, you most likely code it in a fairly standards-compliant way so that it didn't break when browsers were upgraded; a lot of companies are stuck on IE6 because they didn't code their sites like that.
Opera mobile solves that problem. Not that it is a problem in the first place. What bothers me about this phone are the missing features like copy-paste and multitasking.
I think the problem is they didn't ship a browser based on WebKit, and from what I can see in my testing, it doesn't necessarily try to be WebKit-like in its rendering.
This means that website owners who have already written advanced web interfaces for the mobile browsers on iOS, Android, and BB 6.0 will have to re-engineer their code base for WP7. That probably isn't going to happen until Microsoft establishes an impressive user base.
I've been using Android solely for the past 2 months and I'm going to start developing for it soon. The one thing that I genuinely hate about it is the menu button. So many great features in so many great apps go undiscovered because the user is expected to have the idea to press the menu button in the right activity. And even when you have discovered the feature, pressing the menu button is just that bit of cognitive overhead which subtracts from a delightful experience. The most powerful features that Android's architecture(intents, etc) enables are stuck behind hidden menus. I would guess that most users use their phones just like an iPhone- with the exception of widgets on homescreens. I love this OS, but this madness has to stop.
Edit: Add to this the long press of a list item, and between them, most actions are stuck behind an undiscoverable layer of UI.
Sure, I actually share this annoyance, at the very least I wish the menu item would be kept consistent between activities.
But the point remains, I also have a lot of annoyances with i-devices at the same time, compared to the two I prefer my HTC Desire, it would be nice to not be regarded as some type of idiot for possibly thinking that i-whatever arent the pinnacle of design that all things aspire to.
Please don't think that I was siding with MG Siegler. I would choose my ancient G1 over an iPhone any day, but then I've been told that I'm a philistine.
I've found the long press in Android one of the most instinctive and consistent pieces of the UI language; I love it. I don't know about the menu button, I certainly wouldn't cry if it went away, but the distinction between a short press (go, activate) and long press (configure, customise) is great.
Yes, going back and forth between the Nexus One and the iPad, I much prefer long-pressing a list item to remove/edit it over trying to find a button that makes the list in edit mode, or figuring out that some item can be swiped to have a remove button show up.
Also, I find myself constantly wanting to use Android's back button on the iPad. It's really become quite natural for me on my phone.
That said, I completely agree with the grandparent's comment about the menu button.
Well, at least we can all agree that the menu button must die. The long press' iOS analogue is the left-to-right swipe on a list item, and you can use all apps perfectly well without ever discovering that gesture. The problem with Android's gesture is that it forces you to think about whether you should long press or press the menu button, then perhaps choose 'more', and so on.
Contextual knowledge, that's the phrase. With the iPhone, what you see is what you get-for better or worse. In Android, you need to press the menu button to discover the actions you can perform.
10 points and climbing for a reply that essentially says, "Bah, it's Microsoft, there must be something wrong with it"? That's really disappointing, HN.
I foresee some serious cognitive dissonance playing out as Microsoft manages to do a whole lot better than hive-mind "HA HA too little too late / M$ sucks" sentiments have been allowing for. And frankly, Microsoft deserves the success they've got coming to them here. Somehow, the teams responsible for WP7 have been able to overcome the bureaucratic, backstabbing inertia that Microsoft is famous for, and they've produced something pretty damned good for a 1.0. Shame that so few people bother to actually examine the platform in any detail before pontificating about it, predicting its doom, etc.
To be honest it was a pretty vacuous comment, and was mostly about iphone / android than windows mobile.
But I didnt say it sucks, or that there must be something wrong with it, I said I couldnt trust them (with a lot or money) not to suck, and my opinion isnt formed from some hivemend, its formed from the last 10 years of my experience with microsoft products.
Just like the side by side search engine tests without branding it would be interesting to test peoples perceptions not knowing it's Microsoft, although it would only work on people outside tech who haven't used either interface.
Windows Phone 7 is... 1.0? While I believe the WP7 team does indeed deserve credit for overcoming all the entanglements endemic to Microsoft's current bureaucratic mess, I think it's a bit silly to call this a 1.0 product. Even if the WP7 software was a complete rewrite, I think you lose the ability to refer to your mobile OS as 1.0 when:
* You've been shipping mobile software for years
* You have "version 7" in the name of your product
Not trying to be pedantic here -- I know what you mean when you refer to this new mobile OS as "1.0". I just think it's more appropriate to refer to, say, the original 2007 iPhone as 1.0 than the WP7 product.
Just got an iPhone 4, after 'upgrading' from a 3G.
It has the new hotness. Retina screen is nice, but it's so annoying that I can't use it with my left hand. Thanks apple.
I can see things hotting up if Microsoft can get it together, but they're very much the underdog and lack a reason to buy one (unlike say, iphone - the shiny, android - the geeky, blackberry - the constant messaging).
I just got my iPhone 4 yesterday. I love it, I really do.. I haven't been able to replicate the deathgrip to the same extent that others can. Best I can do is drop 1 bar.
...it’s going to get stranger and more frantic if Microsoft once again becomes a big player in the mobile space. If they get there, will they use their power to try and bend the carriers to their will? Or will they take the Google approach and let them walk all over the place dictating features and bloatware?
If M$ doesn't bend carriers to their will, then they might end up with crappy software on superior hardware. Not only does Microsoft have to guard against design-by-committee from within, it has to deal with the same from the carriers. In other words, Microsoft has to fight its DNA to be beautiful, while Apple just has to follow their usual tendencies. On the other hand, individual companies in the Android space can decide where they fall in the luxury/bargain spectrum.
Apple vs. Android is cathedral vs. bazaar. Is Windows Phone 7 going to be another cathedral, a bazaar, or will it be a half-assed combination of the two?
(Note that cathedrals took advantage of the efforts of several generations of individual workers adding their own contributions, but in a way which fit the whole. In other words, cathedrals were also a kind of ecosystem!)
The mobile space is about to be a full-on gun fight. And at least Microsoft seems to have walked into the middle of it with the right weapon.
A 3-way standoff? Who's the Good, The Bad, and The Ugly?
Is Windows Phone 7 going to be another cathedral, a bazaar, or will it be a half-assed combination of the two?
I was thinking about this, I imagine the midpoint between a cathedral and a bazaar could possibly be a shopping mall... How profitable do shopping malls tend to be? They might have something, if only because they're doing something different with enough marketing steam behind them.
I would not call Apple vs Android as cathedral vs bazaar, more Cathedral against lots of little annoying Cathedrals who want to extract every cent from you and disable functions on your phone to do that.
Clearly Apple = Good (they started this new smartphone revolution, and care more about consumers than careers), Windows = Bad (will do anything to try to maintain their monopoly), and Google = Ugly (not really ugly, but they seem to be letting the carriers have more control).
I thought Hacker News was above the juvenile 'M$' but guess I was wrong.
>Is Windows Phone 7 going to be another cathedral, a bazaar, or will it be a half-assed combination of the two?
Right now it looks like a good combination. Good variety in hardware(for example, phones with real keyboard unlike the iPhone) while still retaining the ability to directly update the software(no shipping of old versions that take ages to get updated, if they get done at all, like Android).
How is "M$" juvenile? It is a nickname I have seen from many adults but never from children. Do you mean "immature; childish; infantile?" as the dictionary suggests? I don't see hows. It implies to me that the person using the nickname claims that Microsoft is motivated entirely or largely by making money at the expense of all other considerations. It's cut from the same cloth as "MSFT," which implies they value their stock price above all else (this would appear to be wrong, based on the stock's performance, but there you go).
You or I may not agree wit the characterization, but I hardly see this as immature. Informal, perhaps, in comparison to writing "Microsoft (who worship at the Temple of Mammon)..." But I don't see it as childish and juvenile.
There is another possibility. If "M$" has been regularly used by people who are juvenile in other ways, perhaps using "M$" in trollish flamewars and ad hominem diatribes, it can become guilty through association with juvenile rants. Is that the problem here? That the nickname has been used so often by people acting in a juvenile way that it has unpleasant overtones you perceive that are invisible to someone like myself who doesn't share your life experience?
Using M$ is pretty much a defacto ad hominem - it means you're leading your position by saying 'Microsoft only care about money', and then using that to argue that there must be a problem with their products, without backing up or clarifying that assertion.
Imagine if people started their posts with 'Facebook, who hate privacy, have just...', or 'Apple, who hate freedom, have now...', or 'Google, who are spying on you, are about to...'
Using M$ is pretty much a defacto ad hominem - it means you're leading your position by saying 'Microsoft only care about money'
What we have here is a de-facto "putting words into other people's mouths." What that means to me is, "Microsoft, who has money." It was meant in an informal and not a slur. In any case, how in the world can you be "ad hominem" against a corporation?
Where in my comment, or in my entire history of comments is there any kind of sentiment of the kind you describe. If anything, my position towards Microsoft has always been, "they're clueless about UX."
I am sorry if I misinterpreted you, but prior to this instance I have only ever seen 'M$' used in a derogatory fashion. Regardless, I feel that it doesn't add anything to the discussion that just saying 'MS' or 'Microsoft' would have.
As an aside, I don't see anything strange about an ad hominem against a corporation, it's still an attack against the source of the argument and not the argument itself. Plus, a corporation is after all a legal person.
Regardless, I feel that it doesn't add anything to the discussion that just saying 'MS' or 'Microsoft' would have.
I am glad you admitted your putting words into my mouth. Let me note that this resulted in quite a few meta-comments! I could not let your mischaracterization go unchallenged. Note also that your mischaracterization is itself a meta-comment. Had it not been written in the first place, it would have benefitted the S/N ratio of HN dramatically!
Using M$ is pretty much a defacto ad hominem - it means you're leading your position by saying 'Microsoft only care about money', and then using that to argue that there must be a problem with their products, without backing up or clarifying that assertion.
Your description of the alleged meaning of this nickname is similar to my understanding of an ad hominem, however it differs in substantial ways. When Microsoft is the subject of a discussion, an assertion about their motivations is not an ad hominem: An assertion about one of the persons participating in the debate would be an ad hominem.
So what we have is an assertion about Microsoft's motivations and an unfounded argument that this is the cause for some perceived product woes. This is clearly weak rhetoric (and trivially fallacious: Apple seems to do just fine lusting after money).
But I am left rubbing my chin in confusion by your assertion that using the nickname automatically means that you're arguing that there is a problem with their products. My understanding is that the problem with their products is that have no taste. Someone using "M$" could be thinking that their avarice means that they behave in monopolistic ways, or that they have a certain type of internal company culture, or any number of things.
But there is no need to assume what they are saying or to jump to some conclusion about what they are claiming: I can simply read what they write. If they write "M$ are unable to ship good products," I can argue with that statement directly instead of arguing with their use of the nickname.
As for your second paragraph... Wow. Imagine if I were to make up a whole list of things that people are not saying and use it to stir up all kinds of emotional feelings as a way of trying to convince you that using a nickname I don't like was pathetic. Would that add to the discussion?
I think I am going to stop right here. I see a nickname that claims Microsoft cares primarily or only about money. You see a nickname dragging all sorts of baggage and claims and unfounded arguments around. You feel the need to exert social pressure to eliminate it, including characterizing it in an insulting fashion ("juvenile").
I understand what you are saying, and that is quite enough for me.
He didn't characterize the comment as 'juvenile', that was me. Pay attention to the commenters' names. :)
>I see a nickname that claims Microsoft cares primarily or only about money.
The original commenter clarified that it meant something along the lines of 'Microsoft, who has money'. That shows that it's a term that can result in a lot of confusion, but I have seen it mostly used as a put down by people who think it's cool to use it.
It's not about taking it seriously or not. It's not even about liking Microsoft or not. It's about keeping conversations interesting by avoiding dropping back to memes and in-jokes that pepper many other places on the internet for discussions. And that includes the 'Fixed that for you' meme, as well as M$ or others like 'fanboi'.
As a long-time developer of Windows desktop applications, I am quite excited about the possibility to using Visual Studio, C# and .NET to create software for my phone. I like what I see so far, and suddenly, Android doesn't look that much exciting to me anymore.
I'm with you. I have wanted to develop apps for a while, but I didn't want to jump into Java or Objective C. With C#, I already know how things work, so there is no learning curve for me. So I dropped the $99 to sell apps in the marketplace.
My market verification is complete, but I was not picked for the initial wave of apps. Hopefully, I'll get cleared to sell WP7 apps soon after launch.
This article seems a little under-appreciative of some of the innovations in Android. After using Android I don't think I could go back to a phone that didn't support home screen widgets no matter how good it looked or how pleasant it was to use otherwise. A serious amount of my use of my phone is mediated entirely through widgets now.
Having said that - I totally agree that WP7 is going to be pretty competitive and I'm really happy about that. My hope is that it makes Google go the extra mile with Gingerbread to really sweeten up the UI a bit - but we're going to win (consumers, that is) either way.
>The ad hominem is not always fallacious, for in some instances questions of personal conduct, character, motives, etc., are legitimate and relevant to the issue.
Ad hominem is not fallacious when the person is what you're discussing (e.g. "I think X is a political hack and damaging to the country"), but otherwise it would be (e.g. the boy in "the boy who cried wolf" lied every time he said there was a wolf. Except the last time. The village committed a logical fallacy in assuming that because he was a liar that everything he said was a lie.).
No, the village people drew a logically strong inference from their analysis of the available data. They would be right in the vast majority of cases. By the thinking in your "boy who cried wolf" analogy, it's ad hominem to observe that a clock is broken, because the clock tells the time correctly twice every day. The fact is that when a meter is known to have a strong bias, it is rational to be skeptical when it gives a result in line with that bias.
>No, the village people drew a logically strong inference from their analysis of the available data.
Wrong. They engaged in a logical fallacy, full stop. The correct response would have been for them to replace the boy with someone who wasn't so prone to lying (and for your clock example, replace or fix the clock). They must check every alarm raised from their designated "wolf watcher".
Interestingly, a good usage of an ad hominem would have been the argument for replacing the boy (e.g. "It's too inefficient to use him as the watcher because he's a liar").
It's not ad hominem to bring up his record of support for one mobile OS during a discussion of another mobile OS. If someone said "keep in mind mg siegler is a socialist!" that would be ad hominem.
OK. Now explain why being an Apple fanboy and an Android troll invalidates the statement that Windows Phone may be a functional mobile platform, more usable than the Android offerings.
While the article praises the iPhone interface and points out several of Android's user interface elements are very similar to solutions also adopted on the iPhone (to be fair, my 128K Palm Pilot arranged apps on a grid, a feature I am almost sure it copied from the Newton, just like about every PDA/smartphone), that's beyond the point. Windows Phone seems very non-iPhone-ish and there is a non trivial possibility Microsoft can actually bring out a decent mobile user experience after more than a decade of miserable failures.
I won't hold my breath, however. I too find it most incredible Microsoft finally hit something.
They said to "keep it in mind" not that it invalidates everything he says.
I keep in mind the fact that Barack Obama is an elected member of the Democratic party when he tells me to vote for a Senate candidate. It doesn't invalidate his opinion about that person, but it certain factors in.
>Google go the extra mile with Gingerbread to really sweeten up the UI a bit
I've never understood what exactly people mean when they say that. The one area Google needs to fix is the settings menu, with a much more logical organisation which they failed to do properly even in Froyo. Other than that, the worst flaws in Android are not things that Google can just wave a wand and fix without breaking backward compatibility.
Agree with you about the widgets, though. Can't live without them.
One has a beautiful touch responsive scrolling display while the other requires you to pick out small + and - symbols and tap repeatedly on them until you get to the right date. Mis-hitting the square below brings up the keyboard with a jarring UI-rearranging effect.
This kind of stuff, as well as the fluidity of the UI in general (jerky scrolling, transitions sudden instead of animated) is what they need to address.
Earlier this year I was going to hold out for the Windows Phone 7 devices prior to learning of the features of the iPhone 4.
After Apple blew me away with the 640x960 LCD, I was pretty much sold on that point.
Until someone comes out with a display that looks as good as Apple's, I certainly won't even consider switching.
The other key point that people seem to forget is the touch keyboard. The iPhone's touch just "works", and works extremely well. In fact, it works exactly as you expect it to. And it worked exactly as I expected it to when I walked out of the mall Apple store in 2008 with my iPhone 3G.
This isn't the case with any android phone I've used. They all had various quirks that you had to "learn". Whether it be the Motorola Droid, or the HTC Evo. There were just little things about the UI that didn't work very well.
I've said it before and I say it again. Any android phone I've used feels like a "me too" phone. The touch screen feels like it's bolted on to this interface, whereas the iPhone feels like it's a true touch device.
While I understand that the diversity of the hardware is a strength, I feel that the Androids problem is the large variety of hardware it is on which makes it harder to develop for than the iPhone, does anyone think that these problems will be a major issue for Windows Phone 7?
No, I don't think so, because according to the presentations Microsoft put forward strict rules for the hardware makers who wants to run WP7, like processor, RAM, only two allowed screen resolutions, etc.
It's telling that most of the comments on this article are the usual iPhone vs. Android arguments. I just don't see the interest out there for another smartphone platform to survive, particularly one which is so far outside the interface norms established by earlier entrants.
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[ 2.3 ms ] story [ 168 ms ] threadfanboy ranting aside I dont think I could trust microsoft to give me a nice computing experience again, even if some people like it superficially, there must be something wrong in there.
There sure is. It ships with a browser that's "halfway between IE7 and IE8."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Phone_7#Web_browser
Ouch.
Personally, I doubt that MS will provide those updates. The reason they keep IE6 outdated is because large companies want it that way; that can't handle epic change or their apps will break. If MS is marketing this phone to businesses, you can bet that the browser won't change much.
I wouldn’t say that anyone outperforms anyone else in that video – all three phones seem to be doing those tasks equally well (save for choppiness on Android).
I don't think companies are going to develop for just IE mobile like they did for IE6. And how exactly does adding support for HTML5 break the HTML for older web apps?
Companies who swallowed their poison pill in the early 2000's and built their intranets dependent on IE 6 are feeling the pain now, having to deploy intrusive security measures that don't really secure anything while shouldering the cost of "upgrading" the apps to browsers that run on the OS they want to deploy.
Also, let's say that companies start buying WP7 phones for employees, and that they pay to build a mobile-friendly version of some internal webapp. If you were designing/coding a site today, and knew you didn't have to support IE6, you most likely code it in a fairly standards-compliant way so that it didn't break when browsers were upgraded; a lot of companies are stuck on IE6 because they didn't code their sites like that.
It's easy to optimize a subset when you can define the subset to exclude everything you can't make fast...
This means that website owners who have already written advanced web interfaces for the mobile browsers on iOS, Android, and BB 6.0 will have to re-engineer their code base for WP7. That probably isn't going to happen until Microsoft establishes an impressive user base.
Edit: Add to this the long press of a list item, and between them, most actions are stuck behind an undiscoverable layer of UI.
But the point remains, I also have a lot of annoyances with i-devices at the same time, compared to the two I prefer my HTC Desire, it would be nice to not be regarded as some type of idiot for possibly thinking that i-whatever arent the pinnacle of design that all things aspire to.
Long press is the right-click of smartphones.
Yes. Maemo, for one, makes no bones about it: at the X windows level, a long press turns into an a right click.
Also, I find myself constantly wanting to use Android's back button on the iPad. It's really become quite natural for me on my phone.
That said, I completely agree with the grandparent's comment about the menu button.
Contextual knowledge, that's the phrase. With the iPhone, what you see is what you get-for better or worse. In Android, you need to press the menu button to discover the actions you can perform.
I foresee some serious cognitive dissonance playing out as Microsoft manages to do a whole lot better than hive-mind "HA HA too little too late / M$ sucks" sentiments have been allowing for. And frankly, Microsoft deserves the success they've got coming to them here. Somehow, the teams responsible for WP7 have been able to overcome the bureaucratic, backstabbing inertia that Microsoft is famous for, and they've produced something pretty damned good for a 1.0. Shame that so few people bother to actually examine the platform in any detail before pontificating about it, predicting its doom, etc.
But I didnt say it sucks, or that there must be something wrong with it, I said I couldnt trust them (with a lot or money) not to suck, and my opinion isnt formed from some hivemend, its formed from the last 10 years of my experience with microsoft products.
Actually you did, almost word for word: "there must be something wrong in there" :)
* You've been shipping mobile software for years
* You have "version 7" in the name of your product
Not trying to be pedantic here -- I know what you mean when you refer to this new mobile OS as "1.0". I just think it's more appropriate to refer to, say, the original 2007 iPhone as 1.0 than the WP7 product.
Coincidence or intentional?
It has the new hotness. Retina screen is nice, but it's so annoying that I can't use it with my left hand. Thanks apple.
I can see things hotting up if Microsoft can get it together, but they're very much the underdog and lack a reason to buy one (unlike say, iphone - the shiny, android - the geeky, blackberry - the constant messaging).
If M$ doesn't bend carriers to their will, then they might end up with crappy software on superior hardware. Not only does Microsoft have to guard against design-by-committee from within, it has to deal with the same from the carriers. In other words, Microsoft has to fight its DNA to be beautiful, while Apple just has to follow their usual tendencies. On the other hand, individual companies in the Android space can decide where they fall in the luxury/bargain spectrum.
Apple vs. Android is cathedral vs. bazaar. Is Windows Phone 7 going to be another cathedral, a bazaar, or will it be a half-assed combination of the two?
(Note that cathedrals took advantage of the efforts of several generations of individual workers adding their own contributions, but in a way which fit the whole. In other words, cathedrals were also a kind of ecosystem!)
The mobile space is about to be a full-on gun fight. And at least Microsoft seems to have walked into the middle of it with the right weapon.
A 3-way standoff? Who's the Good, The Bad, and The Ugly?
I was thinking about this, I imagine the midpoint between a cathedral and a bazaar could possibly be a shopping mall... How profitable do shopping malls tend to be? They might have something, if only because they're doing something different with enough marketing steam behind them.
Clearly Apple = Good (they started this new smartphone revolution, and care more about consumers than careers), Windows = Bad (will do anything to try to maintain their monopoly), and Google = Ugly (not really ugly, but they seem to be letting the carriers have more control).
I thought Hacker News was above the juvenile 'M$' but guess I was wrong.
>Is Windows Phone 7 going to be another cathedral, a bazaar, or will it be a half-assed combination of the two?
Right now it looks like a good combination. Good variety in hardware(for example, phones with real keyboard unlike the iPhone) while still retaining the ability to directly update the software(no shipping of old versions that take ages to get updated, if they get done at all, like Android).
You or I may not agree wit the characterization, but I hardly see this as immature. Informal, perhaps, in comparison to writing "Microsoft (who worship at the Temple of Mammon)..." But I don't see it as childish and juvenile.
There is another possibility. If "M$" has been regularly used by people who are juvenile in other ways, perhaps using "M$" in trollish flamewars and ad hominem diatribes, it can become guilty through association with juvenile rants. Is that the problem here? That the nickname has been used so often by people acting in a juvenile way that it has unpleasant overtones you perceive that are invisible to someone like myself who doesn't share your life experience?
Imagine if people started their posts with 'Facebook, who hate privacy, have just...', or 'Apple, who hate freedom, have now...', or 'Google, who are spying on you, are about to...'
That would be pretty pathetic.
What we have here is a de-facto "putting words into other people's mouths." What that means to me is, "Microsoft, who has money." It was meant in an informal and not a slur. In any case, how in the world can you be "ad hominem" against a corporation?
Where in my comment, or in my entire history of comments is there any kind of sentiment of the kind you describe. If anything, my position towards Microsoft has always been, "they're clueless about UX."
As an aside, I don't see anything strange about an ad hominem against a corporation, it's still an attack against the source of the argument and not the argument itself. Plus, a corporation is after all a legal person.
I am glad you admitted your putting words into my mouth. Let me note that this resulted in quite a few meta-comments! I could not let your mischaracterization go unchallenged. Note also that your mischaracterization is itself a meta-comment. Had it not been written in the first place, it would have benefitted the S/N ratio of HN dramatically!
Your description of the alleged meaning of this nickname is similar to my understanding of an ad hominem, however it differs in substantial ways. When Microsoft is the subject of a discussion, an assertion about their motivations is not an ad hominem: An assertion about one of the persons participating in the debate would be an ad hominem.
So what we have is an assertion about Microsoft's motivations and an unfounded argument that this is the cause for some perceived product woes. This is clearly weak rhetoric (and trivially fallacious: Apple seems to do just fine lusting after money).
But I am left rubbing my chin in confusion by your assertion that using the nickname automatically means that you're arguing that there is a problem with their products. My understanding is that the problem with their products is that have no taste. Someone using "M$" could be thinking that their avarice means that they behave in monopolistic ways, or that they have a certain type of internal company culture, or any number of things.
But there is no need to assume what they are saying or to jump to some conclusion about what they are claiming: I can simply read what they write. If they write "M$ are unable to ship good products," I can argue with that statement directly instead of arguing with their use of the nickname.
As for your second paragraph... Wow. Imagine if I were to make up a whole list of things that people are not saying and use it to stir up all kinds of emotional feelings as a way of trying to convince you that using a nickname I don't like was pathetic. Would that add to the discussion?
I think I am going to stop right here. I see a nickname that claims Microsoft cares primarily or only about money. You see a nickname dragging all sorts of baggage and claims and unfounded arguments around. You feel the need to exert social pressure to eliminate it, including characterizing it in an insulting fashion ("juvenile").
I understand what you are saying, and that is quite enough for me.
>I see a nickname that claims Microsoft cares primarily or only about money.
The original commenter clarified that it meant something along the lines of 'Microsoft, who has money'. That shows that it's a term that can result in a lot of confusion, but I have seen it mostly used as a put down by people who think it's cool to use it.
FTFY. Apparently, you are someone who actually takes this sort of thing seriously.
Having said that - I totally agree that WP7 is going to be pretty competitive and I'm really happy about that. My hope is that it makes Google go the extra mile with Gingerbread to really sweeten up the UI a bit - but we're going to win (consumers, that is) either way.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem
Wrong. They engaged in a logical fallacy, full stop. The correct response would have been for them to replace the boy with someone who wasn't so prone to lying (and for your clock example, replace or fix the clock). They must check every alarm raised from their designated "wolf watcher".
Interestingly, a good usage of an ad hominem would have been the argument for replacing the boy (e.g. "It's too inefficient to use him as the watcher because he's a liar").
While the article praises the iPhone interface and points out several of Android's user interface elements are very similar to solutions also adopted on the iPhone (to be fair, my 128K Palm Pilot arranged apps on a grid, a feature I am almost sure it copied from the Newton, just like about every PDA/smartphone), that's beyond the point. Windows Phone seems very non-iPhone-ish and there is a non trivial possibility Microsoft can actually bring out a decent mobile user experience after more than a decade of miserable failures.
I won't hold my breath, however. I too find it most incredible Microsoft finally hit something.
I keep in mind the fact that Barack Obama is an elected member of the Democratic party when he tells me to vote for a Senate candidate. It doesn't invalidate his opinion about that person, but it certain factors in.
I've never understood what exactly people mean when they say that. The one area Google needs to fix is the settings menu, with a much more logical organisation which they failed to do properly even in Froyo. Other than that, the worst flaws in Android are not things that Google can just wave a wand and fix without breaking backward compatibility.
Agree with you about the widgets, though. Can't live without them.
http://i.imgur.com/PcNGf.png
One has a beautiful touch responsive scrolling display while the other requires you to pick out small + and - symbols and tap repeatedly on them until you get to the right date. Mis-hitting the square below brings up the keyboard with a jarring UI-rearranging effect.
This kind of stuff, as well as the fluidity of the UI in general (jerky scrolling, transitions sudden instead of animated) is what they need to address.
After Apple blew me away with the 640x960 LCD, I was pretty much sold on that point.
Until someone comes out with a display that looks as good as Apple's, I certainly won't even consider switching.
The other key point that people seem to forget is the touch keyboard. The iPhone's touch just "works", and works extremely well. In fact, it works exactly as you expect it to. And it worked exactly as I expected it to when I walked out of the mall Apple store in 2008 with my iPhone 3G.
This isn't the case with any android phone I've used. They all had various quirks that you had to "learn". Whether it be the Motorola Droid, or the HTC Evo. There were just little things about the UI that didn't work very well.
I've said it before and I say it again. Any android phone I've used feels like a "me too" phone. The touch screen feels like it's bolted on to this interface, whereas the iPhone feels like it's a true touch device.
http://arstechnica.com/hardware/news/2009/01/1-5-billion-mic...
They could have done it with WinMo 6... It would be cheaper...