With a great deal of fanfare and loads of marketing cash, Nokia is going to launch its Lumia 900 this weekend. The Windows Phone operating system isn't new, but this is the first hardware we've seen that really pays attention to industrial design and quality. And at $99 with a contract, it's not expensive either.
It's no secret that Diana and I have been Windows Phone fans ever since launch, about a year and a half ago. Since we got them for free via work, there was obviously no real risk to giving them a shot. What I didn't expect is that we would not only not miss our iPhones, but we would actually prefer the new phones. The Samsung Focus is a nice phone, if a little on the plastic side, and has Gorilla Glass for durability. The camera is a little mediocre, but beyond that, I've been mostly happy with it.
I've had a lot of discussions about why I think WP is better than iPhone, and it's always so hard to make the case. While iOS is very "app driven," for lack of a better word, WP is more "task driven." So for example, if you want to update your status on WP, you tap the "me" icon, then post a message, and off you go. It'll even post to Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, simultaneously. Sure you could do that via apps for each one, but this is part of the OS itself.
Same thing for photos. Touch the photos, and you can see what you've synced from your computer, what's on Facebook, etc. I can touch People, and see what's new via Facebook and Twitter, aggregated. When I look at Diana's profile, it shows me her contact info as stored in my Gmail account, and combines data from Facebook.
Love the live tiles. I can see the current weather without opening the app, as well as the latest status from Diana. I can even "deep link" to stuff within different apps and pin it to the start menu.
There are less frequently used "cool" things built-in as well. It will listen to music and tell me what it is. I can point the camera at foreign text (even Asian character languages) and it will translate it for me. I can point it at a barcode and it will tell me how much the item is at Target with reviews.
A lot of this magic starts when you just turn it on, plug in your Gmail, Facebook and whatever accounts, but that's hard to communicate. The marketing so far also doesn't demonstrate all of this goodness. So how does Microsoft overcome the slow start? Clearly they're betting on AT&T and Nokia to help make that happen.
I haven't held one in my hand, but if you go to an AT&T store next week, the 900 is what they'll be pushing. I have to wait a few months (allegedly) until they'll let me upgrade, but you can bet I'll jump on it. It's a nice looking phone, and the photo samples are really impressive.
The bigger problems have more to do with perception than anything else. Some people just can't imagine using something without an Apple on it (a feeling I still have about laptops). Others think there aren't enough apps for it, as if 70k isn't going to have you covered. Still others just don't believe in the task based approach until they've tried it. All of the mediocre hardware, even if it was basically the same as Android stuff, sure hasn't helped.
I have high hopes for the new phone, and for the platform in general. I honestly feel it has pushed the experience of a mobile device to a better place, and I'm reminded of it every time I use my iPad. Windows Phone is just a more evolved experience to me.
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