SmartBick Technology
Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7, the company’s latest attempt to crack the smartphone market, had a troubled start. Microsoft’s first update for Windows Phone 7 was essentially an update that would allow the real update to run, strange, isn’t it?
The First Update Disaster
That initial update has led to user complaints that their various smartphones had been “bricked,” meaning that the updates had rendered them unusable much like the Microsoft updates for Windows Vista and XP that left the computers stuck on the Blue Screen of Death of smartphones.
Phones that were “bricked” required a reinstall of the operating system to become functional again and Microsoft even had to take down and discontinue the update for Samsung models temporarily to fix the new problems before it allowed any other updates to be released.
With Windows Phone 7 having been launched in October of 2011, problems like these have hurt consumer confidence and are a major cause for concern, especially since Microsoft is operating in a market dominated by Apple’s iPhone and Google’s Android phones-or is trying to, anyway. Microsoft is clearly a distant third in the race.
The Second Update Still to Come
The scheduled March update is expected to correct problems including the lack of a copy and paste function as well as general performance and stability updates, but it will only correct the problems if Microsoft can get it to run properly.
Nevertheless, some original issues will remain after the “real” updates finally come in March, if Microsoft can fix them. The virtual keyboard on the phone is definitely on par with that on the iPhone and the browser runs smoothly as is; however even though the update to Internet Explorer 9 is coming, the browser still experiences major drawbacks that leave the OS in the dust as compared to the other operating systems. For example, the new updates will still lack support for Adobe Flash, Silverlight, and HTML5-the current standard most mobile operating systems are moving to-and, in particular a lack of HTML5 video support.
What Microsoft Windows Phone 7 Got Right-Sort Of…
As you might expect on a Microsoft device, integration of Zune is smooth allowing synchronizing with a computer to manage a music and video library. As with the Zune, Microsoft incorporates its other products very well; Xbox Live for Windows Phone 7 delivers high- quality gaming experiences. Third party apps, however, have some serious issues with loading and stability, since there is no multitasking support either and apps are known for crashing, forcing users to reboot the device. Hopefully, these will be fixed with the next update, but it is unlikely, since the first update was a disaster already.
The camera is another strong point for these smartphones and while specs vary from device to device, starting at 5-megapixels, and the camera app itself is very quick to respond once activated. Office and e-mail functions also perform decently, but there are still some rough spots. Word editing capabilities are particularly disappointing. Users cannot change fonts in a Word document and are limited to only four text color choices. There is that annoying lack of copy and paste, as mentioned earlier to contend with as well. The E-mail functionality features standard automation options for Windows Live, Gmail, Yahoo! Mail, and Outlook. The email app provides a one-line preview of messages that users are viewing and has a clean and clear layout.
While the phone does show some promise, the next update really needs to be a homerun if Microsoft intends to remain a player in the mobile market and not be crushed to death by the weight of Android and iOS.
