Category: Geeks r Us
Firstly, the reason why I posted this topic in the geeks are us board is because it will not be accessible.
As most of us know, Windows Phone 7 is going to make its first appearance in November with AT&T and T-Mobile. Verizon and Sprint are going to get it early next year. Here's my problem with Windows Phone 7..
The main problem is that it is NOT going to be accessible. The touch screens on these phones are not going to be using icons, they're going to be using live tiles. The layout of this phone sounds totally confusing. I am not at all thrilled about this phone's appearance because of its inaccessibility. for one thing, and also because it uses the same exact Windows Kernel as the older Windows Mobile phones, which means it'll be easier to crash than the iPhone. So what do you all think about this new phone?
I attended a session on accessibility of smart phones by one of the main developers at Codefactory (that make MobileSpeak).
She said Windows 7 has not made any accessibility APIs or any efforts to help with screen reader development and she said she expected CodeFactory to not support Windows 7 mobile and move more towards Android or Symbian, looking at Mego and possibly developing apps for the iPhone.
I think Microsoft are leaving a pile of poo behind when it comes to mobile accessibility and hopefully they'll change their minds about this before they totally lose out to Apple and Google.
Oh yeah, from an accessibility stand point, they will lose out. And another thing is that the enterprise market isn't all thrilled about this phone, so they might suffer even more because of that.
When you watch the videos old bowlmer looks so... happy!. They act like they have it down pat!. For the sake of argueing, I think they did okay with windows 6.5 windows mobile. This is my personal appinion so their for I know most do not agree.
Correct me if I am wrong, but didn't windows 3.11 have tiles unstead of Icons. So if that is so hmm... why go backwards!.
My issue with the phone is that it uses the same Windows Kernel as the older Windows Mobile phones, so it's easy to crash. It's going to run into some major issues.
Michael, the reviews from Enterprise deployers are mixed, far from unanimous.
To understand enterprise you have to ditch fandom and look at problems / solutions / stability.
Reality? iPhone / Android / Blackberry can now all seamlessly behave at the server level, and while Microsoft in the past has aimed at enterprise developers they have a lot more wrong than the very tiny market we call accessibility. Make no mistake, I understand it's important to us, I'm blind myself, but most of the population doesn't even notice. It lacks the sex appeal that being black, gay or bi has.
But back to Windows Mobile 7: What do they bring that nobody else has? That is going to be the real question. Very far behind us are the days when you could only link Exchange servers with Windows devices, Blackberry servers with Blackberry devices, and Domino Servers with only Notes clients.
Enterprise users don't purchase on ideals like some consumers, namely Apple longtime users, typically do. Exmple: mid 1990s when Apple users stuck with macs even though Windows was way ahead of the game when it came to networking. Enterprise users just don't think like that, because their investors will simply find someone else ... it's all about getting 'er done.
Before you had Palm, Windows Mobile, and Symbian for the most part. Neither Palm nor Symbian really played nice with Exchange and Blackberry, though both had a sync to desktop application.
BlackBerry has stayed a huge enterprise solution, and now with emulation, can push to any device that takes push (your iPhone being a great example of push personified).
So no, when new devices are in order, I don't think it's a shoe-in for Microsoft because no matter what the kiddies on here think, brand loyalty is the luxury of the unencumbered and idealistic. Enterprise users, while they buy licensing seats for software, don't get this with devices, not in the same way at least.
Just my thoughts.
I found it interesting that even a recent interview on CNET the CEO of verizon stated that they currently did not see microsoft as a major player in the mobile arina. He stated that when it's all said and done Rim, google, and Apple were the three companies that mattered, and wasn't sure if the new phone line up at CES will even include any Microsoft products. I've seen multiple outlets indicating VZW will carry some windows 7 phones, but I'm not even sure how accurate that'll end up being. Have a best friend who works in R&d at verizon a position which I envy as he gets to test all kinds of amazing products some of which come to life and some that don't, but he told me tuesday, that no windows 7 devices had made it as far is his ltest level yet, which made him believe carrying any windows 7 devices is further off than the beginning of the year. I often wonder if the MS platform was more relevant to those of us who needed access to mobile phones, and were able to have one in a windows mobile platform than a majority of average and/or corporate users. I've very rarely done business over the past 10 years with a company that exclusively used the windows mobile platform, and I've read nothing in this new offering from MS that makes me think it'll be much different.
From a visual stand point, watching the videows, I can't deny the fact that the OS looks quite different, the live tile aspect has its ups and downs in my book, but watching the way these phones actually run, and seeing how everything's intigrated, things seem alittle mixed as to who the market for the device actually is. But I can say this about it, many functions of the OS are extremely intigrated, things just contextually flow together in a way that to an extent they don't on any other platform I've seen. This being said, I can see a select user base forming that likes the simplisity of how everything just flows together forming, honestly, I could see many people who arn't huge smartphone users because of how "complex" they are falling for windows phone seven.
Further seeing the devices running live in videows and the like, I honestly struggle to see how exactly microsoft could really make the platform as usable to the blind as it would be to the sighted. Then again, many thought the same thing about the iPhone.
If anyone wants a somewhat more detailed explanation of the general live tile look/how it all opperates i'll write something up that should make sense for all.
On the curnal, from the research i've done it seemes to be a hybrid of the latest windows C 6 and compact seven cores. So while similar to things we've seen in the past, its been tweeked in key ways to diferentiate it. All this being said, the way it handles processes and user interaction/privelages is vastly different. It appears to have a similar walled garden approach to iOS in that apps are downloaded from an app store (named windows marketplace, or something like that) and the apps don't have any ability to multy task, unlike win mo 6.5 and below. This creates challenges when trying to make the platform access friendly. As no third party has multy tasking privilages, someone like code factory couldn't create a screen reader, because its process couldn't run along side others. So, basicly, this means microsoft would either have to take the same root as apple took, or they'll have to allow a third party much more access to the OS then they're willing to.
Ok, i've rambled on enough...
Sorry about the typo's, I'm rushing here alittle.
I wonder if it's safe to say that the apps don't multitask because the processors in those phones aren't powerful enough to be able to multitask.
no, the minimum required sspec is a 1.0 ghz processor. Its just a choice microsoft made, probably to preserve the integrity of the UI's context.
Yes, deffinitly specs seem to be there, the new devices that were introduced this week ran the ARM 1ghz processor, and either the LG or HTC had 16gb of onboard memory. Just an FYI, this week in my daily email from indeed on job opportunities, I saw a post from microsoft for an access specialist, the focal point of the advertizment was "looking for someone with passion, that could help us intigrate a solution similar to apple's voice over" I found that interesting!
Perhaps they'll implement that screen reader in the next generation of the Windows Phones.
i find it funny how we are less than 1percent of the population which means we are even a much lesser percentage of the people buying this phone yet people are getting all up in arms that this phone isn't aaccessible out of the gate. Remember apple took a while to get things figured out before implementing accessibilty. And Multi tasking and tethering are coming to windows phone 7 ti will be implemented in and update down the line it stuff that had to be left out to make the shipping deadline. I do believe taht for this phoen to really work accessibility wise it would have to be implimented at the OS level and not after market like code factory does, In fact i hope but it seems we are coming to the days of third party access solutions for phones becoming a thing of the past. Microsoft is definately going oafter the comsumer with this phone and not the enterprise so much. And every reviewer i have heard that has gotten one of these in their hands wants to spend more time with one, so i think this may surprise alot of people being that its a microsoft product.Oh and the reason this all seems new to you gusy is because this is based on the Zune HD UI which also got alot of rav reviews as well. Yeah it sucks that we can't use it just yet, but We do have a few viable choices out there currently so its not like we can't use other really good phones that have similiar functionality.
Yes but once something's been done, the expectation on the next device will be that they include it also.
Remember when all you could do was buy Bluetooth cards for your laptop? Not even PDAs had it, and the phones that did had a very limited edition? Think 2002 or thereabouts.
Yet once Bluetooth 2.0 and lower-cost integrated chips containing Bluetooth and Wi Fi came out you wouldn't imagine a device without it. Once it's been done, it's deemed not only possible but necessary.
And to pretend like Microsoft of all companies isn't familiar with and very aware of access standards is not realistic. There has been access to windows mobile since windows mobile 2003, so to all of a sudden release a platform that has no access API's from the get go makes no since. It's like if apple releases a new idderation of their iOS next year and drops voiceover all together. Wouldn't necessaryly be a shock, but trust me, folks would be "up in arms" Note the quotation marks.
Regarding WP7, just one word...Kin! They probably needed to just tighten up the existing Windows Mobile code, and focus on delivering a better product. I'm afraid this will end up just like the Kin fiasco.
I tend to agree with Leo and BDD on this. Appe figured out accessibility on their touch screen devices, so Microsoft shold have been smart enough to follow after them.
Its probably something they'll address down the line, It has been stated that several things got cut from the OS to meet ship date. Is it alittle perplexing, yes. Is it reason to get "up in arms," not really.
like i said remember iOS being a brand new platform didn't ship with acessability even though the macs already had voice over. they fine tuned the platform till they felt it was mature enough to handle accessability. Microsoft is doing the same thing, Starting from scratch and establishing a new platform and only when its established it will then probablly have accessability added in and from microsoft in house and not throug a 3rd party like Code Factory atleast that the way it looks from stuff i read. Lets for arguement sake say they put it in from the get ago and it bombed and wp7 didn't last long it would be obselete before you know it. So give it a change to get some legs under it like iOS did. As for that other phone that they killed it had nothing to do with wp7 as it was an update to the sidekick with some of the wp7 functionality. they decided to kill it so they could focus all their energy on windows phone 7, can't say i blame them
Well, as I said, accessibility isn't really my main concern; my main concern is that this new platform still uses the Windows Kernel, making it more prone to crashing than the iPhone and the Droid. I really wish that Microsoft would follow after Google and Apple and make their platform Lynyx-based. It would just make everything much more stable.
Yes, in many cases a windows curnal isn't as stable as what is available on other platforms, but before we even have substantial data about this hybrid core's proformence, their's no need to shamelessly brand it because You're in all honesty speaking on a subject we all don't have much data to support. Nothing I've found thus far has stated their have been many stability issues, but I honestly don't think we've seen enough of the platform either way to attempt to brand it so callously. Just trying to provide perspective.
I gotta agree with striker on this one. And lets be honest a big part of the reason the microsoft kernal is so "weak" as you put it is is because it's so widely used. If unix and linux were used by over a billion people world wide you best believe it would of gotten pounded on as much as the windows kernal by all manner of programers hackers and security experts, and whose to say it would stand up as wellas it does with as many "eyes" on it as windows has these days?
May I throw an idea out here to, if any of our sighted counter parts have a windows7 phone please write a review of what you like ad dislike on the platfrom.
Well, since the new Windows phones were just released this month, I've read some articles that have stated that there are quite a bit of stores having problems selling the phones. It's cool that Microsoft wants to join in the competition with their phones, but remember, this is 2010. You have the iPhone 4 and the Android phones that are clearly in very close competition with each other. So I would say that the Android or the iPhone would be the way to go because both platforms aren't as flawed as the Windows Phone OS 7 platform is, as some articles that I have read are revealing. And I'm not saying that Android and iOS don't have bugs, of course they have bugs.