Windws Phone 8 Needs More Innovation?
Ran across this article during my morning news consumption. And I must admit, the title caught my eye. Why does anyone think A) Windows Phone is less innovative than their competition? and B) Why would anyone think more innovation would help?
Let's start where modern touch screen smartphones start; The iPhone. What was innovative about the iPhone from a consumer market perspective? Not much really. The move to a larger touch enabled screen on a smartphone and no physical keyboard was undoubtedly bold in the market. But, for years that was really the extent of it. And, of course this innovation is not something any of their competitors are missing.
Sure iOS was ground-breaking and innovative? How? The OS, I hate to say it, looks like a re-skinned Windows For Workgroups and runs like DOS. You have HUGE square-like icons and you can only have a single app on screen at the same time. Badges on icons wasn't new. BlackBerry and even feature phones had done that for year. Notifications aren't a new thing either. Apps weren't a new concept. Though, out of the big players they may have been the first launch a non-carrier or oem-controlled curated app store.
But for the sake of giving an early lead to someone, we'll say the following are innovations by Apple; Ramming a desktop OS on a touch device, notification center, and Siri.
What made iOS become perceived as innovative was that flood of Apps. But, Apple did not invent the apps. And apps are also not exclusive to that platform. So again I ask, where is the innovation?
Android? Nahh. Android became what it is today by realizing the threat iOS would become and mimicking it to the greatest extent legally possible. And to differentiate they took ideas from Linux. Widgets, multiple desktops, even the concept of a free and open source OS is a Linux-first idea. Aside from the widgets, Android relies on the same basic UI framework. Icons with badges combined with notifications. The theming was more reminiscent of a Linux OS than ancient Windows or Apple OS's, but there was nothing innovative there either. And once again, it was the apps that truly brought the platform to life, and the apps that shine brightest are not typically those produced by Google.
See a common thread? To call one OS more or less innovative than another, you need to restrict yourself to JUST the OS, or if more liberal their OS + 1st party apps. I'm inclined to restrict to just the OS, because there is absolutely no reason why a 1st party app, no matter how good, cannot be recreated on another platform.
And thus we reach Windows Phone. When WP7 came out, their tiled interface was a first on cell phones. It was an innovative UI. It wasn't simply a desktop paradigm rammed into a touch first platform like iOS and Android. It was a new concept and built from the ground up for touch. That is innovation in the field. Instead of multiple screens/desktops full of apps, they had a single scrolling list of tiles. Their tiles are resizable and the colors changeable. Those may sound like minor items, but firstly they stand out in an OS that has less control visually over styling than its competitors, and it is something its competitors simply don't have because they based their UI on a decades old UI paradigm. And, guess what, it is innovative within the field.
And did I mention secondary tiles? Apps can allow for the creation of a secondary tile which can show additional information like weather for one city on one tile and weather for a separate city on another. They can link directly into some particular part of an app. THAT is innovation.
And, it doesn't end there. Sure, they use badge notifications like their competitors. But that is far from the end of it. Those very same tiles that are part of a new UI paradigm and are resizable and theme-able are also "alive". They can be updated with details and images from the own application. Guess what? Another innovative move.
They have toast notifications. Nothing new. Or is it? You can click those notifications and jump straight into the relevant part of the app that triggered them. Innovative.
Deep social integrations. My contacts list on my phone comes directly from my outlook contacts, Facebook, LinkedIn, GMail, etc... all without a single 3rd party app. Innovative. I can receive updates from my social networks without an extra app. Innovative. The ability to merge inboxes from multiple accounts. Innovative.
Above is just scratching the surface of WP7. SEVEN! None of these were features added in WP8. I may be off the mark on one or two with regards to who implemented them first, and many have since been adopted by their competitors. But WP7 was easily the most innovative smartphone platform at launch. And that did absolutely nothing for them.
So was there any new innovation in WP8? You bet your ass there was. Kid's Corner, Driving Move, Lock Screen apps, Camera Lens', Data Sense and NFC support. Again, not a complete list.
Many of these concepts still have absolutely no equivalent in competing platforms. Not all of them are equally useful and as with any innovation, not all are equally relevant to everyone. But proclaiming that Windows Phone 8 needs to be more innovative when they are already, by far, the most innovative smartphone platform out there is absolutely bonkers.
Its problems are with the consumer image Microsoft has, app store restrictions for developers, styling restrictions for users and platforms access for OEM's. That is a lot of problems. But NONE of them are how innovative the system is or isn't.
And amusingly, despite the title of the article, if you read through it the complaints aren't around innovation at all. Idiotically enough, the author invests several paragraphs pointing out things Windows Phone has or does that their competition doesn't and then complains about features from those platforms which WP8 is missing and the app selection. The need to copy a feature is not a lack of innovation. And a lack of apps is also not an innovation issue within the platform.
So the answer to my original questions. Is Windows Phone less innovative than its competition? No. And, would being innovative help? Clearly not, or else they would already be the dominant platform.
Disclaimer: I am not being paid by Microsoft. I do own a Windows Phone however. I'm also not saying it is the best platform. In fact, what platform is the best platform depends on the user. My post above is merely to illuminate the fact that when people complain that Windows Phone isn't innovative enough what I think they really mean is that Microsoft doesn't copy the competition quickly enough, or they mean something completely unrelated to innovation at all, like app selection.
Though, I still stand by argument that app store size is irrelevant. Microsoft's problem is discoverability. Their app stores are littered with crap apps and unless an app is featured it is impossible to dig through the heaps of crap. Technically, Android and iOS have the exact same problem. But no one makes the correlation because they have the largest app stores by a wide margin.
Let's start where modern touch screen smartphones start; The iPhone. What was innovative about the iPhone from a consumer market perspective? Not much really. The move to a larger touch enabled screen on a smartphone and no physical keyboard was undoubtedly bold in the market. But, for years that was really the extent of it. And, of course this innovation is not something any of their competitors are missing.
Sure iOS was ground-breaking and innovative? How? The OS, I hate to say it, looks like a re-skinned Windows For Workgroups and runs like DOS. You have HUGE square-like icons and you can only have a single app on screen at the same time. Badges on icons wasn't new. BlackBerry and even feature phones had done that for year. Notifications aren't a new thing either. Apps weren't a new concept. Though, out of the big players they may have been the first launch a non-carrier or oem-controlled curated app store.
But for the sake of giving an early lead to someone, we'll say the following are innovations by Apple; Ramming a desktop OS on a touch device, notification center, and Siri.
What made iOS become perceived as innovative was that flood of Apps. But, Apple did not invent the apps. And apps are also not exclusive to that platform. So again I ask, where is the innovation?
Android? Nahh. Android became what it is today by realizing the threat iOS would become and mimicking it to the greatest extent legally possible. And to differentiate they took ideas from Linux. Widgets, multiple desktops, even the concept of a free and open source OS is a Linux-first idea. Aside from the widgets, Android relies on the same basic UI framework. Icons with badges combined with notifications. The theming was more reminiscent of a Linux OS than ancient Windows or Apple OS's, but there was nothing innovative there either. And once again, it was the apps that truly brought the platform to life, and the apps that shine brightest are not typically those produced by Google.
See a common thread? To call one OS more or less innovative than another, you need to restrict yourself to JUST the OS, or if more liberal their OS + 1st party apps. I'm inclined to restrict to just the OS, because there is absolutely no reason why a 1st party app, no matter how good, cannot be recreated on another platform.
And thus we reach Windows Phone. When WP7 came out, their tiled interface was a first on cell phones. It was an innovative UI. It wasn't simply a desktop paradigm rammed into a touch first platform like iOS and Android. It was a new concept and built from the ground up for touch. That is innovation in the field. Instead of multiple screens/desktops full of apps, they had a single scrolling list of tiles. Their tiles are resizable and the colors changeable. Those may sound like minor items, but firstly they stand out in an OS that has less control visually over styling than its competitors, and it is something its competitors simply don't have because they based their UI on a decades old UI paradigm. And, guess what, it is innovative within the field.
And did I mention secondary tiles? Apps can allow for the creation of a secondary tile which can show additional information like weather for one city on one tile and weather for a separate city on another. They can link directly into some particular part of an app. THAT is innovation.
And, it doesn't end there. Sure, they use badge notifications like their competitors. But that is far from the end of it. Those very same tiles that are part of a new UI paradigm and are resizable and theme-able are also "alive". They can be updated with details and images from the own application. Guess what? Another innovative move.
They have toast notifications. Nothing new. Or is it? You can click those notifications and jump straight into the relevant part of the app that triggered them. Innovative.
Deep social integrations. My contacts list on my phone comes directly from my outlook contacts, Facebook, LinkedIn, GMail, etc... all without a single 3rd party app. Innovative. I can receive updates from my social networks without an extra app. Innovative. The ability to merge inboxes from multiple accounts. Innovative.
Above is just scratching the surface of WP7. SEVEN! None of these were features added in WP8. I may be off the mark on one or two with regards to who implemented them first, and many have since been adopted by their competitors. But WP7 was easily the most innovative smartphone platform at launch. And that did absolutely nothing for them.
So was there any new innovation in WP8? You bet your ass there was. Kid's Corner, Driving Move, Lock Screen apps, Camera Lens', Data Sense and NFC support. Again, not a complete list.
Many of these concepts still have absolutely no equivalent in competing platforms. Not all of them are equally useful and as with any innovation, not all are equally relevant to everyone. But proclaiming that Windows Phone 8 needs to be more innovative when they are already, by far, the most innovative smartphone platform out there is absolutely bonkers.
Its problems are with the consumer image Microsoft has, app store restrictions for developers, styling restrictions for users and platforms access for OEM's. That is a lot of problems. But NONE of them are how innovative the system is or isn't.
And amusingly, despite the title of the article, if you read through it the complaints aren't around innovation at all. Idiotically enough, the author invests several paragraphs pointing out things Windows Phone has or does that their competition doesn't and then complains about features from those platforms which WP8 is missing and the app selection. The need to copy a feature is not a lack of innovation. And a lack of apps is also not an innovation issue within the platform.
So the answer to my original questions. Is Windows Phone less innovative than its competition? No. And, would being innovative help? Clearly not, or else they would already be the dominant platform.
Disclaimer: I am not being paid by Microsoft. I do own a Windows Phone however. I'm also not saying it is the best platform. In fact, what platform is the best platform depends on the user. My post above is merely to illuminate the fact that when people complain that Windows Phone isn't innovative enough what I think they really mean is that Microsoft doesn't copy the competition quickly enough, or they mean something completely unrelated to innovation at all, like app selection.
Though, I still stand by argument that app store size is irrelevant. Microsoft's problem is discoverability. Their app stores are littered with crap apps and unless an app is featured it is impossible to dig through the heaps of crap. Technically, Android and iOS have the exact same problem. But no one makes the correlation because they have the largest app stores by a wide margin.
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