Windows Phone 7 Lacks Copy-and-Paste 319
theodp writes "In a behind-the-scenes look at Windows Phone 7 (photos), CNET's Ina Fried notes that Microsoft's new software has won early praise for breaking ground in some areas, but takes a step backward in others. In particular, it doesn't support features like copy and paste and multitasking that were already part of the old Windows Mobile. 'I think users use cut-copy-paste periodically,' said Microsoft exec Terry Myerson, '(but) there's other things they use more frequently.' Hey, tradeoffs had to be made — it was either copy-and-paste or Goo Splat."
Windows Phone 7 is great (Score:5, Funny)
Rumor has it they're selling hundreds [slashdot.org] of the first Windows Phone 7 handsets, the Kin, each month. It's a runaway hit. With all these new choices they might launch that up into the thousands. Watch out Apple and Android, Microsoft is back in the mobile game and they're ready to rumble.
It is a very fine article - do read it. Apparently the compass doesn't work, but it's required on every device. That's going to make it hard to have a credible mapping application. It retains Windows CE at its core. The project leader's biggest hope is to "survive the launch," not amaze us with their brilliance.
This comment from the article was particularly insightful:
by peterpulmonary June 17, 2010 7:12 AM PDT the only reason to allow this type of exposure is to reduce expectations.
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Hey laughed at windows 2.0 too.
Re:Windows Phone 7 is great (Score:5, Insightful)
My favorite part is that they're desperately trying to recruit games developers, while not allowing those developers to use native code. No, instead they're forcing developers to rewrite their games from scratch with C# and XNA, a platform so successful, there have been literally hundreds of indie games released for the Xbox 360. I could either write my game with C/C++ and OpenGL ES and with minimal tweakage, release on the iPhone, iPad, and Android, the most popular and fastest growing mobile platforms capable of running real games. Or I can develop a game that will run only on a platform that has not yet been released and will almost certainly sell poorly. Hm. Tough choice.
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I could either write my game with C/C++ and OpenGL ES and with minimal tweakage, release on it Symbian/UIQ (50.3%) the most dominant platform running real games, and being blocked from the Apple (13.7%*) store for having a “evil word” in it.
Or I just write it in Java, giving me the ability to run it on every phone on the damn planet, except for the Apple and Microsoft lock-in-infected ones, while still having full speed because modern phones already support all the important APIs in Java (OpenGL
Re:Windows Phone 7 is great (Score:5, Informative)
The native API is closed. You have to rewrite in Java,
This is false. See here. [android.com]
which is why Ansroid is missing so many categories of software and why the overwhelming majority of Apple developers are Apple-only.
Also false. iPhone has more applications because it has been out longer and there are more people with iPhones who buy apps thus providing the incentive and momentum for more applications to get written. As Android continues to mature and grow, this may change.
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You still have to write Java apps. You're still running in a virtual machine. On iOS, 3rd party developers are running a full desktop class C toolkit, the same one Apple uses to create their apps and iOS itself.
> iPhone has more applications because it has been out longer
That is total BS and it's time for Android users to stop playing the "we're too new to be successful" card. iPhone did not have native apps until version 2, which shipped at the same time as Android, in mid-2008. The 3rd party app platfo
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Re:Windows Phone 7 is great (Score:4, Funny)
You're missing die-hard fanboyism for Apple. Duh.
Re:Windows Phone 7 is great (Score:5, Informative)
How about... simple file management tools?
Want to store files on the Android? Oh wait, you can't. The only way to access files is through a rooted command-line interface. Or you can install a shoddy-quality, centralized, file manager.
Er, what? Astro file manager is very high quality and you can store as many files on /sdcard as you have space to hold. Furthermore,
no you don't need to be root to access files on Android with a terminal
emulator.
Want to open a downloaded image in Gallery? Sorry, you can't!
Complete bs. I just did the following on my Droid: Browsed to images.google.com, did a random search for kittens, clicked on an image for full size, long pressed it and selected "download", navigated to the download folder with Astro file manager, selected the kitten.jpg and it opened in gallery.
I'm not even going to bother quoting anymore of your rant except for this:
but I do have a Nexus One.
Have you even turned it on yet?
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Still, GP has a point. Astro is an awesome tool, but it's a 3rd party tool. The fact Android doesn't include any built-in, native file manager is a mistake and a shortcoming
True, there's no default file manager but it's very debatable whether that's a shortcoming to the target market. When you're trying to sell phones to the "Oh, shiny!" set, (and face it, that's always the real aim), do you really want to clutter the device? People like us that see value in a file manager are going to seek one out. Besides, we wouldn't be using the default anyway. I have yet to see a platform that has a decent built in tool. Explorer sucks, finder sucks, nautilus sucks. The only great
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You still have to write Java apps.
Which means what, exactly? What application can you write for iOS that you can't write for Android? There are many security and development advantages to writing apps in managed code and the NDK takes care of any performance issues. I fail to see the downside. I could see if there were a speed advantage to the iOS model but there isn't. For example, side by side, the Android browser in Froyo as running on a Nexus One has been demonstrated to be faster than the iPhone 3GS and the iPad despite the fact th
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For example, side by side, the Android browser in Froyo as running on a Nexus One has been demonstrated to be faster than the iPhone 3GS and the iPad despite the fact that they are both based on Webkit.
The Nexus One has a 1 GHz processor and 512 MB of RAM, whereas the 3GS has a 600 MHz (both ARM Cortex A8) and 256 MB of RAM. The fact that up until Froyo the browser didn't run faster should be quite embarrassing.
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Java is an abomination, to the eyes, and to the mind. It's a soulless corporate manifestation, the COBOL of the present, the programming language that no one willingly chooses to learn. DIAF.
Well, that's cool. That's your opinion and you're welcome to it. I don't personally share it but, listen, next time, could you tell us all what you really think?
P.S. Obviously, they were going for the sandboxed, managed code approach, particularly taking into account what they wanted to do with application lifecycles with the seamless killing and restarting of applications based on the the memory needs, etc. So, if you don't think Java was the tool for the job, what was? And don't even think about say
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Does the NDK provide code interop with the Java Android libraries?
Yes, it does. Ever heard of JNI?
Not that you need it. The way you code a typical game in NDK, you have the entry point and event loop (for input processing) in Java, which calls into the rest of the game that's written in C/C++. The latter doesn't have to call into Java APIs anymore - it has input events passed to it already, and it can draw directly via OpenGL ES.
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Retaining a WinCE core doesn't mean that much, considering how much they've upgraded that kernel for WinPhone7. Don't get me wrong, I have nothing particularly good to say about either WinCE (as seen in WinMo phones) or WinPhone7, but I'm not going to go hunting for extra reasons to bash it either. A lot of the old restrictions that made WinCE suck are gone now, like the incredibly low per-process memory space, and it seems to do fairly well running devices like the ZuneHD (I don't have one, but I've played
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Spoken like a true Microsoft apologist. Compare a slightly better version to the original fucked up and broken version (all by the same wonderful vendor) and call it progress as if nothing else existed.
Heaven forbid you compare it to the competition head on.
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Spoken like a true Microsoft apologist. Compare a slightly better version to the original fucked up and broken version (all by the same wonderful vendor) and call it progress as if nothing else existed.
Heaven forbid you compare it to the competition head on.
Comparing Microsoft's mobile offerings to the competition is like comparing a "special" kid's grades with those of a Valedictorian.
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Comparing Microsoft's mobile offerings to the competition is like comparing a "special" kid's grades with those of a Valedictorian.
If they're both applying for the same burger flipping job, why not compare them?
Of course it's missing copy and paste (Score:3, Insightful)
They started copying iPhone OS before Apple added that feature.
This is overblown anyway. I've use C/P maybe 3 times since they added the feature. I suspect I'll use it a lot more on the iPad.
Re:Of course it's missing copy and paste (Score:4, Informative)
I use copy and paste all the time on my Samsung Omnia running Windows Mobile 6.1
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I use copy and paste all the time on my Samsung Omnia running Windows Mobile 6.1
I used it all the time on my Treo a couple of years ago. Then I couldn't when I got an iPhone. Then eventually the OS was upgraded and I could... but yeah I still don't use it much. I use the iPhone a lot more than I did the Treo so I'm not really sure why it doesn't matter so much anymore. I don't know if it's because I adapted to not needing it or if it's because the 'workflow' of it is just different and not all that necessary. I do distinctly remember spending half my time on the Treo getting aroun
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I suspect I'll use it a lot more on the iPad.
You'll wish to God there was some way to turn it off on the iPad, actually. It's actually a real nuisance.
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Copying iPhone? Come on now, really? You could say that about Android. Maybe even WebOS to some extent. Honestly though, how is this copying anything? Windows Mobile was around before iPhone and no one claimed Apple was copying MS because they weren't, it was a totally different type of experience. Windows Phone 7 is a totally different experience than the iPhone, much as the Zune HD is a much different experience than the iPod.
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Has anyone put out a contract on him yet?
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It's not like copy and paste was working before windows mobile 7 anyway. Trying to copy an address to the browser or other application can be painful. It's very much like the old X days of copy and pray.
I made the distinct mistake of quickly saving an address to an important location in one note mobile. Eventually, I wrote the address down on a sheet of paper and re-punched it into google maps. However, this isn't the only location where copy and paste foils all attempts at reason. I've encountered similar
Re:Windows Phone 7 is great (Score:4, Funny)
Here's your woosh:
*woosh*
You're welcome.
Re:Windows Phone 7 is great (Score:5, Funny)
Here's your woosh:
*woosh*
You're welcome.
It sucks you had to type that in all by yourself given that you could've copied and pasted it from numerous other missed jokes on Slashdot.
Re:Windows Phone 7 is great (Score:4, Funny)
Looks like he was using one of the Win Mobile 7 prototypes...
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Here's your woosh:
*woosh*
You're welcome.
Re:Windows Phone 7 is great (Score:4, Interesting)
Actually, the joke's on everybody who really believes cut & paste will be missing.
This happens with every MS OS release. They'll make some controversial claim, like the non-negotiable startup sound in Vista, or the three-process limit in 7 netbook edition, then "reverse" the decision amongst grandiose statements like "We listen to our users!"
In a month or so, you'll see a marketing campaign based on "This is YOUR mobile OS"....
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Re:What is it then? (Score:5, Informative)
They are different platforms. Windows Phone 7 isn't done...the Kin phones are out. Yes, they plan to align the platforms in the future, and sure they use common components, but they are different platforms now, and the Kin phones are not Windows Phone 7.
Read up on it on Wikipedia, Google, or any number of sources.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Kin [wikipedia.org]
"The Kin is based on Windows CE and is distinct from Microsoft's Windows Mobile and Windows Phone 7 platforms."
Re:What is it then? (Score:5, Informative)
Very good - you found the source of the quote. Now read it. Follow the citation links. It doesn't say what you think it says. Here, I'll give you another snippet:
Microsoft said that the underlying fundamentals of Kin and Windows Phone 7 will be held together by similar core technologies. Both Kin and Windows Phone 7 run the same Silverlight platform. Microsoft has stated that over the long-term, Windows Phone 7 would be merged with Kin.
They are like enough for the similarities to be meaningful. Microsoft is going to be able to use the runaway success of the Kin as a springboard for their Windows Phone 7 launch. The result should be epic.
It wasn't me (Score:2, Insightful)
It was Microsoft's marketing department that made this link, not me. If it doesn't leverage the comarketing efforts in the way they desired that's not my fault. It's theirs.
It's too late to undo it. They are linked.
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Fuck me, what convoluted lengths are you not willing to stretch to to fulfil your analogies.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
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From the first link:
"Both KIN and Windows Phone 7 share common OS components, software and services. We will seek to align around a single platform for both products as well as consistent hardware specifications."
You can't have it both ways.
Why can't you? Is it a false dichotomy?
Re:What is it then? (Score:4, Insightful)
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OS X and BSD, maybe. Or OS X and iPhoneOS.
Linux really doesn't share much with OS X. Not the kernel, not the userland tools, not the UI.
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...actually, the common Unix userland tools in Apple products is what lets me have my own SMS cleanup script on my iPhone.
It's very handy really. It just goes to show that Steve's tech has a way of getting away from him even when he tries to actively sabotage it.
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As for Windows they love segmentation.
Keeps profits flowing from the rich and the working/poor get to rent until they can pay more.
As long as they are looking at some form of MS logo.
iPhone didn't have cut-and-paste either.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Just sayin'..
Honestly, I don't understand why such a simple, useful feature could be missed by both companies..
True, and they caught shit for it (Score:5, Interesting)
However the real thing is that the old Windows mobile DID have these features. Apple I suppose has the excuse of "We couldn't figure it out because it was our first time making a mobile OS and all our smart people were too busy rolling around in piles of money," or something. However MS has a mobile OS out, right now, that can copy and paste and multitask.
So what the fuck? Do they think Apple succeeded because of those stupid restrictions? I'd guess they succeeded in spite of them, not because of them.
Doesn't matter, I'll happily stick with my Blackberry until my contract is up and then it is probably going to be another BB or an Android phone. I'll have to see, but if MS and Apple have the "You don't want to use your phone as a tool idea," well then my money will keep going to RIM, or maybe Google.
Re:True, and they caught shit for it (Score:5, Interesting)
Windows Mobile and Windows Phone are completely different at the UI level. I mean, literally, as far as I can tell they may have thrown away everything above the WinCE kernel and core level. I'm not saying that excuses the lack of useful and important features, but it does explain why they might not have had time to implement them (because they were working on other stuff, and would have had to re-implement them from scratch) and makes the "But WinMo6 did it!" argument rather irrelevant.
I would say that somebody there seems a little too caught up in replicating even the mistakes of Apple's launch. As you point out, Apple did catch shit for those mistakes - it might not have cost the device its success, but it did cost them plenty of customers - and while they eventually added Copy/Paste, I'm still not buying any device which is effectively a handheld computer, but which lacks the ability to run more than one interactive application simultaneously.
I suppose that means I probably won't be buying a WinPhone7 device, either. In a way, this is disappointing - I was hoping to have more choice when the time came to upgrade my phone, choice is always good and I have no inherent objection to buying Microsoft products as long as they don't suck - but lacking such features pretty much means it sucks, regardless of what else it has, and that means I won't be buying one.
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So you seem to have very specific implementation-level requirement for the tools you use to do your work. Do you also require the software to use specific sorting algorithms and screen pixel representations? Wouldn't it be more effective to measure tools by task effectiveness?
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Well... that really narrows it down. You're talking about the keyboard they sell right?
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No, the old Intellipoint mouse. That thing was gold-standard for optical mice.
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No, the old Intellipoint mouse. That thing was gold-standard for optical mice.
That is probably the truest statement I've read *all* day. That mouse was the one that finally got me to switch from trackball back over to the normal style mouse. I used it for years until one day it would blink on and off while I was playing video games, constantly getting me killed. I replaced it with a Logitech and have been Logitech for years now.
After I was certain I'd never need the Intellimouse ever again, I cut the cord off of it, grabbed a baseball bat, and had my friend pitch it to me in my b
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> I'm still not buying any device which is effectively a handheld computer, but which lacks the ability
> to run more than one interactive application simultaneously.
iPhone has never, ever lacked the ability to run more than one interactive application simultaneously.
You have always been able to talk on the phone while reading email or doing anything else. You have always been able to listen to music while surfing the Web or doing anything else. Email and texts are always arriving, no matter what you'r
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Exactly, MS is going to be competing for those customers who want an enterprise phone or a more open marketplace. That is blackberry and Android. If MS does not provide a superior smart phone experience, stating with the features already expected by users, they will not compete. Most people no longer buy something just because it has the MS logo on it. They will buy crap fro
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So first news saying Apple is richer than MS and now suddenly the Apple phones have copy paste but not the MS phones...
I knew I shouldn't have gone to sleep, I always suspected I might some day wake up in bizarro world :(
Re:True, and they caught shit for it (Score:4, Informative)
Either this is a really pathetic attempt at a troll, or you should just turn in your geek card. In order to enter the copy/paste mode, you have to double click a piece of text, or hold your finger in a spot (without moving it) for about a second. I find it very hard to believe you would enter this mode while scrolling unless your epileptic or unless you are scrolling web pages with your elbow. Try gentle swipes when moving a web page. This isn't a Storm phone. You don't need to hold down waiting for some response from the touch interface.
As to how to exit the mode, did you try clicking once anywhere on the page except for the 'COPY' popup button? You can also click once within the selected text, and it will turn it off as well. Once you enter the copy/paste mode, the only UI handles that matter are the edge selectors and the COPY button. Clicking once anywhere on the page that is not on one of those handles exits the mode. Anyone without about 5 seconds of experimenting could have figured this out. Yes Einstein, it's just that easy. I can see why you posted AC.
Re:True, and they caught shit for it (Score:5, Funny)
Either this is a really pathetic attempt at a troll, or you should just turn in your geek card.
What's weird about that is if he had replaced iPhone with "Palm Treo" he would have nicely described what using that phone was like.
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My cynical side says that it's because neither want you to be able to "extract" content from the things you use your phone for and rather than design the feature thoroughly to encompass uncopyable elements they just went for the zero case.
To be fair, man problems in software come down to the zero, one or many case in terms of design and in the case of copy and paste, I can imagine that the full implementation of what they want copy to be is very complicated. Simpler just to make it always impossible to copy
Re:iPhone didn't have cut-and-paste either.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Personally, I didn't really care much about cut and paste when I got my ipod touch; now that I have it, I like it. So for me, this is a big "whatever". But if you lambasted Apple for not having it but you want to excuse MS for not having it, you have some introspection to do.
Of course, I'm using "you" in the general sense; I am not accusing you personally, parent poster, of having done so.
Re:iPhone didn't have cut-and-paste either.. (Score:4, Funny)
"We've got a good product," he said. " I actually do believe that. I think we are going to actually have a lot of happy customers."
It's doomed.
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It was stupid then and it's stupid now. I haven't seen many excuses yet.
Well then here you go (Score:4, Insightful)
It was stupid then and it's stupid now. I haven't seen many excuses yet.
How about the aformentioned Paul Thurrott:
http://www.winsupersite.com/mobile/wp7_love.asp [winsupersite.com]
The multitasking is limited. Users will only be able to get apps from the Marketplace, and not from third parties. Gasp! Is it true that there's no copy and paste?
No matter. Windows Phone combines those very few things that were right about Windows Mobile -- primarily some business functionality -- with a much wider set of new functionality that is exciting in both scope and possibility.
You can read what Paul thought about Apple's lack of Cut & Paste at Daring Fireball [daringfireball.net]
I'll say the same thing I said before... (Score:3, Insightful)
> But if you lambasted Apple for not having it but you want to excuse MS for not having it, you have some introspection to do.
I'm one of the people who has been giving Apple a hard time (mostly for their lame excuses about why X is unnecessary/pointless ... until they finally add it, when it becomes the most wonderful innovation ever!). I'd just like to say that this new Windows phone SUCKS ASS. Copy/paste is really basic functionality for any computer-like device. Not having it sucks.
I expect this pr
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I don't understand why such a simple, useful feature could be missed by both companies..
Microsoft didn't "miss" anything. Being unable to innovate in any respect on it's own, it is trying to copy the the iPhone model as closely as it can--including leaving out copy-and-paste on it's first generation OS.
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The iPhone story is very different.
iPhone lacked copy/paste in its first couple of versions. In Windows Phone *7* we are seeing the devices lose a feature they already had in 6.
iPhone lacked copy/paste during a time when multitouch was extremely new and there were zero multitouch implementations of copy/paste. Windows Phone 7 is giving up the feature years later, when there are many phones with multitouch copy/paste.
iPhone is a consumer device, sold direct to iPod users. Windows Phone 7 is coming from a B2B
Depends on data paths (Score:3, Insightful)
iPhone didn't have cut-and-paste either..
But what it did have, were data paths for some common needs to transfer data from one place to another. For instance, you could send a URL you were browsing into Mail, or an image from your photo gallery into Mail also, and generally you could click on URL's to bring them up in Safari removing that need for cut&paste.
I think this approach is what Windows Mobile is trying as well, instead of the need for general cut and paste to try and offer more channeled data
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I've had a smart phone for years, work in IT and have never ever needed to use copy and paste! I don't know why people worry about it so much
Pretty much the same thing here; in the entire time since Apple added copy/paste to the iPhone OS, I think I've used it maybe a dozen times tops. It's nice, but not essential.
Windows button (Score:5, Funny)
1) It's not and enormous Apple logo on the front
2) Some people think Apple is cool
The Windows logo instantly makes me feel like I'm at work. Seeing it on the front of my phone everytime I pick it up would sap a tiny percentage of the joy from my day everytime I picked the thing up. And why? For branding? They can't just put a stylized picture of a house, or a rounded square ( I've never heard of anyone being confused by the non-specific design on the iPhone's ONLY BUTTON )... a circle... a triangle... Maybe no icon at all!
I want my technology to look like it was sent from an alient future, or dug up from an alien past... with mystic runes and shit.
After Mickey Mouse, the Windows logo is the least mystical goddamn rune on earth.
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How do you feel about that Apple logo (or two) on your keyboard? How about the upper left corner of your screen?
There is no Apple logo on the keyboards any more. But since there is only one button on the iPhone or this Windows Phone thingie, he wonders why they made that decision. On a keyboard or in the upper left corner of your screen, it is supposed to make it out among many buttons. There it makes sense. Or are you just trolling?
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How do you feel about that Apple logo (or two) on your keyboard? How about the upper left corner of your screen?
Mac keyboards don't have Apple keys anymore. And the one on the screen is the icon you click on, just like the Windows button. The physical button on Windows phones doesn't benefit by having a Windows icon in the way the button on Windows 7 does. Think about how tacky it would be were the home button to have an Apple logo on it.
Brave but Pointless (Score:4, Interesting)
Maybe their doing what Linus Torvalds did with Git, in reversing every decision that CVS made, but I don't think it's going to end well for them. Between iPhone and Android, they're beat in almost every feature.
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Targeting the Zune market?
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Re:Brave but Pointless (Score:5, Insightful)
and heading towards what most people dislike about the iPhone (single marketplace)
I don't think "most people dislike" this, Nerdfest. I realize it's a fairly common sentiment here on Slashdot, but most people have different priorities.
Maybe their doing what Linus Torvalds did with Git, in reversing every decision that CVS made
The thing is, Microsoft just isn't that talented. I don't mean they don't have talented employees, but that the way the company works, talent just doesn't enter into it. What they do, what they've always done, is copy what others have done, and unlike Apple who, when they copy they make things better (that's what "good artists copy, great artists steal" means), MS copies poorly. The first few iterations are atrocious. But eventually they copy things so thoroughly that, what the hell, it's good enough, right?
Technologically, MS has always been behind the curve. Macs, Amigas, OS/2. All made Windows (and DOS!) look pathetic. But price and hardware support, along with some horrible, but effective, business tactics won out.
And it looks like MS is trying the same here, but without the ability to engage in the same old business tactics, and without the sort of market where price and hardware support is as important as it was during the PC era. So, like you said, I just don't see how this will work out well for them. They can't out-class iPhone, or out-geek Android, and they can't tie their monopoly to it.
I guess we'll just have to wait and see. MS has a way of sticking around with technically inferior offerings. It's like a gambler with enough money to keep doubling down. You don't have to win right away, you just have to win somewhere along the line. MS doesn't have the burden of caring about whether their products are good, they just want them to sell, and they have the money and the will to stick around until they do. They'll keep "reinventing" their products (WinCE to Windows Mobile to Windows Phone 7, with Zune and Kin thrown in for good measure) until something sticks.
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I disagree that Microsoft has always been behind Apple.
I never said they were.
Not only did Apple copy from everyone else in features
I never said they didn't.
they literally copied NeXT and Mach into the OS
No. Mac OS X is Nextstep.
KHTML into the browser
WebKit is based on KHTML. But this is both a.) not what I mean by copying above and b.) exactly the sort of thing open source is meant for.
This is a great thing, I see nothing wrong with this
I never said there was. In fact, I stated quite the opposite. See below.
but it is wrong to exclude Apple from copying of playing catch-up.
It's even more wrong to think that's what I did.
Perhaps you missed this part of my post?
"unlike Apple who, when they copy they make things better (that's what "good artists copy, great artists steal" means)"
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It seems that they're dropping their only feature, adopting the early failures of Apple (cut & paste), and heading towards what most people dislike about the iPhone (single marketplace).
Perhaps they are not making enough profit for their liking from following the open route, and would like to try nickel-and-dime a new revenue stream out of phone users and the developers.
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They're just doing what they always do: they're copying Apple/NeXT. However, Microsoft didn't adjust when Steve Jobs came back to Apple.
It was productive for Microsoft to copy the 1985-1996 Apple that tried to sell to businesses and made drab interfaces and drab boxes and kept their prices high and hardly pushed the technology forward. Microsoft could keep up because Apple was slow, they were safe copying stuff whole because Apple was weak and they had even accidentally given Microsoft a license to clone th
Re:Brave but Pointless (Score:5, Informative)
You've been in Steve's reality distortion field too long. If I didn't know better I'd say this was fark. Are you really trying to say that Windows 2000,XP were clones of OS 8 and 9? Cause MacOS 8 and 9 were atrocious causing instabilities everywhere, they couldn't even handle running out of disk space. The iPad is already a clone of other tablets, specifically the Archos Internet tablet which has been on the market for over a year and ran Windows XP and now runs Windows 7.
You give Apple way too much credit, I'm not saying Microsoft deserves any but you portray a woefully inaccurate picture of the landscape. There is no one genuinely trading a Windows XP machine for an iPad. They target fundamentally different markets and have different strengths and weaknesses. The iPad has cost me many hours of lost time and has cost my users many lost hours of productivity as they encounter it's limitations. It's so heavy I can't imagine wanting to read an entire book on it. It's pretty well limited to consuming content which is precisely what it is marketed as. It makes no attempt at content creation which is why it doesn't even include a camera or SD card slot or USB.
When it comes to mobile phones the iPhone was again nothing of a first besides the multi-touch UI. Apple's strength has been in presentation and marketing which is precisely what Microsoft used to be good at. There's no arguing that the strategy leads to business success at the cost of consumer freedom. Those of us that learned our lesson have headed for Android because we are given back the full abilities of our increasingly useful mobile hardware. I also laugh at you considering the iPhone having a full desktop browser. While it is a good browser the lack of flash makes that statement laughable at best and completely disingenuous at worst. My Android phone in contrast has a more full desktop browser but lacks functionality like adblock that I enjoy in my actual desktop browsing. It also has flash and full java capability unlike the iPhone.
As for an open platform being a malware vector I again laugh at your distorted view of reality. As a Windows mobile user and administrator for the better part of the last decade I can assure you that malware on Windows Mobile is few and far between, so few that I've never encountered it although I've certainly read about duped users but Windows mobile since 5.0 has had centrally managed software and full multi-user controls, things the iPhone even with version 4 still lacks. The iPhone makes a half decent toy but even the camera on my Samsung Moment blows the iPhone out of the water and that was Samsung's first attempt at an Android phone. Android lacks the centrally managed functionality that Windows Mobile and Blackberry has so it still has some catching up to do but development is moving quickly as my phone came with Android 1.5 and now has 2.1 which was a significant jump. Exchange support is great now even supporting remote wipe with 2.1. Of course the locks also work unlike the iPhone as shown by the latest version of Ubuntu.
Pirates! (Score:5, Funny)
Copy & paste is a tool of pirates and plagiarists. There is no legitimate use for Copy & paste.
Re: (Score:2)
Finally, freedom from a clipboard!
Viva la raza!
Oh, wait ... is using a clipboard like yanking into a named buffer?
Re:Pirates! (Score:4, Funny)
And you wonder why you don't have a girlfriend when you call her a "named buffer".
Not surprising (Score:5, Insightful)
Phone 7 is in many ways a new mobile operative system, it doesn't even run software from old windows mobile versions (and you can't port your old C++ programs because native code programs are forbidden/restricted to big partners). So it's not surprising to find big differences with windows mobile. Wikipedia says it doesn't even support a socket API.
Old news (Score:2)
I think I heard this a couple months ago. No Flash, either. [tgdaily.com]
Well, how typical! (Score:2)
Copy Apple's product/business model, paste failure (Score:2)
Copy "Apple Store", paste "Microsoft Store"
Copy "iPhone", paste "Windows Mobile 7"
I'm seeing a pattern here...
Old news (Score:5, Informative)
The transistion is complete (Score:2)
Dead by 2PM? (Score:2)
Uh-oh
Phone OS makers ship betas as if they're 1.0 (Score:2)
Windows Phone 7 shows how the phone OS development process is broken industry wide. Software houses* rush out an incomplete release, expect people to pay for it, and plan to use the proceeds to finance the development of a later, usable release.
First, MS is leaving out two important features that belong together:
Notice how neither Ida nor Myerson includes them in the list of things Windows Phone 7 does:
Come on now... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
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Wait, I'm confused. Is this an iPhone? Wait, is it really 2010? This thing isn't getting copy and paste? Man, what a STUPID decision.
This is the icing on the cake for you? How about that is is as closed as the iPhone, you can't even run native code on it (unless you are a "partner")?
Re: (Score:2)
I don't see what Windows Mobile can do that Android can't, and Android generally makes it a lot easier to do on the phone form factor.
I'd like to say the same for Apple, but they're so closed I can't, in good conscience.
Furthermore, I don't think you understand the purpose of an operating system, particularly given this comment:
...and close to an actual OS.
Re:Swing and a miss (Score:5, Insightful)
Just as windows mobile was catching up being coupled with Sense UI and the like, they go and join the worthless herd of App-based feature-less mobile OS'es.
"Worthless herd"? iPhone and, to a lesser extent, Android, are where it's at. The old-style Windows Mobile is about as appealing today as a tape-playing Walkman.
The thing is, as far as mobile OS'es go, windows mobile has been ahead, being an open platform and close to an actual OS.
"Ahead"? Ahead of Palm, technologically, and ahead of Apple and Google in terms of timeline where they entered the market. But that's pretty much it. As for being "close to an actual OS", iOS is OS X. Android is Linux with (essentially) a custom windowing system. Windows Mobile is much further from Windows than either iOS or Android are to their respective desktop counterparts.
7 becomes worthless
I agree. It can't outclass iPhone or out-geek Android. In a word, worthless.
and 6.5 will go on and on being used and modded by power users for years to come
I didn't realize "power users" meant "a dwindling niche of users stuck in the past". I'll remember that for the next Amiga or Newton story on Slashdot. They abound with "power users" extraordinaire!
because it's the last of the useful mobile OS'es. Long live task manager. :P
POWER USER!!!!
Re:Swing and a miss (Score:5, Informative)
Your post makes no sense. Both Symbian and Android are as open (or more open) than WinMo =6.5 is. And they both also have bigger market share.
Re: (Score:2)
Why would anybody want a task manager on their phone? Task managers exist to weed out shitty software and kill them. Basically, they are a way to maintain a complex system.
The thing about complexity is people pay good money to hide it. Who wants to buy a phone that requires such levels of fiddling that it requires a task manager? Is your time so worthless to you that you enjoy seeing every damn thing running on your phone?
Any phone that has a task manager (outside of some archane debug tool for developm
Re: (Score:2)
Well they did, until Apple decided to put it in (from the complete lack of a user outcry since the iPhone's inception, I'm sure - this is another brilliant concept from the mind of the great Steve Jobs).
Now it's the greatest thing ever, and no "modern" phone lacks it.
Re:wait a minute (Score:5, Interesting)
If you are serious, I think you are failing to see Apple's sales strategy. They were always going to have cut-and-paste, just like they were always going to have MMS. Sure, the initial version didn't have them, but that is because Apple starts with a small core functionality and makes it work. They don't worry about bullet points as much as they do a working and easy to use end device. One they have it, then they will put out a new version (in the iPhone's case both for hardware and software). The new versions will have those bullet point features added once they have been made to work as well as the core functionality. Not only does this give a solid and useable device which appeals to the general consumer, but also give them feature creep and a reason for people with perfectly working earlier versions to want to buy new models. When the first iPhone came out I knew it would have cut-and-paste as well as MMS if I waited, and it did. Look at the iPod, they did the same thing there. Once the iPod got photos, games, and notes. I knew that it would eventually replace my PDA* in functionality if I waited long enough.
*As it happened, the cell phone replaced if first, but I was still lacking features will lately. The iPod touch would have done that perfectly however if I hadn't have gotten a cell first.
Re: (Score:2)
I thought all Apple people decided that copy-paste was unnecessary.
You'll notice not many people talk about actually using it.
There actually is a distinction between "I'll buy anything they'll sell to me!" and "Welp I've had this for a while and just haven't realy needed it." You'd think cybernetic wannabees like us would already know this.
Re: (Score:2)
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Please tell me how WP7 is a clone of iPhone OS? I'm failing to see the similarity. That's like calling iPhone OS a clone of WM6.5. It's not. There are no similarities except for the fact that they run on a cellphone.
Re: (Score:2)
Is this a 'Method of Implementing Copy and Paste on a Mobile Cellphone' patent or something? What's going on?
I'm not a software developer here so please excuse the dumb question: But if you design an Operating System intended to completely isolate apps from bumping into each other, presumably for security reasons, isn't the clipboard a potential risk? In the case of a multi-tasking OS, what's to stop an app from constantly reading the clipboard and re-broadcasting anything that looks like a phone, credit card, or social security number?
Re: (Score:2)
[offtopic] Your username made me laugh :P [/offtopic]