Windows Phone 7 Hits Technical Preview Milestone 195
suraj.sun writes "Microsoft's upcoming Windows Phone 7 mobile operating system has today reached its biggest milestone yet, with a technical preview announced placing the OS on the 'home stretch' to launch. 'We are certainly not done yet — but the craftsmen (and women) of our team have signed off that our software is now ready for the hands-on everyday use of a broad set of consumers around the world — and we're looking forward to their feedback in the coming weeks, so that we can finish the best Windows Phone release ever together,' Terry Myerson, Microsoft's Corporate Vice President of Windows Phone Engineering, wrote tonight." There's coverage around the net including
CNet,
NeoWin and
Engadget.
Nice (Score:2, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
I disagree that Win 7 is ALL hype, though it was fun to attend the conference for a half-hour, get free donuts, and a copy of Win 7 Ultimate, and a shirt. There's substance to it, regardless of whether or not it's on par with [insert favorite distro here.]
Last I heard, Phone 7 didn't even have copy-paste. Is that still true?
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It won't, on launch, but it'll probably catch up with one of the first few 6-month mandatory updates (the carrier can't hinder that process either, it's in the contract they have with MS), i'd imagine.
That said, i can count on one hand the number of times i've used copy&paste on my old g1. I think i did it to copy content from failed SMSs that bounced due to network congestion/no signal, and that's about it, so i find it hard to get worked up over that. Perhaps i wrote more on my phone (i tend to browse
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The phone can't just remember the wifi key? seems like a rather essential feature to me.
Re:Nice (Score:5, Insightful)
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The Zune was dead on arrival, ha
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Well it would have been nice if Microsoft bothered to sell the Zune overseas, such as here in Australia. But they didn't. Why they didn't is an exercise left up to those who give a shit. Not my problem if Microsoft didn't think seriously enough about their product to warrant worldwide competition with the iPod.
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Inertia is a powerful thing though. A system must be a LOT better to displace an established competitor. Linux fans should know this well, their OS is technically superior to Windows in pretty much every way, but Windows has the established customer base. Once systems are in place they tend to stay in place.
That's why getting into the phone market is so important to Microsoft. If they can't break in soon they never will. It may already be too late.
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A system must be a LOT better to displace an established competitor. Linux fans should know this well, their OS is technically superior to Windows in pretty much every way, but Windows has the established customer base.
Windows' dominance comes from the fact that damned near every PC sold has it preinstalled. Were all PCs shipped with Linux preinstalled, it would be dominant and MS would be dying.
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Windows' dominance comes from the fact that damned near every PC sold has it preinstalled. Were all PCs shipped with Linux preinstalled, it would be dominant and MS would be dying.
That's technically true and yet misses the point completely.
Windows, whether you think it merits it or not or was simply coasting on application offerings / inertia, was what people mostly wanted. If it wasn't, it wouldn't be on damned near every PC. Microsoft would have had zero power to strongarm OEMs if they didn't have a pro
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The Zune wasn't a bad player, but MS was going into a very crowded market and there wasn't much to distinguish it from all the other players including the market leader, iPod. Squiting would have been nice it hadn't been so crippled.
In my opinion, MS messed up badly on the marketing. They wanted it to be cool and obscure and marketed it that way. Unfortunately, that's the wrong way to get people to use your new product in a crowded field. Watching the TV commercials, the general public would have no clu
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Heck, Microsoft never even sold it outside of the USA.
My question is... (Score:5, Interesting)
Is this a release that, purely on quality/merit (let's not talk about mindshare or openness -- presumably both are lost causes), is at all competitive with the alternatives?
In a sense it's amazing to me, given how much longer Microsoft's been trying to get something done in the Mobile arena, that they have been completely unable to gain any traction so far. Were Windows CE etc. trying too hard to be compatible with Desktop Windows? I don't know, but it's baffling that a company with so much of a headstart over would now be its chief competitors managed so little.
It's hard to point to openness as the reason with Apple's walled garden as a ready counterpoint, but what did go wrong?
Re:My question is... (Score:4, Insightful)
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I had a Win CE
I had a WinCE OnCE too. Why does Microsoft insist on giving its products names like that? WinCE, WiMP, Ex-Pee... did the guy in the marketing department that thinks up names get a pay cut and is now getting his revenge? If I was Balmer I'd fire the dumbass!
Never a head start (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't know, but it's baffling that a company with so much of a headstart over would now be its chief competitors managed so little.
The thing is, they never had a head start at all - because they were always going down a different path. It's not so much compatibility with Desktop WIndows, as it was reliance on a stylus and a physical keyboard.
Android and iOS were built from the ground up to make use of touch. Neither iOS or Android (to some extent) are reliant even on a physical keyboard, though one can be present... for small mobile devices that simply is a better path, and one Microsoft never chose to explore.
So it's not so much Desktop compatibility, as it is trying to simply move the existing UI conventions to mobile (unless that is what you meant by compatibility).
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So it's not so much Desktop compatibility, as it is trying to simply move the existing UI conventions to mobile (unless that is what you meant by compatibility).
It wasn't, but that's a really interesting observation.
I kind of hate touchscreens (especially on something like an mp3 player -- buttons I can operate without looking at decreases my chance of dying while driving or running) but I have to agree that on something like today's incarnation of a smartphone, there isn't any other form of UI that's even
Re:Never a head start (Score:4, Insightful)
Every prototype of Android device looked like a Blackberry until the iPhone came out. At that point Android bolted on their multi-touch look and feel... there's no "ground up" design relating to touch in either the iPhone or Android. The core OS just handles files, memory, network, power, processes, etc. Apple could replace UIKit eventing with some keyboard/stylus-based input API and replace a small fraction of iOS.
To get it right takes a lot more than the touch UI being right. It takes an entire infrastructure to make the device disappear and become the task. Despite Microsoft's size, they've never been an infrastructure company so it'll be a challenge.
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Can you point me at some pictures? Every android prototype I've seen looked like an iPhone rival (mytouch 3g basically). Considering Android, from the get go, has been looking to directly compete with Apple, frankly, I'm not sure that prototypes really have anything to do with anything.
You need to keep in mind, especially during early development, its not uncommon to develop on easily obtainable, low cost hardware simply because actual production units are not available, available in low yields, or too cost
Re:Never a head start (Score:4, Informative)
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Considering Google had been making Android prototypes since before the original iPhone was ever released to the public, I'll ask you the same question... can you find any pictures of any Android prototypes that look like the iPhone but pre-date its unveiling?
I can't.
If I go to Google Images and google for Android Prototypes, I get lots of things that look like a Blackberry and nothing that
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Maybe Android and iPhone copied the form factor from Windows phones? http://www.mobiletechreview.com/phones/Cingular-8525.htm [mobiletechreview.com] There are plenty of those that shipped a year before the iPhone was even announced.
Everyone needs to stop with the revisionist history.
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Um, that doesn't look much like an iPhone. Much less so than any Android phone. The screen is bigger than the blackberry and the hardware keyboard is missing, but other than that its interaction patterns seem utterly different. I'm not saying that the iPhone doesn't build on some previously developed concepts, but there's a pretty distinct break between pre-iPhone smartphone desig
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Thats because they were made by TI:
http://www.crn.com/hardware/206504527;jsessionid=JH3QI5R0XZVC5QE1GHRSKHWATMY32JVN?pgno=2 [crn.com] - this was a device built to develop Android on OMAP cpu's. It was never even intended to resemble a shipping product.
The first Official Google/HTC dev phones shipped to the public like the ADP1 and ADP2 were made by HTC - and was a slider that can be totally operated by touch - so I dunno - Android 1.0 certainly seemed more touch friendly than WinCE ever has been.
That's one of the coo
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>It's hard to point to openness as the reason with Apple's walled garden as a ready counterpoint, but what did go wrong?
This has nothing to do with openness and has everything to do with MS giving up on improving their products. The WinMobile line, at the time, was pretty hot stuff. You could install whatever program you wanted and there was no shortage of apps. I remember owning a Treo on Sprin't EVDO network and calling Russia on Skype on EVDO. I'm not sure what phone lets me do that today. iPhone ha
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One part may be what I recently noticed with my wife and her iPad. You see she immediately wanted one instead of a laptop, and she's immensely more satisfied with it than her previous (more powerful) laptop. Here's one reason why iOS is successful.
She can install apps on her own. Previously I'd tried to train her on this... you find the download link on the website (not always easy). Yo
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For me, a techie, I think the App Store and Android Marketplace make downloading a fog of gibberish and confusing steps. All I can think about is the underlying file structure of the downloaded content, and paranoia of malware (at least Apple sort of has a leg up on Android, requiring approval of apps prior to making them available to the masses, but on the other hand Android is more
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So yes, openness and the "walled garden" is a significant part of Apple and Google's success.
Android's store is not quite a "walled garden". For the most part, anything goes there.
Then again, the usage scenario that you've described does not need a "walled garden", either. It just needs an easy-to-use centralized software repository.
Cool - Does It... (Score:4, Funny)
"Don't bother with this disaster" (Score:3, Interesting)
From http://www.infoworld.com/d/mobilize/windows-phone-7-dont-bother-disaster-211?page=0,0 [infoworld.com]
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Sounds like Microsoft hasn't learned much from it's AutoPC days. If this article is on target, then the phone companies probably shouldn't waste time developing Windows Phone 7 platforms.
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Thanks for the link. Virtual +1 powerup from me.
And... ouch. Harsh, but no surprises. After the Zune and Kin debacles, not to mention... well, ever other version of WinME/Mobile... you'd have to be pretty risk-tolerant to bet on Microsoft doing anything other than their usual half-arsed emulate-abandon-dump strategy with Mobile 7.
Re:"Don't bother with this disaster" (Score:4, Interesting)
From http://www.zdnet.com/blog/cell-phones/microsoft-windows-phone-7-technical-preview-a-definitive-guide/4286?pg=8&tag=mantle_skin;content [zdnet.com]
Windows Phone 7 is a huge departure for the smartphone group at Microsoft and takes quite a radical approach to the way people use their phones. Unlike the iPhone, Google Android, and Palm webOS, WP7 is not focused on the application experience, but is centered on helping you interact with the people you want to and complete the tasks you need to complete with apps mainly working in the background or having other technologies (like Bing Search) do better at meeting your needs without more apps.
The current experience is amazingly stable and fluid and I am quite impressed with what they have done. It has taken some time and they were pretty much out of competing for customers for most of this year, but it looks like they will come out firing with all they have this coming holiday season.
Yes but look what he used it for... (Score:2, Insightful)
From the article:
My typical day consisted of sending and receiving lots of text messages and email messages through various accounts, checking my Facebook feeds, using Twitter through the Dabr.co.uk mobile Twitter site (Microsoft please get Twitter integration or an app added soon), managing my appointments, and checking out friends' photos.
Wouldn't that also be a great description of the Kin's strengths?
Although I think Kin was able to work with Twitter...
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http://www.infoworld.com/author-bios/galen-gruman?page=1 [infoworld.com]
Not exactly an unbiased source. Apple fanboy all the way.
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No caveats now: Windows Phone 7 is a waste of time and money. It's a platform that no carrier, device maker, developer, or user should bother with.
Now, now that's surely not fair. After Kin, Verizon should be champing at the bit to release loads of Windows 7 phones and plans.
They should drop "Windows" from the name. (Score:3, Interesting)
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LoB
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It doesn't have "Mobile" in the name. It's "Windows Phone 7" - RTFT!
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I was thinking more along the lines of Jeri Ryan..... and curves, for that matter...
Corporate "improvements" will kill the device... (Score:3, Funny)
My guess is that the thing that will kill this device (like most MS devices that have to compete in a market they haven't cornered), is the fact that by the time the management, sales, and the lawyer teams get done "improving" the device, you won't be able to do anything on it without having to pay through the nose. Repeatedly. Forever.
So, even if the device ends up being a marvel of technology (which seems unlikely given the MS mobile paradigm), it will end up being locked behind a walled garden, which is locked up in a castle, surrounded by a moat, filled with alligators, etc. Sorry, couldn't resist a little hyperbole.
Re:Corporate "improvements" will kill the device.. (Score:4, Insightful)
Microsoft does not see things this way. They must own the market and they are willing to spend billions to do that and they have. Profits from Windows desktop based software( WIndows OS, MS Office, and Windows Server ) make up ~90% of Microsoft profits. Microsoft execs live and breath by the now infamous "Does anybody remember Windows?" statement Bill Gates made in the mid '90s when Microsoft product managers and engineers were crafting Microsoft's Java product list. That statement and the following directives from Bill and other executives turned Microsofts Java products into products whos purpose was to tie customers to Windows, not enable Microsoft to compete for customers and profits. They already had the profits from Windows and losing those profits are more important than winning new profits. IMO
And Adobe would be a fool to put any effort, funded or not, into putting Flash on a Microsoft phone product. Microsoft may not have dissed Adobe like Apple did but their Silverlight is directly targeting Flash just as
LoB
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RIM has chosen to follow the path of Lotus Notes. You can still find Notes around in large companies but IBM's complete lack of attention to small/mid-size businesses killed off Notes in those environments. RIM is in the process of doing the same thing - they've released 3 or 4 server products targeted at the small/mid-size space and then killed them off leaving their customers in the lurch.
At this point they've completely ceded the small/medium business market to iOS and Android. While there are still plen
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Microsoft doesn't need a BES like subsystem. They own the E-mail enterprise market which is locked down tightly with Exchange. Except for larger companies (IBM and Google come to mind) that have their own E-mail systems, almost everyone else, from Fortune 10 businesses down to SMBs are running Microsoft's offering.
Hmm (Score:3, Insightful)
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That said, the hurdle is very high for Microsoft. Of late, they haven't don
Re:Hmm (Score:4, Insightful)
And those hardware vendors know what it is like in the PC and netbook segment where Microsoft is threatening them and dictating product development and marketing and they do not want any part of that. This is why Windows Phone 7 will fail. No matter how much they offer companies to sell Windows Phone 7, they will not be able to pull exclusionary and exclusive deals like they did with netbooks and PCs and because of that, there is no sexy in Windows. In the end, only Microsoft zealots will purchase Windows Phone 7 phones and a handful of business managers will dictate to staff to use only those phones "because they are a Windows shop".
What's worst, at a time when Microsoft's investors are wondering where the growth has gone, Microsoft will have to pump hundreds of millions quarterly into just marketing this thing and it'll show up on the books. Not to mention the hundreds of millions Microsoft is probably already starting to pump into the tablet segment attempting to not only stem ARM Linux or Android based tablets but also iPad growth. I don't see the 4th quarter looking good at all for Microsoft investors. Desktop Windows, MS Office, and Windows Server will still make them billions, but once again, billions in losses and no indication of success outside of Windows will pull down the stock even further. IMO
LoB
What is the milestone? (Score:2)
has today reached its biggest milestone yet,
So what exactly is the milestone? I'm used to milestones being a big logical-AND of finally successfully achieving a bunch of technical requirements. This seems to be a "marketing milestone"?
The concept of a "milestone" from hiking or whatever, is that according to the surveyors you've come exactly 5280 feet since the last milestone. Not "here is a pretty picture", or "we figured we'd generate some buzz by placing the milestone here".
As a side question to all you hikers from the civilized world, do you g
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Microsoft uses the term "milestone" to denote steps along a product's development. They have various names - some actually have the word 'milestone', such as Milestone Quality, Milestone 1 (M1), etc. - but CTPs (Community Tech Previews, essentially early non-public betas), public beta, RC, RTM, and the various post-release maintenance and service packs are all milestones (SPs often have multiple milestones of their own). Unlike "traditional" milestones, the distance (either in time or changes) between milst
So... (Score:2)
"We've got the software running, someone give us some hardware to run it on!"?
Seems a bit bass-ackwards to me. But then again, it's windows. Sorry, "Windows Phone 7."
Does that mean (Score:2)
"I'm sorry your call to 9-1-1 cannot be placed at this time because your phone is rebooting. Please try your call later."
Usability (Score:2)
I just want to let the quotes say few things first:
However, customizing and navigating the screen can sometimes be a cumbersome task.
More importantly, we're just not sold on the layout.
Now, some might complain that this type of navigation requires too much scrolling and can be overly complicated and admittedly, when compared to iOS and Android, this is true we fear this will be a turnoff to consumers.
I had the same exact observations few months ago when they demonstrated their new mobile OS for the first time. Looks like Microsoft's attempt at making an interface that's easier and more innovative than Android/iPhone ends up "complicated" and "cumbersome".
If their goal was to make a complex post-modern interface targeted to a small niche of geeks willing to get involved with such a taxing concepts as their scrolling clipped hub views, that'd be fine.
But
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You can Synch with Office?
I thought it was just Outlook.
What happens when I synch excel on my phone?
Re:Ah, let's just call it done (Score:4, Interesting)
No, it's just Outlook. (Files can synch.) You get a wierd error with 64-bit activesync with 64-bit office; it doesn't work!
Re:Ah, let's just call it done (Score:4, Insightful)
Microsoft will be enforcing content restrictions on Windows Phone 7 applications, by preventing users from sideloading applications as they previously had done with Windows Mobile. This results in all applications having to pass through the Windows Phone Marketplace where content restrictions apply.[34][35] Users are free to sync whatever content they want to their phone or view any website from the web browser.
Microsoft said that applications containing pornography will be prevented from being installed on Windows Phone 7, as well as applications containing images that fit the definition of "sexually suggestive". Violence and all nudity will be censored from apps. Suggestions or depictions of prostitution, sexual fetishes, or basically anything that "a reasonable person would consider to be adult or borderline adult content" will be forbidden from Windows Phone 7 apps.
Microsoft elaborated that it would disallow apps containing "images that reveal nipples, genitals, buttocks, or pubic hair".
When will the US understand that sex is not bad, evil or something that should be banned from adults? Of course, the games with violence and killing will be allowed, but no, not such unharmful and natural thing like nudity or sex.
Sex Everywhere Already (Score:2, Insightful)
When will the US understand that sex is not bad, evil or something that should be banned from adults?
When will Slashdot users understand that not everyone should be required to sell sex if they do not wish to?
Anyone can get porn onto mobile devices via web applications. If you look around you'll find that the porn industry seems to have figured out how to sell sex over web interfaces quite well to date.
It's not a ban, it's just a choice not to sell it through a corporate channel with a brand to maintain.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
it's just a choice not to sell it through a corporate channel with a brand to maintain.
And that is the exact problem. US people, especially religious ones think there's some problem with nudity. This usually tends to be the older ones, most in their 20's don't have this problem. What exactly is it that makes nudity so bad?
What an dumb statement (Score:2, Troll)
And that is the exact problem. US people, especially religious ones think there's some problem with nudity.
Religious people have a higher birthrate than anyone so I'd rethink the idea they have a problem with nudity alone.
There is also a huge difference between nudity and sex. You can for example find classic works on art in various iPhone applications.
Obviously Microsoft and Apple are not religious companies so religion doesn't enter into to. It's just that they do not care to be associated with sexual
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You can't get pregnant alone - nude or otherwise (unless you go shopping on the net for a sperm donor and a turkey-baster).
Must be that faith-based schooling - the same stuff that taught people that they could catch STDs off a toilet seat back when it was called VD. Or that douching with coke would prevent pregnancy. And so would coitus interruptus.
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You can't get pregnant alone - nude or otherwise (unless you go shopping on the net for a sperm donor and a turkey-baster).
Either that, or you accidentally trip and fall into into the average slashdotter's sock hamper...
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But if slashdotters are like other guys, there's no risk - they never put their dirty clothes in the hamper, they just call malloc(sizeof(socks)) and store them on the heap. And then they'll just sit there until either:
Re:Sex Everywhere Already (Score:5, Insightful)
What exactly is it that makes nudity so bad?
It's not that nudity is so bad, it's what happens when kids are exposed to porn that people are concerned with. Kids have raging hormones that operate whether they are prepared for the consequences or not. And by consequences i dont mean teen pregnancy (kids who are getting some at that age are probably not downloading porn apps on their phones). The problem is that porn presents sexuality in its most mechanical form. No love, no personal relationship, just rubbing. Women are presented as easy and submissive. They do what they are told, and don't seem to need anything more than a man in the room to be ready and willing to do whatever the man wants. Young men are obviously not going to assume that all women are as slutty as the "characters" in a porn vid, but they cannot hope to understand how women actually feel about and have sex by watching porn. Parents and schools are the last places kids turn to when it comes to sex, and by the time they actually see a real nude person in their bedroom, they've probably seen thousands of digital ones there for years.
And that's just the boys. Consider how a porno makes most girls feel. They see women doing things that the average adult would stutter to explain. Almost all of the women they see are submissive and objectified (that may be something some women are into, but they don't show the woman negotiating her contract or explaining what she will or wont do). So-called "soft" porn or skinimax flix are a little more sensitive to the female psyche, but they are less and less common. (Check out how many of these series are on vs how many websites there are dedicated to the more damaging "slutty" porn).
I am not against images of nudity or even porn for adults (watch it myself from time to time...). But to ask with incredulity why people are so concerned with nudity is to ignore the fact that kids are NOT adults. They are not prepared to deal with the condensed and distorted view of sexuality that porn presents.
Nudity is not the issue. It's the developing psyche of children that people are concerned with.
PS: For the record, i am not religious at all so i am not coming at this from a moralistic point-of-view. I simply have a young daughter who's well-being is my top priority in life, so i think about this stuff a lot.
Re:Sex Everywhere Already (Score:4, Interesting)
Hah! I see you've never heard of the Bechdel Test [wikipedia.org]. Almost all modern media inherently promotes a surprisingly patriarchal view of women; they're either the token girl, or talking to men, or talking about men - it's basically all about the guys. Even supposed "chick flicks", despite in theory being about women, generally have female characters whose sole purpose in life is to give the lead woman someone to talk to about the lead man.
And these are the things we show children; almost no Disney movie, for instance, will pass the test.
Given that sort of insidious bullshit, porn is refreshingly straight to the point.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Sex Everywhere Already (Score:5, Insightful)
Pornography is not created as "art". Its sole purpose is for people to look at it and then self-abuse themselves into a climax. That is not sex. Sex requires two people.
Because multiple people never watch pornography together, right?
It's fine that you prefer to have a puritanical worldview, but let's not pretend it's held by everyone or in some way rationally based.
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Its sole purpose is for people to look at it and then self-abuse themselves into a climax.
Self-abuse? Why be so serious about having a little bit of fun with yourself? You only life once and you might just as well enjoy some beautiful ladies (or men, if you're a woman) and do what obviously is fun and feels good.
You know, women do it too. What about phone sex? That's two people, but you just do it to pleasure yourself and not to have babies. Would you call that self-abuse too?
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Its sole purpose is for people to look at it and then self-abuse themselves into a climax.
Abuse? I think you're doing it wrong.
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Could you clarify what "abuse" you're referring to? Something does not compute here.
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That being said, who wants a cock flapping around in a picture that your child will be watching on tv?
That's the point though, isn't it? When you say it like that, you're implying there's an intrinsic problem with kids and nudity on TV. I wouldn't have much of an issue with kids watching Life of Brian, though -- it's all about the portrayal.
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A "cock flapping about" isn't something a child would normally see in the U.S. The corporations are staying in line with what they believe the American consumer would accept. The corporations job isn't to change sexual awareness or to start a sexual revolution. Their goal is to sell product. Do you base your phone purchase specifically on the ability to see cock waving in front of children? I'm betting that's a pretty low priority for most buyers, and I would imagine MS came to the same conclusion. It is pe
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Correct. Except, of course, when normal channels for distributing content (i.e. Flash) also are banned.
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It's not a ban, it's just a choice not to sell it through a corporate channel with a brand to maintain.
Quote the GP:
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So, nudity == pornography? This only shows how puritan the American mind is.
Nudity is pretty common in arts here in Europe. Also, there are statues of naked people in every corner in every city. A boob shown on TV doesn't cause outrage like in the US, and children don't grow to be serial killers or mass rapists because of it.
I assume Microsoft will ban sculptures like the "Manneken Pis" or "O Desterrado", and images like "The French Republic", because they show inappropriate body parts. how retarded is
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When will the US understand that sex is not bad, evil or something that should be banned from adults?
I figure it'll be about a fortyear after we adopt the metric system.
Of course, since using kilometers is proven to turn you socialist, who knows when that will be?
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Parent failed to attribute Wikipedia ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Phone_Marketplace#Content_Restrictions [wikipedia.org] )
Re:Ah, let's just call it done (Score:5, Interesting)
Microsoft ascended to supremacy because the PC was in a niche where IBM was irrelevant, and further was more important to a larger segment of the population than the segment that cared about IBM's dominance -- large computers and servers. IBM was never displaced from their market and Microsoft will never be displaced from the desktop. And now history is repeating itself. The iPhone and Android are in a niche where Microsoft, like IBM before it, is irrelevant. And honestly I haven't seen an effort to get into a market this feeble since since Atari released the Jaguar.
This is ultimately a good thing. Microsoft can only seem to do interoperability when they don't have a monopoly. Portable devices will destroy IE's ability to ever set the tone for the web again. Considering the damage they have done to the progress of the web their fall is something to celebrate.
And yes, scads of IE dependent corp machines will remain for years to come. The web will move on. Truth be known the inability of IE 6 to deal with highly interactive sites will be seen as a benefit by CEO's since employees won't be "playing" on the clock. That's fine though - the rest of us can move on.
MS still has a chance.... (Score:2)
A few ways that Windows Phone 7 can carve out it's own niche in the new dog-eats-dog mobile space:
1) Concentrate more on Corporate features.. full Exchange and Office support, Sharepoint, etc. than iPhone/Android
2) Leverage XBox integration and XNA Developer base, Microsoft demo-ed developing games for XBox, Windows PCs and Windows Phone 7 from pretty much the same codebase(except of course, controller and graphic resolution and capability differences). See http://www.engadget.com/2010/03/09/microsoft-shows [engadget.com]
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I would personally add
5) Apple signed a contract with Satan (AT&T). As long as Apple lets AT&T have exclusive iPhone rights there will be people disgusted with the abyssal quality of AT&T's service that won't touch an iPhone because they don't want to have anything to do with AT&T. Android isn't similarly hindered, but it's also not got as great a market penetration.
6) Phones have a much shorter life than PC's. Except for enthusiasts like the majority of the readers of this site, most peo
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The more I use XCode and IB, the more relevant #4 becomes. Anyone who has used Visual Studio will be shocked at what an archaic POS XCode and IB are. If you want to go back 10 years in development time, write software for an iPhone.
I think Apple is nearing the end of its run for the smartphone market. If Microsoft can do a decent job with Mobile 7, no doubt large numbers of developers will move to Visual Studio Express, etc, given how bad XCode and IB are.
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dream on - ie will be around on most machines for years to come, and for the simple reason that people like it.
the point here is that html is for text and pics - please leave the animation and video to flash. that's the way it is and that's the way it will stay.
keep your css and html5 crap to yourself thankyou very much. no one needs or wants it that stuff except cocksuckers like you.
How intelligent of you AC. Grouse all you want, but HTML 5 and CSS 3 are here to stay - IE 9 will be supporting them I for one am happy to see Microsoft finally starting to push back and innovate again. IE 9's use of the GPU especially for canvas rendering is impressive. But let's not kid ourselves - there would be no development on IE if Microsoft wasn't losing market share to competitors at an alarming rate.
IE 6 is not a bad browser in and of itself. But it overstayed its welcome. Microsoft won the brows
Re:Ah, let's just call it done (Score:5, Funny)
Words cannot describe what an absolute pile of garbage that was.
I would rather have tent stakes driven through my eyeballs than spend money on a Windows OS for mobile.
I would rather sit on a cactus doused in sulfuric acid than use Windows Mobile.
I would rather watch The Phantom Menace on repeat for a month while covered in bees and spiders.
I would rather have been given a writing credit for Battlefield Earth.
I would rather be in a relationship with Mel Gibson than use Windows Mobile.
Worst of all, I think I'd rather sign a lifetime contract to use a Kin.
Milestone for a Millstone (Score:2)
Window xxx #'s biggest problems are:
1) that its from Microsoft, (they're on your desktop at work, 'nuf said,)
2) that its based on Windows, (its on your desktop at work, 'nuf said,)
3) that its NOT something you actually bought for yourself,
(and never has been, [if it wasn't built into the box when it arrived, you wouldn't have it in the house,])
4) that its from Microsoft, (who insist on shooting themselves in the foot by reminding you that its Windows xxx #.)
Microsoft's problems will remain fo
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It's based on creaky old CE
No, it's not. It's a completely new kernel, first seen in the Zune HD.
and it has a silverlight-y shell...
Actually, its WPF (Windows Presentation Foundation) which is the underlying technology behind Silverlight. I certainly don't see this as a bad thing though. WPF is good technology.
...with a couple of new spins on the same old workflow
WTF are you talking about? It looks completely different from any workflow I've seen. I'm certainly not sold on it by any means, but it is definitely a bit radical and different.
Something tells me you don't actually know a thing about WP7. You just sp
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CE6 kernel reved to V7. WM was CE5.2. Yes, it's a new Kernel. Yes, it's also creaky old CE.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zune_HD [wikipedia.org]
Windows CE 6.0
It's not a complete rewrite of CE. Yes, it make major kernel changes (private address space, greater # of processes, more memory allowed). It's not a complete rewrite of CE. It's mostly just CE.
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It's a brand spanking new kernel version.
And your reference for that is?..
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CE 6.0 features a completely redesigned kernel
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Embedded_CE_6.0 [wikipedia.org]
Also made evident by the fact that it is in no way backward compatible with older versions, with no attempts to make it backward compatible.
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Actually, its WPF (Windows Presentation Foundation) which is the underlying technology behind Silverlight.
WPF is not "the underlying technology behind Silverlight". It's the desktop UI framework, and is separate. Yes, it does share a lot of concepts with Silverlight (e.g. XAML, visual tree etc), and it does share some code, but neither is built on top of the other. Both have features not available in the other thing, and, in general, they're not really compatible - a single codebase cannot target both Silverlight and WPF, unless it is very trivial.
Yes, it's somewhat confusing. It also doesn't help that Silverl
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It's based neither on "creaky old CE" nor "completely new kernel". It's based on Windows CE 6.x+
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And Android is based on "creaky old Linux".
Anything else stupid you want to say?
WP7 is based on CE7, a continuation of CE6 which was pretty much a complete rewrite of CE. CE6 and 7 are both incredibly powerful embedded OSs with none of the limitations that previous CE versions had.
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Well, Linux didn't suck in the first place.
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And to develop apps in WinMo7 is ridiculously easy. I think that's what will help the platform move along.
So show me!
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Silverlight is just a fancy term for a mobile version of .NET these days (well, that is my take on it)
Close -- it's essentially a subset. (At least, that's my take on it, and I also think you're probably right that at some point it essentially replaces the compact framework.)
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Yeah, I know WPF/XAML is flexible, but it is a real chore to develop in. Maybe VS2008 IDE was not up to snuff for it. Not sure if VS2010 is much better for WPF apps.
It's better, but my personal take at it is that XAML is like HTML (and any other markup language) - if you want to do a good job with it, you have to code the markup by hand in the text editor.
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And for the more complex data-binding scenarios, this is pretty much the best approach to getting it done quickly anyway. you quickly drag/drop the ui, set it up so that it shrinks/expands the right way, and then move on to doing the plumbing using the code view of the xaml. I spend more time hooking up esoteric databinding scenarios than I do fiddling with the UI (although i do enjoy using blend for the basic design aspects, i just don't need the storyboarding it provides when working on WPF)
What else was easy (Score:2, Troll)
And to develop apps in WinMo7 is ridiculously easy. I think that's what will help the platform move along.
Developing for PalmOS was easy. And the iPhone at the start, with web apps...
For some reason users seem dissatisfied with a limited programming model that is easier on the developer but results in less featureful applications.
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Both Silverlight and XNA give you much more rope to hang yourself with compared to "HTML5 apps", and fare much better perf-wise - after all, it's a statically typed VM with a JIT. You probably won't get to raw C++ or even Obj-C levels there (though it depends, e.g. method dispatch is likely to be faster than Obj-C), but it'll rip any JS implementation to shreds, no matter how well-optimized.
Re:I kept hoping ... (Score:4, Informative)
I think that's precisely the problem with WP7.
For those with WM background, it kills off all the features that were liked (by some) in WM. A lot of people liked it for being extensible (apps etc) and hackable. For example, wireless hotspot functionality, just added to Android, was on WM years ago. Multitasking, copy-paste - if, in 2005, you'd tell a WM user that he would not find them on a smartphone released in two years, he'd laugh in your face. And some - like you? - even liked the stylus-driven interface, because that allows smaller controls, and therefore more information displayed on the screen at once.
The other, broader category is people coming from Android and, especially, iPhone. Their first question will be, "so what does it do better". And I don't see anything really compelling in that department. The UI is fairly different, which may prove to be easier to use (I don't have any definite opinion, and it's hard to make any objective conclusions until you get a chance to hold and use an actual phone with it - emulator is unhelpful there), but that's about it. All other features are available elsewhere, and there are more of them, too, even in traditionally feature-limited iPhone. The only point which may affect things, and on which there is no clarity yet, is how the app landscape will look like. Which leads us to the next thing.
WP7 development tools are good and easy to use; subjectively more so than on any other mobile platform with the possible exception of WM (it would be very surprising if that wasn't true...). But restricting it to .NET apps only, and then also to verifiable subset of CIL (meaning: no C/C++, not even compiled to CIL), means that developers are rather limited in what they can do compared to iOS or Android. Portability and cross-platform code reuse? Forget it. APIs, too - there's decent coverage of UI-related stuff, but pretty much everything else is unimpressive.
It might be that the sheer ease and cost of development (VS Phone Express is free, and unlike Xcode you don't need a Mac - which most people don't have - to run it) will be enough to generate enough developer interest to get a good kickstart for the app store... but it's all a very big if.