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Why I'm investing in Windows Phone and skipping Android

blog.cubeofm.com

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Re: Why I'm investing in Windows Phone and skipping Android

#41

Post by Quarrelsome »

swombat wrote: post #3

Interesting but risky point. What if the new Windows Mobile flops due to critical problems much like the other Windows Mobiles? Android at least is already gathering momentum, despite all its issues. It's nice that Microsoft cares, but you won't get rich selling to the 3 people who decided to buy a Microsoft phone. You say "They care about how polished the outside looks, how thin it is, and how smooth and fast the us…

I'm not sure if their mobile brand is recoverable. Everyone knows that Windows Mobiles suck and have sucked for the past ten or so years. There are only a handful of solid and decent implementations of WinMo (X1 and X2 were pretty good IIRC) the rest just resulted in consumers having a negative mobile experience.

I don't know the numbers of "tainted" Win Mo consumers but I'm not convinced they will really appreciate the differences between their old "piece of shit" WinMo and the new shiny (and hopefully freaking awesome) WinMo 7.

Re: Why I'm investing in Windows Phone and skipping Android

#42

Post by DanielBMarkham »

I don't know about the article, but if I click on another HN article and end up on a page with Posterous trying to get me to sign up? I'm going to go running screaming into the night.

A few times was okay, guys. I get it. Everybody has to advertise. After about 10 or 20, if I haven't signed-up, I'm not going to.

Re: Why I'm investing in Windows Phone and skipping Android

#43

Post by buster »

colinplamondon wrote: post #31
buster wrote: post #19

This blog post is sooo bad and uninformed, it's hard to believe he is making money with mobile software. So, to his points: Google does not care about me. Google does not give me any mode of getting in contact with them. With both Apple and Microsoft, I have access to their developers Mh, what? Freenode irc channels, google code open issue trackers? a LOT of forums and blogposts to learn from? Official "support" on s…

All that support stuff is great for hobbyists, but completely unacceptable for businesses. With Apple and Microsoft you get incident support. If something comes up, you email them your project, they dig into the source, and they tell you what's going on at the code level. The iPhone Developer Program gives you two code-level incident supports, and the ones after that are absurdly cheap. Microsoft also gives you a pho…

Of course you need apple and ms internal developers to dig into their source code, because you as a developer can't.

On the other hand, i can debug through every aspect of my android program right into the whole framework and see what is happening. Yay, open source.

Re: Why I'm investing in Windows Phone and skipping Android

#44

Post by buster »

ErrantX wrote: post #27
buster wrote: post #19

This blog post is sooo bad and uninformed, it's hard to believe he is making money with mobile software. So, to his points: Google does not care about me. Google does not give me any mode of getting in contact with them. With both Apple and Microsoft, I have access to their developers Mh, what? Freenode irc channels, google code open issue trackers? a LOT of forums and blogposts to learn from? Official "support" on s…

> Current Hardware (Droid & Nexus One) is fast and responsive, no doubt about that. I have a variety of current generation smart phones sat on my desk. I can assure you Android is still the least responsive OS :) My personal choice is an iPhone and I dont agree. :) > Last time i checked finding iPhone dev information was rather hard due to NDA stuff Just as a point I think max was talking about getting in touch with…

Then you probably have another smartphone then i have. Just yesterday i was meeting friends (4xiPhones, 1xMilestone/Droid, 1xNexusOne) and the good nerds we were, people wanted to check out the newer Android phones. The 4 iPhone guys agreed it's on par.

You probably notice responsiveness differences beyond the level a normal person recognizes :p In fact, when you say you have a variety of smartphones on your desk, i guess you are working on a daily base with different handsets and have a very keen sense for this. And as i don't have numbers to back my statement up i'd say it's a difference in those handsets 95% of users wouldn't recognize. ;)

Re: Why I'm investing in Windows Phone and skipping Android

#45

Post by ErrantX »

buster wrote: post #44
ErrantX wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Current Hardware (Droid & Nexus One) is fast and responsive, no doubt about that. I have a variety of current generation smart phones sat on my desk. I can assure you Android is still the least responsive OS :) My personal choice is an iPhone and I dont agree. :) > Last time i checked finding iPhone dev information was rather hard due to NDA stuff Just as a point I think max was talking about getting in touch with…

Then you probably have another smartphone then i have. Just yesterday i was meeting friends (4xiPhones, 1xMilestone/Droid, 1xNexusOne) and the good nerds we were, people wanted to check out the newer Android phones. The 4 iPhone guys agreed it's on par. You probably notice responsiveness differences beyond the level a normal person recognizes :p In fact, when you say you have a variety of smartphones on your desk, i…

Well I work with them in the sense they are test beds for our phone forensics work.

But in fairness I have used pretty much all of them for extended periods as my work or social phone. Still going with the iPhone as the cleanest user experience :)

(but I realize opinions differ widely)

Re: Why I'm investing in Windows Phone and skipping Android

#46

Post by colinplamondon »

Tichy wrote: post #38
colinplamondon wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All that support stuff is great for hobbyists, but completely unacceptable for businesses. With Apple and Microsoft you get incident support. If something comes up, you email them your project, they dig into the source, and they tell you what's going on at the code level. The iPhone Developer Program gives you two code-level incident supports, and the ones after that are absurdly cheap. Microsoft also gives you a pho…

Yeah, we have all heard the stories about the great support iPhone developers get, if their app is rejected for the app store. If that is professional business, I prefer to stay independent. Actually, all the pain just might be a deliberate barrier to entry for "small fish". Companies are used to dealing with pain, individuals less so.

As a professional iPhone developer with a multiple top ranking apps, that shit just doesn't really happen anymore. You're much more likely to get a call from Apple with suggestions on what to edit.

The horror stories are from 6-9 months ago, and are outdated. So, while folks trot them out in threads like this as examples of how terrible iPhone development is, actual iPhone developers know that it doesn't really come up.

Our last two updates were accepted within 24 hours, for instance. Our last new application took three submits, due to issues on our end- every email from them was helpful, and actually IMPROVED the final application. Turnaround was 48 hours, and, on the last submission, they expedited to same-day when I asked them to.

Re: Why I'm investing in Windows Phone and skipping Android

#47

Post by maxklein »

DanielBMarkham wrote: post #42

I don't know about the article, but if I click on another HN article and end up on a page with Posterous trying to get me to sign up? I'm going to go running screaming into the night. A few times was okay, guys. I get it. Everybody has to advertise. After about 10 or 20, if I haven't signed-up, I'm not going to.

Screenshot? If posterous is intruding on the reading experience of my users I'm going to change it.

Re: Why I'm investing in Windows Phone and skipping Android

#48

Post by DanielBMarkham »

maxklein wrote: post #47
DanielBMarkham wrote: post #42

I don't know about the article, but if I click on another HN article and end up on a page with Posterous trying to get me to sign up? I'm going to go running screaming into the night. A few times was okay, guys. I get it. Everybody has to advertise. After about 10 or 20, if I haven't signed-up, I'm not going to.

Screenshot? If posterous is intruding on the reading experience of my users I'm going to change it.

Just tried it again from FF and got it. Trying it a second time from Chrome did not bring up the error.

I'll email you the image.

It says it can't find the link, and I get sent to the posterous splash page.

Interestingly enough, it looks like every other page request I send to posterous today from this browser will be honored. But if I switch to a new browser and go to click on a blog that's hosted on posterous, back I go to their "can't find the link and wouldn't you like to start using our service!" page.

Perhaps it's just a bug. But it's a bug that acts exactly like somebody continuously trying to get me to start using something I do not want to use. So whether it's intentional or not, it's annoying as hell.

Re: Why I'm investing in Windows Phone and skipping Android

#49

Post by DanielBMarkham »

DanielBMarkham wrote: post #48
maxklein wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Screenshot? If posterous is intruding on the reading experience of my users I'm going to change it.

Just tried it again from FF and got it. Trying it a second time from Chrome did not bring up the error. I'll email you the image. It says it can't find the link, and I get sent to the posterous splash page. Interestingly enough, it looks like every other page request I send to posterous today from this browser will be honored. But if I switch to a new browser and go to click on a blog that's hosted on posterous, back…

As a follow, in case any of the posterous guys are listening, Max and I played around a bit and could not replicate the error.

My current guess -- it's not my problem so all I have is a guess -- is that under heavy load, posterous fails to resolve the blog name and instead takes new users to the splash page. This may be a scaling problem, or it could be random pestering. From a user's standpoint, it looks a lot like pestering.

Re: Why I'm investing in Windows Phone and skipping Android

#50

Post by matwood »

colinplamondon wrote: post #46
Tichy wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, we have all heard the stories about the great support iPhone developers get, if their app is rejected for the app store. If that is professional business, I prefer to stay independent. Actually, all the pain just might be a deliberate barrier to entry for "small fish". Companies are used to dealing with pain, individuals less so.

As a professional iPhone developer with a multiple top ranking apps, that shit just doesn't really happen anymore. You're much more likely to get a call from Apple with suggestions on what to edit. The horror stories are from 6-9 months ago, and are outdated. So, while folks trot them out in threads like this as examples of how terrible iPhone development is, actual iPhone developers know that it doesn't really come…

I have an app (nowhere near top ranking tho) and I agree with you for the most part. My first submission took 2 days and any updates have taken less than 24 hours. One took less than 6 hours for them to turn it around and get it on the app store.

My only issue with the app store now is the returns. I have had 1 return and all I got from Apple was the form letter that if you have a lot of returns it might be a quality issue. What I would like to see is at least the questionnaire the customer fills out in order for Apple to grant the return. At least this way I can know if it's some sort of serious problem or just someone who made a purchase by mistake.

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