I'm sure Windows 8 on the phone will fix this...

"We have a Windows device in our lineup, but honestly, it hasn't done well enough for us to jump back into the fire. We told Microsoft: You guys have to go build the enthusiasm for the product. We'll train our reps on why it's great...[but] the number-one reason the product was returned was the user experience," he said.

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2398768,00.asp

I'm so glad Microsoft has its priorities straight.

LTE is just the buzzword of the day, people don't even know what the Hell it means.

Look at 4G. Why was 4G popular? Because 4G has a bigger number than 3G. If I remember right there still aren't any carriers that actually have a true 4G network based on 4G specs.

You forget that Sprint will be betting the farm on the iPhone. It's like if Nokia come out and say why they don't like Android. You have to take what Sprint says w/ a grain of salt

What's the #1 reason cited for the returns of the iPhone 4S, which has lower ratings from Sprint's own customers? Faulty hardware? Sprint's sh1tty network? Sprint's horrendous customer service?

Besides, the #1 reason for returns cited by customers is a lot less important than the percentage of phones sold that are ultimately returned. If 100% of the returns are due to "user experience", but the return rate is only 1%, then does this mean that the OS sucks compared to a phone that has a 10% return rate of which only 50% are due to user experience?

@DeathByVisualStudio:Yet the user experience is getting rave reviews from pretty much everybody. You're trolling here.

@wkempf: Also, customers have a tendency to lie when returning stuff if they don't think their reasons are sufficient.

4 hours ago, Harlequin wrote

LTE is just the buzzword of the day, people don't even know what the Hell it means.

Look at 4G. Why was 4G popular? Because 4G has a bigger number than 3G. If I remember right there still aren't any carriers that actually have a true 4G network based on 4G specs.

4 hours ago, Minh wrote

You forget that Sprint will be betting the farm on the iPhone. It's like if Nokia come out and say why they don't like Android. You have to take what Sprint says w/ a grain of salt

Betting the farm on iPhone and emphasis on 4G don't line up since the iPhone doesn't support 4G. I believe Sprint is taking a multi-prong approach and both the iPhone and 4G are part of that; WP is not.

4 hours ago, cbae wrote

What's the #1 reason cited for the returns of the iPhone 4S, which has lower ratings from Sprint's own customers? Faulty hardware? Sprint's sh1tty network? Sprint's horrendous customer service?

Besides, the #1 reason for returns cited by customers is a lot less important than the percentage of phones sold that are ultimately returned. If 100% of the returns are due to "user experience", but the return rate is only 1%, then does this mean that the OS sucks compared to a phone that has a 10% return rate of which only 50% are due to user experience?

You got a point there but what good is it when you contrast iPhone and Android sales against WP?

2 hours ago, wkempf wrote

@DeathByVisualStudio:Yet the user experience is getting rave reviews from pretty much everybody. You're trolling here.

Well then the phone should sell itself. I don't bring this stuff up because I get off on dissing Microsoft. I'm frustrated that they blow opportunity after opportunity and go along with fingers in ears singing "La, la, la, la, la... I can't hear you..." They need a big reality check and it needs to start with Ballmer.

Honestly I don't own a WP. The UI looks slick but how deep is it? For example I know Facebook and Twitter are tightly integrated into the UI but I also hear how it's woefully behind in features found in the iOS and Android apps. As a user I would be thoughly frustrated if my brand new WP couldn't access all of the rich facebook features that I can get to on my Android phone. It's like trying to use the Socialite app in the dev preview -- it's pretty but shallow. (And yes I know it's a preview). It's like IE 6 and the long void between versions  -- they "win" the battle and then rest on their laurals until somebody starts kicking their *. The only difference here is that their * is already kicked. They have to do better than the competition.

2 hours ago, AndyC wrote

@wkempf: Also, customers have a tendency to lie when returning stuff if they don't think their reasons are sufficient.

And IMO so do Microsoft execs when it comes to priorities and strategy. At least (as rumor has it) they're getting rid of a chunk of that horrendous marketing department.

Well, other platforms do have more 3D games on their market. And they all can take screenshots (I presume). And many popular social apps (like scruf or grindr) are not available on WP7 yet. WP7 is the weakest in the race in terms of user bases and app supports. Surely WP7 has most of the top apps, but, it is still a long way to go. The truth is, people wouldn't leave the network or join the network purely because they want a WP7. Even if they exists, the population is too small.

Not much to say. I like Mango and hope they improve many things like Screenshots and ability to add friends on Facebook (current FB app is fail and integration no adding FB friend). And would be great to have voice navigation automatically instead of a bloop (please get the patent already). And ofc, front facing camera as a hard standard.

And on the marketing side, I hope MS would not just spend more money on the ads, but, to advertise in a long run. Like I see iProduct on the the building, freeway signs, bus stops, all the time. MS really needs to brainwash people properly.

iPhone 5 WILL have 4G... and if Sprint was gonna make a play for a piece of the action, they wouldn't go for a 10% marketshare holder

Having used both, the WP People Hub really isn't comparable to Socialite (which, remember, is a demo app put together by a few interns in a couple months).

16 hours ago, DeathByVisualStudio wrote

Well then the phone should sell itself. I don't bring this stuff up because I get off on dissing Microsoft. I'm frustrated that they blow opportunity after opportunity and go along with fingers in ears singing "La, la, la, la, la... I can't hear you..." They need a big reality check and it needs to start with Ballmer.

Honestly I don't own a WP. The UI looks slick but how deep is it? For example I know Facebook and Twitter are tightly integrated into the UI but I also hear how it's woefully behind in features found in the iOS and Android apps. As a user I would be thoughly frustrated if my brand new WP couldn't access all of the rich facebook features that I can get to on my Android phone. It's like trying to use the Socialite app in the dev preview -- it's pretty but shallow. (And yes I know it's a preview). It's like IE 6 and the long void between versions  -- they "win" the battle and then rest on their laurals until somebody starts kicking their *. The only difference here is that their * is already kicked. They have to do better than the competition.

Oh yeah, the user experience is the only reason why WP could possibly be struggling *rolls eyes*.

WP has pretty much nailed the user experience. It doesn't take much to determine this is true. The Internet and the tech journals/blogs/etc. have had pretty much nothing but good to say about the user experience in the past 6 months. Don't believe that, just try a device out yourself. Even the #smokedbywindowsphone stuff at CES illustrates this very well, no matter what you think of the campaign. Like I said, you can't really, with a straight face, claim that WP hasn't got the user experience down.

You, you're just speculating from the outside with your usual anti-Microsoft bias. If you'd ever use the phone you'd know how silly most of what you just said is. Twitter and Facebook are "tightly integrated in the UI" only as much as all forms of communication and social aspects are. Recent posts and communications from anyone in your people hub appear there and in the live tile(s). Posting/communicating is trivially done through the same people hub. That's the end of it. All of the rest of the functionality is available through apps, just like on every other phone.

We'll agree that Microsoft is coming from (WAY) behind and has to execute everything flawlessly to stand a chance. But the product isn't their issue, this time, because it's a beautiful product.

@wkempf:

Ah but I have used a WP hence why I can say from experience that the UI is slick. I just don't own a WP. What I have heard and am speculating about and cbae seems to confirm is that it lacks depth so typical of Microsoft. Microsoft appologists tend to expect people to forgive Microsoft for things like this. That would be all well and good if they had a device, piece of software, whatever that was truely better than the competition. Remember the Zune? It had a slick UI too; hands-down better than the iPod Touch and it got it's * kicked in the market. How about the Kin? And now here we are with WP. Like always Microsoft has sold itself on the idea that their products are successes, that their strategies are working which always ends up the same -- they fail or end up as an "also-ran". Look at where IE's numbers are headed; that's even after the huge improvements they made in IE9. Looking forward at Metro IE10 with no plug-in support they are dropping features that could set them appart from the competition but no, IMO, Sinofsky has convinced himself that HTML5 video will catch up in time to make the loss of Flash tollerable. Tollerable. Now there's la la land for you. At Build I spoke the Microsoft engineer who pulled the plug on plug-ins in IE and he inferred that it wouldn't be hard to put it back so it's not a technical issue. It's just another bad choice on the part of Microsoft.

I have an HTC Arrive WP7.  On Sprint.  The reason Sprint doesn't see any enthusiasm for WP7 amongst customers is that:

1) they have 1 WP7 phone, the HTC Arrive and they have 10+ Android phones and their sales reps push them hard in the store.  Even if they didn't, there are 10 times more of them to choose from in various ranges of cost.

2) Sprint is at the bottom of the pile of phone carriers and for good reason.  They offer unlimited data because their data service coverage is so spotty it's highly likely you'll never reach any of the other plans bandwidth.  Because they are #3 or #4 in the carrier game, they'll say pretty much anything to bring in more customers.

Given that the WP7 environment is less that 2 years old and it required a complete change to the development model their 'depth' is quite remarkable.  I'm sure you could find hundreds of ways that you aren't able to do some obscure thing on MyFace+ using WP7, but I view that as a selling point.  My phone is a phone and a PDA and it lets me kill some time online when I'm bored.  I don't need to carry around an xbox in my pocket, I have a job and a life.

Did you not get what I said? WP7 isn't lacking in the user experience in any way, not even in "depth". The problems they face with penetrating the market don't have anything at all to do with the product. Honestly, that was true with the Zune as well. It's near impossible to compete in a market like this when you come in late, no matter how good of a product you have to offer.

That said, I think there's a fair chance they'll be successful. The growing buzz, even from well known Microsoft naysayers, is more than I expected. Of course, that has to translate into sales at some point, or it doesn't mean anything, but I'm pleasantly optimistic right now.

@wkempf:

Well I guess we'll have to disagree on the depth part. Support for FFC as noted by ScanIAm below is yet another depth issue. And correct me if I'm wrong but Microsoft does not supply in WP a navigation app that is comparable to Google Nav on Android. Nokia does for their phones but that's not the same as Google Nav on each and every Android phone.

3 hours ago, ScanIAm wrote

Given that the WP7 environment is less that 2 years old and it required a complete change to the development model their 'depth' is quite remarkable.  I'm sure you could find hundreds of ways that you aren't able to do some obscure thing on MyFace+ using WP7, but I view that as a selling point.  My phone is a phone and a PDA and it lets me kill some time online when I'm bored.  I don't need to carry around an xbox in my pocket, I have a job and a life.

You nailed it for me ScanIAm. You're right; it's a selling point and that's exactly what the problem is with WP -- it's not selling. It certainly is remarkable what Microsoft has done it such a short time but that only matters to us geeks. I can't see an average Joe choosing WP because he's amazed at how far Microsoft has come with the phone. Microsoft needs to exceed their competition and not play also-ran.

1 hour ago, DeathByVisualStudio wrote

@wkempf:

 And correct me if I'm wrong but Microsoft does not supply in WP a navigation app that is comparable to Google Nav on Android.

Here I correct you. WP's Bing Map's turn by turn navigation is very good, it even tells me to take a route with less freeway traffic. Like I said, it hasn't acquire the license to trigger its own voice navigation (part of Mango), it is using bloop instead. But, I don't see this as a killing point. I certainly want them to auto-tap the screen instead of playing bloop sound, but, I can wait for it on the next major update.

Personally I think WP7 lack "proper" advertising. I have yet to see any WP7 ads on street signs or bus stop. I see a lot of Xbox360 ads in comparison. I understand they want to wait for Mango, but, Mango is already out, so do some "proper" ads already.

@DeathByVisualStudio: The main problem is brand recognition. Most end-users don't know their asses from their elbows when it comes to smartphone features and the ecosystems that they're tied to. But they recognize brands and they go with what they've heard is popular. This is why even BlackBerry still sells so well.

Unless a prospective buyer has actually seen one of the commercials on TV, they've probably never heard of Windows Phone. So whatever is on display in the store is probably going to be the first opportunity most customers will have to experience what a Windows Phone is like. Unfortunately, even if you're in a retail store, you're rarely going to see a working model on display, much less notice one amongst all of the Android devices.

Even with there being only 1 or 2 models sold by Apple, the iPhone never has this problem. You will never see a dummy unit sitting next to 20 Android devices. The iPhone usually in its own section, and every unit on display is working, charged, and loaded with apps.

In the few stores that I've seen working Windows Phones models, I have yet to see one that has more than a couple of apps, games, videos, or music files pre-loaded. There's no dummy Windows Live ID tied to the device, and you can't download anything to try out--not even a freaking free app!

Microsoft needs to be smarter with marketing their devices. Microsoft cannot depend on these retailers to sell their products or allow the products to sell themselves like they do PCs. When Apple was an also-ran in personal computing, they were smart enough to pay to have their own little section in the BestBuy, Fry's, and CompUSA's of the world. Otherwise, their 2 or 3 products would have been lost in sea of Windows-based machines. Apple took the bull by the horns and forced the consumers to notice their products in the retail stores. Microsoft needs to employ the same strategy when it comes to Windows Phones.

9 hours ago, magicalclick wrote

*snip*

Here I correct you. WP's Bing Map's turn by turn navigation is very good, it even tells me to take a route with less freeway traffic. Like I said, it hasn't acquire the license to trigger its own voice navigation (part of Mango), it is using bloop instead. But, I don't see this as a killing point. I certainly want them to auto-tap the screen instead of playing bloop sound, but, I can wait for it on the next major update.

Bloop? Really? Now that's classic Microsoft Appologist speak if I ever heard it. Bloop! Look at the map and crash your car... I don't suppose they have a 3D perspective view yet either? I'm sure you'll say that people really prefer the 2D view anyways. It sounds like they haven't improved it much since the Bing client I had on my WinMo phone.

@cbae: And how long have they known this? What did they do? Oh yeah they built W8. Like I said at the beginning they have the wrong priorities.