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Another day, another iPhone Killer. HTC HD2

Carniphage

Carniphage

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Oct 29, 2006
1,880
1
Sheffield, England
With all the talk of Palm Pre, and then Android Droid, and Nexus and Maemo -I had assumed that Windows Mobile was stone cold dead.

Not so much Windows Mobile Six, But Windows Mobile Six Feet under.

But wait - what the heck is that thing scrabbling out of the grave and trying to eat my iPhone's Brainszzz?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5o6tj7yFBQ

It is the HTC HD2 Sense.

Some fancy schmancy software layer sits on top of the festering WinMo innards so that the true ghastly horror is hidden from the user.

Clever!

C.
 
thegoldenmackid said:
I actually was interested in purchasing one, it was rather expensive however.
Click to expand...

I am still interested in getting one! The first cellphone that hardware wise looks better then the iPhone in my opinion. Also, first one that I see that looks completely smooth and multi-touch actually works (unlike these other smartphones that have multi-touch but doesn't even compare to the iPhone's).

The price is not nice though, cheapest one I can find is $780.
 
WinMo is far from dead.

You must've missed the news item about the iPhone just now passing WinMo in numbers of US users.

ATT is now hotly advertising the new LG projector phone, which is WinMo 6.5 and has a Snapdragon cpu, 5MP camera and WVGA screen. For business folks, that's one nice phone.

HTC has done a great job of making WinMo easier to use, and they have models to fit everyone's needs.

And yeah, the HD2 especially has people worldwide drooling, both in its WinMo and Android forms.
 
Why would it be an iPhone killer ? Usually, people try to beat the platform that is the top selling one. The iPhone being the 3rd seller, why would people try to beat it ?

Sense UI is something they originally shipped the HTC Hero which is an Android device. It's a very slick piece of software. I'm hoping SE does something great with Rachael which is the same kind of UI software for smartphones and then maybe we'll get something better than sliding homescreens out of Apple.
 
That is very nice. I'm hoping for something like this from OS 4 on the iPhone next year. I have to say that the iPhone UI is getting dated...
 
I was very very very close to buying one 2 weeks ago. After using it in person I fell in love with it. Extremely good looking phone, slim, amazing screen and interface.

But then a couple of things put me off. The price, the fact that I'd rather have an Apple phone to go with my iMac which has no Windows installed, and also that it only came with 2GB of memory (so I'd have to spend another £30 on memory).

It is so cool though. But, in the end I just got an iPhone and havn't looked back since...the Apps, you can't beat them.

I will sell it in late summer and get a newer iPhone :)
 
I guess I'm the only one that wouldn't feel comfortable with such a big screen, I doubt I'd be able to easily touch every corner with the thumb of the hand I'm holding it in. I strongly hope the next iPhone doesn't go beyond 3.8ish
 
kdarling said:
WinMo is far from dead.

You must've missed the news item about the iPhone just now passing WinMo in numbers of US users.

ATT is now hotly advertising the new LG projector phone, which is WinMo 6.5 and has a Snapdragon cpu, 5MP camera and WVGA screen. For business folks, that's one nice phone.

HTC has done a great job of making WinMo easier to use, and they have models to fit everyone's needs.

And yeah, the HD2 especially has people worldwide drooling, both in its WinMo and Android forms.
Click to expand...

I'm going to check out the Expo tomorrow. AT&T is late with the projector (surprise surprise) but it looks like a sweet phone. I can't stand the iPhone anymore, it's totally unreliable with phone calls and it's not at all business friendly. My Fuze is a magnitude better in every way except with the UI and speed when running several apps. If the Expo is a happy medium, I can finally ditch the iPhone and the Fuze and just have one phone. :) I may go check out the HD2 but the price is a bit high for my liking. After all, for another $250 I bought a quad core PC with 8 gb of ram and x64 Windows 7 installed and these are, after all, just phones.
 
kdarling said:
WinMo is far from dead.

You must've missed the news item about the iPhone just now passing WinMo in numbers of US users.
Click to expand...

But according to Comscore - who collated that data...

Intended Smartphone Purchasers
Which phone to you plan to buy in the next 3 months?
Custom Survey, n = 2,300
November 2009
United States
Source: comScore, Inc.
Device % of Respondents

Blackberry Pearl 18%
iPhone 3GS 14%
Blackberry Storm 13%
Blackberry Curve 11%
Verizon Droid 8%
iPhone 3G 6%
T-Mobile MyTouch 5%
Blackberry Bold 4%
Blackberry Tour 3%
Other Android Device 3%
Palm Pre 2%
Other Blackberry 2%
AT&T Tilt 2%
T-Mobile G1 1%
Palm Centro 1%
None of the Above 8%

Looking at this table. If WinMo is not dead, it is certainly pining for the fjords!

kdarling said:
HTC has done a great job of making WinMo easier to use
Click to expand...

I completely agree. I was very impressed with the video.
But isn't this a huge embarrassment for Microsoft?
Why should it be that someone has to take your OS - and then completely skin it - to the point where it is invisible, before it is considered usable?

C.
 
Carniphage said:
I am no expert on business, could it be something to do with the iPhone being the most profitable?

C.
Click to expand...

RIM makes revenues of 4 billion $ off of Blackberry, with about 650 million of those being profit. Apple makes 1.4 billion in revenues off iPhones (this is all according to last quarter results) with profits not broken down per category of 1.2 billion (so the iPhone probably resulted in about 20% of those since it's 20% of their revenue stream, meaning maybe 270 million).

So Blackberry has better market share, better profits and better revenues. In fact, the only place I see people using the iPhone killer phrase is on Apple sites. In the industry, there's just no such thing, the iPhone is just one of the boys competing to be top dog.

Carniphage said:
I completely agree. I was very impressed with the video.
But isn't this a huge embarrassment for Microsoft?
Why should it be that someone has to take your OS - and then completely skin it - to the point where it is invisible, before it is considered usable?

C.
Click to expand...

It wasn't for Google when HTC did it to Android. In fact, people love the Hero's UI so much that Google is thinking of merging Sense UI back into the base image.

Not everyone sees 3rd party developers as an enemy to beat.
 
mgamber said:
I'm going to check out the Expo tomorrow.
Click to expand...

I was surprised to see the LG Expo on an AT&T TV ad last night.

Engadget has a short review here.

If you do get one, don't forget to use SPB Mobile Shell to replace the main UI.

Carniphage said:
But isn't this a huge embarrassment for Microsoft?
Why should it be that someone has to take your OS - and then completely skin it - to the point where it is invisible, before it is considered usable?
Click to expand...

Embarrassment? No, I certainly don't think Microsoft cares.

In fact, I think they always figured that it was the place of third parties to do so. After all, MS's job was just making sure that their UI worked across all screen sizes, and touch or keyboard or dialer pad inputs.

In many ways, it's no different than the way Apple skinned their port of desktop OSX so that it would actually be usable on a mobile touchscreen device.
 
KnightWRX said:
RIM makes revenues of 4 billion $ off of Blackberry, with about 650 million of those being profit. Apple makes 1.4 billion in revenues off iPhones (this is all according to last quarter results) with profits not broken down per category of 1.2 billion (so the iPhone probably resulted in about 20% of those since it's 20% of their revenue stream, meaning maybe 270 million).
Click to expand...

That's correct - except it fails to take into account Apple's deferred subscription accounting model. Apple are shoving huge amounts of cash into the bank from the iPhone - but are not allowed to declare them as profits straight away.

If you ignore the accounting shenanigans. Apple made $1.6 billion in the last quarter on sales of 7.5m phones. ($228 per handset)

Blackberry sells more units, but makes less profit per device.

C.
 
Carniphage said:
But according to Comscore - who collated that data...

Looking at this table. If WinMo is not dead, it is certainly pining for the fjords!

I completely agree. I was very impressed with the video.
But isn't this a huge embarrassment for Microsoft?
Why should it be that someone has to take your OS - and then completely skin it - to the point where it is invisible, before it is considered usable?

C.
Click to expand...

LOL! But you've nailed it's feet to the stand!

Well, if Microsoft had bothered doing any customer research at all I'm sure WinMo wouldn't still look like it did in 1972 but the upside is that you can install a decent UI on top of it, be it HTCs or one from several other vendors. That's more than I can say for a couple other popular phones and leads me again to the really funny point....how Apple spent years and billions crafting this image of being the alternative to evil Big Brother and so on and, as it turns out, the most open and most easily customized phone available is from Microsoft. They're probably the most supportive of 3rd party developers, too. RIM's dev setup is a mess. You almost have to use Eclipse to do anything substantial and their support....well, someone needs to convince me "RIM" isn't 4 dudes in a NYC apartment with a couple of Dell servers. Apple's is incredibly restrictive and their "approval process" is so slow and arbitrary that I've totally given up on it and them and ditched my Macs for PCs.
 
mgamber said:
LOL! But you've nailed it's feet to the stand!

Well, if Microsoft had bothered doing any customer research at all I'm sure WinMo wouldn't still look like it did in 1972 but the upside is that you can install a decent UI on top of it, be it HTCs or one from several other vendors. That's more than I can say for a couple other popular phones and leads me again to the really funny point....how Apple spent years and billions crafting this image of being the alternative to evil Big Brother and so on and, as it turns out, the most open and most easily customized phone available is from Microsoft. They're probably the most supportive of 3rd party developers, too. RIM's dev setup is a mess. You almost have to use Eclipse to do anything substantial and their support....well, someone needs to convince me "RIM" isn't 4 dudes in a NYC apartment with a couple of Dell servers. Apple's is incredibly restrictive and their "approval process" is so slow and arbitrary that I've totally given up on it and them and ditched my Macs for PCs.
Click to expand...

Uh ? Windows Mobile the most open ? That would be Nokia's maemo (which is fully open source and basically just uses Linux with X and GTK+ for the SDK and the platform).

Android is a very close second, having the entire OSes code available.

Windows Mobile might be customizable, but that's in the same sense Windows is customizable. It doesn't make it open at all and in fact, most more open solutions are more customizable.

Apple is always the least customizable of the bunch, that's nothing new at all. It's not the most closed though.
 
kdarling said:
I was surprised to see the LG Expo on an AT&T TV ad last night.

Engadget has a short review here.

If you do get one, don't forget to use SPB Mobile Shell to replace the main UI.
Click to expand...

Yeah, that commercial caught my eye. It's about time WinMo phones started getting some advertising, too. Microsoft and HTC really dropped the ball when it came to advertising and usability studies and it looks like HTC figured it out first and decided to do something about it. Still, it's been a lot worse. Ever see a Sprint Mogul? That was probably the worst chunk of s**t HTC and Microsoft ever had the balls to push out the door. Looking back, it's kind of fitting that Sprint sold them. :D

KnightWRX said:
Uh ? Windows Mobile the most open ?
Click to expand...

Most open of the phones I've used for development which is basically Microsoft, RIM and Apple.
 
Carniphage said:
But according to Comscore - who collated that data...

Intended Smartphone Purchasers
Which phone to you plan to buy in the next 3 months?
Custom Survey, n = 2,300
November 2009
United States
Source: comScore, Inc.
Device % of Respondents

Blackberry Pearl 18%
iPhone 3GS 14%
Blackberry Storm 13%
Blackberry Curve 11%
TVerizon Droid 8%
iPhone 3G 6%
T-Mobile MyTouch 5%
Blackberry Bold 4%
Blackberry Tour 3%
Other Android Device 3%
Palm Pre 2%
Other Blackberry 2%
AT&T Tilt 2%
T-Mobile G1 1%
Palm Centro 1%
None of the Above 8%
Click to expand...

I am surpised by that list. I never would of expect the pearl to be at the top. I can see why rim is making and releasing the pearl 9100 soon. The pearl was one hell of a hit from what I read and now they are updating it like they have been doing with the rest of their lines. The curves got a bump to 3G and I was wondering when the pearl would be joining them.
 
for the millionth time: it's not that the iPhone looks pretty, the reason people buy it is the 80,000+ applications

no one buys a iPhone just to make phone calls, so Palm and Blackberry and Windows and Google can make their phones as pretty as they want, if they don't have the 80,000+ apps they're not going to match Apple. Google kinda gets this and is playing catch up, but right now it looks like the rest will eventually die unless they figure it out.
 
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