We have mentioned here, a few times I believe, our disdain for companies using the well beaten to death term “iPhone-killer”. People, let’s move on already. Regardless of if history tells us a product did or did not kill the iPhone, we simply need a new description. This one is tired and arguably makes one look like a kindergartener on the playground at lunch. This time it was actual employees that coined the term and not some reporter who fancies themselves as funny.
The whole event was quite a spectacle it seems and to be quite honest it will be incredibly interesting to see what happens from here. First, you can see a video and several pictures of the event here. As for the highlights we pick them apart here.
Microsoft has stated that iPhone 4 could possibly be their Vista and that their new Windows phone 7. It has gobs of testing thrown at it, countless man hours (although they did count for us and the numbers are staggering) into development, yaddah, yaddah. In other words, they have put a good deal of effort in, we get it. That being said Microsoft does not exactly have a spotless track record of user-friendly interface. In fact, it has been almost the exact opposite for a while. It is a leap to say the least to assume they can overcome this to the degree of killing anything with this one product.
The funniest part of the day in our observation was the fact that the Android was taking all of the pictures. So the phone may be an iPhone killer but it seems they still have room to be beaten by Android, at least in the camera department. Just amusing really.
While Microsoft clearly has the financial positioning to ride this mobile war out until they have either won or been forced out it is a hard pill to swallow that they are going to be able to make any serious strides toward the peak in the mobile arena given the momentum of both Apple and Android as well as people’s somewhat gun shy perception of Microsoft. They have a few er, hills, to climb here and in the end it makes the battlefield all that more exciting. We look forward to writing a follow up to this in a few months that either eats our words or laughs out loud at the sheer ridiculousness of the whole thing. We shall see.
