Not taking in the growth of smartphones as a whole, I must say I find this hard to believe. I know they have cool things planned for Windows Mobile 7 and are keeping it on the d/l. I'm sure with the Zune teams involvement and the fact we've known Photon would be a huge release for years there will be cool things... but I must say after seeing the things with Android and the rumors of things incorporated in the new iPhone... I may have to walk away from Microsoft unless they bring something big. The Raphael is a great device coming up soon, but I don't know if it's enough.
If Microsoft did something like what Apple/Google have done to promote application development I wouldn't feel so worried, but as a developer I haven't heard if XNA will be coming to it, and even if it is nobody knows and things won't be developed using things like that. Google and Apple both have their next gen SDKs out and huge amounts of money going to the community for development. Looking at Android's Round 1 winners I was majorly impressed, and to think Apple is doing at least 10x that in terms of prize money (and the fact it has a well-selling product in the market attracting people already)... I can't imagine Microsoft suddenly growing massively unfortunately. I truly hope I'm wrong, I hope on Monday morning I wake up to find out what they are planning so I could start developing for it but I'm not seeing that happening... and I just don't see them fixing all the world's problems when they're competing against Apple and Google who are both pumping large sums of money into the community to encourage growth on top of an equally capable internal development team. HTC has helped improve the UI and things in many amazing ways with the Diamond and some other small groups have made neat things, but I don't think it's enough at this point.
I hope this post is a sign they have something huge planned. I would fit in the Microsoft Fanboy category, but every day that goes by and I read this website I find it a little bit harder to go with. I think the Zune was an amazing piece of hardware and (not counting the iPod Touch) I would buy it over an iPod. It feels very intuitive, it's very responsive, and it's just a great experience overall I feel. I don't feel that with my Windows Mobile device and find myself on PPCGeeks too often hoping to find what someone has hacked to improve aspects of my phone. I love having that ability, but I wish I didn't have to do it so much.
That's just the 2 cents of a confused gadget geek who wants to make his next purchase a Microsoft one again... but is finding it harder and harder to justify.
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Not taking in the growth of smartphones as a whole, I must say I find this hard to believe. I know they have cool things planned for Windows Mobile 7 and are keeping it on the d/l. I'm sure with the Zune teams involvement and the fact we've known Photon would be a huge release for years there will be cool things... but I must say after seeing the things with Android and the rumors of things incorporated in the new iPhone... I may have to walk away from Microsoft unless they bring something big. The Raphael is a great device coming up soon, but I don't know if it's enough.
If Microsoft did something like what Apple/Google have done to promote application development I wouldn't feel so worried, but as a developer I haven't heard if XNA will be coming to it, and even if it is nobody knows and things won't be developed using things like that. Google and Apple both have their next gen SDKs out and huge amounts of money going to the community for development. Looking at Android's Round 1 winners I was majorly impressed, and to think Apple is doing at least 10x that in terms of prize money (and the fact it has a well-selling product in the market attracting people already)... I can't imagine Microsoft suddenly growing massively unfortunately. I truly hope I'm wrong, I hope on Monday morning I wake up to find out what they are planning so I could start developing for it but I'm not seeing that happening... and I just don't see them fixing all the world's problems when they're competing against Apple and Google who are both pumping large sums of money into the community to encourage growth on top of an equally capable internal development team. HTC has helped improve the UI and things in many amazing ways with the Diamond and some other small groups have made neat things, but I don't think it's enough at this point.
I hope this post is a sign they have something huge planned. I would fit in the Microsoft Fanboy category, but every day that goes by and I read this website I find it a little bit harder to go with. I think the Zune was an amazing piece of hardware and (not counting the iPod Touch) I would buy it over an iPod. It feels very intuitive, it's very responsive, and it's just a great experience overall I feel. I don't feel that with my Windows Mobile device and find myself on PPCGeeks too often hoping to find what someone has hacked to improve aspects of my phone. I love having that ability, but I wish I didn't have to do it so much.
That's just the 2 cents of a confused gadget geek who wants to make his next purchase a Microsoft one again... but is finding it harder and harder to justify.