Microsoft Employees Love Their iPhones 366
portscan writes "There is an entertaining and telling article in the Wall Street Journal about iPhone use by Microsoft employees. Apparently, despite it being frowned upon by senior management, iPhone use is rampant among the Redmond rank and file. The head of Microsoft's mobile division tried to explain it away as employees wanting 'to better understand the competition,' although few believe this. Nowhere does the article mention attempts by the company to understand why the iPhone is more attractive to much of Microsoft's tech-savvy workforce than the company's own products."
I loves and hateses my Preciousss (Score:5, Funny)
I have a love/hate relationship with my iPhone. My preciousss. It's pretty and seductive, but it locks me out of stuff. For just about everything, there's an app for that, except for when Apple pulled it. It can do just about everything, but not when Apple or AT&T says it can't, like tethering. But for all it makes me crazy, I still can't seem to pause in the middle of the day without pulling it from its holster and stroking its sleek, responsive, beautiful face for a few minutes.
Damn this stupid phone. I really should throw it back into the depths of Cupertino from whence it came, but you'd probably have to gnaw my hand off to get me to drop it.
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Lack of tethering is not Apple's fault.
It works here very nicely, without any tricks or hacks.
I don't use a lot of apps (or games) - but the ability to choose e.g. between several different weather-apps is very comforting.
The iPhone is really the ultimate phone IMO - you can make it look and behave exactly as you want (within it's very wide limits).
At least, it's a progress in comparison to exchangeable covers, custom ringtones and background-images.
Re:I loves and hateses my Preciousss (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes, Apple supports tethering in the iPhone, but AT&T requires them to disallow you from using it. It was a similar deal with VoIP, which was blocked over 3G until recently. It raises the question in my mind: how much of the iPhone lock-down (only allowed to install apps from the iTunes store) is caused by Apple wanting a cut of everything, and how much is caused by contractual obligations to AT&T for preventing certain kinds of apps.
Either way, obviously iPhones would be way better if Apple didn't restrict development and distribution of 3rd party apps.
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Either way, obviously iPhones would be way better if Apple didn't restrict development and distribution of 3rd party apps.
Well, it's not so obvious IMO.
But that really depends on what "better" means for you.
I'm glad that Apple strictly controls what goes into the App-store, because I have no time at all to do a line-by-line source-code audit of every god-damn silly app I download. I'm glad Apple does this for me, for the 30% of the price that probably the seller would pocket anyway (without the benefits for the end-user)
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Looking at the content VS preventing a rooting of your phone is 2 different things. I'd be happy if they just did the later. Anyway, I don't own one myself (but I support ipods/iphones as a platform for my tools)
Re:I loves and hateses my Preciousss (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I loves and hateses my Preciousss (Score:5, Insightful)
On the other hand, I should have a right to run any program I want on my hardware.
Re:I loves and hateses my Preciousss (Score:5, Interesting)
Apple should have a right to keep their store the way they want, and reject any app the want.
On the other hand, I should have a right to run any program I want on my hardware.
I agree. But all the spam that I get and that we as an ISP have to fend-off or process is from the 99.9999% of morons in front of a PC that think exactly the same and download and install any crap-trojan that comes their way and poses as a screensaver or fake anti-virus.
At least, we don't get spam from iPhones. That alone makes Apple's decision worth the hassle!
Re:I loves and hateses my Preciousss (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe I don't follow this well enough to know, but I don't think Apple is doing an audit, much less line-by-line. Seems to me they just react after the fact. From what I understand they recently pulled some apps related to wifi for using undocumented APIs. If they pulled it after they fact they didn't audit the source in the first place, not even using some automated tool on the binary.
I don't have an iphone, just an ipod touch. But I don't get the impression they strictly control the app-store. They certainly impose their own restrictions, but I don't feel like it's for my benefit so I only get quality apps.
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you can view Apple's comprehensive app store blacklist at https://iphone-services.apple.com/clbl/unauthorizedApps [apple.com]
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So for people like you, there's the app store. That doesn't diminish the value of having fewer restrictions for other people.
The google route. (Score:5, Informative)
Why should they even need to?
I cant fathom why you would think that such a thing is logically a good thing to do.
The problem Apple has is not that it restricts the app store, that is fine as it is Apple's app store. The problem is that Apple restricts the iphone to the app store and the app store only.
Google's way around this was to add an option into Android that permitted the installation of programs from anonymous sources and leave this option disabled by default. Therefore if you liked the kind of walled garden security that application restriction provides then you can have it, but if you wanted freedom it was three clicks away. But this kind of approach requires device level security, which the iphone has little to none of.
Re:The google route. (Score:4, Interesting)
Not that I'm a fan of Apple by any means. I wouldn't switch from my Hero to an iPhone if you paid me. But it's not the same type of walled garden, although it may feel like it superficially.
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What auditing do you think Apple does exactly that Google doesn't?
Apple claims there are 140,000+ apps on the app store, the app store has been around less than 600 days, so that's at least 230 apps per day they have to vet. Do you think they really do anything other than load up the application, see what it's about, have a quick play around with it, then reject or approve it with that kind of volume? Even if they have 100 employees on it, which they wont because that would be unnaffordable for the amount t
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They do not, in any way, do a line-by-line audit. Anyone with even a slight understanding of malicious software will know many ways to sneak malware past Apple.
According to this story:
http://www.h-online.com/security/news/item/Researchers-show-infecting-smartphones-with-malware-is-relatively-easy-950091.html [h-online.com]
It's not so easy.
Quote: "According to the researchers, only Apple's AppStore offers a certain amount of protection against malicious applications. Brown and Tijerina said that the AppStore rigorously checks the source code for potential security problems caused by buffer overflows, copyright infringements, and permitted protocols as well as APIs."
So, yes, I'm s
Re:I loves and hateses my Preciousss (Score:5, Insightful)
I have trouble imagining how that is possible considering that you don't submit your source code to the App Store.
Re:I loves and hateses my Preciousss (Score:4, Insightful)
Without the source code, copyright infringement is probably the most difficult to detect, but they may be specifically talking about copyrighted music or some other audiovisual media clip used in an app without authorization of the author/composer/producer, not copyrighted code. on the other hand, use of non-permitted protocols and APIs could be pretty easily tested for with binaries only (any API calls will need linker/loader info in the executable, and you can run the app in a sandbox to see what it tries to do). As for buffer overflows, while it won't be as efficient as with source, they do have a number of avenues:
a) running through a decompiler before running through a code checker,
b) automated testing apps for testing any/all input widgets
c) see if any input APIs for telecommunications such as bluetooth/IP have load/link references, trace how those are used (ie. what ports are listened to), and then hammer them with automated testing.
A lot of the above could be automated. Sure, it won't be close to foolproof or anywhere as effective as a proper code review but it's better than what NewEgg or any other PC software distributor does for you. If somebody put out a really crappy piece of software full of holes, it will flag it (and probably also let Apple know to scrutinize apps from that developer more closely).
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AT&T didn't block VoIP over 3G. They told Apple to disallow VoIP apps over the 3G network.
The iPod Touch runs the same software with no restrictions.
Re:I loves and hateses my Preciousss (Score:5, Insightful)
Correction: the iPod Touch runs the same software with the same restrictions
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AT&T didn't block VoIP over 3G. They told Apple to disallow VoIP apps over the 3G network.
Isn't that in keeping with what I said? "AT&T requires them to disallow you from using it"?
There's nothing inherent about the phone that ever prevented VoIP over 3G, and Apple specifically built the capability to tether another device to your phone, but AT&T has to ok turning the feature on.
The iPod Touch runs the same software with no restrictions.
Well yes, but of course they'd be opening a messy can of worms if they allowed different things on the two different but nearly identical products. For one thing, it might be harder to keep the iPhone locked d
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Hmm you guys in the US got shafted by having one exclusive carrier for the iPhone. Here you buy it unlocked and can use it on any network. And most allow you to tether it and use whatever apps (incl. VoIP) you want on it, out of the box.
Sad that the iPhone is more crippled in its ~home~ market than anywhere else. I couldn't stand owning a network-locked phone.
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Either way, obviously iPhones would be way better if Apple didn't restrict development and distribution of 3rd party apps.
I think there's two reasons why this isn't happening:
- I don't think the network providers like the idea, as it might lead to trojans spamming their network.
- Apple certainly likes to have control, as they have realized that the most important thing they own is their brand, and they are protecting their image at any cost.*
*) Take for example the Rickrolling that happened on jailbroken phones a few months ago. If you read most media reporting on it, the detail that it could only happen to jailbroken phones g
Re:I loves and hateses my Preciousss (Score:4, Insightful)
There's definitely an AT&T bias - many overseas mobile networks are quite happy to remove those restrictions as soon as Apple-AT&T agree to do so. For example, in Australia the iPhone was sold unlocked from day 1 (since the 3G came on the market), and 3 out of 4 major networks that carry it allow tethering with no extra charge. The one hold-out charges a nominal fee to enable it. Similar things apply in the UK & Europe, but the primary source of restrictions is still driven by Apple's home market (something I would hope would change with increasing international popularity).
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I think it's well understood that Apple is imposing the restriction on sources of apps to the App Store alone, and the disk mode restriction is Apple's alone, as that is irrelevant to the carriers. The objection to AT&T was their unilateral imposition of a limitation on VoIP software causing that limitation to be imposed on the rest of the world by fiat, just because of the carrier in the home market.
I'm under no illusion that Apple is all saintly in this matter - the iPad's limitations clearly demonstr
Re:I loves and hateses my Preciousss (Score:4, Insightful)
I suspect a lot of that development has also been fueled by "get rich quick" dreams, which has obviously only come to reality for a small number of developers. Okay if you're a hobbyist, but not a great return on investment for anyone looking for more than that.
Re:I loves and hateses my Preciousss (Score:5, Insightful)
I have no problem with them offering the iTunes App store, and in fact think that the cut they take doesn't seem too high.
But what if I want a native app for Google Voice? What if I want Google Voice to essentially replace my Voicemail and SMS buttons with a Google version that lets me use SMS for free? What if I want to use Opera on my iPhone? They're developing an application, but it will most likely be rejected. What if I want to alter my home screen? (e.g. Winterboard) Apple won't let me run those applications, even though they've been developed.
And what of all the developers who won't bother to even write an application because they're dreading the possibility of being rejected and having all their work being useless?
I like the iPhone and I like the iTunes store. I just think we'd see even more apps and better apps if Apple didn't keep such an iron fist over distribution.
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I like the iPhone and I like the iTunes store. I just think we'd see even more apps and better apps if Apple didn't keep such an iron fist over distribution.
No, you'd see stores all over the place, including developers who decide to serve up their apps on their own web site. There *might* be more apps this way. Overall, there probably wouldn't be better apps, except for a small handful of exceptions (like Google Voice, or 3G Slingbox and Skype (the latter two are now allowed anyway, and Google's Voice web app is really good, and as it is is better than replacing fundamental iPhone functionality)).
But for the end users, it would be a much bigger mess. As it stan
Re:I loves and hateses my Preciousss (Score:5, Insightful)
Completely agree. Nice and easy. Unless you:
* don't have an extra $100/yr to spend on a membership fee
* don't have a Mac
* want to write apps that do a better job than Apple's built-in apps
* want your apps to be able to run tasks in the background
* want your apps to be able to download, save and play back locally-stored media
* want to write apps that contain a plugin system or language interpreter
* want to write free (as in speech) software
But other than that, yeah, a hobby programmer's dream.
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* want your apps to be able to download, save and play back locally-stored media
"3.3.13 If Your Application includes or will include any other content, You must either own all such content or have permission from the content owner t use it in Your Application."
* want to write free (as in speech) software
"3.3.16 If Your Application includes any FOSS, You agree to comply with all applicable FOSS licensing terms. You also agree not to use any FOSS in the development of Your Application in such a way that would cause the non-FOSS portions of the Apple Software to be subject to any FOSS licensing terms or obligations."
The others are
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It has nothing to do with being against 'chlorine' in swimming pools. It has to do with being told you have to wear an Apple approved swimsuit or you can't swim there.
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Of course lack of tethering is Apple's fault. The machine is perfectly capable of tethering, and it does so in many markets. But Apple kowtowed to AT&T's request to block it in the U.S. They willingly provided AT&T with the kill-switch, even though I'm the paying customer.
Re:I loves and hateses my Preciousss (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, you're the product they're selling to AT&T. Or didn't you get the memo?
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You're pretty clearly out to get Apple here, even though every other phone manufacturer does the same thing. If a US carrier tells them to disable a feature or they won't carry the phone, they do it. Apple is sadly no different.
But clearly, nothing is going to dissuade you from your anti-Apple rant.
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Sorry, but you're factually wrong. Both my Motorola RAZR and my Motorola Z6 allowed me to tether over Bluetooth without difficulty. Even my turn-of-the-millennium Sony Ericsson T610 allowed me to tether via IR, as long as I didn't mind about 2400 baud and keeping both the computer and phone out of direct sunlight or flickering neon. AT&T has always wanted to add a surcharge $40/month for tethering, but I never asked them: I just set the data connections up properly and they always worked fine.
AT
Re:I loves and hateses my Preciousss (Score:5, Funny)
All of them are deficient: None lets you set the weather.
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(within it's very wide limits).
"It's" vs. "its"... there's an app for that.
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Who else could they go with? Verizon apparently turned them down, and the only other GSM carrier in the US in any case is T-Mobile. You think T-Mobile would magically be better than AT&T? Really?
Btw, tethering works great on my iPhone on Vodafone in Australia.
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You think T-Mobile would magically be better than AT&T? Really?
I do, actually. I have both a Verizon phone and a T-Mobile phone. While I know that T-Mo has been near-synonymous with "bad service", I can count on my fingers how many calls I have dropped over the past six months since I got my Touch Pro2. While I'll fully admit that they were late to the game with 3G (i.e. might not have been a good launch partner without a solid ultimatum or a longer wait for a 3G handset), the few times I have used 3G on my Touch Pro2 have been faster than either my Blackberry Curve or
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Not to mention Verizon was (is?) rather famous for locking features down.
Two 'identical' phones on Verizon & AT&T would have Bluetooth turned off on Verizon so you had to send files through their '$1/picture' service.
Re:I loves and hateses my Preciousss (Score:4, Informative)
That was common with Verizon, but not so much anymore. My Droid does not have any features noticeably locked, and I'd easily argue that it's a much more open platform than the iPhone. Better? Debatable. But certainly more open.
Re:I loves and hateses my Preciousss (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, because they should have gone with the good US cell carrier. Man, that carrier does a great job. They haven't ever tried to hobble the phones that they offer, haven't tried to impede VoIP use on their data network, and haven't tried to keep users from tethering their laptop to their phones. You know, the US carrier that provides great coverage, fast data speeds, and good service at cheap prices without any restrictions on how you use their service...?
Which carrier is that, again?
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Jailbreaking fixes many of the iPhone's limitation (Score:2, Insightful)
This is why I am less and less happy about Apple's desire to end jailbreaking.
Opening up the iPhone allows me to be liberated from some of Apple's control-fetish annoyances.
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I agree. My iPhone would be much less useful to me without jailbreaking, and would limit its usefulness. Besides the points you made, I can do other things thanks to jailbreaking, like:
* Multitask
* Run WiFi only apps over 3G
* Run any non-approved applications I want
* Use multiple ActiveSync accounts (ie Work Exchange and Gmail)
* Use the iPhone as a storage device
Like you said, they might not be dealbreakers, and I understand the reason Apple doesn't want me to do some of them, but jailbreaking would be so
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Why in the world would you want to run GMail over activesync? IMAP with idle works great for my gmail account.
Um, because ActiveSync uses real push (via formatted SMS notifications) and IMAP IDLE just requires a constant data connection chewing your battery?
I don't own an iPhone; I thought that was just common knowledge (how EAS worked).
Re:Jailbreaking fixes many of the iPhone's limitat (Score:4, Insightful)
The reason Apple fights jailbreaking is simple: They have realized that their most important asset is their brand, and they will do anything to protect it.
Why does this relate to jailbreaking? Well, remember when all those jailbroken iPhones got rickrolled a few months ago? If you read the media coverage, in most cases the detail got lost that it only concerned jailbroken phones with a badly configured sshd on them. It made Apple look bad because iPhones could be rickrolled. That's the kind of news Apple is fighting, and until you can make certain that those kinds of things do not happen on jailbroken iPhones, Apple will keep fighting it out of fear of bad publicity.
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It's not a love/hate relationship, it's a love/love relationship. You love your iPhone, but you also love the Nerd Police propaganda that surrounds it.
The propaganda says Apple and AT&T have made some kind of pact with the devil to keep you enslaved to them. But reliance on AT&T comes out of the fact that AT&T runs the one (1) and only GSM 3G network in the United States of America. Don't blame Apple (or Nokia) for that. Blame Verizon and Sprint for building out proprietary networking and making
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IMO, they items they lock out are just not important to the average Joe. To geeks and some business users, yes some apps are important, like WiFi Scanners, Tethering, Google Voice, Jiggly Tits [chillifresh.com] (ok, granted, that one may have a wider appeal), but for the average user, they get what they need from the app store.
I have a good friend who went with the droid. He loves Apple Mac, but hated the restrictions on the iPhone. All he did after that was complain that it was hard to get it working properly, just the way
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Hundreds of iPhones walking around = hundreds of remotely activated microphone and camera at the R&D facility!
oh, because Apple has so much to learn from Microsoft. They'll just be all over that I'm sure. MS is so known for innovation, whereas Apple...
iPhones work beautifully with Exchange. (Score:2, Insightful)
Better in some ways than Windows Mobile phones.
This really shouldn't be surprising.
Same thing with iPods (Score:4, Informative)
I worked in a mobile apps company for 7 years (Score:3, Interesting)
Victory against monoculture (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Victory against monoculture (Score:5, Insightful)
Eating their own dog food.
Apple employees probably use Pages, Keynote and the rest of the iWork suite because they're quite good pieces of software. Microsoft probably doesn't have a raft of people who are using Open Office or Pages because well, even for Mac, Office v.x is pretty slick. Microsoft employees also probably are Xbox fans, by and large.
Mono-culture is one thing, being able to swallow your own dog food is another. Monocultures work when the products you sell are actually good. :) When you have to ENFORCE your monoculture, you're clearly doing something wrong in the market.
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Eating your own dog food is good and valid for the mobile division, but the rest of MS really has nothing to do with the phone wars, so it would be ridiculous to pressure them into using it.
Anyway, I bet the brass are just glad they're using iPhones, not N900s.
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that used to be the case, and was partly responsible for the dominance of Windows. But that was a long time ago, now we have all kinds of UI on Windows - not just the differences between XP, Vista and 7, but the differences between theold menu-bar style apps and the new ribbon, or IE style apps.
Go ahead, look at IE and tell me its got a familiar GUI in keeping with the rest of Windows. The divisions in Microsoft are now in the business of making every GUI look different, possibly to differentiate itself fro
Re:Victory against monoculture (Score:4, Insightful)
Good user experience has nothing to do with UI. In other words, it doesn't matter where you put the buttons... it matters that the user can figure out how to do what they want to do.
Microsoft figured this out, sort of, by creating a completely new UI for Office 2007. Google figured out a long time ago that most users would rather have a box and a button than a page full of stuff. Apple did very well with the iPhone... albeit, the phone part is actually a little harder than most, but the rest of the device is dirt simple to use.
My point... I don't think users care about familiarity as much as software designers think they do.
Re:Victory against monoculture (Score:5, Insightful)
Very well said.
There is nothing familiar about the iPhone interface, but it's a raging success.
Why, because it has a good usability design. Especially, it get's rid of the desktop metaphore and uses the appliance metaphore instead, where the device is only one thing at a time, but tries to have the entire user interface be that appliance. When you think about it, it's a very strong and natural interface, and solves a lot of problems people have in current day-to-day use of not just computers, but all kinds of devices.
Most people get lost in devices like VCRs, stereos, TVs and computers because without training it's hard to figure out that a button does different things depending on what other buttons you have pushed before it. The iPhone UI tries to solve this problem by replacing the buttons.
Duh (Score:3, Insightful)
It works with Exchange. Microsoft is not going to run a BES. And Android is the one eating their lunch.
Nice contradiction... (Score:5, Interesting)
Redmond rage (Score:2)
Apparently, despite it being frowned upon by senior management, iPhone use is rampant among the Redmond rank and file.
Need to practice ducking airborne chairs? There's an app for that!
I don't understand (Score:2, Funny)
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Do they get the Microsoft products for free? (Score:5, Insightful)
If they do, then there's a real issue there.
If not, it's the employees money to do with what they please. Upper management needs to STFU.
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Posting anon for obvious reasons.
If you buy a Windows Mobile phone at MS you can claim the cost of the phone back on expenses, but it's a small PITA to do. Even so, you don't get the celluar costs paid for, Windows Mobile or not, unless you're in sales, so considering I'm paying every month why on earth does anyone think management have a right to say what my money goes on? And that's where the article is wrong - no-one actually gives a shit, beyond Ballmer's grandstanding, and of course the WM team who s
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Also, according to the article, the use at MS is hardly rampant. It reports market penetration in general for iPhone is 25%, but penetration at MS is only 10%.
Re:Do they get the Microsoft products for free? (Score:5, Interesting)
Do they get the Microsoft products for free? If they do, then there's a real issue there.
If not, it's the employees money to do with what they please. Upper management needs to STFU.
MS employees don't get anything free. They get steep discounts on MS software (85% or so off), but only a small discount on on hardware. I have, on occasion, seen xboxes for sale commercially for less then in the employee store. I did a year long contract for MS in the mobile division and I never heard of upper management discouraging iPhone use. The FTEs on my team used a wide range of mobile devices and I think it really helped to broaden people's horizons. I think management understood that. That said, MS is a very large creature and I saw only a little corner of it.
Re:Do they get the Microsoft products for free? (Score:4, Funny)
You must have had an interesting relationship.
Obsessesion (Score:5, Insightful)
The Apple culture is about obsession. This goes from creation to use. Despite any flaws the iPhone it has, it feels likes someone actually thought how non-engineers would use it. This is an important factor IMHO, because even with the 'wow' factor, a device will only work if people can find it usable. Too many gadgets, IMHO, are designed by engineers and almost feel like the primary user was an engineer. To many people the "it just works" element is as important as any of the features that the device it may include.
There are other companies who have understood the people factor, but all to often it doesn't feel like it is running through the veins of the companies.
Looking at Microsoft, I feel that they are confused about what it means be user friendly. There are elements of the company who seem to get it, while there are other parts that thinks bells and whistles are what user friendly is about. For me being user friendly is something a little complex, it is that right balance of simplicity and richness of functionality. Hiding features or dumbing down an application is not going to magically solve the problem, if the humans factor is forgotten in the process.
The irony in all this is that Apple spends less on R&D than Microsoft, yet whether it is through focused R&D or some other factor I feel they seem to capture the magic combination better. Maybe there is something to be said of having a company run by a guy who is so obsessive that his passion captivates people, rather than alienating them - yes, I am insinuating that Balmer's passion at developer conferences is more an after thought than something that drives the company in a cohesive way.
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But Microsoft created Bob and Clippy. How can you say they are not user friendly?
but it doesn't "just work" (Score:2)
Yes, Apple pays a bit more attention to user-friendliness than Microsoft. Mostly, though, they are paying a lot of attention to a good unboxing experience and fun. Apple also focuses their efforts on specific markets and demographics while Microsoft wants it all.
But people should stop saying that "it just works". Apple products often don't "just work"; just go look at the Apple support forums and do some web searches. Nobody has managed to make computer systems or software of any significant complexity t
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Yup, that hits the nail on the head. I've just helped my parents buy their first MacBook having previously had a Windows XP laptop. I've noticed that when they can't figure out how to do something and get me to show them, when they see the solution on the Mac they say "ahh... clever! that's how it works". On Windows XP, when I showed them something or they finally figured it out for themselves, they would tend to say "damn, I've been looking for that for hours, how stupid!".
It's About Time! (Score:2, Funny)
Microsoft has a tech-savvy workforce! It's about time.
That's funny (Score:3, Insightful)
That's funny, you'd expect a lot of them would be using that really popular windows mobile phone, you know, the....err....wait, don't tell me...hmmm
They love the DRM? (Score:2)
On paper MS wins it all, as always.
I guess within MS the staff are really in awe of the closed garden feel.
The idea that one corp can pass/fail apps, remove apps, kill hardware ideas eg tethering and scale total control up to larger devices.
To your average MS worker its like holding their future before bringing the MS real world productivity to a locked down candy gui toy.
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Aah! That explains it... (Score:2)
So, Windows Vista was developed by "engineers" who like the shiny - no, you can't do that - apple phone. Now I get it...
I am actually an iphone developer right now (not exactly my choice, our CEO thought it was a good idea), and I can't see how any real get overpriced fashion accessory.
Don't tell me there are no geek oriented devices, let any decent geek spend an hour with something like the N900, and observe the results! (mainly because, well, yes, it will run linux)
Something got cut... (Score:2)
The second line should read:
I am actually an iphone developer right now (not exactly my choice, our CEO thought it was a good idea), and I can't see how any real geek would like the overpriced fashion accessory.
PS. To make it clear, I do like the platform as a developer - Obj-C and the sdk are nice and I can do the things Apple will let me nice and fast. My problem is how much it limits me as a user.
Microsoft Phone? (Score:2, Insightful)
Believe it or not, Microsoft is a pretty tolerant (Score:5, Interesting)
Believe it or not, Microsoft is a pretty tolerant company on the inside. You're not required to drink the kool-aid, and using non-Microosft products and services is not frowned upon. Almost everyone (at least in Redmond) uses Google for search, for instance. A lot of smartphone users use iPhone. Some use Android even (even though corp discounts obviously don't apply to either iPhone or Android plans or phones). It is not uncommon to see a Mac running Mac OS X, even though the corp network doesn't really support it. I haven't seen any Linux use on laptops, but that's probably because ACPI support in Linux sucks ass.
There are folks who proudly drink the Kool-Aid, and refuse to use anything non-Microsoft, of course, but they're in minority.
Having worked elsewhere after Microsoft, I've gained a lot of respect for this aspect of Microsoft corporate culture that I had taken for granted. I think at least someone at Microsoft understands that Microsoft has a lot to learn from the rest of the world, and corporate inbreeding is its worst possible enemy.
Corporate inbreeding (Score:3, Interesting)
Another famous example of corporate inbreeding is the taboo against American auto workers driving Japanese cars. I think this taboo had a lot to do with why Detroit lost so much ground to the Japanese in the 1970s and 1980s. Without the direct, everyday experience of comparing the quality of the cars they were building to those from Honda and Toyota, they just couldn't understand how far behind they really were and what was going to be needed to catch up. The truth is, GM and Ford management should have
Linux ACPI support... no thanks to Microsoft. (Score:4, Informative)
Linux ACPI support would probably be even better than it is now were it not for Microsoft.
http://www.groklaw.net/articlebasic.php?story=2010011422570951 [groklaw.net]
Re:Believe it or not, Microsoft is a pretty tolera (Score:5, Insightful)
I contend that for your average ACPI non-expert (99.999% of the population), it seems to be the other way around. I don't care who's wrong, I just want to my laptop to fucking wake up when I open the lid, like it does in Mac OS X and Windows.
Re:Believe it or not, Microsoft is a pretty tolera (Score:5, Insightful)
Right. In which case you then go speak to the hardware manufacturers and request they write proper Linux drivers for ACPI, or publish their hardware specs properly so the kernel developers can write the drivers.
Countless people went and done that, and what good did it do?
The real solution to his problem - the one that, you know, actually solves his problem, here and now - is the one that he gave himself: use a laptop with OS that can do it with the hardware that exists today. Not chasing unicorns.
By the same logic, it would be perfectly okay for me to call my kid an idiot for not knowing what year the Battle Of Hastings was, even though he's never done anything about it in his history class!
Well, if every single one of his classmates somehow knew that regardless...
Re:Believe it or not, Microsoft is a pretty tolera (Score:5, Insightful)
No, it's like calling your kid an idiot if, when asked to research the year of the Battle of Hastings, he writes a letter to the publisher of his favourite history textbook demanding that they email to all customers an errata footnote on the year that the battle of hastings occurred. When there's another free (as in beer -- Microsoft employees can install Windows on their work machines for free, obviously, and this is where the analogy came from) history textbook sitting right beside that has it listed and indexed already. Because he doesn't like the other history textbook.
It's not Linux's fault, per se, but it is Linux's problem. The difference between "Linux doesn't have good ACPI support" and "ACPI hardware doesn't have good Linux support" is pedantic and ultimately irrelevant to anybody not in a position to fix it themselves.
Microsoft's Own Products? (Score:4, Insightful)
Nowhere does the article mention attempts by the company to understand why the iPhone is more attractive to much of Microsoft's tech-savvy workforce than the company's own products.
Most likely, that's because Microsoft doesn't make a phone.
Company loyalty / cohesion (Score:3, Interesting)
I work for a large consumer products company, and our sector is pretty competitive. If the marketers would come over to IT and see us using competitors products, they'd be pretty pissed. We're all part of one team, and sticking to our products is important to us. I think that's one reason why we're successful. We do have competitors products on our desks / shelves but only to learn from / motivate us to gain more share. I have a hard time using products from our competitors... even in segments that we don't compete in... who wants to give the enemy more ammo?
Re: (Score:2)
I'm sure that MS's 7 Phone (or whatever it's really called) will bring it up to today's standards & expectations
Re: (Score:2)
iPhones are made by Apple (well atleast soley for Apple and under strict contracts to Apple) , most Windows phones tend to by made by companies who don't care about MS's image and so produce any old shit they can rustle up.
Having used both Apple phones and MS phones, personally though I'd rather go back to having a decent phone (IE good at calls and sms at a pinch), decent pda (email, organiser, some apps) and a decent media player - failure of 1 just loses me that bit of functionality - smart phone dies an
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
"most Windows phones tend to by made by companies who don't care about MS's image and so produce any old shit they can rustle up."
Bollocks.
You think they don't care about their own company's image?
Companies like HTC have been doing their best to get away from the shittiness that is Windows Mobile. But without having their own operating systems, they're a bit limited, so they don't want to piss off Microsoft too much. Apart from going with Google and Android, they've tried writing their own GUI to hide the p
Re: (Score:2)
If you had spent 8 hours straight working on these devices' software/hardware etc. would you want to play with them in your free time? I'd imagine that a lot of MS's staff would very much prefer to keep work at work and Zunes etc. out of their free time.
Re:Windows Mobile 7 is not yet out. (Score:4, Insightful)
We'll see how well they do but until people start using it on a day-to-day basis and feedback positively I'm not going to take anyone's opinion on it seriously.
I'm still not entirely sold on the interface. It is much slicker and isn't trying to replicate Windows on a phone but why can't they just make something that fits the screen rather than making it almost certain I'll have to scroll left and right to find everything and what is the point of making a heading to a section, like People, so big that it's guaranteed not to fit on the screen ever? Again, it looks nice but I can see that getting annoying over time and it reeks of being a lazy solution to making things look nice on various screen resolutions.
Re: (Score:2)
If you are going to be a fan, at least get the name right: Windows Phone 7 Series.
Making a good product isn't good enough for Microsoft. It has to be an amazing product that is heavily marketed to seriously affect Apple and Google's momentum. It has to be something that once people see it, they want it.
cf the Zune. Every review I have read, is positive. Anybody who has one, generally speaks quite well of it. Yet it still hasn't pulled much market share from the iPod.
The big wildcard in this though, is Apple
Microsoft can't succeed (Score:2, Insightful)
No matter how good Windows Mobile 7 itself may be, the fundamental problem with Windows Mobile 7 is that it is still tied to other Microsoft products, and Microsoft's other products often suck. You just know that if you're going to try to use it Google Apps, Mac, Linux, Firefox, or iTunes, there's going to be tons of problems.
They're probably going to use it to try to push Windows Live, Bing, Bing Maps, Xbox, Zune, Office, and all the other crap they are selling. And while you may use and like some of that
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
You mean, like they bought Sony or Nintendo instead of coming out with their own game console?
Eh no? (Score:3, Interesting)
If you go to a deaker, all the employees will drive their own brand. And if you got a production plant, the vast majority of the cars will be of the brand produced there. Yes of course there are exceptions, you will see plenty of other cars brands outside the Ferrari plant. But if you work at Ford, you drive ford. And nobody at DAF would consider using anything but DAF trucks for their own company.
Since MS employees are highly likely to get a discount on MS products it is extremely telling that it can't ev