Macopinion

Microsoft Still Doesn’t Get It

by Marc Zeedar macopinion@designwrite.com

I recently came across this blog posting regarding Microsoft's upcoming (in 2009) version of Windows Mobile. This new version features -- what else -- iPhone capabilities in the form of a new touch interface.

Now I'm not shocked that Microsoft is blatantly copying Apple and doesn't even seem apologetic or the slightest bit embarrassed. By now, those of us who pay attention to technology ought to expect that sort of thing from Microsoft. I'm also not surprised at the way this "secret" document has been released via a blogger in an obvious, thinly disguised promotional campaign, as Microsoft is the king of this kind of astroturfing.

What does surprise me, however, is that after decades of badly imitating Apple, Microsoft still doesn't get it. Wouldn't they have learned something about copying by now? You'd think they'd be expert cloners or perfect mimics with all the practice they've had. But Microsoft's cheap copies are always inferior. Even worse, Microsoft's copies actually ruin the key features of the original!

Nowhere is this more evident than in this purported upgrade to Windows Mobile. Take a look at some of the "features" this vaporware promises:

Proposed Feature:

Windows Mobile 7 will use motion gestures, something the iPhone does not. It will not use an intricate and complicated series of gyroscopes and accelerometers. Instead, it will use the camera on the phone to detect motions and create appropriate actions. You will be able to shake, twist and otherwise manipulate the phone and get things done. The phone will be able to perform actions when placed face down on a surface, and it will know when it is in your pocket or bag.

Verdict: First of all, gyroscopes and accelerometers are complicated but analyzing gestures via a camera is not? That sounds a lot more complicated than a tiny bit of extra hardware to me. But worse, do we really want people shaking an expensive piece of electronic equipment to make it do things? What happens if it thinks your shake was a twist or your twist a tilt? This not only sounds like a bizarre user interface "improvement" but totally impractical. Can you imagine a boardroom of executives contorting themselves to make their Windows Mobile 7 phone do something?

Proposed Feature:

Interface elements will be designed so there is no fear of users making a mistake and missing their target. It will be able to dynamically resize elements of the user interface, prioritizing them and making them easier to hit. Corners, like the close button, scrollbars, icons and the title bar/status bar, will all be able to grow to make things easier on the user.

Verdict: Using traditional interface elements with a finger is just stupid. Apple wisely did not attempt to scale a traditional interface into the iPhone but create an entirely new "touch" environment. This allows larger icons and buttons to feel right on the iPhone while those same items would seem huge and awkward on a regular cell phone.

Proposed Feature:

A stylus will be required for device makers to include, based on screen size, screen orientation, and screen resolution.

Verdict: So here Microsoft waffles again. A touch device is either stylus-required or not; it cannot be both. If the OS is designed to work for one, it's impractical for the other and vice versa. It makes no sense to try and produce an OS that supports both, yet it sounds like that's exactly what they are attempting. Here's my prediction that this will be a huge money pit as they spend the next several years trying to kludge this thing together and finally either abandon it or release a dog like Vista.

Proposed Feature:

Microsoft is considering if it needs to support screens and drivers that do multi-touch, but multi-touch is not a base feature of Windows Mobile 7. Multi-finger touch is shown for cropping and rotating photos, but there is no indication if this is software based or requires multi-touch hardware.

Verdict: Ah, so no multi-touch, which is the iPhone's strength. Just show anyone how to zoom or shrink pictures on an iPhone and they instantly understand the device. It's just such a natural action.

Proposed Feature:

Some UI elements, called Spinner and Pivot, will have a gesture where you swipe them from left to right. In a Spinner, you have a single item with left and right buttons next to it, but instead of hitting the left and right buttons, you can just swipe to change the option.

Verdict: Yeah, let's invent some new interface widgets with silly names to do ordinary things that don't require such complexity. This is Microsoft trying to sound cool.

Proposed Feature:

Microsoft Research has a technology concept that uses the device's camera as a motion sensor, enabling motion control while using the device. This means devices will not need accelerometers and other complicated gyroscopes to get these features, and that existing Windows Mobile devices could be upgraded to full Windows Mobile 7 functionality.... It will also support changing screen orientation when turning the device sideways, just like the iPhone does, but using the camera, not a gyroscope.

Verdict: Yikes, so Microsoft is seriously claiming current phones could be upgraded to this new OS? Dream on, folks. That's absurd. Get real: they want you to buy new phones, of course. That's what pays for this new OS. This kind of talk is merely smoke to keep current Windows Mobile customers from chucking their clunkers out the window and buying an iPhone.

Proposed Feature:

Gestures shown include in music or a slideshow, shaking the phone left or right to go to the previous or next song or photo, and shaking the phone in order to shuffle it.

Verdict: Okay, let me say that on the iPhone the auto-rotation feature can be a real pain when it rotates when you don't want it to do so. I cannot imagine how annoying it would be to have a phone that does things when you tilt or shake it! How does this any way improve on the iPhone "flick to the next photo" feature? It does not. It's just a gimmicky way to sound "new" and "improved" when in reality Microsoft has not thought this through. Most likely 90% of these "features" will get dropped before the operating system is actually released once real-world testing proves how lame they are.

Proposed Feature:

When pressing the directional pad down in a full-screen media application, such as a photo application, you can move the device forward and backward to zoom in and out of the image.

Verdict: Directional pad? That's a reminder that this "new" OS supposedly runs on existing phone hardware. We're talking a kludge, again. Just like Windows, the desktop OS, has been hampered by backward compatibility back to the days of DOS, Microsoft can't actually advance forward because it would mean halting support for existing hardware. Face it: to be innovative like the iPhone it must include new hardware and the new features must be a fundamental part of the operating system, not a painted on surface candy.

Proposed Feature:

The camera will also cause certain actions based on light sensitivity. For example, if you put your phone in your pocket or in a bag, it will shut off the screen, and can even make the ringer louder or put it on vibrate, as directed. It can also turn the screen on automatically when taking the phone out, trigger the timer on the phone's camera when the phone is placed face down on a surface, automatically activate the camera flash based on available light, snooze the phone's alarm when waving your hand over the phone's camera, taking a picture when anyone walks past the phone (or any other desired action, like making a noise), or remotely connecting to other devices when the phone sees them.

Verdict: Wow, with all these features this camera's gonna wear out in like ten minutes of use! Seriously, how is the camera supposed to know you're waving a hand in front of it versus moving the phone in front of a stationary hand? Just this silly, overload feature list (How many of those things are actually useful?) shows how wrong-headed Microsoft can be. They are thinking feature-count, not feature quality.

Proposed Feature:

Here's an example of a gesture, shaking the phone to wake it up.... The document says that gestures should be distinct, convenient, easy to use, and they should also be fun and have feedback that responds to the user's action. They shouldn't be hard motion, but simple jiggles or shakes, with the screen reacting to the amount of shaking, the number of shakes, that sort of thing.

Verdict: So my phone wakes up when I drop it? That's genius. I tell you, this "gesture" stuff is ridiculous. Have you ever watched someone use a phone? They hold it at weird angles, read while lying upside down, use it while jogging/driving/shopping/etc. This gesture stuff might work in a lab, but it'll never fly in a real environment.

Proposed Feature:

There's also a part talking about allowing the user to "doodle" on the screen (their word, not mine), letting users draw doodles on the device lock screen, as well as shake the screen to affect the wallpaper (like making water run, or blurring an image). The iPhone's lock screen is an iconic part of the device, and Microsoft wants to have a cool lock screen without copying Apple, so the plan is to give you fun things to do on the lock screen.

Verdict: Yeah, Microsoft wants to be cool. Desperately. It sounds like the world's most expensive Etch-a-Sketch. It'll be cool for two seconds, maybe. Then people will be bored.

Proposed Feature:

Besides flicking up and down, the user will be able to pivot sideways between different hotlists. The user can swipe to pivot between each, tap a selection in the pivot wheel, or hit an arrow to launch a pivot selector for all available pivots.

Verdict: The fact that this action description is impossible to understand without seeing a video should tell you something: if you can't describe it clearly in text, it's too complicated.

Proposed Feature:

There are many pages showing other UI elements, including radio buttons, Spinners, sliders, text entry boxes, combo boxes, drop down menus and such, that I have left out.

Verdict: As I mentioned before, Microsoft is trying to duplicate traditional user interface elements on a device that shouldn't have them. Who needs all this complexity? Look at why the iPhone is successful: anyone can use it without a manual. It works because there are only a handful of finger gestures things to learn (swipe to unlock, flick to scroll, squeeze and unsqueeze for zooming, drag to pan).

Proposed Feature:

There's a list of gestures that are being explorer and may or may not make it into Mobile 7, including a gesture to dismiss an on-screen notification by shaking it off the screen, a gesture to automatically take you to a Smart Search notification panel, turning the phone like turning a key to unlock it, Pivoting by gesturing the phone sideways, moving through lists by shaking the phone up or down, switching the camera into black and white or other modes by shaking it down, adjusting camera aperture and shutter speed by rotating the camera, sending a file by "tossing" it to another device.

Verdict: Oh my Lordy Microsoft has gone off the deep end now. Adjusting the camera settings by rotating the phone? On what planet does that make sense? Your rotation totally changes the type of picture you're taking (wide versus tall). Shaking the phone to scroll through a list? That's inane. Shaking a notification off the screen or "tossing" a file to another device? Does no one at Microsoft have a brain? This all sounds to me like they have spent too much time playing with a Wii and are trying to turn phones into a weird video game. On the plus side, just think of all the hilarious parody videos coming soon to You Tube!

It's About Simplicity
The key theme of this article is how elaborate and comprehensive Microsoft's vaporware will be. This is typical of this kind of smokescreen, as Microsoft loves to claim to support every protocol and standard and have every feature under the sun as a way of stopping the momentum of competitors.

But once again, Microsoft has missed the boat. It's not about features -- it's about simplicity and elegance. Trying to shoe-horn a kludgy desktop OS into a mobile phone hasn't worked for Microsoft for years and now they're going to try to build on that by adding iPhone-like capabilities?

It's not going to work. The iPhone was designed from the ground up for touch. There's no way an OS that can't even decide if it requires a finger or a stylus is going to beat it. Apple is laughing hysterically and crossing Microsoft off their "potential competitors" list.

It's also important to note that in the linked article, the photos are mock-ups, not prototypes. These are not even screenshots of development apps. This is utter fiction, folks. Basically this is a document of "research" Microsoft has done in desperation to come up with something to keep their Windows Mobile platform relevant. It'll work for a few morons who believe hype and haven't been burned by Microsoft in the past. But we've all seen this before with countless Microsoft products: promise the moon in a month and deliver an ordinary rock from the local creek four years later.

It's so pathetic it's funny.

macopinion@designwrite.com