My mother went a little overboard this Christmas season and gave me a Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 tablet. Thirty-six hours after opening my gift I came to the full realization of why Microsoft refuses to release their Windows Phone 7 mobile operating system on tablets, and instead insists on making the world wait almost three years after the introduction of the iPad before we see capacitive touch tablets running a Microsoft operating system.
For the last year and a half, I just assumed it was because Steven Sinofsky was pushing his weight around. After all, lots of ether text has been dedicated to tablets lately, with some pundits stating the desktop PC was dead. Besides, how embarrassing would it be for Sinofsky if Windows were usurped by their mobile OS? While Im confident that some weight was thrown around, I no longer believe that it was done because Sinofsky felt that Windows was threatened by WP7.
I suppose I should first interject that Im a bit of a tech geek. My household also has an iPad 2, a couple of WP7 phones, and theres an iPAQ 3835 sitting in a drawer somewhere among other devices. I had a Windows tablet for a couple of years, back in 2003-2004. There is a dedicated HTPC for each of my three televisions, and I built my own antenna. Almost every computer in my house has been assembled from scratch on the floor of my family room. And now I have an Android-based tablet. So I do have a rather wide swath of experience with different platforms, and am familiar with the major pros and cons of each.
With the release of Windows Phone 7, it was a foregone conclusion that Microsoft had a very capable mobile OS that could quickly and easily get them into the capacitive touch tablet game against Apple and Google and the smaller players. Unlike Windows Tablet Edition, WP7 fully supports capacitive touch, the UI is considered by many gadget gurus as the most elegant of all, it works very well with Office, and Marketplace surpassed 50,000 published applications for WP7 in the first 14 months of availability (in comparison, it took iOS 12 months and Android 19 months to reach the same 50K milestone). Bonus points are that WP7 doesnt constantly drop phone calls, and is still largely devoid of malware.
Apple and Google took operating systems they developed for cell phones and plopped them down on top of tablets. So wouldnt it make sense for Microsoft to do the same thing?
Lets begin with Hulu as the first example: because the Chrome browser supports Adobe Flash, Hulu was one of the first things I tried with my new Galaxy Tab, but playback attempts are met with the message your platform is not supported. I tried changing the UA string to Desktop and also tried using the Skyfire browser nada. Flash is kinda-sorta supported on WP7, but not for something like Hulu. So regardless if you use Android or WP7, you cant use Hulu. If you want to pay a monthly fee, you can watch Hulu on iOS but you aint getting it for free.
Being that the Galaxy Tab is a 4G LTE tablet, I have a 4G LTE subscription in an area that provides 4G LTE service through Verizon Wireless. As you may already know, Verizon has an exclusive partnership with the National Football League to broadcast Sunday, Monday and Thursday Night Football to their wireless customers. This is poignantly advertised during the SNF intro: a leather-clad Faith Hill sings as a crowd of people are walking toward a football stadium entrance, and there is one smiling idiot who obviously prefers to remain outside the stadium and watch the game on a four inch screen.
As a bonus, if you are paying for 4G service there is no additional charge to watch SNF/MNF/TNF on your device. So one of the first things I did with my Galaxy Tab was to install NFL Mobile so I could watch MNF the day after Christmas but it failed to log on. So on Monday afternoon I took my device to a Verizon Wireless store for some help, and was informed that the NFL Mobile service is only supported on their phones: tablets are blocked. Gee, you paid well over $400 for a device and subscribed to 4G service? Too bad, its four inches or nothing, buddy. But thanks for giving us so much money!
I love music. I like Pandora. But on Dec 6, someone at Pandora tweeted that they dont even have plans to develop a WP7 app. But they do support all other mobile operating systems, and their app works fine on our iPad 2 and Galaxy Tab.
And thus, the epic realization: the mobile landscape is heavily fractured and significantly broken. And it was done on purpose. What works for some devices will not work or is not available for other devices. And even things we expect should work for certain devices doesnt work.
And when something doesnt work, what is it specifically that doesnt work?
Content.
Content owners, such as television networks, record labels, movie studios, software companies, newspapers and magazines, etc have been making decisions on who gets what content and how they get it or consume it. And the content owners are making restrictive deals with content providers, probably for a decent chunk of change. And its been going on like this for years now.
You want this particular content? Then you need to buy this particular device and/or use this particular service with this particular application. But this device and/or service wont be able to provide that other piece of particular content or application that you want, so choose your device based on your highest priorities and then go gripe to yourself about the other things that you want but cant have. Or buy that second device.
Ask yourself this question: When was the last time you had this problem on a Windows machine?
Microsoft has been accused repeatedly of dropping the ball on tablets. In actuality, their competitors also have all dropped the mobile ball in one way or another, and Microsoft apparently wants to avoid falling into the same why cant I have this trap with consumers in regards to tablets, a trap that would convince many to buy a competitors tablet.
And if web article comments and forum posts are any indication, a lot of people are getting fed up with the various gotchas when trying to select a device, or after having purchased a device. But beyond the capabilities of the device (or lack thereof) are the promises: some promises come very late after a device has been purchased, like a working microSD slot on the Motorola Xoom tablet. Other promises are reneged, like the ability to upgrade to ICS on a Galaxy Tab tablet.
Late next year Microsoft will release a version of their desktop OS that works with capacitive touch, has the sleek Metro UI, runs every app and game available at Best Buy, and hey, Hulu works on a tablet! And this works! And that works! Now, why is it again that I would want this other tablet instead ?
As far as tablets are concerned, Microsoft has declared war. And not against simply Apple and Google they declared war against everybody who have colluded to create closed ecosystems.
And they can't fight that war with their mobile OS.
For the last year and a half, I just assumed it was because Steven Sinofsky was pushing his weight around. After all, lots of ether text has been dedicated to tablets lately, with some pundits stating the desktop PC was dead. Besides, how embarrassing would it be for Sinofsky if Windows were usurped by their mobile OS? While Im confident that some weight was thrown around, I no longer believe that it was done because Sinofsky felt that Windows was threatened by WP7.
I suppose I should first interject that Im a bit of a tech geek. My household also has an iPad 2, a couple of WP7 phones, and theres an iPAQ 3835 sitting in a drawer somewhere among other devices. I had a Windows tablet for a couple of years, back in 2003-2004. There is a dedicated HTPC for each of my three televisions, and I built my own antenna. Almost every computer in my house has been assembled from scratch on the floor of my family room. And now I have an Android-based tablet. So I do have a rather wide swath of experience with different platforms, and am familiar with the major pros and cons of each.
With the release of Windows Phone 7, it was a foregone conclusion that Microsoft had a very capable mobile OS that could quickly and easily get them into the capacitive touch tablet game against Apple and Google and the smaller players. Unlike Windows Tablet Edition, WP7 fully supports capacitive touch, the UI is considered by many gadget gurus as the most elegant of all, it works very well with Office, and Marketplace surpassed 50,000 published applications for WP7 in the first 14 months of availability (in comparison, it took iOS 12 months and Android 19 months to reach the same 50K milestone). Bonus points are that WP7 doesnt constantly drop phone calls, and is still largely devoid of malware.
Apple and Google took operating systems they developed for cell phones and plopped them down on top of tablets. So wouldnt it make sense for Microsoft to do the same thing?
Lets begin with Hulu as the first example: because the Chrome browser supports Adobe Flash, Hulu was one of the first things I tried with my new Galaxy Tab, but playback attempts are met with the message your platform is not supported. I tried changing the UA string to Desktop and also tried using the Skyfire browser nada. Flash is kinda-sorta supported on WP7, but not for something like Hulu. So regardless if you use Android or WP7, you cant use Hulu. If you want to pay a monthly fee, you can watch Hulu on iOS but you aint getting it for free.
Being that the Galaxy Tab is a 4G LTE tablet, I have a 4G LTE subscription in an area that provides 4G LTE service through Verizon Wireless. As you may already know, Verizon has an exclusive partnership with the National Football League to broadcast Sunday, Monday and Thursday Night Football to their wireless customers. This is poignantly advertised during the SNF intro: a leather-clad Faith Hill sings as a crowd of people are walking toward a football stadium entrance, and there is one smiling idiot who obviously prefers to remain outside the stadium and watch the game on a four inch screen.
As a bonus, if you are paying for 4G service there is no additional charge to watch SNF/MNF/TNF on your device. So one of the first things I did with my Galaxy Tab was to install NFL Mobile so I could watch MNF the day after Christmas but it failed to log on. So on Monday afternoon I took my device to a Verizon Wireless store for some help, and was informed that the NFL Mobile service is only supported on their phones: tablets are blocked. Gee, you paid well over $400 for a device and subscribed to 4G service? Too bad, its four inches or nothing, buddy. But thanks for giving us so much money!
I love music. I like Pandora. But on Dec 6, someone at Pandora tweeted that they dont even have plans to develop a WP7 app. But they do support all other mobile operating systems, and their app works fine on our iPad 2 and Galaxy Tab.
And thus, the epic realization: the mobile landscape is heavily fractured and significantly broken. And it was done on purpose. What works for some devices will not work or is not available for other devices. And even things we expect should work for certain devices doesnt work.
And when something doesnt work, what is it specifically that doesnt work?
Content.
Content owners, such as television networks, record labels, movie studios, software companies, newspapers and magazines, etc have been making decisions on who gets what content and how they get it or consume it. And the content owners are making restrictive deals with content providers, probably for a decent chunk of change. And its been going on like this for years now.
You want this particular content? Then you need to buy this particular device and/or use this particular service with this particular application. But this device and/or service wont be able to provide that other piece of particular content or application that you want, so choose your device based on your highest priorities and then go gripe to yourself about the other things that you want but cant have. Or buy that second device.
Ask yourself this question: When was the last time you had this problem on a Windows machine?
Microsoft has been accused repeatedly of dropping the ball on tablets. In actuality, their competitors also have all dropped the mobile ball in one way or another, and Microsoft apparently wants to avoid falling into the same why cant I have this trap with consumers in regards to tablets, a trap that would convince many to buy a competitors tablet.
And if web article comments and forum posts are any indication, a lot of people are getting fed up with the various gotchas when trying to select a device, or after having purchased a device. But beyond the capabilities of the device (or lack thereof) are the promises: some promises come very late after a device has been purchased, like a working microSD slot on the Motorola Xoom tablet. Other promises are reneged, like the ability to upgrade to ICS on a Galaxy Tab tablet.
Late next year Microsoft will release a version of their desktop OS that works with capacitive touch, has the sleek Metro UI, runs every app and game available at Best Buy, and hey, Hulu works on a tablet! And this works! And that works! Now, why is it again that I would want this other tablet instead ?
As far as tablets are concerned, Microsoft has declared war. And not against simply Apple and Google they declared war against everybody who have colluded to create closed ecosystems.
And they can't fight that war with their mobile OS.
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