Monday, March 28, 2011

Windows Phone 7: We Join This Developers' Rebellion Already in Progress

Some of Microsoft's early Windows Phone 7 adopters are on the warpath. At least that's my take, gauging rom the reaction to a cheery announcement by the company's Phone VP. Joe Belfiore glibly informed developers and users that long-delayed updates are still not formally scheduled for release. A few of the hundreds of uniformly negative comments typify the frustration of users and developers alike.

This has gotten to the point where it's like watching a reality TV show, about some washed up star with major life issues. The problem is I've been IN EVERY EPISODE, not watching from the outside shaking my head. Tell me Maury, is it my kid, please don't let it be my kid....DAMN it's my kid and it's gonna cost me 2 years of my life!

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Let me get this straight, to help answer when I will be getting my update you kindly created a resource called "Where's my phone update" that states the update is in "Stage 1: Testing" for an undetermined amount of time, "Stage 2: Scheduling" which should be less than ten days, then onto "Stage 3: Delivering update" which might take several weeks. So let me check my math:

Undetermined number of days + Less then 10 days + several weeks = No closer to knowing when I will receive the update than before the helpful table was posted.

The only thing I get from the table is that I have 8 days left in March and that I will not be seeing the update this month. Oh wait, my bad, you never said March of what year. I bet I see the update March of 2012, what a fool I was, it is all so clear now.

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This is no way to treat your customers. This is my last foray into the WP7 world and its been a couple of months now that I've been recommending the iPhone or Android. As a platform it's nice but it needs fixing. I got into the platform for its potential and not for its initial state. But it seems that it's going to stay in its intial state for too long.

Great job of showing the love to the early adopters.

One wag published his own knockoff of the ultra-informative "Where's my phone update?":

Windows Phone 7 started off with a lot of positive buzz and a groundswell among developers that perhaps Microsoft was finally "getting it." Unless they regroup lickety-split, they risk burning a hell of a lot of bridges.


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