As we head into the end of 2011, questions remain about Windows 8 and Windows Phone. And the answers to those questions aren't necessarily what you were expecting.
The Windows 8 Paradox
As I write this, it's been over a month since Microsoft unveiled Windows 8 at its epic BUILD Conference in Anaheim, California. Since then, I've tried to spend as much time as I can in the new OS, not just via the Samsung tablet that Microsoft loaned me at the show, but on as many of my own PCs as possible. It's been a bit difficult, frankly. And the difficulties I'm seeing are echoed in a growing cacophony of online complaints from power users around the world.
They're all very misguided.
Here's why: When Microsoft shipped the Windows 8 Developer Preview in September, it did so to provide developers with a way to start investigating the new Windows runtime, WinRT, and the new Metro-style apps that they could create for this environment. But the Developer Preview isn't complete.
Yes, it ships with a variety of intern-created sample apps, but all of those are fairly basic, leading to unwarranted criticism that this new environment, as denoted by the Windows 8 Start screen and the apps that run within, is a sort of overly-simplistic experience, and that the computing world of the future will be defined by a two-tier user experience: The Fisher-Price world of the Start screen and the more powerful and refined world of the legacy Windows desktop.
Folks, it's not true. As Microsoft has explained-but, admittedly, not ably demonstrated-WinRT is a fully-capable and rich app environment that lends itself equally well to complex applications like Microsoft Office, Adobe Photoshop, and modern 3D video games, as it does to simple weather and Twitter apps.
The problem is, none of those apps exist today. So people who run the Developer Preview on their own machines are forced to switch back and forth between the future (the Start screen and a handful of simple apps) and the past (the desktop and the huge canon of existing Windows applications).
And naturally, they find the future lacking. That's because there aren't any useful apps there.
Yet.
Here's what's going to happen: Microsoft very specifically offered the Windows 8 Developer Preview first so that developers could begin hacking away at the system. And the result is going to be a wellspring of new Metro-style apps that beta testers will be able to download from the Windows Store, which will open in the coming months, well before Windows 8 ships publicly.
(Secondarily, it was a way to get feedback from the power users who would install this pre-beta build regardless of the warnings. But that need was absolutely secondary: Microsoft is already well aware of the shortcomings of the new environment as it exists in the Developer Preview and many of the fixes it will implement are already well under way. Many users will incorrectly assume the company was listening to feedback and fixing issues they found. This is not the case for many of these issues.)
One can logically expect that the Windows 8 user experience will improve in leaps and bounds as Microsoft and numerous third parties race to fill in the gaps between now and the release of Windows 8. Beta testers, with early access to the Windows Store, will be able to download (and buy) numerous Metro-style apps during this time, and as developers get more comfortable with WinRT and its unique abilities, the quality and comprehensiveness of those apps will increase as well.
By the time Windows 8 does ship, the store will be well-stocked and developers will be well on their way to mastering the intricacies of this new environment. So users won't be starting with an empty store and a two-tier experience. Many of them will simply use only Metro-style apps and ignore the legacy desktop all together.
I'm also hearing rumors that some of Microsoft's PC maker partners may ship in the first half of 2012 Windows 8-capable tablet computing devices that come with Windows 7. These devices would offer a free Windows 8 upgrade so that users could get the new system as soon as it's released.
This, I think, is a great idea. It lets Microsoft sort-of answer the questions about its delayed response to the iPad, and it provides users with a decent PC tablet experience today with the promise of an excellent, Windows 8-based experience just a few months down the road.
Will it happen? Stay tuned: I think the Consumer Electronics Show in January 2012 is the ideal time and place to announce such a plan.
Either way, the important thing to note is that the Windows 8 experience of mid-to-late 2012 isn't going to resemble today's experience at all. And while so-called power users continue complaining about the Start screen and the Metro-style apps, it's important to remember that this first Developer Preview isn't for them, it's for developers.
And things are going to improve dramatically. Wait for it.
With Lackluster iPhone Upgrade, Hopes for a Mobile Market Reshuffling
Microsoft already makes the best smartphone OS in Windows Phone-it's just that few potential customers realize it.
So heading into the 2011 holiday season, Microsoft and its supporters pinned their hopes on a few things, including the release of Windows Phone 7.5 (excellent, but unlikely to sway the doubters), a new marketing campaign that will provide much-needed incentives to wireless carrier store employees (so they can temporarily stop mindlessly promoting Android to customers), a handful of new devices from existing partners (none of which, frankly, will make much of a difference at all), and of course, everyone's favorite wildcard, Nokia, which promises to unleash a new family of quite-excellent Windows Phone 7.5 handsets by the end of the year. (I'll have more on Nokia's offerings next month.)
But then some unexpected help came from an unlikely source: Apple. And now, it's possible that everything is about to change.
Stepping back for a moment, let's recall that both Gartner and IDC inexplicably claimed earlier this year that Windows Phone would surpass Apple's iPhone as the number-two smartphone platform behind Google Android by 2015. With Windows Phone languishing in the low single digits from a market share perspective, these predictions seemed, at the time, laughable.
And I argued then, as I do now, that all Microsoft really had to do for the OS to be successful was to establish Windows Phone as one of the top three smartphone platforms. After all, the mobile market is growing at such speed that there's plenty of new users to go around.