>We kicked the comparisons off with Windows Phone 7 vs Android. Next up? Apple's venerable iOS, or the artist formerly known as iPhone OS. How does Microsoft’s latest mobile incarnation stack up against the mobile platform that shook up the game about three years ago?
Here’s how:
1. It's Alive
Windows Phone 7 brings information to your lock and home screens by way of its “live tiles” and notifications bar. Apple’s iOS gives you little numbers on icons and “Stop Everything!” notifications panes, but it can’t really stack up to WP7’s dynamic, colorful, customizable system for at-a-glance updates. And then there’s Xbox Live, which had darned well better kick iOS’ “Game Center” right in the pants, lest Microsoft lose all credibility in the gaming community.
2. It Comes in Multiple Form Factors
Some people like touchscreens, others like keyboards. Some like sliders, others like slabs. Apple offers one iPhone form factor: the full-touch slab. Microsoft and its partners have announced ten WP7 phones for its initial launch, including touch-only phones in a few sizes, touchscreen phones with slide-out QWERTY boards, and even the faux-ghetto blaster HTC Surround with its slide-out speakers. Variety, they say, is the spice of smartphones.
3. It’s Got Office Hub
All Windows Phone 7 devices will ship with a mobile version of Microsoft Office that features Sharepoint support. Office and Sharepoint, along with the obligatory Exchange support, promise a level of Enterprise-class utility for WP7 users that iOS simply can’t match—even with third-party business software like DropBox, Google Apps, and QuickOffice.
4. It’s Got Hardware Camera Buttons
This is a standard attribute of all WP7 devices. Love it.
5. It Supports Zune Pass
Yes, iTunes is the current Gold Standard in digital music stores. And yes, iOS users have their choice of subscription-based music apps including MOG and Rdio. But Zune Pass gives you more for your $10 per month than any iOS app does simply by allowing you to sync music across your mobile and desktop/laptop devices. That’s our biggest complaint with MOG: there’s no way to sync iOS tunes to a laptop.
6. It Syncs Contacts Across Social Networks
Set up a Windows Phone 7 device and sync it to your Facebook and/or Google accounts. Lookie there, on the home screen! It’s a live tile with rotating photos of your contacts! Drill down to the People hub and you’ve got names and photos and contact info and social networking updates right there on your phone. We know, we know. All modern smartphone OSes do this…oh, wait, not all of them do. Apple’s iOS doesn’t.
7. It Works on Mutliple Carriers in the U.S.
Yeah, the Verizon iPhone rumors are hotter than ever. But that doesn’t change the current reality of using an iPhone in the United States; It’s AT&T or bust. WP7 will launch on AT&T and T-Mobile in the US, with the HTC 7 Pro set to hit Sprint early next year.
Okay, now let's take a look at the other side of the coin:
1. It can’t…
WP7 can't cut and paste, play Flash/HTML 5/Silverlight videos, unify your inbox, show threaded email or do a bunch of other things iOS can. To be honest, Windows Phone 7 launches with a “can’t” list that more or less mimics the one iOS launched with. Problem is, the original iPhone hit three-plus years ago and brought a ton of revolutions with it. Microsoft has a bunch of catch-up work to do. Immediately.
2. It Lacks iOS’ Ecosystem
Love it or hate it, the iTunes/App Store ecosystem rules when it comes to mindshare and revenue. Add to that the enormous “Made for iPhone” cottage industry of cases, speaker docks and earphones, and you’ve got a full-blown mobile way of life that exists in Apple’s real and virtual stores across the globe. You know Microsoft aspires to such heights with WP7, but can they get even half of the way there?
3. It Won’t Have Many Apps
The handful of WP7 apps I’ve seen thus far have been gorgeous; Microsoft did a great job of insuring that third party devs adhere to WP7’s overall look and feel in designing apps. Thing is, iOS offers literally hundreds of thousands of options in its App Store. That’s a big, bad number to stack up against.
4. It's Version 1
Get ready for bugs. Get ready to wait for features your friends already have. Get ready to wait for v2.0. (Yes, I copied this from my WP7-vs-Android article, but hey, it bears repeating.)
5. It Has Already Lost a Ton of Loyal Users to Apple (and Google, and RIM)
Microsoft lost a ton of its smartphone install base since announcing the death of Windows Mobile and the subsequent birth of Windows Phone. The latest figures from Canalys give MSFT a mere 3.0% share of the global smartphone market. While all of those old WM 6.x users certainly didn’t migrate to iOS, it stands to reason that a bunch of them are gone today. No matter if they fled for Apple, Google or RIM – they left Windows. The big question is whether or not Microsoft can win them back, no matter how good WP 7 turns out to be.
