With this week’s North American debut of the Windows Phone 7 we decided to dive into the Microsoft vs Apple fray and see how Windows Phone 7 is going to stack up with iOS 4 (Full disclosure: Retrevo was selected by Microsoft to be a BizSpark One partner). Since its 2007 release the iPhone has dominated the smartphone market – recently its supremacy has been challenged by the Android OS, and now Microsoft is going to do its best to snatch some of that market-share as well. To have any hope of doing so however, Microsoft has to be able to offer something new or innovative to consumers. In that vein, here are a few things WP7 does that the iPhone does not.
#1 - No More Leaving
Your Avatar at Home
XBOX Live: Is this really important enough to be #1, you ask. Well, it’s my list and this alone might be enough to tear me away from my beloved BlackBerry. Productivity levels may plummet, but happiness levels will soar.
Microsoft already has a huge customer base they could potentially tap into if they execute this right, and so far reviews agree that the gaming experience has been exquisitely integrated into this phone. Travel between console and phone is seamless - you can pick up games where you left off on either device; message friends, view invites, leader-boards, and achievements. Even more impressive, the gaming experience is tight and responsive, the graphics crisp. Then there is your Avatar, who appears on your phone fully rendered with customization, and who cleverly interacts with the rest of your phone through normally staid apps, like flashlight and ruler. There are about sixty game titles that the phone will be launching with, including many familiar names - Halo, Guitar Hero, Crackdown, Star Wars, Sims 3, Need for Speed, to name a few.
#2 – Never Misspell ‘Onomatopoeia’ Again
MS Office: The other major delineation is WP7’s full Office integration. OneNote, email, calendar, PowerPoint, Excel and Word are all available in the Office Hub. You can pull files from either your phone or the cloud, view an outline of the document for easy navigation, perform basic edits to all file types, and save them. The email (Outlook, Yahoo, Gmail, etc.) and calendar applications communicate with each other automatically to schedule, and identify conflicts. One of the more surprising aspects missing from the phone is copy/paste. While Microsoft says it will be coming in an early 2011 update, it is going to hugely impact Office productivity in the meantime.
#3 – Feeding your Insatiable
Facebook Appetite
Hubs: There are 6 Hubs on the WP7 – People, Pictures, Games, Music+Video, Marketplace, and Office. There was a debate as to whether this should make the list – after all there’s nothing here that the iPhone doesn’t also do. How the phone organizes this information on the other hand, is quite different. Take the People Hub as an example: it is both a contact list and a social networking tool in one. Rather than simply seeing your friend’s phone numbers or email addresses, People aggregates their information from separate sources and keeps a constant stream of information. So you no longer have to launch separate social networking apps to see your friends latest status updates or to update your own information. The organization of these Hubs makes me feel a teeny bit better about the phone’s egregious lack of multi-tasking capabilities, not that it isn’t still an unforgivable lapse on the part of Microsoft, especially in light of the recent release of iOS 4.
#4 – For Those of You Who Want to See the Other 50% of Web Video Content
Flash: There’s not a lot to editorialize on this one: the WP7 will fully support Flash 10.1, iPhone does not.
#5 – Making You Even More
Ridiculously Efficient Information Stream: Not only do you have the ability to “pin” whatever you like to your home-screen, but the applications there will continuously update. Example: the unlock screen has calendar and event data on it, making it easy to see what is coming up in your day without having to launch an application. Similarly, if you have favorite people pinned to the home-screen, you can see all their latest social networking updates.
#6 – What’s a Nice
QWERTY Like You Doing in a
Place Like This?
Real Keyboards: While this feature certainly isn’t overwhelming, it is maybe more significant than people realize. Personally, I could not function without a physical QWERTY keyboard, and if WP7 didn’t have one I would never even consider it (despite my adolescent yearning for the Xbox Live App). I guarantee I’m not alone in this. Because Microsoft doesn’t control hardware design the way Apple does, there are quite a few different phone models that will be running Win 7, several with both on-screen and physical keyboards.
#7 - Wait, what?
I Can Make Phone Calls too!?
Multiple Carriers: Yes, it’s at the bottom of the list, but don’t let that fool you. WP7 does not have an exclusive contract with AT&T. ‘Nuff said.
Goldfinger was the first film to really utilize technology in the James Bond films. Since then the gadgetry has become more elaborate, sometimes ridiculously so, but also an inherent aspect of the franchise. Most of the gadgets featured in the movies don’t exist in real life - and if they do the government certainly isn’t admitting to them! Emulating 007 isn’t as hard as you would expect however – here we’ve assembled a list of real life (though not necessarily real affordable) gadgets straight out of Q’s workshop.
LG GD910 Phone Though officially classified as a phone, this little technological beauty is actually worn on your wrist, with a touch screen interface that lets you access its many features (only one of which is keeping time). Not only does the watch act as a fabulous accessory, but with built in Bluetooth, voice recognition and a camera, the only thing it doesn’t have is a laser-beam to enable you to escape from 006’s ICBM train. Video conferencing with M whilst hiding under a tenuously balanced piece of wood and being shot at by international terrorists has never been easier.
Invisibility Cloak For obvious reasons we haven’t got a picture of the Invisibility Cloak, so you’ll have to settle for the Aston.
As a dedicated Bond fan, even I was somewhat bemused by the invisible car in Die Another Day. The writers seemed to have finally crossed the threshold of plausible suspension-of-disbelief.
I stand corrected.
German scientists scientists have successfully created a structure that bends light around an object, rendering it unseen by the naked eye. Interestingly, this is not dissimilar from Q’s own explanation of how he created the invisible Aston Martin Vanquish in Die Another Day. Thus far the invisibility cloak is limited to micro-scale objects from near-infrared wavelengths, but the researchers believe there is nothing in theory to prevent the research from applying to larger-scale objects – say perhaps a sporty British racing vehicle?
Electric Shock Briefcase
I think I might be a bit horrified that this is available on the open market for any lunatic crackpot to buy.
I must have one.
By day your average, quite boring looking leather briefcase; but with the added benefit of what the manufactures call “anti-loss-proof.” Aside from the grammatical perplexity of such a statement, their method of anti-loss-proofing an object is to charge it up with over 30kV of electricity. In addition to a handy storage device, when you order one of these you also get a remote that will activate either an 85db alarm or an electric shock, or both.
Spycam Glasses I’m not sure how genuinely unobtrusive these would be, but they certainly get the job done. They shoot video, take stills and even play MP3’s so you can play your own personal theme song rather than just humming (don’t deny it) as you snap photos of unsuspecting enemies.
Roger Moore’s Shark Hunter Submarine’s feature prominently in the plot of The Spy Who Loved Me – most famous is the Lotus Esprit that can travel on land and in sea (we’ll get to that in a moment) but also featured in a chase scene was the yellow Shark Hunter sub. Personal submarine technology has come a long way since 1977. This carbon-fiber Deep Flight Merlin can glide along the ocean surface like an airplane before diving up to 130 feet. The sub incorporates fighter jet technology, is hydrobatic (which means exactly what you think it does) and controlled with a joystick. Though let’s give credit where credit is due, Shark Hunter is an infinitely better name.
sQuba Even though it’s technically just a concept car, I couldn’t resist adding the sQuba to the list. Though for a cool $750,000 Swiss company Rinspeed will build it for you. Oh, go on, what is your children’s college education compared to an aquatic car?
“Wet Nellie”, Roger Moore’s Lotus Esprit in The Spy Who Loved Me, is arguably the best Bond car. Ever. That’s right; I said it – better than the DB5.
The designer of the sQuba was actually inspired by the Esprit in the film. It submerges to a depth of 10 meters, and rather than driving along the bottom of the sea, it propels forward with two jets. When all is said and done, as undeniably cool as the sQuba is, I think I’d still take the Esprit any day.
Jetpack Left: Sean Connery as James Bond in Thunderball
Right: Martin Jetpack, available commercially in 2011/12 for an estimated $100,000
Bond has had some pretty spectacular vehicles in his career, and the jetpack in Thunderball was always one of the more outlandish. 45 years later however, a New Zealand based company is in the final stages of making the world’s first practical jetpack commercially available. It consists of a gasoline engine that drives twin ducted fans, which lift you in vertical takeoff. It is capable of reaching heights of about 1.5 miles and can travel up 62mph.
The Blaster
While 007 has used many flamethrowers in his career, I’m pretty sure there was never one installed in one of his cars. This is an oversight the South Africans have corrected, by inventing the succinctly named The Blaster. (Interesting factoid - owning flamethrowers is completely legal and unrestricted in South Africa. It’s almost enough reason to overlook the profound civil unrest and move there.) The Blaster is a liquefied petroleum gas flamethrower that is installed along the sides of the vehicle under the doors and ignited when the driver presses a foot pedal. I think the hazards of that particular set-up speak for themselves.
With this week’s North American debut of the Windows Phone 7 we decided to dive into the Microsoft vs Apple fray and see how Windows Phone 7 is going to stack up with iOS 4 (Full disclosure: Retrevo was selected by Microsoft to be a BizSpark One partner). Since its 2007 release the iPhone has dominated the smartphone market – recently its supremacy has been challenged by the Android OS, and now Microsoft is going to do its best to snatch some of that market-share as well. To have any hope of doing so however, Microsoft has to be able to offer something new or innovative to consumers. In that vein, here are a few things WP7 does that the iPhone does not.
Hubs: There are 6 Hubs on the WP7 – People, Pictures, Games, Music+Video, Marketplace, and Office. There was a debate as to whether this should make the list – after all there’s nothing here that the iPhone doesn’t also do. How the phone organizes this information on the other hand, is quite different. Take the People Hub as an example: it is both a contact list and a social networking tool in one. Rather than simply seeing your friend’s phone numbers or email addresses, People aggregates their information from separate sources and keeps a constant stream of information. So you no longer have to launch separate social networking apps to see your friends latest status updates or to update your own information. The organization of these Hubs makes me feel a teeny bit better about the phone’s egregious lack of multi-tasking capabilities, not that it isn’t still an unforgivable lapse on the part of Microsoft, especially in light of the recent release of iOS 4.
For obvious reasons we haven’t got a picture of the Invisibility Cloak, so you’ll have to settle for the Aston.
Electric Shock Briefcase
I’m not sure how genuinely unobtrusive these would be, but they certainly get the job done. They shoot video, take stills and even play MP3’s so you can play your own personal theme song rather than just humming (don’t deny it) as you snap photos of unsuspecting enemies.
Submarine’s feature prominently in the plot of The Spy Who Loved Me – most famous is the Lotus Esprit that can travel on land and in sea (we’ll get to that in a moment) but also featured in a chase scene was the yellow Shark Hunter sub. Personal submarine technology has come a long way since 1977. This carbon-fiber Deep Flight Merlin can glide along the ocean surface like an airplane before diving up to 130 feet. The sub incorporates fighter jet technology, is hydrobatic (which means exactly what you think it does) and controlled with a joystick. Though let’s give credit where credit is due, Shark Hunter is an infinitely better name.
Even though it’s technically just a concept car, I couldn’t resist adding the sQuba to the list. Though for a cool $750,000 Swiss company Rinspeed will build it for you. Oh, go on, what is your children’s college education compared to an aquatic car?
Jetpack
The Blaster