If you follow this site and my rantings you’d know that while I love to poke fun at all companies, I’m honestly not biased, unless it comes to BlackBerry, which I just can’t stand, but I do hope that BlackBerry 10 will change that. On a daily basis, I use an iPhone for my personal device and an Android device for business. I own an new iPad and a Nexus 7, but I also own a Samsung Focus S because I love Windows Phone too. In fact, I enjoy Windows Phone so much, that I created WP-Life.com, a Windows Phone community for news, reviews and editorials on all things Windows Phone. I really do believe that Windows Phone is a great OS, it’s smooth, it’s unique and with a company like Nokia designing phones based on the OS, they’re not to bad on the eyes either.
But here’s the problem that Windows Phone is saddled with, it is trying to appeal to a group of people who have already devoted so much time and money into other ecosystems, that their extremely familiar with and are more or less, afraid to leave. I look at it like this, Apple’s iOS is like Peanut Butter and Android is like Jelly, people love both and they are used in tons of different ways, but if you combine them in a jar and put it up for sale… it doesn’t really appeal to many people.
Sure millions of people love Peanut Butter and Jelly sandwiches, but people are so used to buying those two ingredients separately and mixing them together to make their sandwich, for whatever reason, convincing people that buying “Goober” Grape is easier and tastes the same… just doesn’t work. While some people may give it a shot, the majority would rather stick to buying the ingredients separately. Why? Because they are comfortable in what they know, sure mixing two spreads is more work, but if it works why change?
Windows Phone is great mixture of iOS and Android, it’s simple to use like the iPhone and like Android, Windows Phone 8 can utilize powerful dual core processors, feature large HD displays and allow users to expand its memory. So why hasn’t it taken off as the best of both worlds, probably the same reason “Goober Grape” isn’t the choice of “Choosey Moms,” if it does the same thing as the smartphones that most people are already use, but requires them to give up their ecosystem—or things they’re use too— it won’t work.
Windows Phone also sort of falls into that category of “A Jack of all trades, but a master of none.” Take the latest Nokia Lumia 920 for example, it claims to have the best camera on the market, yet it’s not even out yet. We don’t know when it will, or what carrier it will be on (probably an AT&T exclusive) or how much it will cost. In one week, Apple will reveal their new iPhone, presumably with an even better camera system than the 4S, which still leads the pack. If people can get the iPhone 5 in two weeks—and not two months—on three of the four largest carriers in US, with an even better camera and still retain all their apps, contacts and ecosystem… why leave for Windows Phone? Here’s another example, Windows Phone now supports HD displays, but those have already been available on Android devices since last year. The Lumia 920 will feature an HD display with a resolution of 1280×768, but HTC is on the verge of delivering the first device with a 1080p display. Windows Phone and at this point Nokia, are being out paced because they continue to try to be the in between device to the iPhone and Android, at least to the consumers.
Again, I love the Windows Phone OS and won’t give up on it. I’m really impressed with all the work Microsoft put into it, but it’s beginning to look like a novelty, a good attempt that will no doubt appeal to some, but like Goober Grape, it’ll may never appeal to the mass market, instead it will remain on the store shelves and continue to watch people buy peanut butter and jelly.