How can Windows Phone 10 make a splash with consumers?

[runamuck83]

What would your opinion be on ways Microsoft can truly make a "splash" in the consumer consciousness with Windows Phone 10 when it is announced/released?

Examples:

• Should they announce new flagships and heavily advertise integration between device types via Win10?
• Should they announce new phones and new app partnerships? (Potentially Snapchat, or some other "super apps"?)
• Should they just focus on advertising Windows 10 as a whole and showcase people using Windows phones in between their Windows 10?
• Should they focus on targeting business users soley for Win Phone 10 and hope it spreads to general consumers from there?

Just curious how you think they should go about this. It's clear that WinPhone10 needs a shot of adrenaline to take off from the basement of where WinPhone8 lives today.

 

[OwenDL]

Advertising. Lots and lots of advertising. And in the advertising, show examples of the cross-device support that Windows 10 will offer. They need to take the most notable, innovative things from Windows 10 and shove it in the worlds face. They need to show people a new, sleek looking device with a new, innovative and appealing OS.

I'm not going to lie, the iPhone 6 is a sleek, smooth device. It's handsome, to put it mildly. I like my Icon, I care more about how the device performs than how it looks, but if they really want people to look into windows 10, they need to wow people and make them think ' Wow, that's a really good looking phone, and I really like to interface. I should look into that.). I think Windows Phone 10 is going to be great, but you have to have a combination of looks and performance if you want to really pique interest.

That being said I look forward to the new phone they'll be releasing (likely) with Windows 10. Hopefully it'll make a big enough impact to make people really interested. But at the end of the day, if someone came along and made a phone better in literally every way than the iPhone 6, it wouldn't matter unless it is advertised. They need to have TV commercials on every big channel, billboards in big cities, etc. Windows 10 is going to be big, and they need to get it recognized.

 

[jmshub]

After the relative disappointment that was Windows Vista, Windows 7 came in like a savior and was highly anticipated before release, and celebrated when it was released. So far, Windows 10 seems to be on the same path. Right or wrong, there was a stigma attached to Windows 8 that it was never able to shake, even as it was greatly improved with 8.1 and Update 1. Windows 10 preview is being used by downloaded and used by many, and talked about a lot. I think there will already be an anticipation factor with Windows 10. If Microsoft pushes new devices, like a new Surface, new phones, or more importantly in this case, if Microsoft can have HoloLens sets available in Best Buy and Microsoft stores to demonstrate at the same time, they could incite Apple-esque levels of excitement around launch.

 

[kklemn]

i agree.. they would need to show:
-new lumia flagship
-new surface phone (since lumia is suposed to be plastic) that would be fancy looking, expensive, desirable
-new surface pro
-show how connected the pc and the phone can be
-show how great it is to do business work from both PC and phone with windows (we'd need USB OTG and keyboard support for that - imagine outlook on phone and typing a nice email in a coffee-shop or at dining table while attaching photos from usb)
-heavy marketing, and deals NOT US EXCLUSIVE! MS is faaaaar more liked in Europe than in US. with almost 10% share in some countries. i haven't seen a single commercial for windows phone on radio or TV (except those made from carriers for nokia - and there were not much of them). if MS invested 25% of what they did in USA for EU it would be a different outcome. because most people here dislike apple, and are getting sick of android.

 

[runamuck83]

Yea

 

[peachy001]

They need to have the top 25 apps from ios and Android, and they need to be as good as them. I cannot ever understand why MS cannot literally employ some developers to actually work with the companies that we need onboard. If a particular app producer (top 25) cannot justify spending cash on Windows Phone app development, then MS should step up.

Also, some decent looking phones, with great specs.

They also need to highlight the benefits of the ecosystem, ie Xbox, PC, laptop, tablets.

Lastly, the need quality advertising, not the lame rubbish they usually put out. Something like the recent surface add.

 

[AluminiumRims]

Content is king and the Windows Phone OS is lacking a lot of features found in competitors. If Microsoft doesn't fix that it doesn't matter if they come with a flagship phone. What's the point of having really powerful hardware if the OS can't take advantage of it.

 

[runamuck83]

Content is king and the Windows Phone OS is lacking a lot of features found in competitors. If Microsoft doesn't fix that it doesn't matter if they come with a flagship phone. What's the point of having really powerful hardware if the OS can't take advantage of it.

I don't see this being an issue with Win10

 

[tiziano27]

The should make the OS as similar as possible to Android, but better. A lighter OS with longer battery life, more control over the apps to ensure performance and security.

They should add support for Android apps but not as a widespread solution. They should cherry pick the most popular apps that aren't in the platform and are blocking sales. They could give developers two years to develop a native app, after that, the Android app is removed from the store.

The browser, Spartan, has to follow webkit adding all the non-standard behaviors. It has to be a better webkit than webkit.

The should allow customization of the OS, the OEMs need to differentiate their products. OEMs should get the OS for free and receive part of the revenue of Microsoft's services sold through the device.

 

[Wen Wong]

what MS really should do is redesign the home pages style, mainly the 'tiles', you will never beat IOS or android( specailly android) with this , every phone look exactly alike no matter what company, somehow they have to come up with something like the others while you can set BG pic in the back, that consumer's first encountence with the phone is the beautiful picture while they can access to the apps at the same time.

but don't take me wrong, I do like the tiles and I like the live tiles, but as also a part artist myself, the current homepage is very uninspiring and even corny , I would even say no young ladies would like a phone like WP phone ( may be i'm wrong but on fashion market, they're pretty much the boss ) .

 

[plot_almighty]

The should make the OS as similar as possible to Android, but better. A lighter OS with longer battery life, more control over the apps to ensure performance and security.

They should add support for Android apps but not as a widespread solution. They should cherry pick the most popular apps that aren't in the platform and are blocking sales. They could give developers two years to develop a native app, after that, the Android app is removed from the store.

The browser, Spartan, has to follow webkit adding all the non-standard behaviors. It has to be a better webkit than webkit.

The should allow customization of the OS, the OEMs need to differentiate their products. OEMs should get the OS for free and receive part of the revenue of Microsoft's services sold through the device.

Everything you just said would give next to no one any reason to choose WP over Android. There's exactly as much customization needed right now, and going over that risks the melting pot that Android morphed into. There's a reason Google introduced Material Design.

All apps right now are sandboxed in WP, plus the performance is already there. There's already a rule in place that gives developers half a year to a year to update their apps or be pulled by MS. They're also giving developers incentive with the Universal App idea. Develop for Windows, which owns 90%+ of the desktop market and have it work on WP in the process? THATS incentive.

Differentiating in the OS is plain lazy. OEMs want to differentiate in WP? Offer some kick *** hardware. The market is there for it. Listen to damn near every user here.

Your train of thought, while I'm sure is well intentioned, follows the Google school of thinking. A completed ecosystem will be a bigger selling point than using Android tactics.

 

[jedpatrickdatu]

Microsoft should emphasize Windows 10's "can run on anything" feature in their ads. That aspect alone is very attention-grabbing.

They should also show that the old Windows 7-style desktop is back. I heard a lot of people complaining about the desktop-start screen jumble in Windows 8 and how they prefer to have just the Windows 7 desktop.

Of course, they should also have lots and lots of marketing.

 

[Jazmac]

IMO, it has to lead with his left then throw the hardest right jab it knows how to. That is Cortana must be indisputably fantastic and not some child's toy. It has to be the center of most communications on the device and it has to have the top 10 3rd party apps contributing to it and most of its core business functions interacting with it. It can't be on display doing weak stuff like the post on the main board.

What would truly be impressive is that Cortana not only be able to send documents but remember the names of the document and to whom I sent them. Not to mention when I sent those documents by voice request. This goes for email and text messages as well. It has to be shown doing these kinds of things and not so much stuff like in this video. If this is to be an assistant, lets not twerk the perimeter of an assistant, go the hell on in. From the video, I'm doing 80 percent of the work. And the speed at which it is presented, it just looks "cute". It doesn't show its power and it has to or why would I have a NEED to have it?

 

[tiziano27]

Everything you just said would give next to no one any reason to choose WP over Android. There's exactly as much customization needed right now, and going over that risks the melting pot that Android morphed into. There's a reason Google introduced Material Design.

All apps right now are sandboxed in WP, plus the performance is already there. There's already a rule in place that gives developers half a year to a year to update their apps or be pulled by MS. They're also giving developers incentive with the Universal App idea. Develop for Windows, which owns 90%+ of the desktop market and have it work on WP in the process? THATS incentive.

Differentiating in the OS is plain lazy. OEMs want to differentiate in WP? Offer some kick *** hardware. The market is there for it. Listen to damn near every user here.

Your train of thought, while I'm sure is well intentioned, follows the Google school of thinking. A completed ecosystem will be a bigger selling point than using Android tactics.

Performance in WP is horrible. The "loading.." screen is frequently seen in low end devices.
The launcher is one of the causes of the awful performance. Live tiles take CPU, GPU and power. A grid of icons would be more efficient.
Live tiles are a failure in phones because the battery constraint make impossible to update the information often, tiles are most of the time showing stale data. Because of the space constraint the text in the tiles is directly over the background image, so It's hard to read. Tiles introduce usability problems, It's difficult to find the apps if the images are always changing and the text is hard to read.

Universal apps won't help with snapchat, bank apps and many others. In fact, It could take years before Universal apps have any impact in the store.

It's impossible to differentiate a product with hardware, It's a commoditized good. OEMs need other means to differentiate their products or they won't adopt the platform.

Compare the changes I suggested with the current situation:
A fast browser that renders the pages correctly vs. IE.
Standard grid of icons vs. Failed live tiles that nobody wants
Great UI like material design vs. Horrible Metro UI that nobody wants
Good performance vs. Horrible performance
All the popular apps vs. Big holes
Many OEMs promoting the phones vs. The weak Microsoft brand alone against the world.

WP is an inferior product in its current form, many changes should be introduced.

 

[Piyush Jain3]

Performance in WP is horrible. The "loading.." screen is frequently seen in low end devices.
The launcher is one of the causes of the awful performance. Live tiles take CPU, GPU and power. A grid of icons would be more efficient.
Live tiles are a failure in phones because the battery constraint make impossible to update the information often, tiles are most of the time showing stale data. Because of the space constraint the text in the tiles is directly over the background image, so It's hard to read. Tiles introduce usability problems, It's difficult to find the apps if the images are always changing and the text is hard to read.

Universal apps won't help with snapchat, bank apps and many others. In fact, It could take years before Universal apps have any impact in the store.

It's impossible to differentiate a product with hardware, It's a commoditized good. OEMs need other means to differentiate their products or they won't adopt the platform.

Compare the changes I suggested with the current situation:
A fast browser that renders the pages correctly vs. IE.
Standard grid of icons vs. Failed live tiles that nobody wants
Great UI like material design vs. Horrible Metro UI that nobody wants
Good performance vs. Horrible performance
All the popular apps vs. Big holes
Many OEMs promoting the phones vs. The weak Microsoft brand alone against the world.

WP is an inferior product in its current form, many changes should be introduced.

May be according to you... But as far as I know more than 90% of WP users chose this platform because of live tile... Otherwise why would anyone chose it, if it will look like exactly android or iOS... Live tiles are the most beautiful thing on WP.... Why the hell you would want it to be removed?... And then why will anyone chose this platform!

 

[tiziano27]

May be according to you... But as far as I know more than 90% of WP users chose this platform because of live tile... Otherwise why would anyone chose it, if it will look like exactly android or iOS... Live tiles are the most beautiful thing on WP.... Why the hell you would want it to be removed?... And then why will anyone chose this platform!

Live tiles that don't work properly shouldn't be the reason to buy the product.
I think WP would sell more with a grid of icons. Specially in the low-end segment, the only segment in which the platform is competitive.

 

[FinancialP]

I've given up on the splash with consumers part. It's never going to happen.

The apps in the store are pathetic but get the job done sometimes.

The resuming screen is frustrating but I live with it.

Cortana is OK, not the savior people around here would lead people to believe.

I've learned to just enjoy my phone. Don't care about the market share.

As the proverbial splash or the year of Windows Phones has been coming each year since 2010.

Who exactly are we joking to or lying to? Let's face the facts.

 

[Piyush Jain3]

Live tiles that don't work properly shouldn't be the reason to buy the product.
I think WP would sell more with a grid of icons. Specially in the low-end segment, the only segment in which the platform is competitive.

I then would like to know from you why will anyone buy a WP in such a competitive market... How does WP standout... Because android one is very great and very fluid when it comes to low budget phone... Why will anyone buy windows phone? If it weren't for live tiles... M talking about large consumer base...

 

[tiziano27]

I then would like to know from you why will anyone buy a WP in such a competitive market... How does WP standout... Because android one is very great and very fluid when it comes to low budget phone... Why will anyone buy windows phone? If it weren't for live tiles... M talking about large consumer base...

WP would have better performance, longer battery life, a great UI, most of the popular apps, Microsoft services, and any innovation that Microsoft could built on top of that strong foundation.

I think It's a mistake to differentiate the product with a weird UI, specially if the target market is the low-end. Besides, Microsoft could still use the traditional Live Tile launcher in some devices or provide it as a download from the store, for the fans, thanks to the flexibility of customization.

 

[Loc Ngo]

WP would have better performance, longer battery life, a great UI, most of the popular apps, Microsoft services, and any innovation that Microsoft could built on top of that strong foundation.

I think It's a mistake to differentiate the product with a weird UI, specially if the target market is the low-end. Besides, Microsoft could still use the traditional Live Tile launcher in some devices or provide it as a download from the store, for the fans, thanks to the flexibility of customization.

Just stop arguing and use another platform of your wish. Windows is not for the like of you, period. Such a big waste of time trying to educate a mind rotted with hate and false accusation. All of the points made in your hateful comments come from misleading information, prejudices and impulsive judgements. You can lie all the way high and low about your experience but I know you have never ever used a single wp handset.