You're reading: Gadget Guru: Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 unlikely to top Apple’s iPhone

Microsoft has severely criticized Apple for its latest iPhone model since the moment it hit the market in June this year. But the device’s overwhelming success has forced Microsoft to reshuffle its own strategy for mobile telecommunication devices.

Microsoft’s Windows Mobile platform proved too obsolete to compete with the iPhone, and was abandoned in favor of the new Windows Phone 7.

The phones have just recently hit the shelves of stores in Europe and the United States, and might appear in Ukraine before the end of the year.

I’ve had the chance to put my hands on two Windows Phone 7 devices, one from HTC and one from Samsung – both are good, but they are by no means a threat to Apple’s domination in this niche.

The first thing I noticed was the unique interface. It looks nothing like an iPhone, Android or Blackberry.

You don’t have to open any menus or click icons. The whole interface looks like a website, with the screen like a lens you’re moving above it.

The titles of the sections are written with huge letters, a nice attempt to reduce eye strain but they often don’t fit onto the screen.

iPhone 4

For example, you see PICT not PICTURES. It takes a while to get used to this interface, but it looks good, feels good and runs really fast.

The main screen consists of so-called tiles. You can rearrange them in the way you like, and then see the status updates of your friends in social networks, new e-mails and so on, all directly from your main screen.

You can see the your contacts’ latest social network statuses inside the phone book without clicking the applications, a feature iPhone users can only dream of.

It’s convenient, for example, if you want to call your friend, but when you enter the phone book you immediately see his latest Facebook status shows he’s busy.

Windows Phone 7 also inherits the corporate features of its predecessor, the old Windows Mobile.

You can easily access the corporate Exchange servers for e-mail, use the built-in Microsoft Office and view and edit Word and Excel documents.

According to Dmytro Shymkiv, general director of Microsoft Ukraine, Windows Phone 7 is targeted at businesspeople who are active in social networking.

The Windows Phone 7. (AP)

He says the aim is to change the way you use your phone in everyday life.

I won’t argue with that. There are obvious advantages over the iPhone and other platforms. But there are also a number of flaws – serious ones.

Ironically, Windows Phone 7 has the same problems the iPhone had when it hit the market. It lacks two core functions that could be found in any Nokia Smartphone or old Windows Mobile communicator five years ago: copy-paste and multitasking.

The first function is essential when working with any kind of information in your phone. It allows you to easily copy text from a website that you are currently browsing on or e-mail that you have just received, and paste it, for example, into the SMS being sent to your friend.

It took Apple two years to implement this function on the iPhone. Now Microsoft is making the same mistake.

The absence of this option on any hi-tech telecommunications device – portable or not – in this age is simply absurd.

It’s almost the same story with multitasking. Apple’s iPhone was heavily criticized for not being able to run several programs simultaneously.

Apple added multitasking to the iPhone last year. Again, Windows Phone 7 is behind, but still repeating mistakes made by its main rival: It has no strong multitasking except for the basic feature of checking e-mails or listening to music while doing something else with the phone.

With the iPhone you can run Skype in the background and receive chats and calls from your buddies while, for example, playing a game. You can’t do that with Windows Phone 7.

You also can’t simply copy a file to a Windows Phone 7 device and then do something with it. You can’t play unconverted video, you can’t easily upload your own ringtone; the list goes on.

At the moment, there are about 1,000 apps available for Windows Phone 7, far below the 300,000 in the Apple App Store for the iPhone.

I believe Microsoft will be able to attract software developers to its new platform, but it will take time.

Microsoft Ukraine’s Shymkiv hopes the first Windows Phone 7 devices will be available for Ukrainian customers in December. It’s not yet known how much they’ll cost, but they’re sure to be pricey.

The first Windows Phone 7 devices in the U.S. cost almost as much as the iPhone 4 in the U.S. and European markets – around $150-300 with a two-year contract, or in the $600-700 range without a contract.

In Ukraine, the iPhone 4 costs as much as $1,000, but it’s not sold officially, hence the big markup. Microsoft promises to sell its newest device legally, insisting that the domestic price will be more affordable for Ukrainians.

But to be honest, there’s no need to start saving money for one unless you’re a hardcore Microsoft fan or a nerd who can’t miss an opportunity to test a new gadget.

Nice try, Microsoft. But Apple’s iPhone and Android offer more for the nerds as well as ordinary users.

Kyiv Post news editor Alexey Bondarev can be reached at [email protected].