Sebastian Anthony, reporting at Download Squad:
Can Apple really see themselves competing, with a minuscule desktop market share and 25% of the smartphone sector? Steve Jobs has announced Apple’s intent to move into mobile gaming, but can you really see developers siding with the iPhone when Windows Phone 7 is just around the corner?
(Via Daring Fireball).
Yes, I really can see. You know what the killer feature of the App Store is? That shiny “Buy Now” button next to each app.
The App Store has its problems, and I certainly think that having some competition out there for it would do everyone loads of good. But Anthony seems to be suggesting in his piece that game makers will suddenly eschew an established, laser-focused platform with direct access to a solid chunk of the smartphone market. All because Microsoft is coming out with a new OS sometime this year—maybe—that no one has really used, and that no phones currently support?
Right.
The WPS7 or whatever looks cool, and I hope that it does well and motivates Apple to stop being so developer-hostile. But the fact is the the iPhone exists today, and you can develop for it today, and make money off of Apple’s existing customer base. If it were any other product, it’d be the same story: comparing shipping products to vaporware like this is just nonsense.
P.S. Googling around to check on the status of Windows Phone 7 Series (that name will never get easier to type) revealed a number of other extremely valuable, brilliantly insightful pieces of journalistic acumen, such as this bit by Nicholas Kolakowski at eWeek: Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 Series Could Draw Consumers, Says Analyst. Translation: People Might Buy This New Thing That Will Be Available For Purchase, Someone Says. (In fairness, Katherine Egbert, the analyst quoted in the article, does make a good point: Microsoft won’t give handset manufacturers much room to customize the OS’s look and feel, which will make the brand much stronger and and the platform more consistent for developers who want to target it. This is a good move on Microsoft’s part).