Does Microsoft Really Understand Smartphone Users?
They go by many names: Smartphones, iPhones, Crackberries. Whatever you call them, our culture has become so reliant on these devices that many people feel almost naked without having them attached to their hip. Some users go as far as sleeping with them.
I wish I could prove to be the exception and not the rule, but I am just as guilty of being addicted as the next guy. Hi, my name is Ryan and I’m an iPhone-a-holic.
Let me explain:
From the moment I wake up, my iPhone is as much a part of my morning routine as anything else. More than an alarm, it enables me to catch up on morning news with the Sirius XM iPhone app and The Morning Briefing with Tim Farley on POTUS, or verify that the DC metro is on time before I leave the house.
Then there there are the discounts I get when I check in with Foursquare while I’m in line at Starbucks for my morning coffee. All of this is before I even reach the office. I’m so dependent on my phone it makes me sick.
That’s why I was so surprised when I woke up this morning to the TechCrunch story headline: "Microsoft Promises You Will Use Your Phone Less With Windows 7.”
To borrow a line from Wayne's World, "Exsqueeze me? Baking powder?"
With Windows Phone 7, despite an array of features promising to keep us connected to what we consider important, Microsoft is actually hoping we’ll use our phones less? Yeah. That’ll happen.
Microsoft isn't making any arguments about the phone's ease of use or citing any particular rationale for why you would use their phone less as opposed to the competition's.
Perhaps users may not want to use the phone as often, but that won't help sales. The phone is feature-packed and includes many of the staples we have come to expect from our smartphones, so unless ease of use is an issue, I wouldn't count on users being so disciplined with their handsets.
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