Microsoft's new Windows phone ad has almost everyone fighting

[Nirkon]

Microsoft is constantly trying to push their mobile operating system into consumers' hands, but so far the adoption rate for Windows phones hasn't been all that great. When adding both versions 7 and 8 into the equation, the platform holds only 4.1 percent of the US market share, according to market research and monitoring firm Kantar Worldpanel. That's only a 1.4 percent gain from the same time last year.

In a new ad released today, Microsoft specificaly addresses the Lumia 920 when promoting its mobile operating system. That's fitting considering Nokia is their flagship partner and the 920 remains the most popular Windows Phone device. According to a report cited by BetaNews, Lumia series sales hit a record high last quarter, but Nokia is still struggling to convince smartphone buyers to get one in some markets.

Specifically, the company saw a 33 percent year-on-year sales decline in the US. The Finnish company and other Windows Phone manufacturers are finding out they still have quite a long way to go.

Microsoft is hoping its latest campaign will help with picking up those lagging US sales. The commercial itself depicts a wedding in which the crowd is split half and half between iPhone and Android users. The situation quickly gets heated and insults start flying around the room, until the wedding is driven into total chaos.

You can take a look at the commercial yourself in the video embedded above. As for the Lumia 920 device it's promoting, hardware specifications include a screen size of 4.5 inches, 32GB of internal storage with 1GB of RAM, an 8-megapixel rear-facing camera with 3,264x2,448 pixels with LED flash, Bluetooth 4.0, an NFC chip, and 2,000mAh battery. The phone is available in black, gray, red, yellow and white colors.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/52405-microsofts-new-windows-phone-ad-has-almost-everyone-fighting.html

 

[Nima304]

It's a pretty funny commercial, but I'm still not buying a Windows Phone.

 

[Guest]

LMAO.... Great ad. Now please go Android Nokia ploease!!!

 

[Burty117]

That was fantastic!

Keep going I say, more of these sold the better for competition!

 

[Guest]

Like Nima304 said, I'm still not buying a Windows phone.

 

[rhom.loma]

I actually bought an HTC 8x after owning a Samsung Galaxy and am very happy with everything except the broadness of the app offerings.

 

[Tekkaraiden]

That was a great commercial.

 

[veLa]

I really want WP to be successful but it's still not moved far enough to convince me.

 

[yRaz]

I really enjoy my Lumia 920. Android has too many stability problems as well garbage pre loaded apps. I don't want to root ny phone to have it work but I defiantly see the appeal. I never liked ios so that leaves me with windows phone. I bought into the 920 mostly for the camera and it also has a good music player. It can be a pain to add music, but I feel that it sounds better than the iPhone and definitely most android phones.

 

[Heihachi1337]

I am the sad, sad owner of a Windows Phone. One of the first, I think. It is an LG-C900. Know what I have learned from this crappy purchase?
Blizzard doesn't make any game apps for it (they do for Android and iPhone)
I can't customize the bejeezus out of my ringtones like I could with a lower grade phone.
No one makes apps for it....well they do, but most are crap.
Never buying another effing Windows Phone. Hope some ***** from MS reads this and understands that they need to stick with what they know and quit trying to alienate what customers they have.
Also, Windows 8 sucks.

 

[yukka]

Just switched back to iOS (16gb iPhone 5) after spending 2.5 years with an htc hd7. Initial impression is that a lot has changed (notification centre is excellent, camera quality top notch, retina display, phone very fast, all mobile sites display correctly, iplayer works, loads of quality apps). That advert is good , shame all those iPhones look so old, they are silver, like iPhone 2? That's what it looked like to me. I'll check windows phone again in a couple of years. I enjoyed using it but I waited for iplayer release and decent satnav for a long time. And web pages were flakey without proper WebKit support. Email client was good though. Xbox live achievements in games. But slow updates from O2, I think I just got offered an update to 7.8 and the new interface 2 days ago. That's a long time since it was released to the Nokia handsets and 3 days after I switched back to iOS.

 

[Randomthom]

Currently using the 920, it's an excellent phone.

I'm slightly disappointed in myself for doing this but I'm goign to respond to someone with "1337" in their name... Blizzard make the authenticator for Windows Phone so yes, they do.

You can have custom ringtones & alarms (though not text notification sounds disappointingly).

The apps available are fewer than other platforms but are generally of higher quality, there are the shoddy ones too of course but that's not specific to WP!

I'm now on my 3rd windows Phone (HTC Trophy, Lumia 800, Lumia 920) and all have served me well, I'm happy to keep using it & I'm surprised at the slow uptake. Microsoft's marketing has been impressive enough. I think that fanboys, particularly fanboys working in phone stores have a lot to do with this.

Disclaimer: I am not a fanboy, simply a fan. WP has a few flaws and the other platforms have their advantages. I'm tempted by some of the Android offerings but won't touch Apple devices because of the human impact their products have.

 

[Skidmarksdeluxe]

I didn't know it was legal for any company to slander it's competitors products.

 

[cliffordcooley]

I didn't know it was legal for any company to slander it's competitors products.

Well when slander is so preposterous, it has everyone at a wedding fighting, I see no reason for condemnation.

 

[lawfer]

The apps available are fewer than other platforms but are generally of higher quality, there are the shoddy ones too of course but that's not specific to WP!

As an owner of both a 920 and a GS3 with stock Android, I couldn't disagree more. WP app selection is not only incredibly smaller (you probably won't really "feel" the vast difference until you use Android or iOS for at least 2 weeks), but the apps that are indeed there are structurally "weaker" than the ones found on Android (and as rule, iOS).

Multitasking is still a piece of garbage that, trust me, they know doesn't work as it should. And developers, even with having better tools and emulators when compared to Android, are still hindered by parts of the OS being locked-down for whatever reason. Text notification sounds as you mentioned being a good example, or lack of API access.

Not all is grim though. Hopefully after moving from CE to the NT kernel Microsoft will make better use of the power of the platform. Time, of course, is of the essence.

 

[Wagan8r]

I didn't know it was legal for any company to slander it's competitors products.

They're not slandering the products; merely the product owners.

If more people actually tried WP, they would realize how awesome it is. It's like the people, who drink Coors and Budweiser. They're content with what they're familiar with, but there are beers out there that are a heck of a lot better.

 

[PinothyJ]

I didn't know it was legal for any company to slander it's competitors products.

It slandered the fans of the companies and not the companies themselves. If this was not legal than the nightly news could not make the same comments about hooligan sports fans.

Mmmm?

 

[TBK466]

Heihachi1337 you can not be serious here. You are really judging the Windows Phone Platform off of a phone that was released 2 iphone models and multiple Android OS updates ago?????? My Lumia 920 could run laps around that thing and not even be challenged. What, do you expect your old Nokia from the early 2000s to still be cutting edge and changing modern phones too? That phone wasn't even top of the Windows Phone line when it was new.

I wouldn't be bashing you so hard if you were not trying to convince other people not to by a NEW (AKA not outdated)Windows Phone. A phone is now out of date after one year, and judging a 2+ year old phone against anything new is just an absolute joke. I can easily set new ringtones on my phone and customize them how I want. Sure it doesn't have 1,000,000 apps, but it does have the apps I actually use on a daily basis.

 

[TBK466]

Just switched back to iOS (16gb iPhone 5) after spending 2.5 years with an htc hd7. Initial impression is that a lot has changed (notification centre is excellent, camera quality top notch, retina display, phone very fast, all mobile sites display correctly, iplayer works, loads of quality apps). That advert is good , shame all those iPhones look so old, they are silver, like iPhone 2? That's what it looked like to me. I'll check windows phone again in a couple of years. I enjoyed using it but I waited for iplayer release and decent satnav for a long time. And web pages were flakey without proper WebKit support. Email client was good though. Xbox live achievements in games. But slow updates from O2, I think I just got offered an update to 7.8 and the new interface 2 days ago. That's a long time since it was released to the Nokia handsets and 3 days after I switched back to iOS.

You missed out, Windows Phone 8 is great! You would have liked Nokia Drive for satnav(if I understood you correctly). Good luck with your iphone, and at least you thought through the switch.

 

[TBK466]

The apps available are fewer than other platforms but are generally of higher quality, there are the shoddy ones too of course but that's not specific to WP!

As an owner of both a 920 and a GS3 with stock Android, I couldn't disagree more. WP app selection is not only incredibly smaller (you probably won't really "feel" the vast difference until you use Android or iOS for at least 2 weeks), but the apps that are indeed there are structurally "weaker" than the ones found on Android (and as rule, iOS).

Multitasking is still a piece of garbage that, trust me, they know doesn't work as it should. And developers, even with having better tools and emulators when compared to Android, are still hindered by parts of the OS being locked-down for whatever reason. Text notification sounds as you mentioned being a good example, or lack of API access.

Not all is grim though. Hopefully after moving from CE to the NT kernel Microsoft will make better use of the power of the platform. Time, of course, is of the essence.

I get that Android has more apps, but which ones do you actually miss? I moved from a GS3 to my Lumia 920, and I like the OS so much better that there really are no apps I really miss. I guess if you are an instagram fan I understand, but even for issues like Google handicapping Youtube I still find that apps like Metrotube usually fill the gap. I am just curious what apps you want?

 

[Timonius]

Better than the *cough*Kin*cough*. Still not sure if a Windows phone is for me.

 

[lawfer]

I get that Android has more apps, but which ones do you actually miss? I moved from a GS3 to my Lumia 920, and I like the OS so much better that there really are no apps I really miss. I guess if you are an instagram fan I understand, but even for issues like Google handicapping Youtube I still find that apps like Metrotube usually fill the gap. I am just curious what apps you want?

No, you see, I use both as my daily drivers. My SIII is my personal phone, while my 920 is my work phone. To give you an idea, I had the option to get any Android phone (and more recently, the Z10) as my work device, but I still chose WP.

I'll even flip it (because I get the same arguments from WP-only owners): There's a lot more to do (that I both didn't know I could or never thought of doing) on Android than any other OS. This realization became apparent once I accepted there were (and are) fundamental things wrong with the WP platform. I then didn't feel I owed WP any chance; I simply chose to get the right tool for the job.

My first WP was the LG Quantum, then the Focus, so I was there during the first wave. I went through Tango, Mango and now on Apollo. Trust me when I say I know a lot about Windows Phone, and I'm as unbiased as you can possibly be. Though I still used Android along with my WP back then, I decided to make the permanent switch to Android when the SIII came out. Didn't like TouchWiz that much, so I rooted it, and eventually got stock, pure Android 4.1. I fell in love with Android then.

Why? If I had to choose it'd have to be: because it is more powerful.

"Custom keyboards? You don't need it." "Notification center? Widgets? I got live tiles." "Live wallpapers? Waste of resources."

Do you know what all of these things were? Those were my own questions and my own answers as justifications to stick solely with WP back then. I realized that the power to do almost anything that Android gives you was worth more than the admittedly great features from WP.

So my point is, it wasn't only the "apps." It was both the quality of the apps, the breadth of them (such as SMS, contacts back-up apps, or File Explorer apps, or third party music players with advanced equalizers, or, heh, Instagram), it was the ability to pull down the notification bar down, delete any unwanted e-mails, change the song, be reminded of the date, all without having to leave a Netflix playback. It's superior multitasking. It's able to use private browsing whenever I, ahem, shop for gifts for my GF without her finding out. It's also the ability to create PowerPoint files, something that WP's own integrated Office can't do. I literally could go on about why it is simply more powerful.

And, don't be mistaken: Android has had most of these features since Froyo. The problem was Android never had an identity of its own back then; it was slow, unstable and just ugly. Now it's like it's more proud of itself. It's fast, powerful, and clean.

I, however, still chose WP as my work phone, which should tell you that to me it is second. (But if I were to be asked, I'd still have to say iOS is a superior OS to WP. Even if not my cup of tea.)