The Kin is all but dead

So where did it all go wrong? How did a smartphone platform that was two years in the making, led by the Microsoft luminary J Allard and involving the acquisition of Danger Incorporated for a rumoured $500 million, go down the toilet afterwards just 48 days on the market?

Those in the United States can all in all buy a Kin from Verizon Wireless, nevertheless it’s a severely crippled version of the original that removes all of the features that once made the Kin unequalled, namely Kin Loop, Kin Spot and the aforementioned Kin Studio.

The inside scoop on all of the in-fighting

Engadget has the inside scoop on all of the in-fighting and politics that went on behind the scenes, which ultimately led to the Kin being released as a half-baked product and over a year behind schedule. The concept of an ultra-cheap cloud-centric phone was good in theory, however by the time it was released in May 2010, with no app store or third-party app support, no games or Flash, and not even an instant messaging client or calendar program, it as a matter of fact was a case of too little, too late.Weighing up Windows Phone 7Windows Phone 7 isn’t likely to suffer the same fate, with multiple phone vendors and carrier partners behind it. On the whole, it nonetheless has far to go previously it becomes a worthy challenger to iOS and Android. Standardising on high-end hardware was a good move considering the myriad performance complaints that users had with Windows Mobile 6.5 smartphones), namely a 1GHz ARM v7 or better processor, capacitive multi-touch WVGA display, until further notice 8GB of flash memory and a five-megapixel camera with LED flash.

On the flip side, this keeps Windows Phone 7 devices out of the entry-level end of the market, which ignores a large segment of potential users that want an iPhone however can’t afford it – and will likely end up with a cheaper Android phone for lack of any other option.

The app storeObviously

The app storeObviously, the Marketplace app store is however a work in progress given it’s only four months old, however the latest figures pitch the number of apps at over 6000, with 10,000 expected by the end of March – approximately the same amount of time that it took Android to reach 10,000.

Other areas where Windows Phone 7 can improveBut there are lots of other areas that Windows Phone 7 needs to work on to grow its market share. The lack of copy and paste functionality is a big one, though according to a Microsoft blog post, the first major system update will include this missing feature.

The lack of multi-tasking

The lack of multi-tasking and memory card expansion are two other things that need to be addressed. Windows Phone 7 ‘freezes’ apps when you switch away from them unless and until the system needs resources for something else, in which case it terminates them – not so good for games, and useless for apps that need to run in the background like music streaming and VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol). The fact that Windows Phone 7 supports push notifications isn’t much solace, in essence putting Windows Phone 7 on the same level as iOS was two years ago. iOS may not support memory cards either, however it isn’t enough for Windows Phone 7 to be ‘as good as’ the iPhone – it needs to be better in enough areas for people to in all seriousness consider it as a smartphone option.Do you own a Windows Phone 7 device? Share your opinion below.