I got a call from a buddy of mine earlier tonight all excited that Microsoft Live Maps is now compatible with Safari and more importantly Safari Mobile. He insisted I give it a try, so I did. Two minutes into trying to use Live Maps, I realized why I don’t use Google’s implementation of maps.google.com on the iPhone simply because it is too slow and takes too much work.
So I asked my friend on the phone if he’d ever use the native Maps application on the iPhone. His reply was a quick “heck no.” My response was, don’t ever recommend another web application to me again until you’ve used the iPhone yourself. So why am I not happy with Live Maps? First of, it’s a web app, and web apps do not stand a chance next to the native application Maps. It’s painfully slow to load and requires a lot of work just to zoom in and out to get the damn map to look right. I find it retarded that when clicking on the “Zoom In” control, it zooms in on the center of the map. I bet that if Microsoft wanted to do it right, they could have sized the map to fit the iPhone’s screen. If you really want to make it work, the iPhone needs to be in landscape mode. I can’t in good conscious recommend Live Maps on the iPhone to anyone at this point in time.
I challenge Microsoft to build a better map Application when the App Store opens up. Is it too much to ask for map that’s sized for the iPhone’s screen, implementations of pinch-zoom and swiping to move the map around?
UPDATE: Microsoft says this was their attempt to make the worst internal video ever. MMM…yeah. Interesting spin…
I’ve been wrapping up an all-intensive project at work lately, but I have to break my silence for this: “Rocking Our Sales” by Bruce ServicePack and the Vista Street Band. I don’t really know where to begin. I guess I will just say this. I have no idea if Apple makes lame Bruce Springsteen parody music videos to inspire its channel sales teams, but if it does, I have to assume that it uses better lyrics than “Talk up our Microsoft Application Virtualization…See what’s on employee’s laptops with AIS and MDOP!”
EPIC FAIL, MS! And if anyone is actually inspired to sell more Vista based on this, really think about switching your job. I mean, damn.
UPDATE: Microsoft says this was their attempt to make the worst internal video ever. MMM…yeah. Interesting spin…
I’ve been wrapping up an all-intensive project at work lately, but I have to break my silence for this: “Rocking Our Sales” by Bruce ServicePack and the Vista Street Band. I don’t really know where to begin. I guess I will just say this. I have no idea if Apple makes lame Bruce Springsteen parody music videos to inspire its channel sales teams, but if it does, I have to assume that it uses better lyrics than “Talk up our Microsoft Application Virtualization…See what’s on employee’s laptops with AIS and MDOP!”
EPIC FAIL, MS! And if anyone is actually inspired to sell more Vista based on this, really think about switching your job. I mean, damn.
The fanboy Apple/Microsoft debate may rage on, but don’t doubt that both companies are viewing the iPhone as a big profit opportunity. Fortune has been talking to the Specialized Devices and Applications Group at Microsoft, who are responsible for Mac-friendly software like Office for OS X, and the team there are keen to stress that they’re seeing the coveted Apple cellphone as a prospective platform.
“It’s really important for us to understand what we can bring to the iPhone. To the extent that Mac Office customers have functionality that they need in that environment, we’re actually in the process of trying to understand that now” Tom Gibbons, corporate vice president, Specialized Devices and Applications Group, Microsoft
“We do have experience with that environment, and that gives us confidence to be able to do something. The key question is, what is the value that we need to bring? We’re still getting comfortable with the SDK, right? It’s just come out. So we had a guess as to what feasibility would be like, now we’ll really get our head wrapped around that” Tom Gibbons, corporate vice president, Specialized Devices and Applications Group, Microsoft
Looks like Microsoft have decided they’ve had enough of hearing that the iPhone has “killed” traditional touchscreens. Earlier this week, Microsoft software test engineer Hilton Locke spilt a tidbit about Windows Mobile 7, the follow-up to Vista:
“If you are impressed by the “touch features” in the iPhone, you’ll be blown away by what’s coming in Windows 7″ Hilton Locke, TabBlogger
It looks as though Microsoft are also doing their own work with capacitative displays, the sort that Apple use in the iPhone and iPod Touch; in fact one has shown up in Dell’s Latitude XT Tablet PC, which the manufacturer is calling the “forerunner to emerging multi-touch capabilities”. Ever since the iPhone launched and gathered dropped-jaws by the bucket load over its incredibly intuitive interface, the Mac faithful have been begging for the same touchscreen technology to be included in a MacBook or MacTablet; could Microsoft beat them to it?
See Dell’s capacitive interface in action, after the cut…
The fanboy Apple/Microsoft debate may rage on, but don’t doubt that both companies are viewing the iPhone as a big profit opportunity. 
