Summary: Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8 are related but they're not the same. Does confusing the two give the new phone OS a halo effect or risk disappointment?
In the run-up to Nokia's Windows Phone 8 announcements, much of the mainstream media talked about prospects for the new devices — calling them not Windows Phone 8 but Windows 8. Is that a confusion that does more good or harm?
Microsoft windows Cell phone 8 has the Microsoft windows 8 kernel and some of the development connections, which is why Bob Ballmer said at the Htc 920 release that "we bring a designer foundation and the Store in a typical way to Microsoft windows 8 and Microsoft windows Cell phone 8".
The change gives Microsoft windows Cell phone 8 more power under the cover, and the kernel should make creating individuals for new components quicker, cheaper and more reliable.
They both have a tile-based Begin display, with announcements "front and centre", as Ballmer put it. Hardware speeding of HTML5 in IE10 is just as useful on the telephone as on the PC and well-written sites will instantly range to fit the device display with a great structure — like the new HTML5 Beat news site.
The change gives Microsoft windows Cell phone 8 more power under the cover, and the kernel should make creating individuals for new components quicker, cheaper and more reliable.
They both have a tile-based Begin display, with announcements "front and centre", as Ballmer put it. Hardware speeding of HTML5 in IE10 is just as useful on the telephone as on the PC and well-written sites will instantly range to fit the device display with a great structure — like the new HTML5 Beat news site.
What Microsoft windows 8 and Microsoft windows Cell phone 8 have in common :
And Microsoft windows 8 and Microsoft windows Cell phone 8 — and Console — discuss more than an interface Microsoft used to call City, although information about the Begin display on Microsoft windows Cell phone makes Microsoft windows 8 easier to use, and viceversa.
They also discuss services. Success in Video games are the obvious one. There's something obsessive about seeing your Minesweeper score from your Microsoft windows 8 PC on your phone and getting your perfect FreeCell record from your PC on a new phone gives you that nice warm feeling that's one of the really attractive features in Microsoft windows Cell phone.
It's not just games. The way Microsoft is pushing using a Microsoft account to sign into Windows 8 means you get SkyDrive integration for pictures and documents and OneNote notebooks. Notes you write on a Windows 8 tablet will be on your phone when you need them.
The photos you take on a Windows Phone 8 handset automatically upload, in full resolution rather than as half-size images, to SkyDrive so they appear straight away in the Photos app on Windows 8. Your Bing search history on Windows 8 could make the search results on a Windows Phone 8 handset more relevant.
As Microsoft is likely to put it, Windows 8 and Windows Phone are better together, and getting you to think about a Windows phone rather than a Windows Phone could be the marketing leverage Microsoft needs to start selling more devices, which is about the only thing Windows Phone hasn't been good at so far.
Like your Windows 8 system? Like your Xbox? It'll make you more interested in checking out a Windows Phone, hopes Microsoft.
The photos you take on a Windows Phone 8 handset automatically upload, in full resolution rather than as half-size images, to SkyDrive so they appear straight away in the Photos app on Windows 8. Your Bing search history on Windows 8 could make the search results on a Windows Phone 8 handset more relevant.
As Microsoft is likely to put it, Windows 8 and Windows Phone are better together, and getting you to think about a Windows phone rather than a Windows Phone could be the marketing leverage Microsoft needs to start selling more devices, which is about the only thing Windows Phone hasn't been good at so far.
Like your Windows 8 system? Like your Xbox? It'll make you more interested in checking out a Windows Phone, hopes Microsoft.
Related but different operating systems :
But while Windows Phone 8 and Windows 8 are related products, they're not the same. That's a good thing. Having Windows on a 12-inch touchscreen is usable, but the familiar Windows interface on a five-inch screen would be a problem. The repeated failure of companies such as OQO proved that. Windows Phone has been an excellent touch interface all along and fits the small screen perfectly.
The real relationship between Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8 is an advantage for Microsoft that might be confusing to explain to a mainstream audience.
Is suggesting that they're the same thing a potential disadvantage? Will it make people expect a complex interface and blue screens on their phones, even though blue screens are rare on Windows these days and almost always mean you have a hardware fault? Or will the associations of Windows 8 have the same halo effect as Mac OS and iOS, which used to be routinely touted as pretty much the same thing despite the massive differences?
Is talking about Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8 as if they're the same thing careless, or just what Microsoft would like us to think? Probably it's both.
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