Which isn't to say that I expect(ed) WP7 to be any better in those regards, though there was always hope. I didn't go out and buy one/start developing for them, but I can certainly understand how someone might come to choose door #3.
There is always no better choice until suddenly there is one.
HP/Palm has a very good door #3... I am in love with my Palm Pre.
But I guess that wouldn't be juicy enough of a headline.
Maybe this was a restriction in the past, I'm not sure, but I've been happily running iCab Mobile for quite some time and enjoying it's more grown-up featureset.
http://www.icab-mobile.de/faq.html
Each Tab is creating a WebKit object, which eats up additional memory.
Here is what someone from Mozilla said rather recently:
http://techcrunch.com/2010/12/27/firefox-iphone-2/
First, he gave the obvious and fairly well-known official answer, “We have no plans to release the full Firefox browser for Apple iOS devices,” Brubeck wrote. Why? Because the current iOS SDK agreement forbids apps like Firefox from including their own compilers and interpreters, Brubeck explains.
But he continues on to note that there are a couple of ways to work within Apple’s system, notably what Skyfire is doing (using Apple’s own build-in WebKit libraries) or what Opera Mini is doing (using a proxy server to execute their JavaScript). “Mozilla could create a browser that did one of those things, but it wouldn’t be related to Firefox in any way,” Brubeck explains.
Even having skipped an entire sprint (~10 days) to focus more on Android, the WP7 app is progressing along further and faster than the other clients. Just having support for (albeit limited) databinding is a huge win. Plus, you get great looking apps pretty much for free with the theming defaults.
That said, I have access to a few Windows phones (HTC Surround, HTC HD7, and some keyboard phone) and I would not be able to switch to any of them over my Nexus One. Dealbreakers for me:
* The search button is locked to Bing (not configurable)
* The browser is not only IE, but a crappy offshoot of an old version of IE (I believe IE7 w/ a few patches)
* No Pandora
Also, since you are attacking simultaneously on four fronts - a blog post about the advantages and disadvantages of developing code and assets (graphics) for each platform would be great (obvious one - no IB/ExprStudio for Android?).
As for usage stats, I'd have to check with the client (not sure they'd want that public).
Also, I may be completely overstating how slow it was. It definitely wasn't unusable, but it felt slower than it should have been. This was after multiple wipes to multiple ROMs too.
When she talks about cell phones she talks, with the exception of the iPhone (which she just calls iPhone), about manufacturers – HTC, Samsung – and she only recently said that she quite likes the HTC Mozart (which, to my surprise, runs Windows Phone 7).
Here is your text: “She'll like it until she realizes it actually sucks. Which is why consumer electronics manufacturers can still turn a profit in last place. But eventually she'll see everyone else doing cool things she can't do, and she'll switch. Or convince herself she didn't want to do those things.”
The HTC Mozart was recommended to her from a friend – I’m really not all that sure that the differences between WP7 and Android matter to all that many people.
WM7, on the other hand, still sounds like a black sheep, so I'm always curious to hear how someone decides to opt for this choice. I think the most common I hear is "I was waiting for a long time, and I was hoping this time Microsoft got it right."
Signed, a former loyal Microsoft customer/fan who one day stopped waiting.