The problem Microsoft faces is that the unique design of Metro excludes the possibility of a port of existing mobile apps. Apps need to be designed from scratch using native code - embedded web views won't cut it - which is expensive to do.
It might explain why the Windows 8 Beta store is basically empty.
What? There are better quality apps for Windows 8 beta than Android tablet apps for my ICS tablet.
But in order for Microsft to really be successful they need to get support from the carriers, and historically that's something they've failed to understand. Most of the market is made up of people who walk into a carrier store, ask for a phone that does the email and stuff, and walk out with a Samsung model they've never heard of.
Microsoft needs these people to walk out of the store with a Windows Phone (they've never heard of before). But the carriers control the whole process. The carriers therefore demand control over the hardware and software, and the successful manufacturers give it to them.
Nokia understands this very well, but it doesn't seem like Microsoft is giving them the freedom they need to make the carriers happy.
If Microsoft goes into this trying to compete with Apple they're going to fail because every single carrier will be against them. To succeed, they need to forget about Apple and start competing with Samsung, LG, HTC, Motorola, and RIM. Ultimately, that means creating software that is less appealing to the tech community, and more appealing to the carriers.
Give the carriers something that Samsung can't, on a device that looks good next to a poster of an iPhone, and they'll have something big. Then the apps and developers will follow.
It makes sense that it will be the next step for their mobile platform. I don't see how this makes WP7 a dead end. Even the naming indicates that the core Windows product and mobile version are related and intended to evolve together.
This has actually been a well known criticism of WP7 that goes under the name "low information density". People counter that by saying it's a feature, not a bug.
For me, it creates a problem because every time I pick up a WP7 handset it feels like a feature phone. The nicest feature-phone I ever held, but it still has this limited, focused, prebaked feel that I find hard to explain but which exactly reminds me of the same feeling I get with feature phones. I think the smart phone market is very much an aspirational one where people expect to feel like they're stepping into the future, and WP7 just doesn't feel like that. As much as everyone praises iOS for it's polished and slick nature, that's not actually why people are buying phones (and also why Android succeeds in spite of having missed the polish). They are trying to empower themselves with something more advanced than their previous phone which probably already had things like a facebook widget and weather app, etc.
Oh, and the app-centric model of iOS and Android is in my opinion a design flaw. A humane design shouldn't organize based on apps but based on tasks, and those tasks shouldn't get equal visibility an an icon grid.
Ah, that makes a lot of sense. I figured it wasn't fair to judge a UI by a couple static screenshots. But at first glance it does look strange.
While I am obviously biased, I feel like the changes were a big UI improvement in Android, as, while the layouts are definitely boxy, they fit together well, and do a great job of highlighting action items and guiding my interactions.
On my Xbox, I've found that it often leads to extra clicks being necessary where they weren't before. I quit questioning the design decisions when I (not too irrationally) concluded that they must have done it to assist with Kinect users, dragging a large virtual hand around the screen... that is, until you posted those screenshots, and the layout really, really looks about as busted as it does on the Xbox.
It's somewhat visually appealing, and while I think that, generally, it still looks like a better alternative to the usual Microsoftian clutter, it's definitely a long way from being good (IMHO).
But - reading this, I realized I had almost no idea what Microsoft's app store is like, or even how typical apps look. I looked up the Facebook app ( http://www.windowsphone.com/en-US/apps/82a23635-5bd9-df11-a8... ) and have to say... do they all look like that? Where almost 1/3 of the view is dead space? Even on the screen where it's partly used, it looks like they just couldn't get the layout quite right. Then there is the massive title on each "tab", and I've always kind of liked the metro look but does it have to take up so much space?