I was lucky enough to join in on a press round table with Tuula Rytilä, senior VP of Windows 10 for Phones marketing (hefty job title).
The candid session was underpinned against a backdrop of new mid-low end phones announced earlier in the day at MWC 2015. The Lumia 640 and 640 XL, whilst impressive, did little to assuage the crowds of fans stuck in a limbo of older flagship devices, not knowing whether to upgrade to a 930 or simply wait for the obviously-incoming 940.
Tuula urged patience, echoing previous comments from hardware CEO Stephen Elop that new flagships will come by ‘the end of the year’ – but the session offered hints for the form these flagships could take.
Flagships
Regarding the topic of flagships, Tuula fell short of revealing specifics, but her responses to questions from the group begin to paint a picture of how these devices could appear.
Tuula said, “A flagship has to be a flagship. It has to have innovation value. It has to feel for the user that it’s worth the investment. So what you want to have that feeling of ‘hey its worth my investment’.” Tuula continued, “for people to do that kind of innovation, you don’t necessarily live up to that every quarter {regardless} of how hard you push your engineers.”
A chap whose name I sadly didn’t note (get in touch if you read this) made the point that by bringing higher-end features through to the low tier, Microsoft are failing to create enough differentiation to the higher tier phones which have far, far better margins – and drive sustainability for Microsoft’s mobile efforts.
Tuula hailed Surface as an example of innovation in the high end laptop, and hoped to bring some of that innovation to Lumia phones as well:
“The only answer there is to innovation.” Tuula continues, “So you have the Surface Pro 3, that’s really like for me – the laptop reinvented. {…} I think the Surface team has reinvented as what we perceive as being a laptop. Similarly when we think about high end phones, I don’t think that a 5 inch rectangule is the end of how we want to work or live when we’re mobile and using mobile technology. I think there’s a lot of ways we can still innovate and reinvent and for us as a challenger in that space that’s what we need to do.”
One of Tuula’s colleagues chimed in at this point, emphatically praising Microsoft’s willingness to innovate, and that we’ll see “meaningful” innovation in the new flagships targeting the later half of this year. Fighting words!
When asked about a successor to the niche, but iconic 41 mega pixel Lumia 1020, Tuula’s responses may disappoint. The Microsoft VP praised the camera phone calling it “the greatest camera ever”, but also emphasised that it had been polarising.
“Definitely we focus on camera, and it comes down from our users all the time that people love the camera. {…} It’s really when they’re making a decision to buy their next phone, camera always comes up.”
I threw in the question of a Lumia 1040. To which Tuula said “no comment” with a wry smile before continuing:
“I think something that we learned with the 1020 is that for a mass market flag ship appeal – which we want to have – we want to have a flag ship that can take share, and it’s really important for developer mind share as well, some found the camera polarising.”
Presumably Tuula was referring to the HAL-9000esque black disk which makes up the Lumia 1020’s camera module. Tuula went on to say that she loves the 1020, but wants to make sure that their flagship devices don’t alienate users at a mass market level, presumably regarding to appearances.
Either Microsoft are trying to squeeze the Nokia 808’s pureview camera lens into a more discrete module, or they’ve abandoned the camera phone format altogether. Whilst Lumia Denim has bought some serious imaging chops to the 930 and 1520, picture prowess still falls short of the Lumia 1020’s beastly 41 mega pixel sensor, even without Lumia Denim’s rich capture software updates. Nokia phones have generally been known for their industry-leading photographic capabilities, so I can’t imagine Microsoft would be complacent to carry that torch moving forward.
Challenges
Platform agnostic blogger Alex Hernandez bought up the matter of Google services – or the lack thereof – on Lumia devices, as well as the general quality of Windows Phone apps. As a Lumia evangelist, there’s no greater barrier for the Windows Phone usage case than the lack of a real YouTube app, Google Docs and other Google owned services. Google actively, prolifically, hate Windows Phone. The first port of call after their acquisition of Softcard was to ‘terminate’ Windows support, offering 0 explanation. Although Gmail and Google Calendar play nicely with Windows Phone, peripheral services are actively blocked by the bullying megacorp.
Tuula’s used the phrase ‘chicken and egg’ to describe the problem. App developers won’t work on Windows without users, and users won’t join the platform without apps from developers – but she seemed optimistic for the future.
“So we do talk a lot about developers. Our CEO Satya – that’s really the world he comes from, he’s always talking to developers and he is one. I think the biggest initiative of what we’re doing there is universal apps.”
When questions specifically on Google and YouTube, Tuula said:
“Of course it’s like a chicken and egg in terms of – do you bring scale? do you have the apps? When we can make Windows familiar on the phone as well now with Windows 10, {Windows Phone} is something different but it’s part of the whole Windows ecosystem. I think we can also bring the scale and we can be interesting and lucrative to all kinds of developers – including Google.”
Google provide a full API to the Xbox team for a YouTube app, offering YouTube creators the fair chance to gain ad revenue from console users. Windows Phone users have access to great offerings from third party developers, such as MetroTube and myTube! but – Google could block these at a mere whim – and these apps have no access to Google’s advertising API, meaning that YouTubers receive no payments for their work. Microsoft built a fully tooled a YouTube app for Windows Phone 8, complete with Google ads, only for Google to pull it. So YouTube creators – be aware that the 40 million Windows Phone users are currently unable to subsidise your work even if they want to, because of Google’s anti competitive behaviour.
Xbox for Windows Phone
As the only Xbox centric blogger in the Q&A (perhaps the entire MWC2015) – I made the plea that Microsoft should be doing more to inject some Xbox into Windows Phone. The Microsoft of old was seen as being made up of segregated teams, bunkered down in silos competing with each other, rather than working together towards a cohesive vision. Despite signs that this may be changing, in a lot of ways, Xbox still feels like a separate entity.
I asked her if the full Xbox app for Windows 10 would be coming to Windows Phone, she told me to stay tuned for demo readiness.
Whilst the app does appear to be planned for Windows Phone, the streaming functionality over home WiFi seems restricted to Windows 10 PCs and tablets right now – if the marketing is anything to go on. The Sony booth at MWC2015 were keen to show off their Playstation 4 controller clip for Xperia phones, effectively turning their Android devices into portable Playstations. The days may be numbered for Sony’s mobile division, but Xperia have been pioneering when it comes to gaming on mobile phones. If Phil Spencer still sees gaming and Xbox as doing for Microsoft what music and iTunes did for Apple, then the disconnect between Windows hardware and Xbox hardware needs to come to an end.
I put this to Tuula, who responded in kind:
“My boss Chris Capossela who is the CMO for all of Microsoft is really driving to elevate the role of Microsoft as a brand, and not just each individual product groups. Xbox is one of those brands that was first cultivated as a total stand alone, and now {Xbox} are kind of like also joining the Microsoft family brands. You can see in their communications with their fans, it’s a little bit more like “oh it does come from Microsoft”. So we are doing that.”
Tuula emphasised that bringing Xbox further into the Microsoft family is definitely the direction the company is taking, but wanted to do purposefully with consideration for Xbox’s fan base. It remains to be seen to what extent we could see more Xbox functionality on Windows Phone, sadly Tuula didn’t have the answers.
The Future
I think the future is bright for Windows Phone. Aligning flagship phone launches with the inevitable buzz Windows 10 will create seems like a smart move. Comments regarding innovative features for high-end Lumias are intriguing, but I hope they don’t boil down to finger print scanners and curved edges.
It’s hard to know as an Xbox for Windows Phone fan where I should turn regarding information on the gaming side of things. I’ll continue to be hopeful that Microsoft have something up their sleeve on the matter, and that we could indeed see Halo running on a Lumia 940 XL Windows Phone 10 eventually.
