Microsoft Admits Apple's iPhone Is Better

As a number of people have already noted, Microsoft’s (MSFT) release of Seadragon for the iPhone — an image-viewing app based on the deep-zoom technology behind the software giant’s Photosynth project — doesn’t just seem like an admission that the iPhone is better than any other mobile out there: Microsoft product manager Alex Daley comes right out and says as much in an interview with Todd Bishop of the blog Tech Flash:

"The iPhone is the most widely distributed phone with a (graphics processing unit),” Daley explained. “Most phones out today don’t have accelerated graphics in them. The iPhone does and so it enabled us to do something that has been previously difficult to do. I couldn’t just pick up a Blackberry or a Nokia off the shelf and build Seadragon for it."

For me, this is one of the biggest differences between the iPhone and any other mobile device (with the possible exception of the Sony PlayStation Portable). Yes, the apps are fun and the GUI is cool and the accelerometer and auto screen rotation and all of that are great, but the way it handles images — including photos, Web browsing and even games — is just light-years ahead of anything else. And Seadragon, for all the crap that Microsoft gets from a lot of people, including me, is pretty damn cool (although the name seems a little too consciously imitative of Firefox, Thunderbird, etc.).

I downloaded the app and in about two minutes I was zooming in on ancient maps from the Library of Congress and then satellite imagery of Toronto, which it picked up as my current location using the GPS in the iPhone. The speed with which it managed to do all of that, and on a mobile device, is pretty amazing — it was even faster than Google Maps on my desktop. And I can’t imagine doing it on any other device than the iPhone.

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Comments

[jmmx:]

Just wait until the next version of the hardware comes out. Will blow the socks off. Hehehe.

IMHO

2008 Dec 15 03:02 AM

[Boobies:]

I think you're missing out on the most obvious reason for this; microsoft is making this for the iphone because the iphone is so widely adopted. The same technology exists in the storm, bold, N97, etc. But none of those phones have quite the subscriber base that the iphone has; and the app store of apple is accessible to all subscribers. So you can talk about the quality of the iphone imaging all you want (and its really not even that special), but at the end of the day, this decision by microsoft to only produce the product for the iphone is because its only profitable to do so for the iphone.

IMO its kind of stupid to blog about a company and miss out on the most obvious factors; in this case search costs of users, and economies of scale for microsoft.

2008 Dec 15 07:42 AM

[upndown1313:]

User 319, your an idiot. How can you say the iPhone graphics are not that special. Do you read in brail?


On Dec 15 07:42 AM User 319750 wrote:

> I think you're missing out on the most obvious reason for this; microsoft
> is making this for the iphone because the iphone is so widely adopted.
> The same technology exists in the storm, bold, N97, etc. But none
> of those phones have quite the subscriber base that the iphone has;
> and the app store of apple is accessible to all subscribers. So you
> can talk about the quality of the iphone imaging all you want (and
> its really not even that special), but at the end of the day, this
> decision by microsoft to only produce the product for the iphone
> is because its only profitable to do so for the iphone.
>
> IMO its kind of stupid to blog about a company and miss out on the
> most obvious factors; in this case search costs of users, and economies
> of scale for microsoft.

2008 Dec 15 08:03 AM

[Jon T:]

User 319 or Boobies or whatever idiot name you give yourself...

I think your post takes an award for the most crass. Ever.

2008 Dec 15 09:39 AM

[Bastion:]

Actually Boobies comment is pretty spot on. The iPhone/iPod Touch graphics aren't "special" (i.e. innovative, as in mostly unique) because there are other devices with similar capabilities.

Go back to the quote. The Microsoft guy says that it is the *combination* of graphics capability and distribution that makes bringing this software to the iPhone a no-brainer.

Boobies is probably right that those other devices are technically capable of hosting Seadragon - probably the G1 Android and the Linux Eee PC, too. But these have a much smaller user base than iPhone/iPod Touch, and Microsoft is in "more" competition with Google and Linux than Apple. (Which is probably a mistake for Microsoft to view Apple that way, but at least that's the way I see the various company relationships).

I've posted this before on other blogs, but what makes the Apple approach most special isn't the hardware, the touch screen, the Dashboard-like interface, the blah, blah, blah...

No, what Apple has right, and has been doing so for some time, is the end-to-end customer experience, and the iTunes/App Store is the ticket here.

Until competing mobile devices have something that makes it as easy to synch, system update, and browse/buy new apps as what Apple has, Apple will continue to crush the competition.

And luckily, this gives Apple the breathing room to continue to spend their cash largess and further push the hardware envelope.

2008 Dec 15 11:03 AM

[FreeRange:]

Morons - here's they guy responsible for the product at MS telling you that the iPhone's accelerated graphics are unique, superior and not available, at least at the same levels of implementation, on the other devices. To say otherwise is based on pure stupidity. Apple is far ahead of any competitors in managing graphics based on decades of experience and market leadership in graphics based applications, and has transported this capability to the iPhone through the combination of the hardware and the OS. No one can match, or even come close in a handheld device. Period.

2008 Dec 15 12:02 PM

[Fremont Rea...:]

that's quite an endorsement. I was at Stanford Mall on Saturday and the Apple store was full there, however heading home, I passed by the one on University ave around 6:30pm and it wasn't as full as it normall is.

The big question when will the recession impact luxury items like an iPhone, or is a $200 phone not a luxury item. I've put off buying one so far becuase I prefer the accuracy of a touch keyboard, but the other day I was viewing contracts in pdf on a client's iPhone and it was a way better experience than my Blackberry Curve. So my next phone may be an iPhone. But I won't buy it until the price drops, or the 3rd generation appears. I always prefer to buy the 3rd iteration of something.

2008 Dec 15 12:06 PM

[Ames Tiedeman:]

Didn't MSFT admit a few years back that they used a MAC to design their annual report?

2008 Dec 15 05:28 PM

[NOWHEREMAN:]

MSFT is also the company which said it would buy back its own shares if they dropped below $24. I wonder how the nonexistent buyback is progressing?

2008 Dec 17 07:06 AM