And by having 50x more Google searches than any competitor, it proves it is an innovative product? I think not. And whether you think they are "minor omissions", I still laugh when the iPhone can't cant send a picture/video message. Its all a matter of opinion. However, when we look at the big picture, as you say, Windows Mobile is selling more worldwide units than ever before. They shipped 14 million phones last year, expecting 20 million this year. Iphone is expecting 10 million total by the end of '08. It's at 4 million now. If both these predictions come true, the gap is widening.First you've missed out iLife, which is also innovative. You are also whining about minor feature omissions on the Apple stuff, without seeing the bigger picture. The iPhone now has 50x more Google searches than any competitor and a higher web share than Windows Mobile. Even though Windows mobile has been out far longer. (source 1, source 2)
Why not go further and call anything that plays music a copy of the iPod? Lets look at these minor, not particularly great features. The Zune can wirelessly sync with a computer, send songs to other people, has a fm radio, and just became a gaming platform. I would take these "minor" features over iTunes any day.The problem is that most of Microsoft's innovation occurred a long time ago. The Zune is at best a copy of the iPod, with a couple of minor, not particularly great features stuck on, why "squirt" a song, when you can just hand your friend your MP3 player to listen to it.
Well Office 2007 is selling faster than any Office version before it. So somebody likes it. And don't forget the ribbon interface, which did much to mainstream Office 2007 between the programs. That's innovative, considering what improvements happens between each version of iLife.Office has seen innovation in the past 10 years, but most of that has been more business centric features rather than consumer ones, Office 2007 is barely better than Office 1997 for consumers.
It seems like people don't understand the position Microsoft has in the industry. It simply can't create these all-in-one solutions like Apple because it would be seen as unfairly limiting the competition. Lets look at anything worthwhile Microsoft has included in Windows.
After IE7 came out, Opera sued Microsoft for bundling Internet Explorer in Windows.
Real sued for including Windows Media Player.
Google sued for making MSN default search engine.
Google sued Microsoft for including desktop search in Vista.
Now what happens when Apple includes Spotlight in Mac OS X. What happens when Google is the default browser on Opera, Safari, and Firefox? What happens when Apple includes iTunes? What happens when Apple includes Safari? NOTHING...
---Wow I sound like a Microsoft fanboy