This is the full video of the theme it was cut down big time, yes the theme was built for Naughty By Nature to promote themselves with the pending release of their new album this year. It really had no input from Microsoft other then to be sure to follow the guidelines of their logo usage, and then they were excited to see that Naughty By Nature was using WM devices and offered to help promote the Naughty By Nature Contest to win the phone.

Here’s my list of some of WM’s major issues (besides the non-existent mindshare due to ineffective marketing):

-CE5/6 only support ancient ARMv4 instructions for OS (not optimized for modern ARM CPUs, no multi-core support)
-CE5/6 lack support for ARM hardware floating-point unit
-Poor memory management
-Lack of GPU-accelerated composited UI
-Lack of common graphics API (GAPI/Direct3D Mobile are dead?, no MS implementation of OpenGL ES 2.0)
-Lack of new hardware APIs (accelerometer, compass, etc.)
-No resolution-independent graphics environment (aka where is Silverlight for WM?)
-No touch-friendly UI controls for developers (VS toolbox for WM resembles Win95)
-Outdated UI – touch-unfriendly, inefficient notification system, common UI elements (start bar, soft keys) take up too much screen space
-Outdated built-in applications (email, SMS, contacts, calendar, photos, IE)
-Poor media support (ancient WMP is mostly useless for video)
-Poor UI control of multitasking exacerbates performance issues
-Lack of (official) support for capacitive touchscreens (capacitive is vastly better for finger input– no need to go capacitive-only, but support should be there)
-Carrier/OEM dependence for OS update distribution – result: no OS updates for non-current phones (compare: iPhone from 6/2007 can automatically update to OS 3.0 in iTunes)
-When available, OS updates often too difficult for end users to apply (Pre does OTA updates; iPhone on iTunes automatically backs up apps, installs OS, restores everything)

On the hardware end (not quite MS’ purvey, but still):

-Underpowered CPUs/GPUs (e.g. Qualcomm MSM72xx, Marvell PXA)
-No capacitive screens (capacitive gives superior touch, better accuracy, much better sunlight readability; multi-touch easily implemented (in hardware))
-Few phones with 3.5mm audio jacks
-Few (wired) hardware accessories due to inconsistent device HW/driver support for USB Host/OTG (compare: iPhone already has dozens of accessories coming with 3.0 release)
-Few phones with US 3G bands (this is obviously a cost/carrier issue as well, but quite annoying for U.S. users)

I see your logic behind that, adults probably would not use the custom themes. I just assumed that using Naughty by Nature, they were targeting an older hip hop crowd, who will acutally have the money to purchase the device. I understand the teenage purchase power, but I would assume M$FT would use NbyN for that audience.

Anyhow, it’s MS that needs to change the sh1tty OS, not rely on HTC’s rigid GUI to promote itself. I bet after 2 or 3 weeks, the buyer of a ‘custom’ HTC TP2 would do anything to change the ‘custom’ theme. Eventually they’ll emerge onto xda, because HTC provides no way of changing themes. Pathetic.

At that point, they will either choose to hate WM, or love it.

If WM’s own fans don’t speak out about the absurd direction that WM seems to be heading in, then MS will always feel safe; of course, it has a very strong fanbase on xda, which is very difficult to win over.

Having said that, if HTC Firestone’s purported specs are true, then it is on par with the iPhone 3G S. Just the OS needs to see better days.

1) As pointed out above, Naughty by Nature? they’re still around?

2) Isn’t having a customized startup splash screen not really something to advertise lol? As in…you shouldn’t ever see that screen unless you have to restart the phone, which, admittedly is still a much more frequent task on Windows Mobile than iPhone OS, Android, or WebOS. But hey, if your OS has a deficiency, I guess make something cool out of it, heh.

3) For many people, this might be their first time seeing the Touch Pro 2 or its TouchFlo3D interface. Showing it off with such a cluttered, illegible theme is probably not the best idea. Sure, those of us who’ve seen TouchFlo3D can appreciate that lots of its UI elements have been skinned, but otherwise it doesn’t look like something I’d want to depend on every day.

More generally, Apple’s marketing for the iPhone is probably the industry standard. Their print and TV ads show you the device, things you can do, applications, etc., all on the actual device itself. Not just some phone spinning in the background with vague description words flying by (like MS’ WinMo 6.5 promo video). MS could easily come up with a solid way to promote WinMo– Win 7 and Xbox 360 are probably internal benchmarks.

But before the marketing, MS needs to do something about the product. The iPhone was announced in January 2007. 2.5 years later, Microsoft’s product offering is essentially the same as it was then. As a WinMo user for years, I waited for a long time for MS’ response, only to be disappointed. Finally I switched over to the iPhone, which in jailbroken form was pretty powerful and then, with the App Store, gained many more, and better-quality, applications in just some months than had ever been developed for WinMo.

Now the situation’s reversed– Apple’s the one with the massive install base of developers and applications (>50,000). I’ve been waiting for the right time to switch back to WinMo, but there’s an increasing disincentive from doing so. WinMo hardware still doesn’t match the first-gen iPhone, the OS is antiquated and lacking in functionality (ability to make use of new CPUs, FPU support, GPU-accelerated GUI, APIs for hardware components- accelerometer, compass, etc.), and now there are thousands of apps on the iPhone that just aren’t available on WinMo because developers have jumped ship. WM is like a car stuck in a time warp, with HTC and others just periodically changing the rims– while it might’ve beaten PalmOS years ago, it doesn’t stand much of a chance today. Didn’t Microsoft see this coming?