Frustrated iOS 5 and BlackBerry Windows Phone winners announced

By Tom Warren, on 13th Oct 11 9:58 pm with 39 Comments

Microsoft announced the winners of a giveaway on Thursday to frustrated smartphone users who wanted to upgrade to Windows Phone.

Microsoft’s Ben Rudolph announced the 25 winners in a blog post on Thursday following a huge amount of responses from people worldwide. “So far I’ve received over 1500 responses from people all over the world, sharing their thoughts about why they’re frustrated by their current smartphone and why Windows Phone is easier, simpler, and more beautiful,” said Rudolph.

Microsoft offered frustrated iOS 5 and BlackBerry users the opportunity to win a Windows Phone device on Wednesday. A number of Apple iOS 5 users were left without their applications following an upgrade delivered on Wednesday. BlackBerry users were left without any services on their devices following a three day outage of RIM’s services. ”The huge influx of positive comments about Windows Phone got me thinking,” said Rudolph. “If there are thousands of people out there who want a Windows Phone, why not give more chances to win one?” As a result, Microsoft will give away one device each month to an individual with a unique story on why they want or need a Windows Phone. The 25 winners are as follows:

  1. Jon404: @BenThePCGuy I’m sick of drinking the Apple Kool-aid! I need some Mango to take the taste away ;)
  2. mattymorgs: @BenThePCGuy with #iOS still stuck on its bubbly look from 5 years ago,#windowsphone is the true ‘Think Different’ of UI style today.
  3. jdnorthwest: @BenThePCGuy As a frustrated #DearBlackberry user I was shopping the Bellevue@MicrosoftStore yesterday for a #windowsphone
  4. sweeneyben: @BenThePCGuy #DearBlackberry my Storm2 was great if I went back in time, but is so outdated, with poor service. I want to go back to Windows
  5. joegaus: @BenThePCGuy i want a #windowsphone because only Beyoncé Knowles’ beauty can compare to those DAMN SEXY LIVETILES
  6. jubbing: @BenThePCGuy #dearblackberry I want to use a phone where I can check my emails any time of the.. week. Sincerely, annoyed guy
  7. jacobdfriedman: @benthepcguy I want to switch because even eight years later, iTunes for windows is a clunky, crashy mess.
  8. chrisemmerson: Dear @BenThePCGuy how about u convert a beloved fruity phone lover & user with well world travelled phone from his free upgrade from the 4s?
  9. salamahoy: @BenThePCGuy I got the new BlackBerry 9900. It’s been so problematic, I’ve thrown it against the wall. Now I have no phone. #DearBlackberry
  10. ChamatkariBaba: @BenThePCGuy BB served as a paper weight for last 3 days and from now onwards I plan to use it that way only
  11. Unwiredmedic: @BenThePCGuy Hey man, #2 & #11 are same guy. Can I get that #WindowsPhone? LOL! I miss my old PPC2003, WinMo5, WinMo6, and WinMo6.5 phones
  12. KTownGMG: @BenThePCGuy My Blackberry has been dropping calls and really, this is it for me…..PLUS METRO…is one word…METRO! SEND ME A PHONE!!!!
  13. jsteig: @BenThePCGuy I would love my BlackBerry if it didn’t crash daily and if I could install applications w/o it dropping to a crawl
  14. TGProof: @BenThePCGuy also, I use my phone for business and school, without proper function it made contact very difficult. #UpgradeMeToWindowsPhone
  15. phonomatik: @BenThePCGuy Hey Guy! Ok, iOS is lame. WP7 is much better. I like the hubs and tiles, they have a good structure. All Apps are good sorted.
  16. mikehc: @BenThePCGuy I don’t have a BB, have a Pre. But I’m equally frustrated… Do I have a chance to win a WP7?
  17. lazejanev: @BenThePCGuy I would like WP7 phone, because I want to transfer my enterprise knowledge on a mobile platform.Android and iOS are not for ERP
  18. Cri5_09: @BenThePCGuy I want a Windows Phone 7.5 because Mango beats Apples, berries, sandwitches or any other fruit/nut available.
  19. ijoostin: @BenThePCGuy I have an iPhone, but I want to see the world! I want to see what others see the future as. Apple’s can’t be the only vision!
  20. qkns: Hi @BenThePCGuy, I’m the BB admin :( I have 2 give status updates counsel unhappy users & stay const. up 2 date on this mess. I want OFF BB!
  21. erickmagnus: @BenThePCGuy RIM just don’t respect customers. They take 2 days just to inform “we are working on this”! I want a #windowsphone!
  22. Chipstopher: @BenThePCGuy Dunno if you’re still giving away Windows Phones, but Id switch to Windows Phone gladly. At this point I wanna phone that works
  23. MrJoeSterne: @benthepcguy man, updating to iOS 5 was worse than installing windows- by a long shot!
  24. Xadacka: @BenThePCGuy sick of it crashing, rebooting, slowing down… nice wp7 device sure would make things easier on me!
  25. finntannermom: @BenThePCGuy to save a marriage! I cannot reach my husband need a #windowsphone #DearBlackberry>
  • http://www.searingarrow.com AlienSix

    Hey why not?

    • http://twitter.com/majankajan majankajan

      Microsoft wants to force you to use wp7

    • Adam

      huh?

  • DroidUser

    Are these real users? or just some made up guys from MS. Come to think of it, how did the NoDo update go for MS. Even with minscule market share they could not get the update go properly. With grand updates like Apple’s there will always be minor glitches. This is just ridiculous from MS.
    Instead of trying to market on strengths of their system they have fallen to gimmicks as there is no comparison between mango and ios or android for that matter. Anybody without any prejudice tell me one feature that is in Mango that is not available in ios or android.
    Siri is much better than Mango Tellme. Even Android Google Voice is better compared to TellMe. MS needs to lot more than just catching up for selling these phones.

    • Anonymous

      Tellme: “Find frustrated android fanboy who never tried wp7″yA23b Yh4ReZd…
      …Found DroidUser

    • DroidUser

      Siri: “Can you find a bozo who is so confused…scratch it .. Can you find an idiot who cannot think on his own but fall for gimmicks”
      …Found bnlf.
      Siri: Do you want me send this idiot a demo of myself?

      I dont think TellMe can do that? Can it Bozo

    • Adam

      and Siri can?

    • Anonymous

      very clever comeback…

    • Andrew Ware

      you have no idea what you’re talking about, and you are embarrassing yourself and other commenters on this site with your ignorance

    • Anonymous

      yay!!

      MS mobile market share just went up 200% with these 25 new winners..

      All of us will now have a blast..

      wow..so great!

    • Anonymous

      Wow,  somebody got their feelings hurt it seems.   Typical, ‘other people don’t like what I like so they can’t really exist” attitude.  I think Tellme is much better than Androids recognition so what determines what is actually better?  It all comes down to preference.  You mention the NoDo update where the problems were with getting all the carriers organized and then the Samsung phones, but you fail to mention how great the Mango update is going.  How is Google doing rolling out their updates?  

    • DroidUser

      Google has no Updates. Their update sucks. No doubt about it. I was talking about ios updates. That doesn’t mean MS updates did not go bad. Let me put it this way. Show me previous updates of ios going bad. This is first time. There is a difference between upgrading very tiny number of phones to huge number of phones. With that tiny fraction MS botched it big time during Nodo. Let me tell you. I like Mango and how they came from behind so fast. But market it on features and strenght of the OS rather than on gimmicks. Probably in your fanboyism world you cannot think that can you.

    • Anonymous

      what “gimmicks” are you talking about? I use voice commands constantly whenever i can. i hate keyboard typing on phones.  obviously id on’t use it in inappropriate situations but it’s great when i wanted to show someone what multitasking would look like in mango, i could just say “find: windows phone 7 mango multitasking” and it worked perfectly.  I don’t want to have to type all that in just to show someone a picture.  And NoDo was the first update microsoft sent out.  But comparing android or wp7 updates to iOS updates is dumb. iOS is a bullet to one gun. WP7 and Android are ten slightly different bullets to ten different guns.  Obviously iOS is updated easier.

    • Anonymous

      An MS update didn’t go smoothly,  their first update with this new platform.  Mango is going really well,  so while we can’t be sure something won’t mess up again, MS seems to be doing quite well with updates.

      I had so many problems updating and with the 4.0 iOS update itself that I sold my iPhone and went back to a clam shell until WP7 launched.   You also have you updating issue backwards.  Apple had a small number of phones to update, while MS had more to update. Only Samsung devices had a problem so I would say MS (which had a much bigger challenge ahead of it) has done quite well with updates so far.  

       I do notice you are resorting to calling people fanboys for countering your argument. It seems you have closed your mind so much you really can’t accept that someone thinks different from, or contradicts you.  I would like to know what you are suggesting is a gimmick,  the voice that you just bragged on Android and iOS for having is now a gimmick if MS does it?

    • Anonymous

      Sorry you lose once again because the IOS4 did the exact same thing, bricking a lot of phones. It was so bad Apple was bout to be sued by a group of people that hot their phones completely bricked.

      To me I don’t see this as a gimmick much more of marketing. They give out phones to other OS users who will show off the great functionality of WP7.5 which on tails will bring in more and more. Word of mouth is great even if it does start off with 25 people.

    • Anonymous

      well since apple is the only manufacturer for their phone, it’s easier to test prior to announcing the release of the update. MS has to deal with various OEMs and the updates get pushed through the carriers. Therefore, it’s more difficult to test everything. The mango update is going pretty well so far.

    • Grannyville7989

      I agree that iOS, Android and Windows Phone all do very similar things but I chose Windows Phone because of the way that it works, such as being able to pin more than just application icons onto my home screen as well as the integration with SkyDrive.

      It’s very much like Windows vs Mac OS. They both pretty much do the same thing, give or take. At the end of the day, it’s just what you prefer to use.

    • Anonymous

      local scout is better.  facebook integration is better. aesthetics of the UI design, in my opinion, is WAY better.  Office is better. Xbox is better. and from using an iPhone and a windows phone(admittedly not a 4s) the wp7 voice dictation accuracy is much better than at least iOS4. (yes i know, the OS is a year old, but so was the version of wp7 i used, and if it was negligible i wouldn’t have mentioned it but iOS4 couldn’t do anything well with voice commands when i used it. we’ll see how well siri works.) bing vision and audio is better, simply because you don’t have wait to open up yet another app.  the web browser is cleaner.  live tiles are better than icons, and can show more than most widgets.  threads are better.  profile history is better. and the music player is 1,000,000,000,000 times better than ANYTHING android or iOS has to offer.  Zune Music Pass is better. etc, etc, etc.

    • DroidUser

      Local scout is not any better than what is available in Google. That is just rubbish. Facebook integration is better? tell me how. It has the same deal as any other Smart Phone OS.  Agreed Live tiles and UI is unique to Mango. I am not criticizing the OS per se. I am saying instead of highliting the good things about Mango they are just falling to Gimmicks which does not make sense. They need to come up with unique features that are better than other OS and showcase that is all I am saying

    • Anonymous

      Have you even tried using mango? i am sure you haven’t… you can save pictures directly to your phone from your family group. The aease of use and the communication with each other software makes 7.5 beyond the competition.

    • Anonymous

      you didn’t address the other 10 items mentioned in my post.  And I have not seen anything that integrates local results in one place, without an app, baked into the system, with three to four separate sections that split results up into restaurants, shopping, highlights, and entertainment, and then gives you linked information including ratings and descriptions, as well as connected information to other apps, etc. neither android nor iOS has quick cards, and I don’t believe either has mall maps like bing does, and i also don’t believe that either has airport maps, which are soon to come to bing mobile and are already in the desktop mode.  and facebook integration is better because you do not have to open to apps to see status updates, or have facebook profile information, or send a message, or start chat(which in all honesty are basically one and the same now) or to post to twitter(i take this back iOS now has twitter sharing built in, but not access to other peoples feeds without an app), or see twitter updates, or linkedin updates.  None of those tasks have to be done in the facebook app, which adds up to hours of time saved in which you don’t have to wait for the facebook app to load, don’t have to find the contact in facebook, don’t have to finally write the message in facebook, and don’t have to continue to open the app after you’ve sent the message.  and bing vision is better than google goggles, as it doesn’t actually have to take a picture, and can recognize books, barcodes, tags, movies, etc while they are moving on behind the camera.  oh, and the fact that text recognition works while the camera is still moving, and then overlays translated text over the actual words, is crazy.  Also, as Mary JO foley pointed out, if you want to edit a picture in android, you must open the app, select a picture, wait for it to open, then finally edit your picture.  WP7.5 has the ability to jump from a picture, seconds after taking it, into a connected photo editing app.   the app connect that goes on in wp7.5 is better than anything else on the market, because no other os has done it.

    • Guest

      I think you really don’t know what you’re talking about. WP has made FB so tightly integrated it’s transparent in all the right ways.

      If they extend this offer, why don’t you ask for one sayng “I’m a WP naysayer, but I’m willing to give it a shot for 2 weeks; if I’m not convinced, I’ll pass it on to your next runner-up.”

    • WPDiddy

      Um, Windows Phone OS is not on any Android phone and it is a much a better experience.  Your question is like asking what’s the difference between a Luxury car and a bottom tier car. If you don’t get you dont get it, that’s fine.

    • Avatar Roku

      Static icons are outdated. If you don’t realize that live tiles are the future then you will when Windows 8 and the new Xbox dashboard are out. I look at my windows start screen and I have tons of content and info without even opening a single app. Use a Windows Phone for a while and the old iOS springboard starts to look really silly and lacking.

      TellMe is better than Google Voice Search. First TellMe actually talks so you can use the phone without having to look at the device. Windows Phone is truly hands free, it will read text messages to you and ask you for your response. Second you can actually open apps and issue commands with TellMe, Google only does voice to text.

    • Emi Cyberschreiber

      and the only question is… why do you care?
      you know, its not like you are paying for those free phones MS gave away ;)

      but right, maybe coming to a blog that talks about Microsoft products to troll about something you don’t even know or have used like Wp7, Feeling so smart, and “I know everything” its the only way you can live daily since it seems you forgot to get a life with your Android… or whatever you use.

      At least your “I need attention” was a success today. and you can have a happy day and a good night :) congratulations.

    • http://www.gadgeterija.net Denis Jelec

      Yeah, they are completely unreal users with thousands of tweets and years on their accounts. Brilliant logic, makes perfect sense. Why are you so bitter?

      Question is for you to ask yourself. Don’t bother answering to me.

    • http://techin5.com Jubbin Grewal @Techin5.com

      Yes those are real users.

    • Anonymous

      since when do you you need to create fake users to get something for free? And tell how any droid update go. I co-worker at work had to wait over a year for an update for his fascinate.

  • Jinge

    “frustrated smartphone users who wanted to upgrade to Windows Phone”
    I like it ^^

    And the idea to keep the buzz up on twitter is a good one I think. Almost free ads for WP, with a really wide visibility. Good move :)

  • http://www.gadgeterija.net Denis Jelec

    Win. :)

  • Anonymous

    @af560ce06540de8d069b1db29cde2b19:disqus , here are features not available on iOS nor Android, twitter, integrated into the OS. Or what about MS office,…and no, DocumentsToGO and iOS Pages,Numbers and Keynote, does not cut it. What about Bing Vision and Music search, integrated into the OS. I see no equal from iOS or Android camp in regards to ZUNE. What about Xbox live?,…iOS game center is a joke, no unified gaming system integrated into Android. What about the cluttered mess that is iTunes on Windows.

    This move by MS is no different than a marketing move similar to the “if you do not have an iPhone” commercials on TV. Not only did Microsoft create something diff, but they succeeded in creating a new UX, not found in iOS and Android, to the extent that apps on iOS and Android Market are now attempting to mimic METRO.

    The apple update problem was not minor, since it appears quite a significant number of people had problems updating their devices. You would think that Apple would have gotten this down to a science by now. And what about Android and their laughable attempt at updates for their devices. The Nodo update did not go smoothly, but it was infinitely better than Androids update process.

    Being a previous iOS user (3GS last used in November 2010), i switched to WP7 after trying a good amount of android handsets and have not looked back ever since. I as well as a good number of people i know have embraced WP7, as it provides an experience which is currently not available from iOS and Android.

  • Shazam

    This kind of ticks me off: 
    . I paid for my Phone 
    . Been dealing with MS poorly thought out app listing page (freaking vertical)
    . Been sticking by their side since the 1st lunch (imagine back how it was like before the No DO update).

    Where the F is my free phone.  They can’t even get us features that already exists on iOS/Android (like Skype or YouTube).  WP7 voice command BLOWS in comparison to iOS/Android.

    As much as I want MS to win, there passion for creativity with least amount of effort really gets under my skin.

    • Anonymous

      I like the single column vertical app list and I prefer it over a page of tiles.    WP7 voice command has been far more accurate than Android ever was,  though Android previously offered more commands.

      You haven’t really used a Windows Phone have you?  It was good even before nodo,  youtube has existed since day 1,  if you mean a better youtube program, blame Google for blocking MS servers.  MS has a youtube app ready to go when they stop blocking it.  Skype is coming,  we have already seen the app months ago, but the integration will be much better than what you can get out of Skype on iOS or Android.

    • Larry

      Until they get visual voicemail NO WP7 for me.  

      If you are way into the social media stuff, the WP7 UI is better tied together.  However for someone like me, not a twitter user, hardly a Facebook user, none of that matters and if anything i would have to make sure I was not sharing stuff by accident. 

    • Anonymous

      WP7 does have Visual voicemail baked in to it. Currently the carriers are the ones that are blocking it implementation. So if that’s your only concern call AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile, or Sprint and get them off their lazy hind sides and tell them to turn on the spigot!

  • Guest

    Yeah, that iOS update was a bit of a cf. Multiple errors on attempt yesterday. Finally got it today. Took forever to install, restore, then copy over everything for some unknown reason. But success after all that, which is better than some other who got their phones bricked.

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_2WNLCWLJUCZ3WEHQUXJOVWISBA Wizard
  • http://www.facebook.com/marksthomas Mark Thomas

    Upgrade? To a Windows phone? From an iOS device?

    Does not compute…

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