At last, Microsoft’s long awaited ‘Pink’ project has become a reality, emerging as two consumer focused handsets, called Kin One and Kin Two. The name was the best kept secret – other details were long expected, including the first carriers (Verizon and Vodafone) and manufacturing partner (Sharp).
Undeterred by Google’s poor experience with launching an own-branded phone – incurring the wrath of its software licensees – Microsoft is taking a similar approach, although the Kin will be geared to the mainstream consumer market rather than the high end inhabited by Nexus One. Like most of the notable new handsets of the past few months, Kin will be heavy on social networking and will be targeted at the 15-30 age group.
It is always hard to see why software firms launch their own hardware, risking the alienation of their key partners, though Microsoft is doing a better job than Google of keeping its own offering separate from those of its Windows Mobile customers. While the key Windows handset makers – HTC and LG – are launching high end models like HTC’s HD2, and racing towards the new Windows Phone 7, Kin is firmly midrange.
To some extent, it is a logo swap for the old Sidekick range, acquired by Microsoft along with cult phonemaker Danger (those phones were also made by Sharp). But if the aim is to get Microsoft’s brand greater visibility in the consumer space, it will have a tough fight on its hands against Apple, Android and the key hardware makers. In branding terms, the Kin logo will take precedence, with Verizon, Windows and Sharp also present, in smaller type.
Vodafone, which will launch the Kin in Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK this fall, says the phone is “designed specifically for people who are actively navigating their social lives” and provides “the ultimate social experience that blends the phone, online services and a browser-based experience for viewing photos, videos, contacts and feeds from any computer.” This sounds remarkably like Vodafone’s own socially-oriented user experience, 360, and indicates how many cellcos are confusing their own user bases by offering a wide range of very similar user interfaces and applications platforms.
Stateside, Verizon will offer the two Kin models first, in one of its first major moves into the hot growth area for 2010, the mass market smartphone. Most of Verizon’s midrange webphones are based on proprietary systems or Brew, and its smartphones – Windows, Android and BlackBerry – are focused on the high end. Verizon said it would start selling the new gadgets online in May and in stores shortly afterwards. No pricing has yet been announced but this is becoming a highly price competitive segment of the market.
In terms of hardware features, the Kin 1 is short and square, with a Qwerty keyboard sliding out from the bottom; while the Kin 2 is longer and its full keyboard emerges from the side. Both support multitouch.
Roz Ho, leader of Microsoft’s Kin team, said the company has been working on the devices for several years, aiming for very simple usage, with minimal menus and icons, and for a heavy focus on Facebook and other social nets. She said the team has carried out extensive study of consumer habits and has built their key activities into Kin. In particular, sending photos is done with a simple dragging motion, while a finger swipe brings up a page with applications and music.
As expected, the Kin is also, in effect, the ‘Zune phone’, integrating the Zune media player software, previously only used in the standalone music devices. This follows the key industry trend to port content platforms to general smartphone platforms from specialized devices like Kindle e-readers or iPod music players. Zune software will also be incorporated into Windows Phone 7 handsets.
Among the phones’ features are Wi-Fi and strong cameras for this class of handset – 5-megapixels for Kin 1 and 8-mp for Kin 2, which can also shoot HD video. Neither has a memory card slot but will upload content to a Kin online storage service, an increasingly popular approach that was pioneered by Danger.