Microsoft just announced Kin, the latest addition to their Windows Phone product portfolio, designed to capture the magazine of your life and optimized for the social generation.
Robbie Bach, President, Entertainment & Devices Division @ Microsoft, shared the background information about the Kin development process, with the most striking fact that the Kin team interviewed thousands of people before even writing a single line of code.
In addition one of my international friends Derek Snyder, product manager of the Kin team, rocked the stage by conducting some awesome demo’s with the Kin Phones and sharing the user experience and the basic underlying concepts of Kin Phones. In the picture below you can see Derek Snyder showing the Kin One and Kin Two to the audience in San Fransico !
Picture used with permission of Vincent Nguyen and Slashgear
Kin background details and relation with Windows Phone 7
In the Microsoft press release “Microsoft Ushers in the Next Generation of the Social Phone With KIN, a New Windows Phone” you can read:
“We built KIN for people who live to be connected, share, express and relate to their friends and family. This social generation wants and needs more from their phone. KIN is the one place to get the stuff you care about to the people you care about most.”
In other words for the social generation their social life is priority #1 to stay in touch with their friends, friends and friends. Furthermore self experession is super important to this generation, and finally this generation has really high demands on their technology. Acctually there wasn’t a phone specifically designed for those people until today !
Windows Phone 7 is described as the best multipurpose experience for broader offering, while KIN is an opportunity to go after specific group defined as the social generation. The KIN phones are designed customized and optimized uniquely for these people.
While you can see that both the Windows Phone families share some of the same DNA, they are designed with a different purpose:
“Windows Phone 7 is designed to simplify your life; KIN is designed to amplify it.”
Bill Fischer, Editor of Windows Phone Connection, describes the Windows Phone 7 – Kin relation in a different way in his article: “KIN vs. Windows Phone 7: A Magazine of Your Life vs. a Navigator for Your Life?“
Kin One and Kin Two - Kin hardware (designed) by Sharp
Chris Ziegel, Editor at Engadget, has written an excellent article “Microsoft Kin One and Kin Two announced: Windows Phone roots with a social slant” in which he summarizes the hardware specifications of the Kin One and Kine Two phones.
In the Microsoft press release “Microsoft Ushers in the Next Generation of the Social Phone With KIN, a New Windows Phone” the Kin One and Kin Two are described as well:
“There are two models called KIN ONE and KIN TWO. Both phones feature a touch screen and slide-out keyboard. ONE is small and compact, making it a perfect fit for a pocket and to operate with one hand. TWO has a larger screen and keyboard, in addition to more memory, a higher resolution camera, and the ability to record high-definition video. The 5 and 8 megapixel cameras in ONE and TWO, respectively, are designed for use in low light with image stabilization and a bright LumiLED flash.”
The Kin One and Kin Two are designed for two different types of usage scenario’s, and I can already tell you in advance that my girlfriend will love the Kin One design, a small and compact phone that is easy to fit in a pocket or bag. I really like full QWERTY hardware keyboards on a phone, so the Kin Two would be more a design that fits my personal needs.
You can furthermore see that some of the focus in the hardware design is on the camera that captures pictures and video’s of your personal life. As you can see the camera’s of both devices are optimized for low light conditions and rock an image stabilization technology, that I for example know from the Canon 40d SLR camera.
Robbie Bach, President, Entertainment & Devices Division @ Microsoft, shared during the keynote that the Kin Two will shoot HD video’s in 720p !!
httpvhd://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWpuHGUP26o
Kin Loop, Kin Spot and Kin Studio – The software part of Kin
“KIN has a fun, simple interface, which is designed to help people publish the magazine of their life by making the people and stuff they love the focus rather than menus and icons.”
Michael Drucker, member of the Kin team, shows the Kin user experience in more detail in the Slashgear video above. In addition you might want to check out the Channel 9 video with Laura Foy interviewing people from the PMX team and getting a full demo of the Kin experience.
“The home screen of the phone is called the KIN Loop, which is always up to date and always on, showing all the things happening in someone’s social world. KIN automatically brings together feeds from leading Microsoft and third-party services such as Facebook, MySpace and Twitter all in one place, making it easier to stay connected. Customers can also select their favorite people, and KIN will automatically prioritize their status updates, messages, feeds and photos. “
Earlier in the article I explained that Windows Phone 7 and KIN are related and share some of the same DNA. I think the homescreen or Kin Loop is one of the aspects that shows the relationship.
Just like the Live Tiles on Windows Phone 7 the homescreen design is aimed at function in a sleek and clean metro style look, and has a dynamic character when you look at updates. Another great feature that Michael Drucker shows off in the video above is the Kin Spot, the central place where you drag and drop things you want to share and the people that you want to share with.
“Another unique feature, the KIN Spot is a new way for people to share what’s going on in their world. It lets them focus first on the people and stuff they want to share rather than the specific application they want to use. Videos, photos, text messages, Web pages, location and status updates are shared by simply dragging them to a single place on the phone called the Spot. Once all the people and content are in the Spot to share, the consumer can choose how to share, and start broadcasting.”
httpvhd://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lq78H0YrIf8&feature=player_embedded
“KIN Studio is your phone online. Almost everything created on the phone is available in the cloud from any Web browser. Photos and videos are freed from the confines of the phone and presented in an online visual timeline so they are easy to view and share. The KIN Studio automatically backs up texts, call history, photos, videos and contacts, and populates a personalized digital journal so it’s easy to go back in time to relive a crazy weekend or recent birthday. And the KIN Studio gives customers tons of storage to keep all those photos, videos, contacts and texts so they’ll never run out of space on their phone and lose a memory.”
The video above specifically shows the Kin Studio software for your Windows powered notebook or PC. Kin Studio is one of the most brilliant parts of the Kin value proposition if you ask me, that combines some great features and functionality with a very clean and mean user interface.
You can read in the description of Kin Studio above that the automatically backup functionality similar as in Microsoft MyPhone for Windows Phone is included as well. Furthermore the almost unlimited amount of storage in the cloud sounds very attractive !!
Final thoughts and conclusion
I would like to start by congratulating the Kin team with a successful announcement of the Kin user-experience and compliment them furthermore with a new, fresh “type” of Windows Phone (hardware and software) optimized for the social generation.
Of course it was awesome to see one of my international friends Derek Snyder do the demo’s with a Kin One during the keynote !! You did a great job …
Another cool fact that I didn’t include in the article above, is that the Kin One and Kin Two will be the first Windows Phones that ship with the Zune Experience, which is also announced for Windows Phone 7.
The Kin Studio is the part of the Kin offering that reall impressed me the most, and hopefully we will see some of the approaches in its design back in the Zune software that will be used to synchronize Windows Phone 7 devices.
You can find additional information and product highlights on the Kin website. I’m really looking forward to get my hands on the Kin devices and start sharing. What are your thoughts on this move of Microsoft’s mobile division ??
