Microsoft to launch their own phone and copy Android’s notification tray in 2013

It’s safe to say that Windows Phone hasn’t taken off. Nokia recently reported that they sold just 2.9 million Lumia devices in Q3 2012. To put that number into some perspective, today Samsung announced that they sold 3 million Galaxy Note 2 units in 37 days. Translation: One phone in Samsung’s portfolio managed to outsell Nokia’s entire Windows Phone lineup.
According to The Wall Street Journal, Microsoft is aiming to turn things around in 2013. Their sources in Asia tell them that Microsoft is working on their own smartphone, but they can’t confirm whether or not the company plans to mass produce said device. Microsoft could very well just be doing some research, poking around to see what their hardware engineers can come up with, but our gut tells us that there’s something more to this story. Expect to hear more rumors about a “Surface Phone” over the coming months.
In other news, Microsoft’s Thomas Fennel told developers attending the BUILD Conference that the company “rant out of time” with regards to the lack of a notification center in Windows Phone. His exact quote:

“It’s very very important to me… we get tons of feedback from developers that they want something like that as well. I promise we’re thinking very very hard on that one.”

We all know Apple blatantly copied the Android notification tray when they launched iOS 5 back in October 2011. Now it looks like Microsoft is also going to do the same thing, though we don’t know when they’re going to bring it to Windows Phone. Microsoft typically updates their mobile OS in a tick-tock fashion. After a major update (Windows Phone 7) there’s a minor update (Windows Phone 7.5) and then there’s another major update (Windows Phone 8), so you get the idea.
Will Microsoft’s phone, assuming it exists, be awesome? Looking at the Surface, it’s obvious that the company has incredibly talented designers. But will Windows Phone ever become more attractive than Android?
That’s going to be a tough mountain to climb.

Posted in: Windows Phone 8