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Introducing KIN, a New Windows Phone from Microsoft

Apr. 12, 2010 Paul Thurrott | Paul Thurrott's Supersite for Windows

Microsoft is announcing its first Windows Phone today, the KIN (previously codenamed Pink). I'm blogging about this in real-time over on Windows Phone Secrets, but here's the information from Microsoft:

Moments ago in San Francisco, Robbie Bach unveiled KIN, a new WindowsPhone in partnership with Verizon and Sharp. KIN is a new social experience from Microsoft that combines the phone, online services and the PC. Designed for a socially connected audience with unique features such as the Spot, the Loop, and Studio, KIN helps you navigate your social life. It brings together who and what you love in a whole new way.  KIN has several unique features:

  • KIN Loop – The Loop is your favorite people and the things you love—on your home screen, in real time. You tell KIN who and what is important, and it delivers the latest updates from your favorite places (Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Windows Live)
  • KIN Spot – Share almost anything – photos, texts, web pages – with almost anyone by simply dragging them to a “spot” on your phone. Since the Spot is always on your screen you don’t have to worry about opening a new application to share and upload
  • KIN Studio – The KIN Studio is your KIN phone on the web.  Everything you create on your phone – messages, contacts, photos, videos – is also stored in the cloud and accessible from any web browser.  The content that’s important to you is automatically backed up to your own secure website and presented in a visual timeline to make it easy to view and share with friends. And with all the storage you’ll need, there’s almost no limit on what you can keep.

KIN will be exclusively available from Verizon Wireless in the U.S. beginning in May and from Vodafone this autumn in Germany, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom.

This looks better than I had expected, to be honest. More info on the KIN web site.

Discuss this Article 38

tayme
on Apr 12, 2010
This is an interesting move by Microsoft...a "feature phone" built on WP7. No mention of pricing through Verizon, at least that I have seen. It does include many of the most used teen scene apps - Facebook, Twitter, and a media player. Zune Pass, anybody? --tayme
Ocean
on Apr 12, 2010
Kin doesn't exactly roll off the tongue, it sounds like it may be related to Amazons device, but the linguistics roots are right: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/kin Then there is this: "KIN Spot – Share almost anything – photos, texts, web pages – with almost anyone by simply dragging them to a “spot” on your phone. Since the Spot is always on your screen you don’t have to worry about opening a new application to share and upload " Sounds like the dropbox folder on my desktop. I expect other app makers on other platforms to copy this.
Ocean
on Apr 12, 2010
...and Ars says it looks like the successor to the sidekick line.
UnnDunn
on Apr 12, 2010
As a sidekick replacement for teens, it looks perfect. The big question is, in a post-iPhone world, are the teens still looking for Sidekick-esque featurephones? In my view, they are going to have to price this in the featurephone range for it to be successful. No-one over the age of 16 is going to buy one of these things.
rr0de74@live.com
on Apr 12, 2010
I think this will be a big hit. I am simply amazed when I am out in public (for good or bad) how many 13-25 year old people live on their phones, mostly texting. Facebook is filled with pictures taken with phones. The online component looks like a improved facebook/my space especially for that target audience. Add in the good of the Zune, latest software and Zune pass and you have a very targeted software/hardware solution. Now the pricing is the key. Low price phones (under $150 for the large one) and a great texting/data plan and every mindless teen will want one and parents will like them as well.
rr0de74@live.com
on Apr 12, 2010
"No-one over the age of 16 is going to buy one of these things." Lots of parents will if its priced right, for those teens.
Dipsh t Admin
on Apr 12, 2010
Given the target demo, this looks really good. It's for people that are heavy texters and social network users. Teens and college kids, and not to be too stereotypical here, but women as well (particularly the Kin One). I still see plenty of youngin's rocking LG and Samsung text centric phones. That's what this is aimed at. Integrate this with a Zune pass, and you'll have a big hit on your hands, IMHO. It seems that even Engadget is kind of impressed by the thing.
daveinla
on Apr 12, 2010
Good looking teenager phone. But 4 and 8 GB, WTF !!? With teen loading their music and pics and vids, it's ridiculous nowadays !
Andreas J
on Apr 12, 2010
Ok. It looks great but to me, everything looks messy and crowded. I'm sure it'll look fine on the actual phone, but I don't see myself buying one of these in the future. But in all fairness, it looks like a cool device and a cool idea.
harakari
on Apr 12, 2010
The Sidekick seems a bit anachronistic to me. A lot has gone on in the phone world since it went into hibernation with Danger's acquisition by Microsoft. People have moved on, even the teens or the tweens right now are probably eyeing iPhones - and yes, they might settle for the Kin just because their parents won't get it for them - I guess that makes these phones the 'fallback' phones. And no games support? Teens don't play games anymore?
utepastor
on Apr 12, 2010
Not sure what role the PC is playing here, but if it is somehow central, this won't work. Teens don't want to have to connect things to PC's. That is three years ago. This phone looks like a direct competitor to WebOS which already allows this sort of behavior without having to sync to a PC. Everything is in the cloud which seems to be the direction of all things mobile.
subzerohitman721
on Apr 12, 2010
Now that's more like it Microsoft. Honestly, I really want to know where they've gotten this mojo from? I'm sure for those who diehard iPhone fans, this won't sway that crowd. However, I'm also sure that this won't sway the Android crowd either. However, the teen market is a fickle bunch. This might appeal to the teen/college/early 20's bunch. However, choice is ultimately good for everyone because it keeps the rest in check. For some teens, it's about two things. Is it cheap enough that your parent's won't balk at the price? Second, how is the device marketed that either makes it useful or trendy? I still feel for those looking for the status symbol, the iPhone still reigns king. However, the Nexus One & HTC Evo seems like Android elite phones. If this is the successor to the Sidekick, I think they are certainly on the right path. I really think with both KIN and WP7, Microsoft gets it. The question is comes down to timing. Will it have legs or is this another Palm Pre in the making?
DarkSages
on Apr 12, 2010
Not for me but if priced right 0-100 on contract this will be a good seller as a replacement for dumb txt phones. I dont see this competing with smartphones. The most interesting thing about this for me so far is that this uses the zune software; Paul is the zune software and the zune Marketplace finally going to make it out side the US? Will the Zune HD also be available for purchase in those countries? to me this looks like a beta, they want to get all the services ready for Windows Phone 7
meason
on Apr 12, 2010
I don't know what it cost for a sidekick or related services, but It does look to target the Teenage market. It just makes no sense to me why parents buy kids iPhone or other smart phones, I don't think my parents would have ever paid for a 2-3 hundred buck phone and 75+ buck service when I was young. Heck as a 34 year old I find the cost of smart phone plans crazy and just stick with my virgin mobile elchepo
FalKirk
on Apr 12, 2010
I have a minor quibble with the name. Normally I don't say much about the names of products because my work in sales has taught me that what I think is often not what the customer thinks. Further, I have no gripes with the name "Kin". Works for me. My objection is to numbering them the Kin-1 and Kin-2. This is just not an intuitive naming convention. It would have, in my opinion, been better if the name had in some way connected the phones but explained that one was bigger than the other. In no way do I think the name will be a major factor in sales. But I always wonder how the smartest - and the highest paid - people in the room seem to so often come up with the most mediocre ideas.
Keleko
on Apr 12, 2010
I could see getting one of these for my teens (only one so far, but 2 more will be there soon enough...). I don't want to pay the full price for an iPhone or some other smart phone, as well as the extra cost for the data plan too. A phone like this would serve well as long as it is cheaper on the monthly plan. I categorize phones like this as "cleverphone" since it isn't a full smartphone.
danbaker30
on Apr 12, 2010
Interesting concepts but I may wait for Next of Kin..
Ocean
on Apr 12, 2010
Microsoft is heavy on the marketspeak today. "Life maximizers" and the "social generation" and these devices are "zune tuned" for "generation upload". Is instant messenger present on this thing?
Perryman
on Apr 12, 2010
It does look kinda cool, especially the smaller one, but I'm wondering... since it's clearly not a Smartphone, will there be third-party applications for it? And if not, will that hurt its chances? Seems like with most people these days used to phones that are extensible with apps, that this would be a problem.
Rasken
on Apr 12, 2010
Not a phone for any degree of power user. The OS implementation seems to borrow from WP7 and from the Courier mockup (which makes me all the more hopeful that Courier is real). Everyone says that this is aimed at kids and the likes but I could see my wife seriously enjoying this device. Personally I'm waiting for WP7. (Pssst, hey Microsoft, I would we awesome if WP7 users could tie into Kin Studio too, just sayin')
Ocean
on Apr 12, 2010
According to MJ Foley --> No Apps.
yipcanjo
on Apr 12, 2010
@daveinla -- I think the "storage" issue is LESS of a deal than you think -- and they hit on that in their videos, if you've taken time to watch any of them. It can move data back and forth between the KIN and the "cloud", not to mention that *much* of your music can be streamed via Zune Pass "on the fly", if that's how you roll.
ejcorcoran
on Apr 12, 2010
I could see my wife using this. She wants simple and I don't want to have to explain complicated things like WinMo 6.1 to her. The 3 main selling points, to her, will be the HD camera, the automatic backup and Zune integration. I just wonder about batter life.
USArcher
on Apr 12, 2010
I'm just happy to see the very first mobile phone to support Zune and Zune Pass. I too thought this turned out better than I thought. If I had to guess, the Kin-1 will likely be the most popular of the two. For me, I'd say this entry level phone could be quite successful if marketed and more importantly priced right. We have seen the pricing for this...but it would be really cool if they included Zune Pass subscription. Someone else mentioned it here, Kin Studio should be available to Windows Phone 7 users as well or at least optional via app download. I'd be curious if the storage behind Kin Studio is tied into Live SkyDrive at all.
john87
on Apr 12, 2010
Great to see that it'll be in the UK. Also: Streaming of Zune Pass content according to Engadget over 3G networks! That's pretty impressive. Not for me but I can see this as a valid alternative to a Blackberry for what a lot of my friends use theirs for (i.e. BB messenger/sharing). P.S. Thanks for moderating Paul, finally it's safe to get back in the pool!
lazysquirrell
on Apr 12, 2010
kids will buy this just so they can walk in and say ..gimme that 'kin phone looking good though.
johnbaxter
on Apr 12, 2010
1. Photos trickle to the cloud and can't fill up the phone (from Paul's other blog). Nice. 2. If popular--very likely--Verizon better be ready for the data hit (the whole thing, not just the photo business). Vodaphone likely won't have a problem.
johnbaxter
on Apr 12, 2010
Oh--and "turtle" was the perfect code name for the little round one.
Waethorn
on Apr 12, 2010
"And no games support? Teens don't play games anymore?" Not most of the kids I see. At least, not on the phones that their parents buy, since they're usually just texting phones and the like. A common phone around here is the LG Keybo, since kids will get unlimited texting, nights, and weekends for like $25-30 on a student plan. I don't ever see any tweeners with smartphones, probably due to the price of data plans, not to mention the price of phones themselves. I kinda like the Kin One. A small pocketable phone with a slick UI looks pretty sweet. Will have to bug Canadian mobilecoms to carry it. Also, there's mention of Xbox (probably messaging) in the Kin Loop.... Kin Studio looks good. It looks the phones geo-tag photos automatically. Nice. I like that they combine touch and type on both devices. They use touch where appropriate, but have hardware buttons for certain specialized functions and full hardware keyboards. I find that there is a fine line between having touch control and having too much touch control, and certain, ahem, other vendors tend to cross that line all too often. Microsoft seems to have done it right here, and I could possibly see people weighing the potential limitations here compared to "the full WP7 experience", given that these have hardware keyboards, and WP7 devices (at least the initial ones) won't. I know I will.
chuckb84
on Apr 12, 2010
Gruber sums it up nicely: Microsoft Announces Kin, Its Next Two Failed Phones ★ Entire web site is Flash. These two phones are neither Windows Mobile 6 nor Windows Mobile 7. It’s as though the company is self-destructively attempting to sabotage its mobile efforts.
Waethorn
on Apr 12, 2010
YAY! Feed reader included! Every mobile phone should have that.
john87
on Apr 12, 2010
Just a small detail I saw on the Channel 9 video about the Kin: Apparently the Kin website will also allow for users to buy their phone with a customised back, similar to Zune Originals. Sounds interesting. Also apparently the services are based on Windows Live Services. Kin Studio obviously looks a lot like MyPhone (automatic backup of media, contacts and messages). It'll be great if eventually WinPhone users get a similar experience for the added simplicity but also because Kin could act as a really good "beginners" smartphone (yes, yes, I know it isn't a smart phone but I think you see my point).
jeffsters
on Apr 12, 2010
Well this just in: 31% of the U.S. teens surveyed planned to buy an iPhone in the next six months, up from 22% last fall and nearly double the 16% who wanted one a year ago. 14% already own an iPhone, up from 8% a year ago, but down a point from 15% six months ago. Of the 87% who own an MP3 player, 92% own an iPod. Of Apple's major competitors, only Microsoft (MSFT), Sony (SNE) and Sandisk (SNDK) showed up in the results, with 3% market share each. Of the 82% of teens who download music, 43% do it legally. Of those, 92% get their music from Apple's iTunes Store. http://brainstormtech.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2010/04/12/survey-31-of-u-s-... So MS introduces a 2000's phone, with a few social apps, and thinks that's something special? There are awesome Facebook, twitter, etc., apps out there that are best in class and even MANY that combine into one App already! Yawn!
chrishilt0n
on Apr 12, 2010
I will probably wait until they release a fur kin case, 100% lambs wool.
pthurrott
on Apr 13, 2010
I'm probably too old to know what to make of this. I hear people when they complain about a lack of games, or apps, or whatever. Pricing is a question. But part of good design is knowing when to leave stuff out. The key is leaving out the right stuff. I am somewhat amused that the iPad's missing features are OK to the mainstream press, but Microsoft is getting dinged for this with KIN. Personally, I'd ding them both. My (admittedly out of touch) view is that kids can handle (or at least think they can handle) far more inputs that can adults, and while they certainly have short attention spans, the more the better. That said, maybe that's why there are no games. Playing a game would take time, and kids don't have time. They're in and out of things, posting, seeing what they're friends are doing etc. Again, I don't know. But I wouldn't just randomly denounce the things. They're actually really nice. Hey, so was the Zune HD. And that killed, right? /cricket chirps
Dipsh t Admin
on Apr 13, 2010
To counter what chuck (and by extension, Gruber), and jeffsters are saying, I disagree somewhat. While the iPhone certainly has a wide swath of support, to call social networking based devices an automatic failure is just plain false. The market for smartphones is growing, but is no where near the entire market of cell phones. A just released report showed the US marketshare of various manufacturers. http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Mobile-and-Wireless/Motorola-BlackBerry-OS-Lead... "Motorola held 22.3 percent market share, down from 24.2 percent, followed by LG with a consistent 21.7 percent and Samsung with 21.4 percent, up slightly from 21 percent. " Outside of Motorola, both LG and Samsungs growth in this market is due to feature phones and plain old dumb phones. Not until we get to RIM do we get a pure smartphone platform with 8.2% of the US market. Also revealed, "The biggest percentage change—coinciding more or less neatly with the increase of browser use—was the number of mobile subscribers who accessed social-networking sites and blogs. While 15.1 percent of subscribers did so during the previous quarter, that number was up to 18 percent in the quarter ending February 2010." Guess where the Kin falls? In that growing social networking market. People like Gruber will not buy this phone, and I doubt anyone reading this blow will either. The smartphone market is great and improving, but not everyone needs or wants a smartphone, or are willing to pay for inflated smartphone pricing and data plans. The success (or failure) of this device will depend entirely on the handset price and data plan price. A $29-59 handset price with a $15/month data plan will sell. Higher than that and it gets dicey.
chuckb84
on Apr 13, 2010
"But part of good design is knowing when to leave stuff out. The key is leaving out the right stuff." Exactly right. One thing Microsoft should definitely be leaving out at this point is further fragmentation and confusion over their mobile "strategy". Kill Winmo 6.5, transition everything to WIndows Phone 7 and have done with it. It's like there were two separate teams working on these projects, so they decided to do both, with all the confusion and fragmentation that will follow. Furthermore, my experience with teens (and even pre-teens) is that they will not tolerate a dumbed down phone. In fact, they generally get the concepts faster than adults and use the features more completely. I agree that the only way this device succeeds is by being cheap, VERY cheap. Even then, I'm dubious. It'll be seen as inferior to iPhone, Android, and Windows Phone. In the end, it'll be a niche within a niche of the market.
john87
on Apr 13, 2010
@Chuck84 But if this product is cheap enough AND gets the kids used to Zune, Zune Pass, Windows Live Syncing (essentially what Kin Studio is a skin for) then wouldn't this help Microsoft long term when they "graduate" to smart-phones? As long as the kin doesn't damage Microsoft's image then it's probably a minor success just for its linking to other services. On another note, there really is a dumb-phone and a smart phone market, whilst Apple have the reputation for the premium smartphones why can't MS dominate the premium dumbphones? Seems a worthwhile bet to me. One thing I have learnt about Microsoft is that they won't avoid improving a product after its release... hopefully, for those who buy it, the Kin will be no different.

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