By On Friday we told you folks about a Wall Street Journal readers poll asking who made the top mobile operating system. The options were as follows:
- Apple
- Microsoft
- Palm
- RIM
- Other
After 7,132 votes, Google had captured more than 50% of the votes. Something funny happened over the weekend and we’re getting PhanTips like never before pointing us back to the poll to check out the troubling change. After 26,000+ votes, Microsoft is now in first place with nearly 43% of respondents claiming they make the best mobile operating system.
I’d like to provide a few bullets of my own:
- Are
- You
- Freaking
- Kidding
- Me
- ?
Either there are a lot of old folks who forgot their spectacles and overlooked the word “mobile”, someone is voting with proxies to make the poll seem like a complete farce, or WSJ readers are just plain dumb.
I’m not complaining because Android isn’t #1 and in fact, if Apple, Palm, or RIM wound up in the #1 spot I could understand how it might have happened. But Microsoft? Umm…
No matter how much more I type, we won’t be able to justify or explain-this away. I think I’ll save my breath and let you guys and gals finish it off in the comments.
Or hey… maybe those new Bing ads are having an impact? I kid, I kid.
well, sure…especially considering this data must be based on winmo6.5 or earlier, since 7 isn’t retail yet..
Way to go WinMo!
No, nothing to do with actual results. Late on Friday MS had only a couple hundred votes, seems to have shot up quote a bit too much if you ask me.
Very fishy, i’d be very surprised if it wasn’t a bot.
Windows Phone 7 looks pretty cool, and I’ve heard its actually a really good mobile OS.
I actually saw 8000k + votes for Android @ about 58%. Microsoft had something like 2% . Not really sure about MS percent but it was very low. We need a screen shot of Friday/ Saturday. Not sure when this happened but a comparison screenshot will def. show what happened.
I bet those who voted for MS never use WM before! I have been experiencing dropped calls for ALL the WM phones that I used! Microsoft mobile operating system or Window Mobile is the worst OS for mobile devices. WORST!
I’m 100% sure that Microsoft told all their employee’s to go vote after seeing that Google was on top.
@Byron – I’m pretty sure you’re right.
I made my own poll and the people i asked didn’t even know microsoft even had a MOBILE OS, seriously.
just chill guys, as for me despite being an android fan, I think iOS is great too and it is just that I dont like their locked down philosophy and their stupid attitude towards developers adobe really pissed me off.
Ah, that sweet, sweet smell of Redmond astroturf.
That’s what money can do!, a couple of phone calls and its done.
you have to remember that most of the wall street journal are older people some of them probably don’t owned a smart phone
Bullshit! WP7 just got released in less than a week and already rated that high.
Seem like some WP7 nuts shac fanboys ran a script or Microsoft did it themselves lol
could it be that Microsoft is using Macros to autovote??? Them or a fanboy probably
mail -s “PLEASE READ … PTO included!” [email protected] < Bias_the_WSJ_mobile_OS_poll.txt
Seriously, the WSJ journal should fix this.
I’m more disappointed in the fact that Phandroid said they can understand Android not being #1. I mean, come on, where is your infantile sense of fanboyism? Let’s get a ‘lil more nonsense in that article! /sarcasm
Well seeing as phandroid skewed the google results by sending extra Android troops in that direction… no doubt a group of Windows Mobile forums/sites did the very same thing.
Would have been interesting to see the “true” results if only the true Wall Street Journal readers had answered.
Probably would have had Apple on top.
WM 6.5.3 way better than pre Android 2.1
iOS = pretty shitty
Windows Phone 7 will have an impact
Plus Windows have been in the mobile game for like 10 years
Currently on Droid Inc 2.2 and loving it
The real reason is nothing that shocking….just a fan site campaigning for people to vote and it worked over at wmpoweruser.com See here: http://wmpoweruser.com/vote-for-windows-phone-7-at-the-wall-street-journal/
Android > IOS > WM 6.5
WM 7 = ??
Maybe it’s /b/?
I voted for ms. I love android and I respect iOS. But if people actually believe this (and some will) this might help ms keep their foot in the mobile door. I’m very intrigued by wp7 and wanna try one ut while keeping my nexus on hand, but getting more mindshare will help ms push harder and innovate, which in turn will cause android and iOS to do the same. Then everybody wins.
INCOGNITO, on the Chrome browser!!! oh well,
… 4chan?
don’t know how this poll works, but if it doesn’t have captcha… oh boy, what a n00b :P
I blame George Bush.
Remember guys, if you turn on private browsing/incognito mode you can vote twice.
I smell the work of 4chan.org/b/
MS sucks…’nuf said.
Once again, Microsoft OS destroys Apple OS in sales…oh wait, wrong stats.
This is just another example of the worthlessness of online polls. Influential bloggers and other writers regularly martial reader votes to skew these things.
At the start microsoft was only beating the “other” smartphones.
WP7 is the buzz now. Perhaps that has biased voters..
Turns out MS has exactly 11347 people working on WM7.
If it was a true Wall Street Journal readers poll, I would expect RIM to be near the top since every other person in the financial world uses a Blackberry. The rest have iphones. Android is still too new for the old world establishment. Polls have proven to be very unreliable, especially those done online.
AT least my HTC with WinMo 6.5 made it through a day of heavy phone, email and internet useage. Can’t say the same for my Sprint Samsung Epic 4G. Lasts perhaps 8 hours … and that’s with almost no phone or internet …. just an occasional text and my email. I’m being patient, But I’m not impressed so far. Let me add that EVERY WinMo phone I have owned worked as advertised right out of the box!
Still open to votes if anyone from Phandroid wants to throw votes at Google. :)
Windows Mobile sites sent troops to skew the poles?! That’s your response? They don’t have enough fanboys to skew anything. This was done by a rogue individual who set up a bot or by Microsoft themselves. Any other answer is inconceivable.
This just stands to emphasize the validity of reader polls. In other words, there is no such animal as a valid reader poll. They’re feel-good devices if you like what they say, but they have no measurable validity since they’re far too east to game. Look, laugh, move on. Anyone who takes it seriously is, at best, foolish.
Firstly, this is a HUGE problem with society.
1. ASK QUESTIONS
2. Research for yourself
3. Arrive at GENUINE ANSWERS
— Here is a good case of studies being “FUNDED” and bad data left out.
— Find out who funded the study
— get the study results/paperwork; see what took place
— Arrive at your answers – Truth revealed by end result
I am more than sure, these tests were funded by Microsoft; indirect ties or direct ties. Read the results and re post what you find.. ITLL MAKE GREAT NEWS. be more like http://www.infowars.com and FIND THE ANSWERS YOU SEEK :)
In other polls, Rosanne is the best actress, Boy George is the best singer, and Herbert Hoover is the best president.
That’s cuz after the BSOD after voting, they get pitched a new IP addy and the poor windows sod returns to the website to re-vote.
hmmmz i saw some interesting wp7 phones :$
How long until we see it skewed towards apple?
Probably some confusion between “Windows” and “Mobile”. Obviously the results are skewed because of some outside error.
Everyone realizes that these polls are influenced all the time by encouraging blog readers to vote in a particular poll, and to vote more than once through multiple computers, right? MS won this fanboy round. Android has one quite a few like this as well. This is the nature of any online poll that has open voting. If the poll is still open, I’m sure the Android army will change the results soon enough.
As an EVO owner, I will definitely consider a WP7 phone that comes to Sprint.
There’s a comment on there that says they shot up within a few hours…
People, seriously, it isn’t “older people who don’t understand/own smartphones” it is very obviously a script, bot, or as Byron mentioned, it is is very possible that MS employees voted, or a combination thereof. I showed the survey to a few friends since the article was originally posted. As a mathematician, I can say that, yes, it is possible that W7 suddenly received over ten thousand votes. I can also say with certainty that it is possible that I will win the lottery three weeks in a row. Possible, yes, but very, very, very unlikely.
like Bryon said microsoft prob had something to do with it or some serious fanboys did, cause think of it this way WSJ is a pretty big site…..i think; anyway if people see microsoft on top after such a large poll they will be like maybe i have to try them out
But if you look at those numbers more than half could account for M$ employees. Since I don’t believe that many people think winmo 6.5 can hold a candle to IOS or android or webOS for that matter…
@Byron
Exactly what I was thinking. And why not rally the troops if you’re MS?
That poll is a farce. Sites like wmpoweruser.com were asking their users to vote for Windows Phone 7 cr@p. When they did that the screen capture showed Android miles ahead and WP7 way down and magically they end up trumping Android. Get real WP7 stinks and I rate even Bada and Symbian 3 way better than Microsoft’s latest unfinished attempt at a smartphone OS.
I did put in a vote for Android of course.
MS has a grand total of 12k votes. It doesn’t need to be scripting or anything so nefarious to influence the poll. People passing around the link at Microsoft’s offices or even MS blogs could easily be enough to get those sorts of numbers. They’ve got 100k employees by themselves. And it’s not vote stuffing if it’s individuals voting.
This just says the poll itself is broken and online polls are never a good way of doing things.
Old folks? I’m 68, use three mobile apps, can write code better-faster than most and on an international development team. (Don’t need spectacles either.) That’s like saying “you young people don’t understand” Thoughtless.
C’mon. It’s either a bot or an intra-company campaign.
Also, since Rupert Murdoch bought the WSJ it’s gotten very political. So, consider the source.
This reeks of 4chan, but not sure they’d go against Apyndroid. I blame ebaums.
Two reasons… Sites like wmpoweruser, and genuine excitement for windows phone 7. Stop being such fan-boys are realize that competition is good and Microsoft actually came out with something unique and polished. By being so loyal, you are hurting competition.
Guys, this Poll was gamed by this blog post here:
http://bit.ly/91UtbP
They were banding together and using IE’s private browsing mode to vote over and over.
i honestly think win mo 7 will be a great os. i really like the ui. but i like amdroid better. i am hoping someone will make a win mo 7 style ui for android
What’s worse for microsoft, that they cheated to raise their rating in this poll, or that cheating still didn’t get them over half the votes?
The question was pretty vague and open – Its likely lot of the enthusiasm for MS is due to the positive anticipation for WP7.
APPLE #1?!?!?!? STOP POSTING IN THIS SITE! You should be thrown out! Never think Apple is better than the almight Google Android!
hahaha, this is just like the JD powers giving tmobile the best customer service awards every year, the way this people do this polls is who ever pay more that is the winner, i am a tmobile and sprint customer and trust me tmobile is not even close to sprint when it comes to customer service and JD powers continue to give them the awards, is a joke, try calling tmobile during a week day and i tell you if it doesn’t take you at least 25 waiting minutes you can call me anything you want, the point here is that don’t believe this polls.
Uh, yeah, epic fail. CLEARLY the people taking this poll either completely missed the word “mobile” or are morons and don’t have a clue what a mobile operating system even is.
Lol crapish alls I can say is every single review have seen done on wp7 has put it below Android and ios…so that’s all one needs to know
MSFT really seems to be going for viral campaign… you see WP7 fanboys trolling all around… and now this.
But, well, it just goes to show how easily internet polls are manipulated. And the fact that WM fansites called for voting on Windows helped of course. Voted for Google myself… hehe.
Why is it so hard to believe that microsofts wp7 is winning? I have an evo that I love alot but compared to wp7 it looks dated and I voted for wp7 and will be buying wp7 when it it arrives also when the evo beat the iphone on engadgets poll all the apple fan boys said android cheated……if you hate apple so much why act like them?
Straight up, i flushed my Epic4g down the toilet, body slammed my brother’s EVO and football punted my girl’s droid 2 the day that windows phone 7 came out……
WSJ = Murdoch, who gives a $#^%?
Android 4ever
HOLY BALLS! Go look at it again!!!
I just looked at poll total votes 108,488 Google – 82.2% , MS – 11.3% , Apple – 3.7%
Wow..Now Google gets 82% in the polls. Is your BS meter still up or you think a 82% result is completely normal? It only hurts when you lose, right?
Or the people who typically take wall street journal surveys own stock in either google or microsoft…
…just a thought.
Maybe people got confused and thought mobile included laptops and netbooks?
funny!
Google takes the lead again:
http://online.wsj.com/community/groups/question-day-229/topics/makes-best-mobile-operating-system
This is not too surprising, considering most of Wall Street Journal readers are from a business background = Exchange support, Microsoft office = Windows mobile.
Look at the poll now, and recall what I wrote yesterday on comment #47: “If the poll is still open, I’m sure the Android army will change the results soon enough.”
Looks like some where voting with proxies making this poll a complete farce, hey Rob?
I would not be surprised if Steve Balmer sent an email to all MSFT employees to log on and vote MSFT over the weekend…
This is way out of control now:)
“I would not be surprised if Steve Balmer sent an email to all MSFT employees to log on and vote MSFT over the weekend”
At which time the e-mail would be leaked. I guess that Paige and Brin did the same given the recent huge uptick in Google votes.
And Google is now up to 95% of the votes. How do you explain that one?
there is no way in the world this poll went from google around 12000 and Ms around 6pm yesterday….by 9pm last night it was google 70000 and MS still around 13000…this morning it was google 85000 and MS around 13500 and now google LMAO is at over 575,000 votes and MS is at 13700….now come on? why hack or trick a poll this way? this makes google/android look down right cheap…as much as i defended android to the apple fanboys who trashed talked android for being a cheap rip off of IOS….im almost wishing i never stepped into the android scene now…this is embarrassing!
It’s not embarrassing. Microsoft Fans stacked it first. The poll was already ruined. Google fans just did a better job of stacking it after Microsoft fans made a feeble attempt.
so let me get this straight? Ms stacked the poll to catch up and pass google by at the most 1200 votes…so then the android army in turns retaliates by stacking the poll by 500,000 votes….now tell me who do you think the real world of folks not the techies will think cheated? Google….not MS and as i said before…its embarrassing!!
Why don’t you just make up whatever numbers you like until you are happy with results.
@mamacita42
It’s only a poll, get a life.
@jay i got a good life … really
We at Opinionoutpost.com wanted to resolve this issue and did our own unbiased poll. Check out the results on our facebook page. http://www.facebook.com/OpinionOutpost
Warning the results may be upsetting to some.
@ Rob Jackson: Why you hating? I love both OS. WP7 is probably the only OS with GUI that is smooth (if not smoother) than crapple’s ibling. Funtion maybe less than Android but just wait…I own two handsets running on froyo. Can’t wait to get my hands on WP7!!! My iBling 3G has been a paperweight for almost a year now and i gotta Jobs credit..the phone does a FANTASTIC job at holding down my mails!! :)
WinMo 6 was the worst mobile operating system that I have ever experienced. WP7 has even been released. I think this is a case of a poor web poll development that has allowed someone to write a script and repeat vote. I can’t imagine anyone feeling that great about older versions of WinMo. What a piece of crap.
apple is the best os with the new one thats called OS 4.00