The rumours were true: Windows Phone is to be Nokia’s “primary smartphone strategy” (TechRadar).

A full alliance would make perfect sense. Since cleverly dismissing the iPhone as a “niche product”, Nokia’s never come close to competing with it, because while it gets hardware, it doesn’t have a clue about the importance of software (despite actually making or buying decent software). Microsoft, on the other hand, spent years arsing about with its mobile strategy, before surprising everyone with the stupidly named but otherwise rather good Windows Phone 7 (for Windows Phone 7 phones—see what I mean about the name?).

An alliance gives Microsoft a boost, which it desperately needs at present, since it’s way behind in the race. It also gives Nokia a chance to avoid haemorrhaging further market share.

BUT! In a not-at-all shocking twist, neither company has the balls to do this properly. Micronok could become a direct challenger to Apple, with pinpoint focus: few unit types, utterly robust integration of software and hardware, fantastic user experience. Instead, it seems to be, again, hedging its bets, with a semi-open model that sits between Apple’s iOS and Google’s ‘fire it at every company possible’ Android. This is a strategic partnership, but you’ll still see Nokia mucking about with other platforms and Microsoft cosying up to other hardware partners.

Software Duncan Wilcox also notes on Twitter that the deal is somewhat one-sided:

No exclusivity on Windows Phone 7 means Microsoft is using Nokia as a trampoline for WP7 marketshare, sucking life out

I’ve no doubt this partnership will be successful, and Windows Phone 7 deserves to do well (despite its stupid name), but it’s a pity another platform isn’t taking Apple head-on.

John Gruber on the HP TouchPad ‘summer’ release:

Summer feels like a long time away. If my theory is right, they’re not only going to be months behind the iPad 2, but if they slip until late summer, they might bump up against the release of the iPad 3.

I’m unsure what Gruber means here, but TechRadar’s assuming he’s talking about the iPad 3 showing up in September. There’s some logic in this from a technology standpoint, in that Retina displays might be ready for the device by that point, but I don’t think Apple’s going to start offering iPad upgrades every six months. Doing so would wreck a chunk of sales, massively upping hold-outs. Also, given that international releases of Apple iOS kit are often delayed for three or more months, it’d be crazy to have the US gearing up for iPad X when some countries only just got iPad X-1.

I suspect Apple will stick to its annual refresh for this and its other major hardware products. The reliability and regularity is beneficial from a sales, marketing and manufacturing standpoint. To that end, I’m thinking the iPad 2 will show up in the USA a year after the iPad (i.e. April) and then elsewhere over the summer, and the iPad 3 to show up in April 2012. (Alternatively, perhaps the upcoming iPad might not be considered a ‘major’ revision and won’t be branded iPad 2, but even if the only big change is a FaceTime camera, that’ll cause enough of a splash in the press.)

UPDATE: Gruber follows up by saying the transition would make sense, with an iPad announcement replacing the iTunes/iPod one, which he says is “old news”.

OK, so the title of this one’s not quite true, but HP’s new tablet looks like an iPad, and John Gruber makes a brilliant point:

TouchPad — a name that, not coincidentally, is drawn from those of two best-selling iOS devices

Not very subtle, HP. Also, the announcement seemed lacking in important details, such as price, availability and battery life. Still, I’m sure those will all ensure it’s an iPad killer, right, tech press?

I’m currently reviewing games for Tap!, Future’s iOS magazine. One of them is RPG/match-three mash-up Puzzle Quest 2. It’s quite a good game, but for me its most important attribute is its size: when unpacked on an iOS device, Puzzle Quest 2 weighs in at over 1 GB.

With Apple devices having fixed storage that’s relatively small (the iPhone tops out at 32 GB and the iPod touch and iPad max out at 64 GB—my iPhone is 16 GB and my iPad 32 GB), the rapid increase in the size of games is fast becoming a problem, not least because Apple encourages regular purchase and publishers price games low to tempt users. The end result is lots of people buy tons of games.

On a magazine forum for a publication I write for, there’s a thread over 50 pages long, with people excitedly talking about their iOS purchases and making recommendations. Several people are now deleting games that they don’t have space for, despite having spent time playing through those games, investing time in them. It’s the same with me and Puzzle Quest 2. The game’s not quite good enough for it to stay on my iPad, because I know by the next issue of Tap! I’ll need to make room for several GB of new games. But I put hours into my progress and would quite like to continue playing. On a Mac or PC, this wouldn’t be an issue (due to the size of hard drives); on a PSP or DS, this wouldn’t be an issue, because I’d plug in the cart again and pick up where I left off (assuming it had battery back-up). On iOS, though, I’m ‘forced’ to delete games when my devices become full.

That Apple doesn’t provide a workaround for this is inexcusable now that we’ve reached iOS 4.x. In the days of 10 MB iOS games, it wasn’t a problem: you could stuff dozens on a device without problem. But in this age of Rivens and Puzzle Quest 2s, Apple’s (from a gaming standpoint) fast turning its high-end devices into the equivalent of crappy cartridges without battery back-up. The only difference is that an iOS device can hold a bunch of ‘cartridges’, but when one’s removed, the result is the same: all your progress is lost.

Game Center could have been a solution to this, but it currently only seems to work well with high scores and achievements. iTunes could definitely be a solution, providing the means to optionally reinstate game data when you reinstall an app. Right now, though, the only option you have is to manually back-up an app’s /Library and /Documents folders yourself (on a jailbroken device or by using the likes of PhoneView or iPhone Explorer), and that’s just not good enough.

Jeremy Keith on the BBC’s plans to—for no reason whatsoever—delete a whole bunch of websites:

Just to be clear, these sites aren’t going to be archived. They are going to be deleted from the web. Server space is the new magnetic tape.

This callous attitude appears to be based entirely on the fact that these sites occupy URLs in top-level directories—repeatedly referred to incorrectly as top level domains on the BBC internet blog—a space that the decision-makers at the BBC are obsessed with.

The BBC, of course, famously spent plenty of effort in the 1960s and 1970s trashing or deleting tapes, which of course hasn’t at all returned to haunt the corporation. Tapes cost money, and so the argument back then was stronger, but the BBC just nuking a load of websites that are just sitting there being informative, like the bastard knowledge-givers and memories-storage containers that they are, is bonkers. (Bye, 47000 unique World War Two memories that the public contributed—the BBC wants to delete you to appease the Tories and senior-level BBC management somehow!)

Keith adds:

I’m very saddened to see the BBC join the ranks of online services that don’t give a damn for posterity.

I agree wholeheartedly.