Since Android is much more of a threat to Apple than Windows Phone 7 appears to be, it makes sense that Gruber would praise it at the expense of Android. This evaluation is based on 5 minutes of use at a cocktail party. I think if someone had put a live eel in his hand and asked him to compare it to Android, he would have praised the eel's smooth skin in comparison to Android devices.
I got about 5 minutes hands on with WP7 hardware last week, and I have to agree with Gruber. WP7 is really nice.<p>* The UI is very responsive on pre-release hardware. I've been told that the released version will be faster.<p>* The keyboard is very nice. I can't compare it in over-all usability to other smart phones as I haven't lived day in day out with a smart phone.<p>* The way applications are organized is interesting. Instead of merely having a mongo huge list of apps, apps can also register themselves in app hubs. So applications that manipulate photos will show up under your photos, applications that deal with music show up there, etc. I'm not totally sold on this, but it seems like a good idea.<p>* Development for WP7 in silverlight is shockingly easy. And silverlight on WP7 runs super fast. Actually runs faster on the device than on my beefy desktop in emulator. Given the number of .NET developers I know that are registered for the WP7 marketplace I expect the MS app store to add applications at a blistering pace.<p>* There isn't yet an easy way to handle deploying WP7 phones in an enterprise, but I was told that this will be addressed later. There was only so much they could do before this launch though.<p>I'm in the market for a smart phone, and after handling the WP7 phones I'm sold. In my opinion it's at least as good as the current iPhone. I'm not sure whether that will translate to market share or not though.
Hum, the "one button" is a real problem on the iPhone. Having one interface element working in an extremely modal manner is a bad ergonomic choice for the sake of esthetic. Having 3 or 4 different buttons is much more practical.