Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft To Add Yet Another Smartphone OS This Year
GMGruman writes "Someone at Microsoft either really loves mobile operating systems or can't make up his mind as to which to use, because Microsoft Thursday announced yet another mobile OS, its fifth. The new Windows Embedded Handheld OS will succeed Windows Mobile 6.5 and run on at least some existing Windows Mobile smartphones. It is not the same mobile OS, known as Windows Phone 7, that Microsoft earlier this year said would replace Windows Mobile and break with it in terms of compatibility so Microsoft could better compete with the iPhone and Google Android OS."
If they're such pieces of shit, where are the open standard wondrous operating systems?
Oh wait.
Seriously. Steve Ballmer laughed at google on stage at D:8 for having both android and chrome OS and now microsoft has 3 current, all slightly different mobile operating systems. I mean come on.
Heres an Ars Technica link as I can't find the exact video on the all things d site.
How many computers are too many?
Yeah, maybe in your fantasy world no one would use it. If the OS is good enough, one of the phone device manufacturers will leverage that advantage to make a larger profit over the others.
Unfortunately it isn't.
The Market does decide, why do you think Android and iOS are leading the pack when it comes to growth? Why do you think all the other phone manufacturers are scrambling to keep up?
Besides, Android is fairly open and the iOS is standards compliant.
Android is 100% open source. Don't like the Market? Replace it. Don't like the keyboard? Replace it. Don't like Google integrations? Remove them.
If you think all of this is somehow difficult or discouraged, I think you should take a closer look at the forums at xda-developers.com, or even at developer.android.com, where you can check out the entire OS source code with git and re-build it from scratch and re-flash your phone, if you want.
All this talk about Jailbreaking Android phones is for people who want root access but *DO NOT* want to re-flash their phone. There is no such problem for people that are comfortable replacing the software. And in fact this is what you have to do with most open source projects running on specialized hardware.
What did you expect?
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
Reading these stories about MS lately is making me all nostalgic for when what they did mattered. I can't quite put my finger on it... but at some point they lost their big and scary status.. and have just become more of a joke.. to me at least. There was a time when their whims could shift the whole market.. these days I wonder if the masses even notice their flailing attempts to 'compete'.
Every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats. -HLM
If this Microsoft operating system is going to be incompatible with the other Microsoft operating systems, why not just switch to something else now and be done with it? Compatibility is the only advantage Microsoft software has, and that is being thrown out with the bathwater.
Yeah, well the market sorta forced them to sell music without DRM right? Last I checked, none of my iTunes music purchases had DRM on them.
If they're such pieces of shit, where are the open standard wondrous operating systems?
Perhaps here? Or maybe even here?
I didn't suggest that at all. Clearly they bought it with the intent of using it to build a good cross-platform SDK solution for their phones. What I did suggest was that they'll probably kill it anyway, despite their good intentions, because they're completely clueless about what developers and users want from modern smartphone platform.
I think that there is a difference in the "lifespan" metric you two are using:
Carpetshark says that Nokia products have shit lifespans; because he is talking about the "lifespan" of a hardware product during which it continues to be updated to the latest software features(within the bounds of hardware limitations. For a pricey computer-in-a-cellphone-box like the N900, that isn't at all unreasonable, nor is Nokia's record in the area exactly unblemished.
Mdwh2 disagrees, because Nokia has been(if anything) rather retro in the pace at which they kill old OSes, and much of their hardware is among the more bulletproof stuff in the consumer sector. Even your $40 nokia candybar is quite likely to be in almost exactly the same shape it was purchased, after some years of none-too-careful use. This is also true, albeit more relevant to products that aren't the N900.
Nokia is, perhaps, the most talented of the previous generation of handset makers. Their OSes are a little quirky, and they aren't on the bleeding edge of hardware; but they churn out, by the million, solid handsets that will do whatever they did the day you opened them for a nice long while. I've had several that have done exactly that(which was what I wanted, so I was happy). Trouble is, if you are expecting the new support model, where "lifespan" means "serious software updates, not just a critical bugfix or two", they are rather tepid. Android has some dark corners that are even worse; but the N900 is the equivalent of the Nexus One, the company-endorsed OS flagship model.
Fortunately you can buy an Android phone or an iPhone and keep your app purchases between phones and carriers.(Android->Android and iPhone->iPhone obviously)
Which is a blessing compared to the absolute crapfest it used to be.
I am also an N900 owner.
While Meego won't be officially supported on the N900, it's worth noting that the N900 remains the reference platform for it. Additionally, the community support for Maemo is unbelievably good; I wouldn't be surprised at all if the N900 port of Meego remains an active community project for years. This is partly because most of the people who own N900s are geeks, and because the N900 is completely open (there are a plethora of custom kernels available for use on it).
tldr: Having a completely open device with no offical support is way better than having a closed device with official support.
Most human behaviour can be explained in terms of identity.
If you take the time to read the article and comments I linked to above, you'll see others explaining the same problem, and an ex-nokia staff member explaining that Nokia are aware of the problem, acknowledge it internally, know what they need to do to fix it, but just can't get it done because of company structures.