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Hotmail Mobile Usage Spikes Thanks To Apple iOS 5
An anonymous reader writes "Microsoft is proud to announce that mobile usage of its Hotmail service has exploded in the past few weeks, and guess who is to thank? Apple! More than 2 million Apple users linked their Hotmail accounts to their iPhones and iPads since the launch of iOS 5."
If I were a CEO in software company, I'd never give microsoft anything.
This is bad news, hotmail is a service that should be allowed to die...
I thought it had relocated to the Internet Archive, along with MySpace, Friendster, and GeoCities.
Or is it waiting for Yahoo, and they'll go together?
I'm not a lawyer, but I play one on the Internet. Blog
Learn something new every day
Looking down a few links the reason for the increase is that iOS 5 added support for hotmail to the built in email program.
Only explains the spike.
The question is not why the spike, the question is why people would still deliberately subject themselves and their mail to Microsoft when they have plenty of options.
(I know, I know, some people acquire a taste for bondage. And, of course, there is now the question looming of why people would subject themselves and their data to Apple any more.)
(Not sure how serious I mean this post to be taken, but I sure wish I could get people to take their blinders off when looking at the computer industry.)
(Heh. This post is more parenthetic aside than comment.)
Computer memory is just fancy paper, CPUs just fancy pens with fancy erasers; the 'net is just a fancy backyard fence.
Things are now clear to me. I guess the other 9 are too busy looking for their geocities page to bother with email.
Wow, how fascinating to everyone with Asperger's!
I had several HotMail accounts that I was using to subscribe to various forums etc. I mostly quit using them the day MS bought Hotmail and started using fake Yahoo! emails account instead.
My real account? GMail since I got invited to the private beta.
I really wonder where are all these hotmail users because all my contacts are mostly GMail and Yahoo! I'm really surprised when I see Hotmail addresses nowadays. You gotta wonder how they're the "biggest or second biggest" and if they're not counting all these old fake inactive accounts.
The person who used to email me from Hotmail are typically the ones now PM'ing me using FaceBook, which may explain a lot too ; )
One thing I like about my iPhone is that tapping my finger on the screen to get to my hotmail is a patented hand gesture. Now if I could figure out some other way to send a message other than to throw the stinkin thing at the wall.
if your life is such a big joke then why should I care?
I accidentally made a hotmail last month.
(Had to go retro and make an MSN messenger account using a non-hotmail addy. This didn't used to autogenerate a hotmail account, now it does.)
Hotmail is not by any stretch of the imagination good. All web based email is shit, and gmail is king of that dung heap, but hotmail is probably worse now than in 1999.
The "trying to be too smart and failing" ajax fields were infuriating. The the obligatory pseudo-social "I only wanted an email account and what is this?" stuff.
This is not progress.
see ads telling them how great Windows Phones are and then they'll see coupons making it free to switch phones and get a free upgrade to Microsoft Windows 8. But from what I've heard from kids, they don't need a computer any more and when they do they'll use it at school or their parents.
LoB
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
Did I interpret those graphs right?
Computer memory is just fancy paper, CPUs just fancy pens with fancy erasers; the 'net is just a fancy backyard fence.
Now that An AppleID provides free 25gb worth of storage and an email address, why would an iPad or iPhone user bother with Hotmail? If anything, I've learned that Apple tech solutions have allowed me to go Microsoft free over the past two years.
The spike is even better explained.
My ios device didn't show hotmail as a choice until very recently(think a few days) and this device has been ios5 for almost a month.
Apple probably didn't allow hotmail at first, then decided they weren't a threat and turned them on.
I think I should yes I think so ! My blog http://www.loveinbridal.com/blog/
I tried to make a new gmail account... you know what? They ask my phone number to "identify" who I am and where I lived.
Google stomach is so greedy that they don't get enough with your own email search terms to make target advertising... now they want to OWN your own personal information.
That new policy is annoying enough to make a lot of people moving to hotmail again. So yeah... perhaps mobile is one cause for the hotmail surge... but I guess the other hidden one, is new gmail identify policy.
I suspect that's more an anti-spam measure, but still, creepy.
I've never used hotmail, but know quite a few people who do. I don't think I know anybody in real life who uses Slashdot. There are a lot more real people in the world than Slashdot readers, some of you keep forgetting that. I have a friend who still uses his Juno email account. This despite having broadband wireless w/ Time Warner hooked up in his Brooklyn apartment. Juno. I like the way Google gmail led me to Voice which allows me to make free calls and send/receive txt messages over WiFi. I have a $5 month Pay-as-you-go cell phone plan that I almost never use now. I suppose Microsoft has something similar w/ Hotmail.
My question is: Did Microsoft pay to have this new wizard on how to connect to hotmail?
Based on my experience with .Mac and then MobileMe, I've learned that Apple sucks at providing large-scale internet services such as email and corresponding webmail interface. The only stuff they do well (iTunes music store) is outsourced to Akamai. I don't use the email portion of my .Mac/MobileMe/iCloud/jesusMail account for anything other than an extra, low-reliability backup (procmail auto-forwards important mails to it). Check it about 2-3 times a year and remember why I'd never rely on it for primary email.
i think that most of that hotmail accounts' name is like sTuPiD_gIrLz!1996@hotmail.com (old mails registred before facebook usually and only used for MSN by stupid girl who his father gave them a laptop despite they where 13; the iPhone 4S is the next step)
Apple users think they're cool, but two million use Hotmail????? I guess they're not that cool after all. That's like having a baby-seat in a Porsche.
Hotmail Mobile Exchange Server: m.hotmail.com Enable SSL User Pass Done.
They also recently released an Android app.
Coder's Stone: The programming language quick ref for iPad
Good one.
Computer memory is just fancy paper, CPUs just fancy pens with fancy erasers; the 'net is just a fancy backyard fence.
But are they the largest provider of email to active accounts?
I have a hotmail account. Statistically it gets used more than any other account I have getting an average of about 45 emails per day, rather than my main account on my domain which sits at about 3-5. I log in every 2 months after I sign up to some dodgy site to pull the authentication link out of the irreconcilable spam that is my hotmail account, I delete everything, and then don't touch it again for 2 months while it continues to "provide me email"
I believe they use this to verify your identity if your account gets hijacked. Considering I now know about half a dozen people whose webmail accounts got broken into, I think a way to prove its your account when you contact them to try and recover it is needed.
Micro$oft and App£e are basically the same company. They cooperate all the time and when Apple was about to fail some 10 years ago, it was Micro$oft who bailed them out.
The phone number thing in Gmail useful, though. It can prevent permanent hijacking of your account. You can always request a new password and have it sent via SMS to your phone.
My mom's Hotmail account was hijacked by some clever phishers a while back, and I try as I might, I was unable to get it back under her control. No support from Hotmail, no replies to my queries, nothing.
So, the phone number request is not without its reasons. But hey, if you don't want Google knowing it, just provide a fake number.