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Microsoft Convinced That Windows 10 Will Be Its Smartphone Breakthrough
jfruh (300774) writes At the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, handset manufacturers are making all the right noises about support for Windows 10, which will run on both ARM- and Intel-based phones and provide an experience very much like the desktop. But much of the same buzz surrounded Windows 8 and Windows 7 Phone. In fact, Microsoft has tried and repeatedly failed to take the mobile space by storm.
They can join BlackBerry in the "any day now, we'll be on top!" movement.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Next Year: We have a completely new api and are going to make the old one irrelevant yet again
Universal apps are what might make or break Windows phone 10.
The OS really is good. It is light, intuitive, and bug free. With no apps and a requirement for developers to write to 2 different operating systems with niche market shares hurt both.
http://saveie6.com/
"... and provide an experience very much like the desktop"
Which is exactly what people don't want.
Microsoft should finally pull their collective head out of their backside and stop making everything into a PC with Windows. A phone isn't a PC, it isn't used in the same way, so a "desktop experience" is very counterproductive on a phone.
One would think that they have learned something already ...
It too me a day or so to remove the crap from Windows 8.1 to make it look like an actual desktop.
So windows 10 will, what, be just as broken as the desktop was in Windows 8.1? Or it will try to suck less and be less like a tablet experience?
At this point, I'm forced to conclude (from a week or so of running my new Windows 8.1 machine) that most of the decisions Microsoft has been making indicate they no longer know how to write a UI for a desktop, and they're entirely focused on writing only stuff for tablets.
They keep betting they're going to be successful on the phone Real Soon Now ... and they're so busy playing catch up they might need to worry someone is going to come out with the next new thing before they can put out a copy of what everyone else has had for years.
So the same experience on a Windows 10 phone as a desktop? That's based on giving you a crappy experience on the desktop.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
I can see a new hilarity meme - "This is the year of the windows phone!", to go along side of "This is the year of the Linux Desktop", or "The year of Net Neutrality"..... wait, we got that one!
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
Simple things that all the other platforms has Microsoft lacks. Trying to get a stack trace from an Unhandled exception? Nope can't do that. Want to find out what OS build you are on? Nope can't do that. While little things, the list is endless and annoying for anyone that's been doing mobile for awhile.
If this thing came out in a parallel universe where the iPod didn’t exist, it would be hailed as a god. No, the problem is the iPod’s head start — its catalog of music, movies, apps and accessories are ridiculously superior to the Zune’s
The Zune was cancelled shortly thereafter. The product finally became good, but it was too late. I smell the same fate for windows phone.
Windows is doing a lot of stuff right recently. I have a secondary phone ($40 dollar nokia 635) that is Windows 10 and it is a slick little OS. When it comes to very inexpensive smart phones Windows is more pervasive than you would think. Combine Windows 10 with HoloLens and other cool projects that are actually pretty close to being commercial products and I think it would be foolish to count them out.
As of last summer, Apple had about 40 percent of the smartphone market. 40% of the market is not a niche, unless you define it as "Anything I personally don't buy".
Never let a lack of data get in the way of a good rant.
I am currently an avid Android user.
I used to be an avid Windows Mobile user. WM5/6 were actually, when they existed, the MOST power-user/business-friendly mobile OSes out there. They were more geek-friendly than any of the horrifically locked-down "Linux-based" mobile OSes.
Then Microsoft dropped WP7 on the world - an OS which was unusable for nearly 100% of the core WM5/WM6 user base. At the same time, Android was coming onto the scene, which had everything that WM5/WM6's core user base wanted. MS never recovered, they utterly screwed up. NEVER alienate the majority of your core user base, even if it's trying to reach a "new" audience - especially when the "new" audience you're targeting is already drooling over a competitor (Apple).
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
Because many people don't understand how fashion accessory because a requirement of a smart phone.
The iPhone when it came out was far less useful than any of the windows phones, but it took off because it cost more, and did less, while being pretty.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
When the lottery reaches over a hundred mill, it's fun to get a ticket and day dream. And probably a better use of a few dollars than getting a burger and fries.
I call it, "paying the idiot tax".
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
The iPhone when it came out was far less useful than any of the windows phones, but it took off because it cost more, and did less, while being pretty.
Nope. Multitouch was simply worlds better than stylus + soft or slide out keyboard.
"Visual voicemail" or whatever it was called kicked the ass out of dial-in voicemail which was still the default on windows mobile devices.
And the whole UI being designed for touch instead of stylus made it a LOT easier to use.
Yes, you definitely gave up lots of functionality in terms of the iphone not having stylus, and only being able to interact with it with your fingers; editing a spreadsheet on an iphone 3G was terrible compared to Windows Mobile 5/6... but making a call or appointment or sending a text message was orders of magnitude better.
If they make an Atom based phone that is running a full or mostly full version of Windows (not the semi crippled ARM port) as is current rumor, a "Surface Phone" so to speak, then that changes the game a LOT, suddenly app support is a non-issue for a bunch of things, I'm not talking about running full desktop apps on a comparatively tiny screen, but things that are sorely lacking on ARM Winphone like third party VPN clients, corporate asset management agents, in house developed (generally crappy and poorly maintained) apps, etc. Add some sort of dock or remote display capability then you have a laptop replacement for many mobile users.
The impact to your life is far greater earlier in life, so buy all 40 years of tickets when you're in your early 20's.
If you win in your 60's, the real cost is 40 years of unnecessary labour + $2,080.
Yeah, Windows has some penetration on low-end devices, but you know that's not where they really want to be.
Interestingly enough, Microsoft is now in the same position on the phone as Linux is on the desktop. They have an extremely competent offering, but they can't seem to really break though to make significant gains in the market. As we've seen time and time again with Linux, it's not enough to offer something "almost as good" to get someone to switch. You can't even compete with "just as good". You need to provide something that's significantly better than the competition in some fashion - some significant advantage that will compel people to move from Android or iOS to Windows phones.
In the article, Microsoft stated that a Microsoft phone would provide a "more consistent experience across smartphones, tablets, and PCs". Interestingly, that was exactly why I hated Windows 8 so much, because it was obviously a mobile UI bolted rather clumsily on top of my desktop. Windows 10 is unfortunately using the same "modern fugly" visual design, but is at least fixing the usability and integration problems. So, in theory, a cross-platform app store could end up being a win for them. If you can buy an app and run it on all three of those platforms, I could see that as being attractive for consumers.
Another possibility is if they provide businesses some great tools to help manage mobile corporate devices. Apple has been notoriously bad at this - not sure how easy it is with Android. But for consumers? I don't know. At the moment, I just don't really see how they're going to crack into this extremely competitive market.
Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.