Microsoft Fails Windows Phone Fans Again By Delaying Windows 10 Mobile (venturebeat.com)

An anonymous reader writes that Microsoft says the Windows 10 Mobile upgrade will begin early next year. The company had previously promised a roll out this month. Venturebeat reports: "Windows Phone fans and fanboys have a tough job. They have to stand by an operating system with a new name every few years, significantly fewer apps than the competition, and a distant third place spot in the market. The latest news out of Microsoft isn't making their lives any easier. This week, Microsoft failed to deliver on its promise of rolling out Windows 10 Mobile devices to existing Windows Phone devices in December. The new target? 2016."

Comments

But think of how good it will be!

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft has promised that with Continuum, it will run real programs and games! Imagine playing real Halo in HD on a phone, instead of garbage apps!

Re:But think of how good it will be!

[ArmoredDragon]

I'm surprised Microsoft hasn't just killed it off already. This is their third reboot, with nothing to indicate that this time will be any better than the last ones. Between R&D costs, marketing costs, the Nokia bribe, the Nokia buyout, and the fact that every phone sold costs them money, they've likely lost upwards of $20 billion on it already. I wonder how much longer the shareholders will tolerate this.

Re: But think of how good it will be!

[Anonymous Coward]

They have yet to bring out the Microsoft Zunephone 360.

Re:But think of how good it will be!

[Penguinisto]

Dude - they've likely sunk that and more on the XBox franchise... they were an estimated $7bn in the hole when they began working on the XBOne, and Heaven only knows what they sunk into the R&D/marketing on that. ...and they still lose money with each console sold.

Long story short, it's not like Microsoft is new at this losing money thing. If it weren't for the Windows/Office/Exchange/SQL licensing revenues, they'd have been in bankruptcy almost a decade ago.

Re:But think of how good it will be!

[Teckla]

I'm surprised Microsoft hasn't just killed it off already. This is their third reboot, with nothing to indicate that this time will be any better than the last ones.

I am...not a fan of Microsoft. In fact, Windows 10 (with built in self serving advertisements) is something I consider really abusive to Windows users. But...

I'm looking at Continuum with a lot of interest. In my younger days, I loved to build computers, and tweak things, and try alternative operating systems, and upgrade my systems part by part, etc.

But these days, I mostly want things to Just Work with as little hassle as possible. Continuum has me interested because I'd love to have just one computing device -- a smartphone -- that can also be easily attached to an external display/keyboard/mouse, and offer me desktop style applications as well.

Store most of my data in the cloud, and I've got a nice, problem free, easy computing experience. That sounds very attractive to me.

I'm not sure if Apple or Google are looking into something similar. Microsoft may be the leader in this area, and if they get first mover advantage, Windows Phone may yet be a competitor, depending on how many other people are interested in Continuum. I think a lot of people might be interested. A lot of people, like me, are sick of babysitting and updating and maintaining and tweaking multiple computing devices.

Re:But think of how good it will be!

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm surprised Microsoft hasn't just killed it off already. This is their third reboot, with nothing to indicate that this time will be any better than the last ones.

You fail to understand the corporate politics behind the whole thing. Terry Myerson was promoted to head the entire Windows division because of his "success" on Windows Phone, so killing it would be an embarrassment to him. He won't do it until backed into a corner.

Re: the Nokia buyout and dismantling, they hung the blame for that one on the now departed Ballmer and, though he was the one who had to oversee the dismantling, Nadella is still enjoying the halo effect of being the new CEO.

Re: But think of how good it will be!

[The-Ixian]

They have yet to bring out the Microsoft Zunephone 360.

Well, actually, As far as I can tell, they just took some of the aspects of Zune and made it into Xbox.

Xbox music (now called Groove) is alive and well on Windows phones.

Re:But think of how good it will be!

[The-Ixian]

I was looking at a continuum device in the local MS Store the other day. It appeared to be a dongle attached to a Windows 10 phone (I forgot the model, but probably one of the new flagship series) which allowed for keyboard, mouse and video input/output. The UI on the 24" screen was standard Windows 10 and it was pretty snappy... I think they are close.

Re:But think of how good it will be!

[Teckla]

I was looking at a continuum device in the local MS Store the other day. It appeared to be a dongle attached to a Windows 10 phone (I forgot the model, but probably one of the new flagship series) which allowed for keyboard, mouse and video input/output. The UI on the 24" screen was standard Windows 10 and it was pretty snappy... I think they are close.

I'm so conflicted. I think Microsoft is abusive and I don't want to use their products, but Continuum is so compelling to me...

Re:But think of how good it will be!

[The-Ixian]

I look at it this way: Not being a market leader in the Mobile space forces MS to be agile and innovative.

That can only be a good thing for end users. Especially if they use their deep pockets to subsidize R&D and hardware costs.

Re:But think of how good it will be!

[The-Ixian]

Not to mention that while Microsoft may be out of vogue now, who knows what it will be 5 years or even 10 years down the road.

Keeping a horse in the race is a good long run strategy.

Re:But think of how good it will be!

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't wait for the real spyware from Windows 10 desktop to be integrated right into Windows 10 phone! It'll be just like I'm using a shitty Microsoft PC!

Re:But think of how good it will be!

[Anonymous Coward]

You seem to be implying that Halo isn't a garbage app.

Re:But think of how good it will be!

[Teckla]

Good points!

Re:But think of how good it will be!

[Anonymous Coward]

> with Continuum, it will run real programs and games! Imagine playing real Halo in HD on a phone, instead of garbage apps!

Microsoft fooled you with Windows RT - the Windows that did not run Windows programs.
They fooled you with Windows 10 for Raspberry Pi - it isn't the Windows you are thinking of.
They have obviously fooled you with Continuum - it will only run 'garbage apps*' at desktop size.

* Until they put an Intel/AMD processor into the phone it will only run 'Universal Apps' on its ARM processor. And those apps need to be written to support various screen sizes. Current Windows Phone 8.x apps may not run on 'desktop' sized screens or may just display at 800x480 or so.

Re:But think of how good it will be!

[Anonymous Coward]

> Not being a market leader in the Mobile space forces MS to be agile and innovative.

With Continuum they are merely copying what Ubuntu has been doing for the last couple of years. With Ubuntu, though, most existing desktop programs will run on ARM, the processor in most phones. With Continuum on 950 and 950XL there are almost no apps that will run on the 'desktop' mode.

Re:But think of how good it will be!

[DaHat]

With Continuum on 950 and 950XL there are almost no apps that will run on the 'desktop' mode.

Which apps are you looking for?

My understanding is that any app written for Windows 10 can run in either mobile or desktop mode... and no doubt the built in ones (mail, web, Office) will cover most initial needs.

Re:But think of how good it will be!

[Anonymous Coward]

Be fair.

100% of MS's revenues are based on fooling people.

Re:But think of how good it will be!

[cbhacking]

"Universal Windows [10] Apps", or whatever the hell MS calls them this morning, will run at most aspect ratios and display sizes. However, Windows 10 Mobile* still supports apps clear back to WP7.0, four API versions and one major infrastructure change old. WP 7.x and 8.x apps were never intended to run on anything that could be called "desktop mode". WP8.1 supported its own version of "universal" apps, where you could use the same code for PC/tablet and phone apps, but I'm not sure if that means universal WP8.1 apps installed on the phone will have the ability to handle Continuum. We shall see.

The primary targets for Continuum (For Phones, as opposed to the whole "auto-switch to tablet mode" thing on convertible laplets) are, at least initially, Microsoft's built-in apps. Edge and "Outlook" (it's a very nicely souped-up mobile email client, but Outlook it is not) and OneNote and Word and so on. The Office apps built into W10M are way more powerful than they were in any previous Windows Phone version, even in phone mode; in PC (Continuum) mode they'll be weaker than actual PC versions but much closer than you might expect.

Also, while new hardware is required to use the dock that allows plugging in a display and USB devices, you can connect Bluetooth keyboards and mice to a legacy phone running W10M just fine, and there's been ways to mirror the phone's screen on a PC for years. That's not as good as Continuum, but maybe there's also a way to directly, wirelessly connect the phone to a PC or TV screen - I haven't checked - and that mostly solves that issue.

* which, unlike what some people have claimed, is no more a "reboot" of the OS than Windows Phone 8 -> Windows Phone 8.1 was; they just changed the name again

Re:But think of how good it will be!

[Anonymous Coward]

This just in: Halo was an amazing game.

Re:But think of how good it will be!

[Anonymous Coward]

The other thing that makes it near impossible for them to succed is that the smartphone market is no longer growing (there's some growth left in the developing world, but even that will not last long). Soon the market in the developed world will start shrinking as the 2 year upgrade cycle is abendoned because your 3 or 4 year old phone is good enough (this has already happened to the tablet market).

It is MUCH harder to gain marketshare in a static (or worse yet shrinking) market.
And people now have investments in existing platforms, that doesn't help the newcomers.

Re:But think of how good it will be!

[hydrofix]

Android is built on the Linux kernel so actually if you hook a keyboard, a mouse or such in the micro-USB slot on your phone it should just work out of the box. I don't think there's that much consumer interest for hooking up a 10x sized a keyboard to a smartphone though. It wouldn't be a big push for Google to bring out a dongle-sized concept PC based on Chromium OS or Android if such devices prove popular, however.

And if you are willing to hack some there's of course the business-card sized Raspberry PI that has decent ARM CPU, HDMI out and USB in that can be flashed with your favourite Linux distro, Android or Win 10.

Re: But think of how good it will be!

[BBF_BBF]

Actually the UI for the Zune HD is the progenitor to the "Metro" interface used in ALL of Microsoft's OSes.

Microsoft had all the pieces ready to be integrated into "Windows Phone" in 2009 when the Zune HD came out... Microsoft just didn't put any priority on defending their smartphone dominance of Windows Mobile (dominant in a small market) till *after* the iPhone and Android phones came on the market and made the "smartphone" a device for the masses.

Re:But think of how good it will be!

[ChunderDownunder]

micro-usb hubs with card readers, USB on-the-go and HDMI outputs (MHL or Slimport depending on the phone SoC) can be purchased online for around $US10-15. As a holiday project I've purchased one, though Santa's postal service elves haven't delivered it yet. :)

The 'dumpster' phone promises a treasure trove - cracked screens with worn out batteries might attain a new lease of life if powered by mains and hooked up to a mouse, keyboard and expandable storage.

Re:But think of how good it will be!

[iampiti]

Yep, It's forced them to compete because otherwise they would be in trouble as more and more people leave PCs for mobiles and tablets.
What I wish they hadn't done is trying to unify interfaces between desktop Windows and Windows Phone. It's ruined desktop Windows IMHO

Re:But think of how good it will be!

[iampiti]

They do have good products and I really like Windows 7 but I also think Windows 10 is abusive and disrespectful of users.
I'm in a difficult position since I like gaming and there's no real alternative to Windows.
I might go with a double boot system in the future and use the Windows partition as a games console, and Linux for everything else

Re:But think of how good it will be!

[Anonymous Coward]

Halo was shit

Re:But think of how good it will be!

[Trongy]

You can also use Bluetooth keyboards and mice with most Android devices.

Ars Technica article discusses using Android as a desktop. While it just works in many cases, they point out that mouse drags are interpreted inconsistently. Sometimes they are like finger drags and sometimes they can highlight text as on a desktop.

Re:But think of how good it will be!

[KGIII]

I now have a Windows phone (8, I guess) and I'm told that I should be able to upgrade it just fine. That's kind of impressive. I'm told it should be just as snappy as it is now and it is pretty good. I hate to admit it but I'm kind of liking it. I bought it because I was sick of Android and all the security shenanigans and I have no desire to own an iPhone.

That said, I could easily see myself chucking a phone up on a desktop environment to get some extra stuff done. I don't like tablets but I don't mind my phone too much. Yeah, I could see it being used on occasion. (Probably VNC to my my Linux DE but still used.)

Re:But think of how good it will be!

[KGIII]

I've actually jokingly referred to a project of clustering retired Android phones to be used to map rain-forest flora genomes. While it is said in jest, I'm still a bit curious about the idea.

Re:But think of how good it will be!

[Anonymous Coward]

Halo was only amazing to console gamers who had never played an FPS or read a scifi novel before. PC gamers didn't even notice Halo because it was just another drop in the ocean of mediocre, cookie cutter FPS games available to them.

Want to know what an amazing FPS is? Catacomb 3-D. Wolfenstein 3D. Doom. System Shock. Duke Nukem 3D. Quake. Battlezone. Unreal. Half-Life. Thief. Deus Ex.

Re: But think of how good it will be!

[Anonymous Coward]

Dude... by 2009, iPhone was already well established.

Re:But think of how good it will be!

[Anonymous Coward]

And Halo.

Re:But think of how good it will be!

[Anonymous Coward]

Halo did nothing new, it didn't have good gameplay, it didn't have a good story, it didn't have good graphics, it didn't have good music, it didn't have good anything. Halo isn't even in the top 100 best FPS games.

Re:But think of how good it will be!

[ArmoredDragon]

My understanding is that any app written for Windows 10 can run in either mobile or desktop mode... and no doubt the built in ones (mail, web, Office) will cover most initial needs.

They have to be re-written as a universal app, which can't quite do all of the same things that a normal app can do. Furthermore, it has to be distributed through the Microsoft app store, which means taking a 30% cut off of revenue.

Do some developers go that route? Yeah, but I don't think you'll see mass adoption. The reason why is because most developers these days no longer write apps for desktop operating systems. If they want to write an app for desktop users, they create web apps that you interact with in your web browser.

Another problem I see with Continuum though is that it necessitates carrying some kind of a dock with you. I can't think of many people who would do that. For that kind of thing, I actually bought a Surface Pro 4, which I use for work, and unlike Continuum it WILL run everything, and it will run it fast too.

Re:But think of how good it will be!

[cthulhu11]

Isn't the Windows Mobile UI already basically Windows 10 ??

Thinking is for cows.

[Anonymous Coward]

You are all cows.Cows Moooo!!Moooo!!Mooo cows Moooo!!.You continued cows.

Re:Thinking is for cows.

[Anonymous Coward]

I think people like myself and others might be really curious why you do this on every post?

Nothing better to do with your time?
Makes you feel good about yourself, posting the same repetitive nonsense multiple times per day?

Seriously, what motivates you do this this day after day, only to be modded down to -1 and probably not even visible to most of the people here?

Re:Thinking is for cows.

[Applehu Akbar]

"I think people like myself and others might be really curious why you do this on every post?"

His reasoning is that a mention of cows following every story might cause more people to lose interest in space programs.

Re: Thinking is for cows.

[Anonymous Coward]

Moooo???

Re:Thinking is for cows.

[Stan92057]

Rule 1 on the internet as in life,Don't feed the trolls.

Is there such a thing?

[menkhaura]

"Microsoft Fails Windows Phone Fans (...)"

Is there such a thing as "windows phone fans"? I'd have thought that fans as in coolers would be more likely than fans as in enthusiasts regarding Windows Mobile...

Re:Is there such a thing?

[91degrees]

It's a nice UI - aesthetically interesting and a much better design for a touch interface than for a mouse and keyboard. Lumia owners seem to be quite happy with their phones. I can imagine some people really liking them.

Re: Is there such a thing?

[Anonymous Coward]

Look at BoltmanLives on BetaNews. He's a constant whiner about anything non-MS, and always boasts about how everything MS does is "another brilliant move". That, and he admitted he's a domestic terrorists by saying he won't stop bitching unless everyone on BetaNews buys a Windows Phone.

Re:Is there such a thing?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yup. I love the Lumias. They really do work better than Android or iPhone, just not much in the way of Apps. Of course, 90% of Android Apps are crap anyway.

Re:Is there such a thing?

[RogueyWon]

I don't really see the appeal myself, but I know three people in my office who swear by them (all three of whom are at the lower end of the tech-literacy spectrum, so I doubt it's platform-fanboyism). The UI isn't bad for a mobile platform, I guess, it's just that the software ecosystem is rather poor. If you're not going to need a huge amount of third-party software, then I suppose a Windows Phone might be as good a choice as any?

The Surface tablets are becoming outright popular around here as well. I see almost as many of those now as I do iPads. Back on a "proper" laptop myself, though; my efforts to turn a tablet into a substitute for one ran into the brick wall of functionality some time ago.

Re:Is there such a thing?

[Anonymous Coward]

> Is there such a thing as "windows phone fans"?

There are dozens of us. Dozens!

Re:Is there such a thing?

[Anonymous Coward]

Some of my friends (who are tech illiterate but still microsoft fans) had those phones, the phone application would crash and people couldn't reach them anymore, or it would crash mid conversation (not just drop the call, but the application actually crashing). After buying the second phone after microsoft saying this version is so much better, and the phone application still crashing, they stopped buying new microsoft phones.

Re:Is there such a thing?

[nukenerd]

There you go Menkhaura, a Windows phone fan.

Re:Is there such a thing?

[Bert64]

But what's to prevent someone skinning Android with a new UI?
MS could create an Android variant with their own UI and their own apps set as the defaults instead of Google's, while also providing compatibility with the huge array of existing Android apps...
This would be a lot less development effort, a lot less risky for the users etc..

Windows phone has a lot of negatives going against it...
The "Windows" brand is not generally associated with phones, and carries negative connotations both from its desktop reputation (crashing, insecurity) and its previous mobile incarnations.
The brand also implies compatibility which isn't there, i knew several people who bought windows ce based netbooks a few years ago only to be disappointed they couldn't run regular windows apps on them. Their sole reason for buying the "windows" netbook instead of the linux ones also offered, was this mistaken notion of compatibility.

Re:Is there such a thing?

[ArmoredDragon]

Having owned one myself, I don't particularly care for its UI for a few reasons:

- You have to wait through animations when you do just about everything (these animations are what a lot of people refer to when they use the word "smooth" to describe the platform; which I'll admit that they have flashy appeal, but it gets old quick.)

- Android widgets are INFINITELY better than the live tiles. For example, my calendar widget can do a vertical layout and display multiple events in advance and can even scroll through extras, which sits in parallel with my voicemail transcripts where I also see multiple at once. On WP, your options are horizontal rectangle or giant square that nothing else (besides tiny tiles) can fit next to, and you'll see two upcoming events at best. Worst is that WP tiles will just periodically flip so you don't necessarily see what's pertinent, and they're about 15 minutes behind (as per the OS's restrictions.)

- The app drawer in WP sucks. It's long, has a really big font, and since the icons are mostly monocolor, you may not easily "spot" your app as you're scrolling by if you can't remember exactly what it was called but you remember what graphic it used. This basically means that you have to fill up your home screen and then essentially memorize your layout; otherwise launching apps feels impractical. I think the grid style in Android works much better.

- The flat UI concept sucks. Yes, I know it's better than the heavy bitmapped crap used in the past, but you can do at least light skeumorph without using bitmaps. Flat specifically means that you have no hints of depth (i.e. no shadows, no overlapping objects, no gradients, etc) which lends to the current fisher-price look as you have to do sharp contrasting colors in order to differentiate objects, which gets old really fast.

Re:Is there such a thing?

[Anonymous Coward]

No there are a fair number of Microsoft leghumpers who use Windows phone because they neither know better or have any need for anything besides a phone that occasionally looks at web pages and shows .docx files (forget making a phone call).

Re:Is there such a thing?

[Anonymous Coward]

I just got the 950XL, ditching Android for it and iOS before that. No complaints so far, the thing is still a phone and the app shortage is not an issue. My bank app sucked on Android so no loss there... just log on in the website. Yahoo fantasy app.... sucked, just log in to the website. I'd rather use a browser until these "apps" are actually better. Other than a couple games I don't see the difference. Time will tell.

Re:Is there such a thing?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Microsoft Fails Windows Phone Fans (...)"

Is there such a thing as "windows phone fans"? I'd have thought that fans as in coolers would be more likely than fans as in enthusiasts regarding Windows Mobile...

Does it really matter if there are fans of the device/OS? I have not actually seen or tried one so I do not know if it is any good. Saying that a delay of a month or two is somehow an awful burden is a bit disingenuous at best. Waiting to get it right is generally a good thing, and I wish MS had adopted such an approach a long long time ago. I have been burned too often by software rushed out the door too soon, and have also been on the other side with managers pushing to get something published before it was ripe. This is a good thing, and they are making the delay clear. I wish more companies did it like this.

Re:Is there such a thing?

[Anonymous Coward]

You only need to go to the windows phone reddit to see what a lie this is. Windows phones are very much worse than Android or iPhones due to their half baked OS. And it's even worse with windows 10 mobile.

Re:Is there such a thing?

[Wdomburg]

I'm a fan. I was using a Moto G and managed to drop it screen first onto marble tile, so I picked up a $50 Lumia to use until I fixed the G. That was months ago, and I haven't bothered fixing my old phone.

To be fair, my needs are modest. All I care about are the stock social media apps, a browser, a music player, a podcast player and a terminal client.

Re:Is there such a thing?

[Anonymous Coward]

Love my Lumia Phone... it's an communcations device not an Apple/Google toy.

Re:Is there such a thing?

[Ol Olsoc]

"Microsoft Fails Windows Phone Fans (...)"

Is there such a thing as "windows phone fans"?

Ballmers new basketball team. By orders.

Re:Is there such a thing?

[Anonymous Coward]

I quite like it, I dislike the "fan" moniker - as it conveys uncritical adoration. I like it better than the alternatives, but can also see the shortcomings and mishandling. I still prefer Windows Phone over the alternatives. Does that make me a fan?

Re:Is there such a thing?

[perryizgr8]

Except Android is laggy as hell. To have a stutter-free experience on android, the phone needs to have 4GB of RAM, a burning hot octa core CPU assisted by a GPU that can shame the original XBOX. It's ridiculous. Meanwhile Windows phone chugs along smoothly on a phone with 1GB RAM, dual core CPU, etc. and gives better battery life too. Ditto goes for iPhone. So I'm glad Microsoft didn't go the skinned Android route, and decided to develop a real competitor. They have been incredibly sloppy though, and that might be the end of Win Pho. That would be sad.

Re:Is there such a thing?

[Anonymous Coward]

Windows phone probably chugs along smoothly because it has nothing to do and you can't really do that much with it anyway. You can't do that much with it in terms of configurability, background app running(without absolutely nailing your battery) especially when comparing it against iPhone and Android

And the Windows Phone app store is utter shite. I've never seen anything so loaded with fake apps and spy/crapware in my life.

Maybe you're installing the wrong kind of apps if you're having a bad experience on Android - usually idiots installing hacked apps (full of malware/keyloggers) get crappy performing phones because of all the shit running in the background. Similar for iPhone if you run hacked crap. Don't. What do you think the primary motivation for hacking apps is,... to make a better world for you? Oh how nice that must be. I call Bullshit. It's to get your details etc.

Microsoft came late to the game. Blackberry is even starting to comeback with the priv quite strongly. Microsoft could do well to release a properly skinned phone and to dump WinPhone completely as it's clear they don't have anything that can compete in any meaningful way.

Re:Is there such a thing?

[Anonymous Coward]

All those "issues" you find are considered features by some people I know. To describe them as a group, would be ... old and near retirement.

Re:Is there such a thing?

[Grishnakh]

All those "issues" you find are considered features by some people I know. To describe them as a group, would be ... old and near retirement.

Huh? I thought it was all the stupid 20-something hipsters who loved this flat-UI crap.

Re:Is there such a thing?

[Grishnakh]

The "Windows" brand is not generally associated with phones, and carries negative connotations both from its desktop reputation (crashing, insecurity) and its previous mobile incarnations.
The brand also implies compatibility which isn't there, i knew several people who bought windows ce based netbooks a few years ago only to be disappointed they couldn't run regular windows apps on them. Their sole reason for buying the "windows" netbook instead of the linux ones also offered, was this mistaken notion of compatibility.

You're missing the obvious point here, which you spelled out yourself:

MS's "Windows" brand has value because of morons who don't do research and are easily tricked into thinking that Windows devices are far more compatible than they really are. Did the suckers you know who bought WinCE netbooks return them after figuring out they were useless for the purpose for which they bought them?

Re:Is there such a thing?

[Grishnakh]

I sure hope they don't take your advice. I'd rather see them bet the company on Windows Phone.....

Re:Is there such a thing?

[Grishnakh]

The UI isn't bad for a mobile platform, I guess, it's just that the software ecosystem is rather poor.

The UI is ugly and unconfigurable. ArmoredDragon's highly informative post just above goes into great detail why WP OS is crap.

But even if it were pretty good, nothing is going to make up for a crappy software ecosystem. This is exactly the reason why Windows (the PC OS) is so popular still even though it's complete shit with the Metro UI: it runs everyone's favorite or at least necessary applications. If you can't run your critical business application on an OS, then it doesn't matter how great that OS is, it's useless to you. Well, for me and I suspect many others, the apps are what make smartphones worth having. For instance, there's no way I'd bother with a phone if it doesn't run Tinder. But there's lots of other apps I use a lot too, like Osmand (invaluable for capturing my hiking routes), RealCalc, etc. I'm sure many other smartphone users are the same: they've got a handful of apps they use constantly (Facebook, WhatsApp, kik come to mind as popular apps), and if a phone doesn't support them all, then it's not even a choice.

Re:Is there such a thing?

[The-Ixian]

these animations are what a lot of people refer to when they use the word "smooth" to describe the platform

Actually, even without the animations, I find the simple transition between apps really nice and snappy. The nice thing about live tiles is you can fit way more of them on a single page than you can widgets on android. There is nothing similar on iPhone.

On both Android and IOS devices, I always spend a good deal of time just navigating between pages with different app icons. On Windows Phone it is all right there. Even the stuff that is not is literally a swipe and a flick away. I think they really nailed the small form factor UI.

There are also some really clever UI implementations on Windows Phones that don't appear to exist on the Android and iPhones I have used. Stuff related to copy/paste operations and forms are nicely optimized on Windows Phone and are always a hassle on Android and iPhone.

Bottom line is a Windows Phone is much cleaner and more efficient to use than either an Android or iPhone...

Re:Is there such a thing?

[The-Ixian]

This used to be a problem like almost 10 years ago with Windows CE based phones. This happened to me all the time, which is why I switched off of Windows Phones as soon as Android came along.

However, after experiencing Android and it's sluggishness (which never really got better), I switched to iPhone... which was ok, but I never wanted to "buy in" to the whole Apple ecosystem and so therefor always felt like a second class citizen.

Anyway, I wanted to give Windows phone another shot and bought a very low end ($40 brand new) Lumia 520 a year ago. I was utterly amazed at how usable a cheap phone was. If I were to buy a low end Android phone, it would be unusable in any reasonable sense.

Now, it *has* crashed on me... but it is always when using the built-in podcast app that triggers it, and this has become much less common in the last few months.

The phone part has never been anything but rock solid.

Re:Is there such a thing?

[The-Ixian]

This is a very similar story to mine.

I figured "what the hell, $40 on amazon... what could it hurt?"

A year later and I am still using the phone...

Re:Is there such a thing?

[bigman2003]

Windows Phone not having Tinder is an awesome feature.

I'm a loud and proud Windows Phone fan. And I *like* the lack of apps!

Think about the 'must have' apps from 3 years ago. Or 2 years ago, or 1 year ago. Chances are, you aren't using them now.

Apps are generally just a way to waste time. 99.99% of them are not really valuable.

I'd rather have my phone in my pocket and live life, than sit there on my phone working the coolest new app.

Seriously- I've been on this train of thought since I got rid of my iPhone 4. When I realized I was sitting at the park playing some stupid game instead of watching my kids, I realized that I do NOT want a plethora of apps in my pocket. I want a real life...and a browser/email/SMS in my pocket.

Re:Is there such a thing?

[ArmoredDragon]

Bottom line is a Windows Phone is much cleaner and more efficient to use than either an Android or iPhone...

I'm not sure how that could be argued. You're giving vague descriptions of things just being a "swipe and a flick away" but even the most basic tasks are more complicated on WP.

Here's a specific example: Task switching. On WP you have to hold the back key for a few seconds, which adds time to what should be a very quick function. On Android you just tap the task switch button; instant, easy.

And strangely, on WP they opted to put there...of all things...a search button, worsened by the fact that it's hard coded to Bing web searches and can't be changed. Now I understand if you're going all in Microsoft and you're a fan of Bing, that's one thing, but any time you want to search anything technical, Google is a sure bet, so if you want to search Google, you have to launch your browser, type google.com, etc. In other words, takes more time.

Meanwhile on Android (and this will vary depending on the launcher you use) you can just flick the home key upwards to search Google (which can be changed, again, depending on the launcher.)

Re:Is there such a thing?

[avandesande]

Wow you are picky- how about your claim that widgets are 'infinitely better' than live tiles? It's just something you click on to do something. The only way it could be infinitely better is if the live tiles were completely non-functional.

Re:Is there such a thing?

[Anonymous Coward]

> MS could create an Android variant with their own UI and their own apps set as the defaults instead of Google's

They already did. Or actually Nokia did with Nokia X that was marketed by Microsoft for a short time:

http://www.microsoft.com/en/mobile/phones/nokia-x/

Re:Is there such a thing?

[TheCastro1689]

Because it literally is a swipe an a flick away, swipe to one side you have an alphabetized list of all of your apps. Flick the top down you have a lot of quick options that are editable and access to settings. You hold it briefly, I don't know what you're doing that a less than one second hold is too much time. Most andriod phones have a search button, why is that strange for windows phones to have? It actually brings up cortana, and if you type google in she will take you directly there if you so wish, your ramble of how to do it is off.

Re:Is there such a thing?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Windows Phone Fans" is a euphemism for "MS employees who were given a Windows Phone for free, and have to pretend to like it on the job or around other MS employees, but who guiltily whip out their iPhone or Android when the Eye of Satya isn't upon them".

Re:Is there such a thing?

[TheCastro1689]

WP battery life way out lasts any competition, you clearly are pulling this out of your ass.

Re:Is there such a thing?

[menkhaura]

Bah, humbugh, those 30-ish younglings also fall for this shiney... GET OFF MY LAWN!

Re:Is there such a thing?

[Anonymous Coward]

My Android phone with Nova Launcher shits all over your Windows Phone UI.

Re:Is there such a thing?

[menkhaura]

" I still prefer Windows Phone over the alternatives. Does that make me a fan?"

No, IMO, as long as you are ready to change as soon as a better alternative *for your particular, personal, individual* needs arises. A true fan (enthusiast) won't move on no matter what.

Re:Is there such a thing?

[Anonymous Coward]

What a load of shit.

The fact you call that dumb shit piece of crap cortana a 'she' just puts the turd on top of the turd ice cream sundae that is windows phones and MS's shills.

Re:Is there such a thing?

[Anonymous Coward]

Only because there is nothing to run on windows phones.

You MS shills are all very stupid people.

Re:Is there such a thing?

[Anonymous Coward]

(who are tech illiterate but still microsoft fans)

Being technically illiterate is the hallmark of a microsoft fan.

Re:Is there such a thing?

[mcrbids]

Yes, of course. There are three. Two are paid by Microsoft.

Re:Is there such a thing?

[ArmoredDragon]

Wow you are picky- how about your claim that widgets are 'infinitely better' than live tiles? It's just something you click on to do something.

Actually it's not. Widgets are fully interactive, i.e. I can tap on individual calendar events and it will open that event, or even scroll through events. You're just thinking in terms of live tiles where there's no interaction at all. It's just there, and if you tap on it, it opens the app. If you want to see e.g. other events, you just have to wait for it to flip through it; it literally does nothing else.

The only way it could be infinitely better is if the live tiles were completely non-functional.

Well put it this way: Think of Windows Phone's live tiles as being like linear TV whereas Android's widgets are more like a DVR. Sure, linear TV is functional in that you can watch the news as it airs, but once you have a DVR, linear TV seems so non-functional as to be almost useless.

Re:Is there such a thing?

[ArmoredDragon]

Because it literally is a swipe an a flick away, swipe to one side you have an alphabetized list of all of your apps.

With Android you just hit the app drawer key. It's really just as simple, only better because you get a smaller grid layout with very distinctive icons. On WP it's just a big list with small, monocolor icons.

Flick the top down you have a lot of quick options that are editable and access to settings.

Umm...actually that's a feature Windows Phone ripped off of Android. In case you've forgotten, 18 months ago WP didn't even that whole shade system. Microsoft's answer was that you're supposed to use the tiles for notification, even though they were often 15 minutes behind. Needless to say it was shitty, so they eventually just copied what Android had since day one (and Apple copied 2 years after Android came out, though without the quick settings, which they later added as a bottom shade, but before WP had it.)

You hold it briefly, I don't know what you're doing that a less than one second hold is too much time.

Holding, no matter the duration, is slower than tapping. Furthermore, it's less intuitive.

Most andriod phones have a search button

No, they don't. You're thinking of 2010 and prior era phones that had hard keys with upwards of 6+ buttons, which there aren't many of anymore (considering that back then there was about 160k Android phones sold per day, whereas nowadays there's over 2 million Android phones sold per day.) Android has been on a soft key system for four years now which had 3 buttons: Back, home, and menu. However in 4.0 they replaced the menu button with the task switch button.

Microsoft must have just copied the old design and hasn't copied the new one yet. Don't worry, I'm sure they'll catch up in four years.

and if you type google

I have a better way: Just open Firefox for Android and type in the search terms directly. (Which by the way, firefox is the ONLY mobile browser that supports extensions, including adblock plus, ghostery, searchonymous, and lastpass)

Re:Is there such a thing?

[KGIII]

I browse, send texts, and read emails on my Windows phone and I'm happy that I made the switch - I only made the switch a couple of months ago. The other thing I do with my phone, and this might come as a shocker, is make phone calls. I have found a few apps that looked interesting and installed them but I don't actually ever seem to use them. I just use the 'net, email, and SMS. Well, that and make and accept phone calls.

Re:Is there such a thing?

[Anonymous Coward]

I was one. And I still, sort of, am. They were the first to neatly integrate multiple sources of contact / activity information.

But... the ecosystem. The support. The feeling of being abandonded straight away -- what, you're using phone 8? everyone's on the next version and no support for you! Apple doesn't do this - every iPhone is supported by Apple for, well, long enough. Sure, they might not run iOS 9.2 on an iPhone 2, but when the iPhone 6 came out, they didn't drop support for iPhone 5.

I used Windows Phone 7. It was good. Until they moved on to the next big thing and I was some kind of unsupported nothing. Heck, the search tool stopped working just recently when some online service died, for example. What did I do? Upgrade. To what? an iPhone 6S.

I tried. They didn't hold up their end of the bargain.

Re:Is there such a thing?

[tezbobobo]

I like mine.

Re:Is there such a thing?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's what I thought with Ubuntu Mobile which nobody wants as well.

Re:Is there such a thing?

[davester666]

Possibly also the Windows Phone fan.

Re:Is there such a thing?

[Thumper_SVX]

A fan? No. But I can definitely be considered one who respects the platform.

My work phone is a Lumia 830. Honestly had I not gotten it for work I probably would never have bought a Windows phone. However, I quickly found myself quite impressed with the platform. Let's deal with a few negative comments, shall we?

- "There are no apps". Technically untrue... there are apps. No, there's no Tinder app or the latest or greatest games but you do have a pretty basic suite of apps that works really well. On a daily basis I use mail, calendar and the phone apps. There's an app for Concur I use for my expenses, and IE on WP is actually pretty decent. Beyond that, I have a messaging app, Skype and OneNote... and when I'm sitting waiting for something there's the News app that works really well. What more do I really need? For traveling I have Uber and Yelp. And that's about it. I don't care about most of the other apps... I even uninstalled the default Facebook app because I don't care about Facebook.

- "The app drawer is a wall of text". Yes, that's definitely true and is definitely a negative of the phone. However, note how many apps I actually use on this thing? They are all pinned to my start page where they can be resized and reordered as I see fit, and they all fit in that first screen with no issues. A little customization and you may never see the app drawer again... hell I can't remember the last time I opened it.

- "The flat UI sucks". Well that's a matter of taste. On my Android phone, icons often get lost in the shuffle because quite frankly my app drawer looks incredibly busy. And discoverability isn't helped when every few weeks some app changes its icon to something completely different. Have you never wondered why so many icon themes for Android try to neutralize the colour palette and make it less garish?

There are many others but I won't go into it... and no, the WP interface isn't for everyone. As I noted above my personal phone is still Android (CM12 at the moment) because I like to hack my phone and do stuff with it... but my Windows Phone does exactly what I need it to do and no more. I am definitely not a Microsoft fanboy but in some ways I find it easier to get stuff done with WP than I do with iPhone or Android... the phrase "It just works" applies nicely to WP but I don't feel it applies to either of the other big players. WP gets out of my way and lets me get to my data.

Now, are there things I would like? Sure... I'd love an OwnCloud client so I can attach to my files more easily. OneDrive integration is nice but I don't like OneDrive. Having my OneNote notebooks on the go is great; many of them are hand written notes on my Venue 11 Pro Tablet and being able to bring them up on my phone for reference is actually really cool. Exchange integration is obviously fantastic, and I really do like the more simplistic UI. Battery life is amazing on this phone... I get 2 days without a charge quite often... and I'm using it a lot. So there are one or two apps I could stand to have that I just don't... but since it's a nice-to-have and not a need, I fail to really care. At the moment I just have a script on my home PC that copies my most recent critical documents from my OwnCloud to my OneDrive... I have long since realized that a file more than a month old is archived so my script keeps only files less than a month old synced with my OneDrive. Since I'm not editing them on my OneDrive and just referring to them it works out really well and only needs a one-way sync!

I can also say the build quality is better than most of my previous phones, too. My Android phone has been dropped once and then replaced because it broke (insurance, thankfully!), but my Lumia has been dropped frequently enough that the metal of the case is a bit chipped... but the glass has remained unaffected and the phone itself works great.

Re:Is there such a thing?

[Kumiorava]

I got mine too, this is my third windows phone in a row. I feel that the OS itself is a bit rough still and needs several rounds of updates. I don't have confidence that the phone is keeping me informed about messages and emails, as I have noticed several times the tile counters to be out of sync with the actual contents of the folder. I also got few spectacular crashes so far and attaching the phone on the Continuum dock was a painful experience, only few apps work and whole system functioned poorly.

Anyway I had similar feeling with the Lumia 800, but it got fixed into nicely working phone. I'm expecting this to start working as well.

Windows mobile is for cows.

[Anonymous Coward]

Cause it sucks balls as compared to Android.You Windows Mobile deepthroated cows.

Windows Phone =

[Anonymous Coward]

Chocolate Teapot.

Re: Windows Phone =

[Anonymous Coward]

2 users and a cup?

Re: Windows Phone =

[Anonymous Coward]

2 Windows Phone users? Now that's a bit too optimistic.

Headline Too Long

[Anonymous Coward]

"Microsoft Fails: Windows Phone" would have been sufficient.

Both of them will be pissed

[drinkypoo]

Every so often someone posts a defense of Windows Phone here on Slashdot, but I've still never even seen a modern Windows Phone. I mean, not since the olden days, it's got to have been over a decade. They really ought to just pack it in. They had a reason to exist back when they were the only company that made it relatively easy to develop and deploy your own software to your own devices, but now that's everyone.

Re:Both of them will be pissed

[Anonymous Coward]

Every so often someone posts a defense of Windows Phone here on Slashdot, but I've still never even seen a modern Windows Phone. I mean, not since the olden days, it's got to have been over a decade. They really ought to just pack it in. They had a reason to exist back when they were the only company that made it relatively easy to develop and deploy your own software to your own devices, but now that's everyone.

I have a Windows phone for over a year now. However, I don't profess it to the world, like owners of other phone systems. It does what I want, and that is all I need. nuff said.

As far as the Windows 10 upgrade, I am blocking that, just like I did on the PCs. No phoning home my personal data to advertisers, Microsoft.

Re:Both of them will be pissed

[ArmoredDragon]

However, I don't profess it to the world, like owners of other phone systems.

Umm...you sure about that? I've both read and seen how Windows Phone fans react when they walk into a carrier store, ask where their Windows Phones are, and then when the staff say something to the effect of "we don't carry those because our customers don't want them" the WP fans suddenly behave like PETA activists at a fur store as if not carrying their brand is a crime against nature.

I know, it's rare because there are so few of their fans, but if you don't believe me go peruse some of the fan forums.

Re:Both of them will be pissed

[Anonymous Coward]

As far as the Windows 10 upgrade, I am blocking that, just like I did on the PCs. No phoning home my personal data to advertisers, Microsoft.

What in the world makes you think that Windows 8 doesn't "phone home"?

Re:Both of them will be pissed

[Anonymous Coward]

I've still never even seen a modern Windows Phone

I've never seen anyone drive a Tesla, but that says more about where I live and who I hang out with than the company's success. Considering how much of your time you spend shitposting on /., I'd venture to guess that you have an Android phone and your mother has an iPhone, and that means you haven't seen a modern Windows phone.

The Windows UI is way nicer to use and the platform finally quite nice to develop for. The problem is lack of apps because Android and Apple have all the momentum, just like MS had all the momentum through the '90s. In the UK, at least, the main service providers are a lot more likely to sell Windows phones than in some other countries, but you do have the problem that no average person is a Windows fanboy - the polar opposite of the iPhone user. Since a phone is half fashion accessory, this is depressingly relevant.

Re:Both of them will be pissed

[thegarbz]

I've seen one of the newer Luminas. Doesn't seem that bad for a basic device. And by basic I mean a device lacking apps, no a device not potentially capable of great things.

The interface takes some getting used to but only due to be different from every other standard phone. Functionally it's just fine, browsing works, phone works, skype works, sms works, facebook etc.

Really I see it as being a bit of a hit if:
a) it had a lot of apps
b) they removed the name Microsoft
c) they removed the name Windows

Re:Both of them will be pissed

[thegarbz]

they walk into a carrier store, ask where their Windows Phones are, and then when the staff say something to the effect of "we don't carry those because our customers don't want them"

You know the Apple store is not a carrier store right? Every carrier store I've seen carries at least one Windows phone (Lumina) if not more.

Re:Both of them will be pissed

[Anonymous Coward]

I know three people with Windows phones. All three intend on switching to Android when their contracts are up.

Re:Both of them will be pissed

[drinkypoo]

I've never seen anyone drive a Tesla, but that says more about where I live and who I hang out with than the company's success.

But I do see Teslas, pretty much every time I go further than the local store.

The Windows UI is way nicer to use

Than what?

The problem is lack of apps because Android and Apple have all the momentum, just like MS had all the momentum through the '90s.

Then they squandered it by releasing several incompetent phone OSes.

In the UK, at least, the main service providers are a lot more likely to sell Windows phones than in some other countries, but you do have the problem that no average person is a Windows fanboy

And with good reason.

Since a phone is half fashion accessory, this is depressingly relevant.

Not mine, it's just a phone. Boring, basic black.

Re:Both of them will be pissed

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm guessing you're in the US (or Canada).

There are parts of the world where WPs are more popular than iPhones, but the US is not one of them, for various reasons (mostly it has to do with contract prices/subsidies).

Re:Both of them will be pissed

[DrXym]

I've had two Lumias. Both justify the label "smart phone" and have been usable devices. Windows Phone has steadily acquired the features that put it on parity with iOS or Android.

But I wouldn't see any reason for someone to wish to use these in preference to an Android phone. They're not cheaper and they don't do anything special that can't be found on other devices. The most serious flaw is still the relative lack of apps.

Re:Both of them will be pissed

[Anonymous Coward]

they walk into a carrier store, ask where their Windows Phones are, and then when the staff say something to the effect of "we don't carry those because our customers don't want them"

You know the Apple store is not a carrier store right? Every carrier store I've seen carries at least one Windows phone (Lumina) if not more.

They have one on their website, and a mock up in store, but they don't actually *stock* it. That's enough to calm the WP activists down, without having to actually sell any...

Re:Both of them will be pissed

[Grishnakh]

I've never seen someone using one in the wild, and I tend to notice small things like that (and the WP UI is so ugly and unique that there's no way I'd confuse that for iOS or Android).

I *have* actually used a Windows Phone, a year or so ago at a MS mall kiosk, and a couple years before at a phone store. I had to see the horror for myself. But that was at places that were trying to hawk the thing; I've never actually seen a user in public or met anyone who had one.

Re:Both of them will be pissed

[Grishnakh]

I've never seen anyone drive a Tesla, but that says more about where I live and who I hang out with than the company's success.

Where the hell do you live? Minot, North Dakota? Rural Wyoming? Kodiak Island, Alaska? I live in the boonies and there's one guy here who drives a Tesla, and when I go to any decent city I'll see a few.

The Windows UI is way nicer to use

No, it isn't, it's flat, ugly garbage. ArmoredDragon's post here explains it well.

Re:Both of them will be pissed

[Grishnakh]

This right here is a good reason to never, ever sign up for a phone contract. It's just a bad idea. You can buy an inexpensive or used Android phone for very little money these days and get month-to-month service for far less than it costs to get service through one of the main companies. Getting service from the main companies is for suckers who feel the need to buy from an actual store instead of just signing up for service online.

Re:Both of them will be pissed

[The-Ixian]

Funny thing is, as far as I am aware, this is the first time in history where "Microsoft" and "Windows" are displayed prominently on a Windows Phone.

In the past, Windows Phone was "just an OS" and the manufacturer and/or carrier would brand everything.

So, at best, your B) and C) points have not had a lot of time to really prove out one way or the other. As for A) ... *shrug* it just depends on what you need. Also, just stating that you have 10,000+ apps in your store is really meaningless and only useful in a marketing sense.

If all you do is the standard 10 things most people use their smart phones for, then Windows Phone is just fine. You may need to find alternative apps to the ones you normally use, but maybe you don't. For example, on Android and iPhone I LOVE BeyondPod for my netcasts. On Windows Phone I don't have that available... but the built-in podcast software is decent enough, or I could use something like PocketCast, which I have heard is pretty good.

Re:Both of them will be pissed

[Pubstar]

Or you sign up with a carrier that just adds the phone sub to the plan, and lets you pay it off early if you want a new phone. T-Mobile lets me do that. I did that once when I had a phone battery just shit out on me, and it was $40 to pay off the phone, or $45 for a new battery. I just went ahead and paid off the old phone and got a new one. Once the phone is paid off, I just get $20/month knocked off my bill.

Re:Both of them will be pissed

[The-Ixian]

I went pre-paid years ago and have never looked back. It is half the cost and overage fees are impossible, if you reach your cap, that's it.

I have been using AT&T pre-paid for a while and the funny thing is, the cost of that plan has actually gone down by $10/month since I first started on it... That is basically unprecedented in my experience with carriers... Compare that to contract users. The rate may go down halfway through your contract term for new users, but since you are in a contract, you have to continue to pay that original rate.

Re:Both of them will be pissed

[radarskiy]

" However, I don't profess it to the world"

You just did.

Re:Both of them will be pissed

[ericloewe]

Not a trace of Google on them. That's a very big feature.

Re:Both of them will be pissed

[Ravaldy]

See, I've experienced all 3 major OSs. My personal favourite at this point is the Windows Phone. I've just purchased my second Windows capable phone as I was going on 4 years with my first. I purchased the Blu Win HD Unlocked for $140 all in. Had to add a 32gb SD card since the base product comes with only 8GB. So you could call me a fan boy and since I'm a MS coder it just makes sense for me.

I realize their product accounts for less than 3% of the NA market so I don't expect carriers to bend over and stock that product. What I do expect is an unbiased opinion when asked about the product. In every single store I've gone I always get the "WP are shit, they don't have apps and the hardware sucks". I'll ask them if they've tried one and how they came to this conclusion. I usually get a blank stare. Most of these opinionated retail clerks only really know 2 or 3 phones well enough to recommend and WP is not one of them. IMO it's one of the reasons the product has not picked up. Nobody is pushing them because it's really easy to push Apple and Android.

Re:Both of them will be pissed

[Anonymous Coward]

It has failed because it is shit and has no apps.

A platform is worthless if it has no apps.

Re:Both of them will be pissed

[DrXym]

So instead you get Microsoft. Massive difference. If you were that concerned about your privacy you wouldn't be using a smart phone, or if you did you'd at least control what firmware was on it down the last app.

Re:Both of them will be pissed

[vilanye]

I went with Virgin.

Bought the Phone outright on sale so no contract.

$35 a month for unlimited calls, text 2.5 GB 4G data and after that throttles down to 3G.

Impossible to get overage charges.

The downside is the network. I don't travel much but if a person does Virgin would be awful as its coverage is really bad outside metro areas.

Re:Both of them will be pissed

[stooo]

>> What in the world makes you think that Windows 8 doesn't "phone home"?
Because "Windows 8" is not "Windows Phone 8". :))

Re:Both of them will be pissed

[drinkypoo]

Besides, there are many Android phones which can be loaded with AOSP, and with just a little research ahead you can figure out which of the phones you're interested in are supported. Then you can use them without any Google services at all, and indeed without a store whatsoever by simply sideloading everything. You can in theory do much better with privacy with Android than with the other major phone operating systems for the simple reason that it's the only one whose source code you can see. And if the whole point is to not get any Google on you, then you're not giving anything up, right?

Re:Both of them will be pissed

[thegarbz]

So, at best, your B) and C) points have not had a lot of time to really prove out one way or the other.

In real layman's terms you're right. My comment was more directed at the slashdot crowd who mostly dismiss it due to it's source without ever having used it, or (as some will quite proudly exclaim) without ever even having seen one.

What Microsoft should have done...

[MikeRT]

If Microsoft had been smart about their strategy, they'd have made the tablet and phone modes for Windows able to revert to a full desktop when a keyboard, mouse and display are connected. Corporate America would **love** a phone with 4GB of RAM and a good Atom CPU that can be plugged into a standard display and use bluetooth inputs to become a small desktop computer. Microsoft would probably have jumped from 2.5% to 20% of the market within two years if they'd adopted a strategy that was based on the premise that Windows adopts to your usage and any Windows device is a computer.

Re:What Microsoft should have done...

[ArmoredDragon]

I don't know about that, it would probably be really slow, not to mention the need to always have some sort of a dock with you. Besides, if that were the case, then Surface tablets would always be used in place of iPads. (Which by the way, I own a Surface Pro 4; wonderful little device, but at least at the moment it doesn't have the business mindshare that iPad has.)

Re:What Microsoft should have done...

[zoid.com]

Kind of like Continuum?
http://windows.microsoft.com/e...

Re:What Microsoft should have done...

[ChunderDownunder]

Well minus the x86 processor, that's the direction Continuum is headed?

The murmurs I heard were to wait for the Surface Phone coming in 2016, designed by the same team that do the tablets.

Re:What Microsoft should have done...

[DigiShaman]

That would happen if Android was a viable desktop OS; which it's not. That market belongs to Windows and OSX for the desktop/laptop market. Apple could have created an iPhone dock years ago that would act as the replacement for your desktop (clerical work-loads, not workstation type). The reason they didn't is that would have cannibalized their own product offerings. So the decision to not move toward a unified Apple OS is market driven, not a technological limitation.

Re:What Microsoft should have done...

[gtall]

IOS and osx share much already. The fact that they do not share an interface is because phones are not desktops or laptops. Apple continues to reiterate the difference but apparently you aren't getting those memos. See MS for an example of how to screw up when you confuse the two.

Re:What Microsoft should have done...

[DigiShaman]

Apple continues to reiterate the difference but apparently you aren't getting those memos

http://www.kitguru.net/apple/a...

“We don’t believe in having one operating system for PC and mobile.”
“We think it subtracts from both, and you don’t get the best experience from either. We are very much focused on two.”
“We don’t think [touch] the right interface [for PCs], honestly, Mac is sort of a sit-down experience.”
- Tim Cook

You were saying about the memo??

Re:What Microsoft should have done...

[ChunderDownunder]

Microsoft Surface had Apple worried enough for Tim Cook to announce the iPad Pro.

So 'market driven' is a salient point; the cannibalisation has begun.

Oh and Apple once produced a touchscreen laptop with a stylus running a tablet OS. The eMate 300 was 18 1/2 years ahead of its time.

Re:What Microsoft should have done...

[Anonymous Coward]

If Microsoft had been smart about their strategy....

Well, they're not! Nothing further to say!

Re:What Microsoft should have done...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, but without the mandatory dongle, specific phone models and other restrictions.

Re:What Microsoft should have done...

[Anonymous Coward]

He was saying you aren't 'getting it', and he was clearly right...

Re:What Microsoft should have done...

[Bert64]

This wouldn't have been possible until recently, as x86 was too power hungry (and the low power versions too slow)...
It's been possible with Linux for a long time, but never supplied preconfigured or marketed as a feature.

Re:What Microsoft should have done...

[unencode200x]

Surfaces Pros are infiltrating sales teams like crazy around here (at least around here at the many companies I'm working with). The thing that all the sales people ask for is mobile broadband. In reading your comment it would be nice to be able to pair them super easily so they could use their phones as a hot spot. It works fine with an iPhone, it's just not freaky fast like sales people want.

P.S. Sales people are the bane of my existence so grain of sale and all that.

Re:What Microsoft should have done...

[ericloewe]

Windows automagically shows paired Bluetooth Windows phones as available connections. The feature was introduced in 8.1.

If they really want it, they can do it *now*.

Re:What Microsoft should have done...

[Kjella]

If Microsoft had been smart about their strategy, they'd have made the tablet and phone modes for Windows able to revert to a full desktop when a keyboard, mouse and display are connected. Corporate America would **love** a phone with 4GB of RAM and a good Atom CPU that can be plugged into a standard display and use bluetooth inputs to become a small desktop computer. Microsoft would probably have jumped from 2.5% to 20% of the market within two years if they'd adopted a strategy that was based on the premise that Windows adopts to your usage and any Windows device is a computer.

This is pretty much what they're doing with the Lumia 950/950 XL and the dock, problem is that it's an ARM processor so the only thing that'll run are universal apps. To run traditional x86 applications they need a x86 processor, like the last generation of Surface products. And while a "Surface Phone" using an Intel X3 Atom SoC has been rumored for a long time, it's a no-show thus far. My guess is that Intel is the blocker, despite their CPU/GPU experience they struggle to create a compelling x86 platform with all the communication bits and so on. Same thing with WinRT, it wasn't something Microsoft wanted to do but it was an ARM stop-gap until there was an x86 platform.

Re:What Microsoft should have done...

[cbhacking]

Meh, RT was a shit-show well above and beyond not being "something Microsoft wanted to do". I've never seen a company shoot their own product in the foot (or the face, more like) so hard before. There is absolutely no technical reason that RT couldn't run .NET desktop apps; if you jailbreak it, .NET apps written years before RT existed run just fine. Native code required a recompile (but often nothing else); a native Java runtime would have added a bunch more apps immediately (there's a Java-on-.NET runtime, IKVM, which does work on RT... but it's slow and kind of buggy). There's even a homebrewed (as in, one guy's hobby project) compatibility layer for legacy apps that uses dynamic retranslation and API shims to run legacy x86 Windows apps, unmodified, on RT (not emulating a full x86 Windows, but actually running in RT; they use the same file system, registry, network interfaces, etc.). It's slow, but it's also an example of what Microsoft could have made RT be, if they'd really wanted to.

Instead, of course, after launching a crippled product and watching the community help it start to struggle to its feet usefulness-wise, they came back and crippled it *much harder* this time. RT 8.1 was eventually jailbroken as well, but it took far more effort than it should have, and by the time the new jailbreak was released, most of the community just didn't care anymore. It's really weird how much money and effort Microsoft put into making their own product less useful.

Re:What Microsoft should have done...

[tlhIngan]

Microsoft Surface had Apple worried enough for Tim Cook to announce the iPad Pro.

So 'market driven' is a salient point; the cannibalisation has begun.

Oh and Apple once produced a touchscreen laptop with a stylus running a tablet OS. The eMate 300 was 18 1/2 years ahead of its time.

Well, I've seen more than a few people carry around iPads as their sole computing device whilst traveling. Yes, sole computing device. It does their email, accesses their files and marketing materials and that's it. I can imagine that if people are migrating to Surface, it may be because of screen size, so an iPad Pro might be useful for those who wanted a larger screen (like two iPads side by side big). And add a stylus because if it isn't execs, you could at least retarget it for the creative types.

But Apple knows tablet users are finicky, and they also know tablets have saturated the market - they didn't release an iPad Air 3 because the demand is slowing.

And cannibalization? Well, iPads have been nipping at the low end of the Mac market - especially some of the higher end configurations costing just as much as a Mac if not more. (I think the more reasonable iPad Pro configurations cost as much as a Mac).

But Apple is known to do that - because it's hard to predict - rather than protect low end Mac sales from high end iPad sales, offer it at comparable price points so the market can speak. Some people just want a higher end iPad more than a Mac because their workflow is more optimized for that. Others may see the high end iPad and feel the Mac fits their needs better.

The eMate was more of an experiment to produce a ruggedized education computer more so than a regular computer. Basically it needed to last all day or all week, survive school abuse and be useful, so at the time, the only way to do that was repackage the Newton. Because that was cheaper than a regular laptop (hundreds of dollars versus thousands), battery life was incredibly good (days versus ... an hour), and kid-friendly. Plus it was easy to lock down which is essential for a kid computer.

Just one more push

[pappaxray]

When WP launched it was ahead of it's time. Metro looked great, unified messaging, live tiles etc. Feels like they've taken their foot off the gas, same with the XBOne. If MS want market share, they've got to be committed, I'm sure it's possible.

WP user, checking in.

[SinShiva]

As a t-mo user on the Lumia 640, the delay doesn't affect me much as i am awaiting the w10m wifi calling driver fix.

Hey now

[Fear the Clam]

The staff of Microsoft lost a lot of time doing that elaborate funeral for the iPhone years back.

Link related

[JBMcB]

http://techcrunch.com/2010/09/...

Know how you knew Windows phone was going to fail? The banner that called it "Windows Phone 7 OS Platform"

"What kinda phone is that?"

"Windows Phone 7 OS Platform"

"What?"

Windows 10 NSA/GCHQ phone

[Anonymous Coward]

This is the phone that stores you address book and all your data on Prism friendly servers for sale to the NSA. And needs an Office 365 account to use its only feature 'Continuum' which stores your critical business documents in PRISM friendly servers networked to NSA.

So unless you want your business secrets handed to the US spooks (how many technical documents did Juniper share for example? How many internal emails had user passwords unwittingly shared with spooks, passwords to source control systems, network configurations etc.), better to avoid this. You have commercial and business secrets to protect, even from your own country.

And even if you are in the USA and absolutely happy to hand everything to NSA, UK has been spying on your comms too in secret and hidden from British Parliament and the Judiciary and most of the Government ministers and every UK voter:

"The government finally admitted on Wednesday that the mass surveillance of British citizens began in 2001 after 9/11 and was stepped up in 2005, using powers under national security directions largely hidden in the 1984 Telecommunications Act."

So are you happy to share your technical documents with the UK spooks? There was no WWW in 1984, so there's no way that law lets them do it.

Note please, that this handful of traitor in government are trying to legalize this and Microsoft welcomes it:

"A Microsoft spokesperson tentatively welcomed the bill"
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/nov/04/theresa-may-surveillance-measures-edward-snowden

Welcome to the cloud, where your data is no longer your data.

Re: Windows 10 NSA/GCHQ phone

[Anonymous Coward]

You lie! Only Google reads its users' emails! Microsoft would never read its users' emails for financial gain!

Windows Phone fans and fanboys ...

[thegarbz]

Who wrote this summary, a two year old?

I bought one windows phone device

[Anonymous Coward]

Then they almost instantly discontinued updates to it.
Never again. This just reaffirms my decision.

Assuming there is one

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

> Microsoft Fails Windows Phone *Fan* Again By Delaying Windows 10 Mobile

FTFY

Re:Assuming there is one

[ericloewe]

Do you seriously think this is still funny (not that it ever was)?

How about some intelligent humor for a change?

There are MS Mobile fans? Win10 fans?

[walterbyrd]

I had no idea.

I thought people people begrudgingly used MS, because that is what they have at work, or it's the only platform that ran their apps, or Apple is too expensive.

I didn't think anybody used MS Mobile at all.

Re:There are MS Mobile fans? Win10 fans?

[nickweller]

:) haaaaa

Re:There are MS Mobile fans? Win10 fans?

[Grishnakh]

There's fans for everything you can think of. Think of any highly-obscure genre of music, for instance (like Norwegian shouting choruses): there's some fans of it out there, somewhere.

It's the same for Windows Phone. There's fans out there, somewhere. A few of them pop up on threads like this one to tell us how wonderful it is, even though it's a piece of shit. What's important is the numbers, though: there's not very many of them, and most of them work for MS (those would be "shills"). MS is infamous for employing "technological evangelists", which is just a euphemism for "shill", and sending them across the internet to act like regular people who just love MS products, when in fact they're MS employees paid to do that. MS is the reason we have the term "astroturfing". But not all of them are shills: there's genuinely some real MS lovers out there. Maybe even dozens!

Re:There are MS Mobile fans? Win10 fans?

[ericloewe]

A few of them pop up on threads like this one to tell us how wonderful it is, even though it's a piece of shit.

And then there's the other end of the spectrum: Morons like Grishnakh who seem unable to acknowledge the platform's strengths, insisting on calling it "a piece of shit".

Here, let's examine one positive and one negative aspect of every major platform:
iOS
+ Carefully tailored for the hardware it's running on
- Some essential features are overlooked in favor of features of more dubious value

Android
+ Lots of options to choose from (both hardware and software)
- Asinine update model

Windows (whatever it is they're calling the phone version these days)
+ Continuum
- Lack of developer support

Re:There are MS Mobile fans? Win10 fans?

[Grishnakh]

Then there's fucking morons like ericloewe who don't even know what are and aren't strengths on various platforms. Developer support is probably one of the only decent things about Windows Phone, it's one of MS's strengths. It doesn't overcome the lack of interest by developers because of MS being late to the smartphone party so they don't want to waste time developing for a platform with 10 users, nor does it overcome the horribly ugly UI. Sure, it's actually a fairly speedy OS on leaner hardware (another strength you said I'm unable to acknowledge!) but that doesn't make up for ugly design, lack of configurability, the crappy live tiles, and the complete lack of apps, nor MS's lackluster reputation in general which contributes to the poor uptake.

Re:There are MS Mobile fans? Win10 fans?

[ericloewe]

Congratulations on your narrow views! You are incapable of understanding what "developer support" was meant as, which is frankly an amazing display of incompetence with the English language or a feeble attempt to discredit those who point out that you obviously have an axe to grind.

But let's talk about the "ugly" claim. It's as subjective as it gets and irrelevant, every platform will have people who dislike the aesthetic design. Lack of configurability is a dubious claim, since iOS is rather similar. And crappy live tiles? As opposed to non-crappy static icons?

Every platform has weaknesses, but spreading FUD helps nobody and only makes one look foolish.

Re:There are MS Mobile fans? Win10 fans?

[Grishnakh]

And crappy live tiles? As opposed to non-crappy static icons?

No, as opposed to Android widgets. From a post by ArmoredDragon elsewhere in this discussion:

"- Android widgets are INFINITELY better than the live tiles. For example, my calendar widget can do a vertical layout and display multiple events in advance and can even scroll through extras, which sits in parallel with my voicemail transcripts where I also see multiple at once. On WP, your options are horizontal rectangle or giant square that nothing else (besides tiny tiles) can fit next to, and you'll see two upcoming events at best. Worst is that WP tiles will just periodically flip so you don't necessarily see what's pertinent, and they're about 15 minutes behind (as per the OS's restrictions.)"

It's as subjective as it gets and irrelevant, every platform will have people who dislike the aesthetic design.

Yeah, apparently people just LOVE MS's aesthetics so much they're rushing out to buy Windows Phones!! \s

Lack of configurability is a dubious claim, since iOS is rather similar.

Configurability makes up for not-so-popular design choices. Apparently, iOS users are happy enough with Apple's designs, and they tend to be a different type of user anyway. Chasing iOS users and trying to get them to switch is a losing strategy for anyone.

but spreading FUD helps nobody and only makes one look foolish.

Calling valid complaints "FUD" only makes one look foolish.

I thought it was out?

[Anonymous Coward]

If Windows 10 Mobile is not out then why do 8+% of devices have it so far? http://www.neowin.net/news/win...

Re:I thought it was out?

[Grishnakh]

Is that number for the US or worldwide, or some other particular market? It has been acknowledged that WinPhone is more popular in some markets than others, and the US is one where they're not popular at all.

Re:I thought it was out?

[cbhacking]

It's been available as a "Preview" for months (since before Win10 on PC went RTM), though the early preview builds of it were far from usable. That 8.8% is a mixture of "Windows Insider" preview users (people with legacy phones) and the new Lumia 950 and 950XL flagships, which come with "Windows 10 Mobile (Preview)" and yes, the "Preview" part of that is not my own addition but is actually what Microsoft says the phone's come with. They are shipping hardware with a pre-release operating system installed. It's bizarre (and is leading to a lot of bad reviews for the 950s, saying things like "great hardware, pity about the software"), but this is MSFT, after all.

On the other hand, pre-release OS or not, the 950 and especially 950XL are apparently flying off the shelves; I live in Seattle so there's no lack of Microsoft stores/kiosks nearby, and none of them have the things in stock. They sell out each shipment within a few hours.

This confirms it

[Anonymous Coward]

Windows 10 is dead.

(2016 will be the year of the Windows smartphone!!)

Re:This confirms it

[Stormwatch]

Windows 10 is dead.

Does Netcraft confirm it?

Things could be a lot worse.

[tlambert]

Things could be a lot worse.

Consider that the headline might read "Microsoft Fails Windows Phone Fans Again By Releasing Windows 10 Mobile"...

Re:Things could be a lot worse.

[Anonymous Coward]

I've been using a windows phone for 4 years and I really like it. I've tried Windows 10 Mobile and I hate it. The people hub is gone, music app is gutted, and one handed operation is poor. So I'm very disappointed by them releasing Windows 10 Mobile. Apps like 6tag and myTube are still there.

Re:Things could be a lot worse.

[cbhacking]

I'm honestly rather shocked they released the 950/950XL with W10M in its current state. First of all, let's make something clear: Anybody who wants W10M on a WP8.1 phone can get it, today, no big deal. It's called the Windows Insider program and has been available for many months. You'll get the same version of "Windows 10 Mobile (Preview)" that is on the new flagship devices, and you'll get updates just like they do.

The problem is, what Microsoft calls a "preview" is what other people call a "beta". Not release-quality software, not even a release candidate where they're chasing down the last few ship-blocking bugs, but a beta. It's nominally feature-complete, but there's a lot of stuff that just doesn't work right yet, and the OS itself is prone to weird but serious glitches, hangs, even boot-crash-loops. MS is fixing these issues pretty quickly - there have been several updates already since the build that the 950s launched with - but the users and review sites all seem to agree: W10M in its current state is *not* ready for day-to-day usage. This is why Microsoft is not pushing it as an update to all WP8.1 users yet; most of them would be unhappy to go from a stable OS to a buggy one, even though the buggy one has a ton of new and excellent features.

That's based on an assumption ...

[Anonymous Coward]

that there are windows phone fans. There are windows phone users, for sure. Fans...??!! Really!

Re:That's based on an assumption ...

[Ravaldy]

There are fans for every brand.

Better than releasing it too early

[Anonymous Coward]

While I'm sure they wanted to get it out on time it's not ready. I'm testing it right now on my Lumia 920 and while in general it's a major upgrade with many great features over 8 there are some pretty critical issues remaining. In the latest build which I got only a couple days ago my camera has completely stopped working. In the previous build the news app crashed opening one out of three articles.

It still needs work.

Re:Better than releasing it too early

[deviated_prevert]

While I'm sure they wanted to get it out on time it's not ready. I'm testing it right now on my Lumia 920 and while in general it's a major upgrade with many great features over 8 there are some pretty critical issues remaining. In the latest build which I got only a couple days ago my camera has completely stopped working. In the previous build the news app crashed opening one out of three articles.

It still needs work.

Don't worry they will do the same thing they did with quite a few hd audio functions in Win10 and simply apply a regression for the driver functions that break. Some people will lose others will be ok. Hell they didn't even get the Win10 release right for their own Surface 3 hardware without some features regressing. Windows and HD audio just plain suck period, always has and will continue to suck as long as they don't spend cash on it and pile on the cash for features like cortana which in turn breaks HD audio on some devices because of latency and other serious issues. That is where Apple and core audio has it all over Windows, fewer worries about a hundreds of garbage audio driver interfaces to maintain and test before releases. Audio problems were one of the show stoppers and the cortana team seemed to have priority over the WDM team which is absolutely stupid.

If they screw the pooch as badly with their own phone OS and audio goes for a shit then the release of WP10 will have to be put on hold or they will have to remove some features on the release.

Re:Better than releasing it too early

[Anonymous Coward]

When it is released, it will still be full of bugs.

No points for releasing late, because MS never gets it right.

The new target? 2016

[Anonymous Coward]

My gosh is could be years... no, months... no weeks, no, wait, *days* before the update is released...

Microsoft didn't fail anyone

[carnaby_fudge]

Actual Fans of Windows Phone can get Windows 10 mobile for any supported device via the Windows Insider program. I've been running it for months on my Lumia 830, and it is nearly trivially easy to get. And new 950/950XL devices come with Windows 10 Mobile factory installed. So this report is merely a giant fail.

Microsoft Fails

[sproketboy]

ntr

Very clever, very clever

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

The summary and the title sneakily suggest the windows phone has fans. Perry Mason would object to assuming facts not in evidence, in addition to the usual irrelevant, immaterial, incompetent, not having proper foundation laid.

I have one, it's decent but not a daily driver

[Fencepost]

I use it on a daily basis but only as a media device - it has decent battery life, and connected to WiFi I can use it to stream audio or play podcasts without drawing down my regular phone. Pocket Casts is twitchy on it, but still syncs so it's easy to hop between devices.

I don't use it as a daily driver because of some of the software restrictions that impact how I use the phone (restricted app access to SMS and call logs). Apps are a little lacking and many are well behind Android counterparts, but that's survivable.

For the most part the builds have been stable, though I've had a few hangs in one of the recent ones related to WiFi. In the early days T-Mobile's WiFi Calling on my home network would just lock the thing up hard - but it'd come back if it was disconnected from the wireless network either by changing the SSID briefly or by going for a walk around the neighborhood.

Re:I have one, it's decent but not a daily driver

[cbhacking]

Just for the sake of curiosity, what "app access to SMS and call logs" are you looking for? Apps *can* access those; it just requires capabilities that third-party devs aren't allowed to declare by default. We've had the ability to unlock those capabilities for years now - the first "capability unlock" was only for Samsung phones, but was published in 2013 - but relatively few people have bothered writing apps that take advantage of this. I'm curious what your use case for this kind of access would be.

Also, W10M allows sideloaded apps to have the same capabilities that OEMs get to use. This is actually a really big deal - it undoes a change Microsoft introduced way back in WP7.5 that has set a lot of people who would otherwise be productive devs simply looking for ways to get meaningful apps to run at all - and it means that "second-party" capabilities like SMS are now available to everybody's phones again, without needing to perform any hacks.

Re:I have one, it's decent but not a daily driver

[Fencepost]

I use CallTrack to log my phone calls to a Google calendar, and I use SMS Backup+ to log my text messages (marked read and labeled with SMS) to GMail. Both of these make it much easier to go back and look at what I was doing/who I was talking to on any given day (e.g. using syntax like "label:sms after:2015/12/14 before:2015/12/17" in GMail).

Both of those are extremely useful if I'm going back later (e.g. during billing) to track down details of what I was doing.

The system is obviously not ready yet

[deiksac]

I liked WP 8.1 for being fast and responsive on modest hardware. Was eager to try WP10 so I enrolled to windows insider and started getting builds and so far am ambiguos about it. WP10 is a bit tidier and better organised, otoh the phone feels slower/less responsive and there are a couple of minor glitches (music player sorta hiccups and inserts 2s of silencee every 15 minutes or so, the accept phone call screen got changed so that I managed to accidetally drop couple of calls just thanks to the new layout) that need to be sorted out. So maybe it is better that they wait until the thing is ready to go out

What a minute

[Anonymous Coward]

There are Windows Phone fans?

Re:What a minute

[carnaby_fudge]

Yes there are Windows Phone fans. I'm one of them. Try browsing the forums at www.windowscentral.com and you'll see a lot more of them.

Re:What a minute

[roc97007]

"fans" is plural, so there must be at least two.

Re:What a minute

[roc97007]

Yep. Top articles (copied and pasted from the forums):

I Can't Deal With The 950XL Anymore...

Glance screen issues

why is my phone freezing up after a phone call (side note: Wow, I saw that one on Windows 6 mobile. They still haven't fixed it?)

Things I don't like about Windows 10

Don't understand why Windows phones aren't more popular

...so there appear to be a substantial number of forum users, for some values of "substantial", but I'm not sure they all count as "fans". With a market penetration in the low single digits (2.1 percent was the last number I remember seeing) and developers deserting the platform, true fans might have a tough time going forward.

Mind you, as a former Crackberry user, I completely understand being a desperate fan of a dying platform. Had my company been able to keep BES up reliably, I might still be using one.

Re:What a minute

[vilanye]

Apparently, Windows phone having few useful apps is a plus.

That way, the battery lasts longer and since nothing needs to load, load times are amazing!

I miss my blackberry. I hate virtual keyboards.

Licenses and retro

[Anonymous Coward]

The Windows 10 license agreement is bad enough for me never to run it as a main system(configured to my email/data)... Apple, Google, Microsoft are all userdata hogs, clearly the future of all these platforms is data collections and user manipulation.

Linux community needs to "Pick a phone"/make a deal(Lenovo/motorola) every year or two. Create a rom to run on that device instead of the native.. bypass all this new stuff, use desktop apps...

My dream machine/phone? Take a Baytrail Z3735D(or better(power consumption/power) packed into a Motorola Droid 3(Xt862) case, and put on 1 additional USB port. Throw in some legacy BIOS support while your at it... Full desktop/OS access in your pocket on the go, get home/work slide it into waiting dock connected to big-screen or monitor and continue all apps seamlessly.

Must have features:
HW keyboard(droid3/4/photon q is nicest)
Removable/replaceable battery
MicroSD slot(or 2) (Ideally accessible w/o removing battery)
microHDMI
wifi/bluetooth
Charging port & usb port(for continuous power to phone and usb devices simultaneous not either or with powered hub/adapter)

Global Mother Fucking Spyware?

[Anonymous Coward]

Windows Phone fans and fanboys have a tough job.

Homosexuals?

Alternate Interpretations

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's a couple of alternate interpretations of what the delay means, in practical terms:

1). Windows Phone has a single digit market share. It has never been a market leader. Most people aren't looking for technical, design or time-to-market leadership from Microsoft on this file. Those would be Apple and Google, remember?

2). There are plenty of nay-sayers who openly speculate that Windows Phone has already missed the window of opportunity. Many believe Windows Phone is doomed. Do you really believe that a release delay is going to change this in any way whatsoever?

Windows Phone already has a lot of baggage to carry. They are in the same competitive position as BlackBerry in so many ways. Therefore while a release delay certainly isn't good news, I'm not persuaded that this is the deal-breaker that will wreak Windows Phone.

Better late than broken

[Shirley Marquez]

The delay is unfortunate. But it is better than putting out a release with serious problems. Presumably the Insider program revealed some flaws that are deal breakers for the general public.

Thank goodness

[wintered]

Considering the condition of Windows 10 for mobile, they are doing a service by delaying the upgrade.