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

Posted by samzenpus on from the coming-soon dept.

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."

4 of 189 comments (clear)

  1. Is there such a thing? by menkhaura · · Score: 3, Insightful

    "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...

    --
    Stupidity is an equal opportunity striker.
    Fellow slashdotter Bill Dog
    1. Re:Is there such a thing? by 91degrees · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

    2. Re:Is there such a thing? by ArmoredDragon · · Score: 3, Informative

      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.

  2. Re:But think of how good it will be! by ArmoredDragon · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.