Slashdot Mirror
The Reason a Surface Phone Won't Fix Microsoft's Mobile Problem (windows10update.com)
Ammalgam writes: Microsoft's CMO recently admitted that Microsoft was behind in the mobile arena and needed time to build a competitive phone. In the Windows community however, some feel that the Windows Phone platform is out of time. On Windows10Update.com, the author discusses some of the reasons why a "Surface Phone" might not be enough to fundamentally change public perception about Microsoft mobile phones.
What is a "Surface Phone", and how is it different from a "Window 10 Phone", other than the name?
The only reason that the Surface tablets are getting any traction at all, is because they can run native x64 Windows apps. When they tried an ARM version, it failed so badly that Microsoft ended up writing off almost a billion dollars of inventory that nobody would buy, even at loss-leader pricing.
Almost nobody* wants a phone that can run x64 Windows apps, so the same trick is unlikely to work in that space.
* I said almost nobody, because immediately below this comment will be a reply from some corner case or another where someone will want that, but they will be a very small exception to my statement. The massive majority of the market will not want such a product, and will happily continue buying Android or iOS for the foreseeable future.
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
You hit the nail on the head - it's all about the app ecosystem. What killer Windows phone apps ever made any waves? None. Even BlackBerry got the message about Android apps though far too late to save them. If the developers aren't there, the apps won't be there and the customers won't use your platform.
As long as it comes with a kickstand, I'll buy it.
Do you speak from experience? I have tiles of all sizes on my display and have had no trouble at all with accuracy. The larger sizes are for live tiles, which I find rather handy. The whole Windows Phone UI has a consistency and fluidity that you don't find on Android, while the WP hardware is way cheaper than the equivalent iPhone (and you don't have to use the execrable iTunes, thank God). Pretty much all the apps I want are available and work well, though I admit I'm not much of an app junky.
I was replacing an iPhone, and I liked the size, the screen and the camera.
I still like all those features, but I can't wait until the contract is up so I can get whatever the latest and biggest Nexus phone is at that time.
It works great, but it's like a two-year forced vacation from downloading apps. It doesn't have SiriusXM or Square apps, for FSM's sake... if I'd known those would never arrive, I'd have passed on the experience.
On topic with the last post on the front page, I think Microsoft's best move is to push in the same direction as Mozilla: web apps that are as good as native apps. Then your platform isn't the important thing.
Then why choose Windows (on your phone)? I think corporate workers would love for their work PC to just be the phone in their pocket. It should be x86-64 and run full-blown desktop application when a monitor, pointer and keyboard are attached. The latest Windows 10 Mobile is close, but it can't run any old x86 code. If my work PC was a Windows phone, I'd definitely find it easier to move in that direction in my personal life.
Web apps for the future, the occasional local app, and make the whole history of Windows on x86 a non-replicable asset for your platform.
At a corporate level, the ability for IT admins to manage everything from AD is killer. For consumers, I suspect Microsoft will finally figure out how to extend XBox games to phones, build some killer ecosystem around major titles like Halo and Minecraft, and go to the bank.
"Offer me apps."
"Yes!"
"Accessories, too, promise me that."
"All that I have and more. Please..."
"Offer me everything I ask for."
"Anything you want..."
*stab*
"I want MeeGo back, you son of a bitch!"
Circumcision is child abuse.
I never really had the use for an tablet and hence don't own one, except a old B&W NOOK ebook ready with Android.
Now, what I would really like is to use
1. [Preferably] Ubuntu on a tablet to run wine and use RosettaStone for language learning
2. Use Windows to run Rosetta Stone.
This may be an option in the future: https://www.codeweavers.com/po...
But currently, what are the options for CHEAP x64 tablets?
I wish I could buy the cheap AMAZON Fire but RosettaStone won't run on it. The Web Version (Android/iOS) does not compare to the computer version.
Any suggestions highly appreciated. I am willing to root the device.
All they need are these features:
A phone that can be fully-managed with Group Policy/Active Directory
A phone that has a fully-functional Outlook client, with ALL the features of desktop Outlook that are practical to cram into a phone
That's IT. Most businesses would jump at the chance for those. Mobile security is a big issue, and there *still* isn't a truly good Exchange client for any phone (though some are close).
The fact that MS hasn't realized this stuff is mystifying. What are they thinking?
All they need are these features:
A phone that can be fully-managed with Group Policy/Active Directory
A phone that has a fully-functional Outlook client, with ALL the features of desktop Outlook that are practical to cram into a phone
That's IT. Most businesses would jump at the chance for those. Mobile security is a big issue, and there *still* isn't a truly good Exchange client for any phone (though some are close).
The fact that MS hasn't realized this stuff is mystifying. What are they thinking?
There's a lot more to the "smartphone market" than business features. I notice nothing on your list that would make the average consumer excited.
Once upon a time BlackBerry ruled business smartphones. Why did that end? Because people wanted to be able to use their non-work smartphone as their work phone. So the phone that was king for consumers (the iPhone) started to displace the Blackberry.
If Microsoft wants to take over the smartphone market, they first have to make a dent in the hearts of the non-business market.
I agree that the OS is not the problem. Windows Phone and Windows 10 Mobile are the smoothest and least resource intensive phone OSes I've used (and I've used iOS 3+, Android Cupcake+, Windows Mobile 6+ (ugh), Windows Phone 7/8/8.1, and Windows 10 Mobile. When a $50 off-contract Windows phone feels as fast as a $400 Android phone, you know your underlying OS has issues.
And copying iPhone tile styles is not going to make any difference as the article author states. Take an iPhone and Android user and ask them to launch a particular app on Windows 10 Mobile and they will be able to do it in a few seconds with no training. Multiple pages of icons in a grid vs one big scrolling list of icons is a non-issue. So launching the apps is not the problem, and now that Microsoft has adopted the hamburger menu, most of the apps look the same between iOS, Android, and Windows 10 Mobile anyway.
No upgrade path from Windows Phone 7 did hurt any good will Microsoft had.
It is just a chicken and egg problem. Maybe Windows 10 universal apps will help but too soon to tell at this point.
iOS and Android are decent, so is there really a need for a 3rd mobile ecosystem? The desktop ecosystem has been essentially 1 choice for 20 years and most people get along fine with that even though there may be better options.
Satanic monkeys running any corporate department is not a good thing.
I take many of my tech queues from my tech friends. I have seen exactly zero microsoft mobile devices in their hands. Zero, not few, not one, but zero. I even see the occasional blackberry simply because they just don't care and their company gave it to them. Quite simply it is not what the cool kids are using.
What I do see are about half Windows machines because that is what they use at work, a huge number of Macs because of their Unix flavour, and a goodly number of Linux based laptops. For mobile I see iPhones, Androids, and interesting things like the Oneplus.
Going back to the windows machines I pretty much only see Windows 7.
The next part is how cool is what they are working on; if it is AI, Robotics, or something hardcore then Linux, BSD, and Apple are the only products used To boil this down, Microsoft is not what the cool kids want to use.
Microsoft doesn't need to take over the smartphone market, they just need not become irrelevant. Smartphones, tablets, and phablets are becoming serious contenders in roles where laptops used to reign unchallenged. If Microsoft doesn't at least have a meaningful presence in that space they lose a generation of users.
Targeting the non-business markets is a losing proposition for Microsoft. Apple could take that path because they were able to leverage their significant position in the PMP space. Consumers could replace their RAZR and iPod nano with an iPhone. It wasn't until BYOD policies allowed iPhones that they really got business friendly features.
Microsoft isn't in that sort of position. They've lost the hearts of the non-business market. It's expensive to chase the high end consumer market. Apple makes most of the money and a handful of others move a lot of units. Microsoft faces a losing battle competing there.
Competing in the business market they could have strong offerings where the competition is weak. With AD and Exchange/Outlook functionality they could plug right into existing infrastructure with no impedance mismatch. The Lumia line isn't good competition in the consumer space but could look good to businesses.
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
Ah yes, I had this stuff once: I installed Exchange support on my old Symbian phone, and the next thing I knew was I had to hack my way in my own phone to remove the option for the company IT department to reformat my phone. Never again on my private device. If the company wants those rights they'll have to provide me the phone too. I now run an Android app that parses outlook webmail and has no entrance for sneaky admins.
Why? I can use outlook mail on my Android device very well, and I'm sure it is also possible on iOS. MS even writes its own Outlook app for these. That it is also possible on windows phone is not a unique feature of windows phone.
Because alternatives exist in app form.
Policies are set on my Android device by a third party program that are enforced by banning the logon of the device on our corporate network if the program doesn't exist. A fully functional (or at least sufficiently functional) outlook client exists in the form of another 3rd party program that provides access to push emails, calender, tasks, etc
If I don't have a sufficient password set to unlock my phone, it doesn't work. If I don't have disk encryption on it doesn't work. If it's rooted it doesn't work. If certain software is present it doesn't work, and all these policies are managed centrally.
So what would your solution bring to the table that the above doesn't? And why would incorporating them into the OS suddenly magically make it a killer device which will take over the smartphone market?
There's a lot more to the "smartphone market" than business features. I notice nothing on your list that would make the average consumer excited.
There was never anything in Windows Phone that would make the average consumer excited. WinCE phones were only ever popular with business, and only because of their relatively high level of integration. You could develop your own software with visual studio and deploy it to your devices without paying Microsoft for the privilege. That is the only reason statistically anyone (that is, above the level of noise) ever gave one tenth of one shit about a Windows phone.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
M$ is censoring it.
What you're describing is a Lumia with Windows 10 for phones, managed by Intune.
And no, it's not what businesses want. Intune/SCCM is full of proprietary stuff, that doesn't stick to the diversity of a modern information system.
I went to the AT&T store just yesterday looking at one of those. I've had an android phone too long to ever adapt to that. 5 minutes playing with it and I couldn't stand it. They couldn't give it to me. I'm sure if you're not an android or ios user it might work good for you but I don't see many people switching to it.
I run Rosetta Stone on an inexpensive Linx 8 tablet with Windows 10. Rosetta Stone wants you to load new languages from CD-ROM but obviously tablets don't have optical drive. You can get round that by plugging in a USB CD-ROM drive or creating an ISO on another computer. Apart from that everything works well. http://www.amazon.co.uk/Linx-i...
"Don't belong. Never join. Think for yourself. Peace." V.Stone, Microsoft Corporation
Thanks.
How do you do this with the ISO? My windows experience seems like 1000 years old. At that time you could use CD ROM emulators.
How do you do this? Or is windows 10 able to access ISO files?
I have used all 3 platforms. As far as UI goes, little to choose b/w them. Although I don't like how Android seems to have several pages, and so many apps split b/w those.
Actually, Windows Phone 8 was the first smartphone I ever used, and it was a breeze. At the time, typing was easier on that than on either an Android or an iPhone, although today, all 3 of them are equivalent. On the Windows Phone, I downloaded some apps, such as units and currency converters, and it was complete (on Windows 10, they are built into the calculator, except the currencies). The only thing that fell short was the appstore.
Aside from the development issues that others on this thread have mentioned, the main issue there is that some apps don't offer the same functionality as their iOS or Android counterparts, and in a lot of cases, what we have are web wrappers. Here, when the app is invoked, what it does is kick off an instance of Internet Explorer running the website in question (With Windows 10 Mobile, it may be Edge). If one needs to do THAT, one might as well run it on a laptop.
Like I said in the other Surface phone thread a few days ago, this is a great phone for a company to issue its employees. They are unlikely to use it for personal stuff, given its appstore limitations. I have an iPhone that I use for FaceTime w/ family, and I use a Moto-X for my work related stuff, since I also need the apps for Vonage and Lyft. But if I worked in a company where the only apps I needed were email, maps and scheduling, the 950 would be just fine.
I thought that Nokia was out of the handset market for good, and that the only thing they make is equipment for the carriers
I just can't get past the Metro look. Maybe it's just me, but when I look at the screen all I see is squares, I have to examine each one to see what app it corresponds to. If I were colorblind, it would be even worse. With iOS or Android, I can glance at a screen full of icons and instantly find what I'm looking for, because the icons are much more distinct from each other. I find it very hard to believe MS did any usability testing and concluded they were giving users what they want.
Never let a lack of data get in the way of a good rant.
Once I have a surface phone running full blown windows, I can have a dock and run my whole environment from one device.
I can add an app to the tablet of my choice so it can act as a monitor to my phone, or perhaps MS starts selling dumb screens that run the display wirelessly from a phone.
I can have a laptop that is just a screen and keyboard, no brains, that runs wirelessly from my phone. It is all on my phone. I have one device. In that world, Windows wins the same way it has won big in desktop and laptop world.