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Microsoft's Windows Phone Platform Is Dead (windows10update.com)
Ammalgam writes: Tom Warren at the Verge today gave voice to what a lot of other technology analysts and today definitively declared that Microsoft's Windows Phone platform is dead. This largely based on the abysmal adoption numbers released in Microsoft's most recent earnings report. Mr. Warren articulates the obvious by stating: "With Lumia sales on the decline and Microsoft's plan to not produce a large amount of handsets, it's clear we're witnessing the end of Windows Phone. Rumors suggest Microsoft is developing a Surface Phone, but it has to make it to the market first. Windows Phone has long been in decline and its app situation is only getting worse. With a lack of hardware, lack of sales, and less than 2 percent market share, it's time to call it: Windows Phone is dead. "
Now this news should not be surprising to anyone who has watched the slow decline of Windows Phone. Last December, in an article on Windows10update.com, Onuora Amobi also wrote off the platform. In this case, his analysis was based on the nonconformity of the Microsoft user interface to Apple and Android's widely adopted aesthetic appeal. He wrote "I believe Windows Phone is dead. Kaput. Finished. Over. Done. ... Windows 10 is successful in part because it's a return to Windows 7 in many ways and that's what made the consumers happy. One of the definitions of insanity is "doing the same thing over and over again but expecting a different result". This is exactly what Microsoft is doing and it's insane. Over 90% of Microsoft's desired audience like the look and feel of iPhones and Android devices. They do – it's not good or bad – it just is what it is. They spend their money on those two user interfaces."
Now this news should not be surprising to anyone who has watched the slow decline of Windows Phone. Last December, in an article on Windows10update.com, Onuora Amobi also wrote off the platform. In this case, his analysis was based on the nonconformity of the Microsoft user interface to Apple and Android's widely adopted aesthetic appeal. He wrote "I believe Windows Phone is dead. Kaput. Finished. Over. Done. ... Windows 10 is successful in part because it's a return to Windows 7 in many ways and that's what made the consumers happy. One of the definitions of insanity is "doing the same thing over and over again but expecting a different result". This is exactly what Microsoft is doing and it's insane. Over 90% of Microsoft's desired audience like the look and feel of iPhones and Android devices. They do – it's not good or bad – it just is what it is. They spend their money on those two user interfaces."
You know The Verge?...That's a fucking iVerge!
Shame - I actually liked the fact it was doing something different and wasn't an iOS clone. Had a chance to play with one very briefly when a friend bought it, and I thought it worked quite well.
I'm an Apple ecosystem person at the moment, but I'm definitely in for seeing alternatives and I'm also not on the Win10 hate train - I quite like it, and it would be nice to see some of its features well integrated into a mobile platform as well.
Recent news suggests that Microsoft is about to cram their current Windows 10 phones full of bloatware in order to make up for their horrible market share decline. TripAdvisor is going to be the first ad implemented: http://www.pcworld.com/article...
Sucks for those WP fans that tried to be loyal and support their chosen platform, but Microsoft ain't never gonna change from their old ways.
I can't find the "news" in the headline!
Blackberry is dead too.
Long live to ... Android!
Sent as ripples into the electromagnetic field. No single photon has been harmed in the process.
Need to make an X86-64 phone or ARM with full x86-64 VM.
OR OR at the very least no app store lock in on Windows RT
MS has already stated that they will continue to develop and support Windows Phone OS. This article is just fear mongering. The platform is not going anywhere.
They really have no other choice anyway. It would be foolish to give up on the platform because it can be used for IoT and tablets as well and it is also allows them to be more agile if things ever change. Not that I see them changing in the short term, but who knows, the pendulum may swing back into MS's favor in time and if it does, they will have the OS and infrastructure ready for it.
Anyway, I will continue to use a Windows Phone because I like the interface. The lack of apps is not a concern for me.
In addition, the fact that Windows Phone OS has such a low market share helps ensure its security as well since most malicious software and exploits will be developed for Android and iOS.
My eyes reflect the stars and a smile lights up my face.
My friend works at a Sprint store. They have a small stock of Microsoft phones in the back and no demo units out in front. No one in the last year has ever asked for a Microsoft phone. The employees have no incentives to sell the phone.
Now who can argue with that? I think we're all indebted to Anonymous Coward for clearly stating what needed to be said. I'm particularly glad that these lovely children were here today to hear that speech. Not only was it authentic ESL gibberish, it expressed a courage little seen in this day and age.
sig: sauer
Yup, the Windows phone got Zuned. Shouldn't be a huge surprise, customers are tired of being treated by a cash register by Microsoft, time to be treated like a cash register by Apple and Google instead.
Website Just Down For Me? Find out
Netcraft confirms it!! (but only for 1 DNS lookup) http://uptime.netcraft.com/per...
So it would be sad if they go. It is beating Android on battery life and also has many OS functions that I only find in custom Android roms. For example you can switch off notification sounds and messages individually per app. Also the standard email application in Android is a joke compared to Windows phone email. And it has built-in offline maps that are used in apps too.
The lack of a few apps is a problem if you need these.
Clearly, it's just resting.
(NetCraft confirms it!)
Was it ever alive?
I sit next to a box of Lumia's that someone bought for the school I work for before I started. They were only ever used as... well... phones. Nobody ever even tried to log in and use apps on them. And when I started two years ago, they'd not been used in over a year. Recently they were given to me as they'd been "sitting in a box" in someone's office collecting dust, and had been replaced with bog-standard dial-only phones.
My tech had one when he first started here - but he was 19 and naive. Within days of seeing what a real phone did (and not crashing his on-screen keyboard like his one did all the time), he changed his contracts.
The only other one I've ever seen was a teacher's at a previous school - who knew nothing about them and bought it because it "had Skype". She never managed to collect her email or anything else reliably and so never used anything that it could do.
That's out of literally HUNDREDS of adults that I know who come to me with all their tech problems, all the new-starters whose phones I set up with our email etc., all the parents and kids that I see every day about anything even vaguely technical. I must touch several hundred different phones a year, and the majority are almost 50:50 iPhone and Samsung, with the rest being cheap knock-offs and less common brands.
But Windows phones? Honestly? I've touched more Palm Pilots and Windows CE devices in the last year. And to be honest, they probably worked better and did more.
(Funniest thing ever was trying to get a WPA key into a WIndows phone where the on screen keyboard crashes, and then trying to modify the key so it didn't use the numbers that you couldn't get to, then finally getting it online and finding out that the "Update" button not only would never fix the problem, but also that it never actually did anything... it would download for over an hour, reboot, and be exactly the same... this was THREE MONTHS after the tech discovered that it was sucking up all his data trying to download the update and his phone company just wrote off the data charges the second he mentioned "Windows phone" because they were so accustomed to it).
Windows will continue to sell on the desktop as long as they remember to keep it productive. I need Windows so I can get work done. On the other hand, phone interfaces sell the majority of their devices by appealing to the part of the consumer's brain that wants to pull one out at dinner and have their acquaintances ooh and ahh over it. Windows is for getting work done, and smartphones are for getting laid. Two very different requirements.
"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." - Mark Twain
I thought the Windows Phone UI was pretty good. Certainly better than the Android UI, which I never liked. I suppose I consider the iOS UI in between the two.
I'm guessing the fragmentation of Android devices means I never picked up an Android device and felt that it worked the same as other Android devices. So those differences grated on me. I haven't used WP in a while. but it was pretty easy for me to get to the things I needed quickly.
Your ad here. Ask me how!
Or as Nokia would have called it, out of the frying pan, into the fire.
SURELY NOT!!!!!
iPhone sucks from a power user perspective. I could never stand the small screen even if that's fixed with the new generation devices, and then the software itself is crippled because Apple forces power user features to be disabled.
Android versions of identical software tends to have more features as such, but the problem I have is the platform is stale. It doesn't improve generation after generation. It's also slow and glitchy. Estimates are the software is about 10 times slower thanks to Java. I like my Android phone but wish it were faster and smoother as a result.
The only alternative on the market would of been Windows 10 Phone but it's been announced as dead.
Only issue I had with Windows is Microsoft killed off the head end devices and device choice became scarce. I tried out a low-end phone and while it wasn't terribly bad, it could have been better. Only problem I had software wise with the platform was the lack of Google Apps such as YouTube. I upload and view plenty of YouTube, and Windows Phone is limited to using a web browser to use the site currently, which is not as nice.
The potential of Windows Phone is nice- by having a full version of Windows, you could potentially run all your Windows Apps including traditional Windows 32 ones wherever you went.
obamasweapon.com
Not ashamed to admit it. I loved my giant yellow Lumia 1520 and the HTC One isn't so either. I find the Metro UI (whatever it's called these days) to be really pleasant to use. In a way I like being the black sheep of mobile users, my phone solves the problems I need it to solve handily and looks good doing it and it doesn't look like the phones of everyone else.
Plenty of iOS devices have gone through our household and I resent how there's still a lingering dependency on them because of old iTunes libraries requiring them. I resent the iTunes interface and how poorly designed it is; a miscarriage on a dinner plate is more appealing than that shitty software. It feels like the whole paradigm is a way to fuck over people.
Android strikes me as a mass consumer oriented product which is probably why it's been so successful. Conformal and uninspiring in every way.
It'd be a shame if the whole Windows Phone platform just died off. I've always told everyone good things about it.
Do you have any idea how much money just 2% of the US mobile market is?
2% of the US market is still 6.5 million subscribers.
If you sell a new one every 2 years at $400/each, thats still almost 3 billion dollars a year in revenue. Drop it to $200/phone and its still 1.3b. In ONLY America. Then theres the rest of the world.
Just because some moron at some shitty magazine makes an ignorant statement doesn't make it news for nerds any more than Donald Trump talking about tech is news for nerds.
As far as every number indicates, the business is profitable. Its not an iPhone, but it still makes money. Killing it would be stupid. Selling it might be more profitable, but killing it would just be utterly stupid.
Did this guy work at GM when they decided to stop selling the only 2 profitable brands they had as well? Idiot.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
Thank you for selling the long-doomed platform before it was completely driven into the ground.
Yours, happy Finnish Nokia shareholder since about 2012.
I want to play Free Market with a drowning Libertarian.
Guessing this puts MS for the choice whether they want to:
a) Keep flogging a dead horse, and push phones with their OS on it even if they sell poorly. Or
b) Just call it a day, enlist the help of their 'arch enemy' Linux, and make some phones that actually sell.
In short: is MS in the OS-pushing business, or in the phone-selling business? Tough one... :-)
Basically, anyone who's ever used a Windows Phone device has known that the platform, from birth, was performing a slow-motion hara kiri.
It was just a matter of time.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
This guy is an idiot. The platform is mature, and arguably, the best out there. Everybody I know who uses one likes theirs, as well. MS isn't going to walk away from this because of current fashion trends.
I don't respond to AC's.
It's like they keep repeating it over and over again.
It was a valiant effort but we must bid the noble Windows Phone farewell as it joins up with friends Bob and Clippy who high five each other sporting Zune music players.
We'll make great pets
It was a slick HTC One8
One of the things I liked about it was the lack but not total absence of in app advertising. For example, I could play Sonic Dash for hours and rarely see an ad. When I came back to Android, I had to watch a full one minute video ad between each level, unless I paid for it. I no longer play that game. I imagine Microsoft must have paid developers a lot for minimal advertising as a failed tactic to advance their platform and that it would have gone away had the had success. All-in-all it had the apps I needed, but I am not as heavy and demanding a user as most, so that's just me.
Enter the home screen interface
While at first I liked that wild and wacky tiled home screen, I recognized right away that the interface would be a major factor in the platforms death (already knew it was dying but I am a very curious nerd so I tried it all the same).
What did I like about the interface? I'll come back to that. First let me say what I think made it platform suicide among but above most others. If you hand any Android phone running any version of Android stock interface or 3rd party to either any other Android users or iPhone users, they will be able to operate it in a matter of seconds if not instantly through intuition. Likewise, if you hand an iPhone to an Android user, they will be able to use it. If you hand a Windows phone to either an Android or iPhone user, the interface will be so foreign and seemingly archaic, they will not want to learn how to use it let alone take to it like a duck to water. So that's that. Back to my love hate situation with the interface.
So as I said at first I liked it. I am a full time geek so it didn't take "too" long to figure out. Over the first few days, I methodically laid out the home screen. At first it seemed very efficient and I perceived clear advantages over other platforms. I was excited. Then I started adding more tiles. It started to become a complex puzzle game, finding the most logical places and sizes for tiles. It got to the point where adding one new tile caused me to rethink the logic and efficiency of the entire I layout. I started to think really hard about anything and everything I felt I needed on the home screen, so one evening I went to town. I spent a good two hours re-arranging everything after adding the rest of what I needed and went to sleep. The number of tiles representing apps was be no means excessive. When I woke up the next day I looked at my home screen and I was absolutely and completely fucking lost.
Nerdy experiment #23,943,284 complete. Back to my Nexus.
Brought to you by Carl's Junior.
Full disclosure: I'm not a Microsoft fan. Yes, Windows phone sales have been abysmal. We've known this for.... decades, actually. Whatever Microsoft renames or redesigns the phone, it's never done well. Microsoft doesn't appear to "get it" at a fundamental level.
But, so far, Microsoft continues to pour money into it. And Microsoft still has a lot of money. So realistically, the Windows phone isn't dead until Microsoft says it's dead.
The "windows phone dead" meme, like "the year of linux on the desktop" meme, is one of those wishful-thinking things that may actually be true someday. But not today.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Do you complain about it every time, and yet people continue to use it?
Its UI is fine - different, but fine. The problem is platform loyalty and being late to the game. iOS and Android were well established before Windows phones hit the market, and if you are already embedded in either platform with many paid apps and familiarity with it then why change? It wasn't a killer deal on price, which could have swung things potentially, and it was *really* late to the party. I argued at the time that they were too late to even bother entering the phone OS market, and instead should have focused on offering versions of their desktop software on the two existing OS platforms.
William George
Windows' growth problem is one of image, not technology. None of my techie friends have bothered to even give it a serious look -- they assume it doesn't have the features they want and leave it at that. And I don't think it's their fault. Microsoft hasn't made it interesting to them, and it certainly doesn't have the allure of the Google name.
I don't write mobile apps, but as a dev I like to have a good mix of technology so I've bought high-end Android for my tablets and high-end Windows for my phones. Having used both sides for years, I'm intimately familiar with both systems.
I considered Windows Phone 8 to be a better experience than Android. While there are not as many features, the ones there were well polished and felt more responsive in every day use. It's not a coincidence that they've been able to get away with releasing it on markedly less powerful hardware than the equivalent high-end Android phones. Windows apps, aided by excellent baked-in controls and UX guidelines, generally behave more consistently than Android apps.
Like you, the rare people I've met who do have Windows phones tend to think they're great.
But, that's about to change. Oh boy. My Windows 10 phone has been a different experience. It is buggy, has unacceptable battery life, and responsiveness is all over the place. If anything finally kills it off, this will be it.
app store lock is an issue and there are touch based windows apps and the touch screen is the mouse.
Keyboards are nice to have as an addon as well.
Either you've never used a Windows Phone, or you have the most bizarre opinions about user interfaces... wait, I'm guessing you're a command-line person, right?
I don't respond to AC's.
MS just doesn't know how to connect with consumers. They think consumers make purchase decisions like CTOs. When MS tries to be cool, it inevitably backfires. The Xbox division somehow manages to escape all the corporate and branding baggage, maybe someone in Redmond should them how?
Consumers don't actually like Windows, either; they just accept it... like death and taxes. If MS is going to get their mobile efforts off the ground (after what, 5 tries now?), they need to separate it from the Windows brand and make app development/porting ridiculously effortless with no platform-based barriers to entry.
Am I the only one that thinks they should have named the Mobile Operating System Cortana? This would do a wonderful number of things. 1. it sets the expectation that this is a mobile OS with a voice interface 2. All UI improvements and integration can be focused on Cortana, and Cortana integration. Today it's windows or Microsoft, and with that carries a certain ahh man among developers product marketing managers, C levels, etc. It's not that Microsoft is bad, it's just associated with a lot of work. Cortana can be the Catalyst for windows mobile cross platform development. Just like iOS brought people to MAC Cortana can bring people to windows. Just like Continuum which sounds cool but really can't be associated with Microsoft by a normal user. Whereas if the name were used with Xbox user adoption would be much much higher. 3. Refreshes the product marketing, ideas, platform and creates something that Microsoft could ultimately spin off.
Apparently Stephen Elop already caught fire when he jumped back to Microsoft from the burning platform... http://www.businessinsider.com...
What more appropriate reward could there possibly be for sliming Nokia to death?
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
What is so sad Microsoft has elected to do this to themselves intentionally. The underlying technology is quite good yet like metro UI in Windows 8 some assholes within Microsoft just had to fuck it up with their crappy shells and politics in a continually failing and hopeless bid to emulate the financial success of the crappy apple walled garden.
One of the reasons I will never use Windows phone aside from crappy 8-bit UI designed by children is it is openly hostile to the end user. Apple style lock down with Google style spying on steroids.
Even trivial features such as local address books are denied to the end user. Nor can WiFi be used without participating in crowd sourced location spying. If you don't capitulate to untenable demands of the vendor you end up with a worthless brick that doesn't even make a good paper weight.
If the platform would have remained open without endless calling home that cannot be disabled. If it allowed for reasonable personalization / widgets / replaceable shells rather than take it or leave it metro crap developers and in-turn users would have been all over it. The people who would have supported it early on all bailed after WM.
Although Microsoft basically lost the client side when everything went to mobile, at least the servers those mobile clients connect to still run Windows. Oh my bad, even Microsoft's own servers are likely to run BSD these days.
At the office, I did see one guy with a Windows desktop instead of a MacBook Pro, so there's that.
The only person I've met who has a Windows Phone was a Microsoft employee. That same employee told me he would never recommend SharePoint. LOL. Microsoft seems to have a trend of getting into markets too little too late and if they can't buy/push out the competition their product effort dies a SLOoooowww death. Such products include IE 7 (yes there are still a few people on it...), Zune, ASP (in my opinion worst web scripting language...ever). Visual Basic died less painfully/faster once NET came out. (Remember "Option Explicit" folks...what a concept). there are probably others I've forgotten about (or it like ASP was so painful I wanted to block out the memory).I suspect the Windows Store will not gain a lot of traction even though MS is force feeding Windows 10 down people's throats. (I tell my friends how to stop MS updater services before it hijacks their Windows 7 computers.) How is it Microsoft waits for someone else to "strike while the iron is hot" and come in after the the market has already been dominated by someone else. It boggles the mind. Apple/Google are with or ahead of the curve and MS Windows is consistently behind.It's just so funny and sad. While it's probably true that this article is there to fan the flames, the flames are there..or in this case, the embers of the dying coals.
"Imagination is more important than knowledge" - Einstein
Well, now you know how we desktop users felt when Win8 hit the market.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
For a historical footnote in the draw I have filled with failed tech.
Has Netcraft confirmed this?
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
Stuff changes.
Apple wasn't always the darling it is today... there was a time when Apple was hemorrhaging money and the company almost didn't survive. Should they have just thrown in the towel?
The thing is, what is true today is not necessarily true tomorrow. Stuff changes and if you are not prepared to take advantage when the time comes then you will lose out.
If MS continues to keep its foot in the door by keeping a scaled back version of its mobile platform running, they will be ready when the time is right. Mobile computing is not going anywhere and it would be foolish for MS, a computing platform company, to completely abandon it. They know this and they have already stated that the platform is not going anywhere.
My eyes reflect the stars and a smile lights up my face.
How about this: your PC won't boot unless your phone is running Windows.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
I strongly believe this market has 2 players. A 3rd players is a difficult task at best. The sales of the OS is of no value if you have not already found a place in the market. Google offers theirs as ZERO cost. So new players HAVE to use the same model as Google unless they have a ridiculous amount of money to burn. MS has already burn a few billions dollars trying to break in. Strategic partnership have not yielded much so that avenue is also dead.
And THAT is why the "tablet PC" model from the XP era went nowhere, but suddenly the iPad was a hit: Apple realized that different devices need different interfaces.
Sounds so obvious in hindsight, no?
Circumcision is child abuse.
There was a third competitor that actually had a chance. It was called MeeGo.
Circumcision is child abuse.
Microsoft could have given the Metro name to the Windows Phone OS, since the Metro interface was perfect for the phone. Or once they bought Nokia, they could have renamed the OS Lumios, and be done w/ it
They should have had something for all the carriers, instead of just catering to AT&T. Phone lines for Verizon & Sprint, rebranded maybe but included w/ Windows 10 would have helped
Tiny hipster infested start-ups don't count unless you think that corporate America is about to issue their peons with very expensive laptops instead of much cheaper Dells.
It's barely even a niche player. If it's not dead, it's pining for the fjords.
Fanbois gonna fan.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
In the tradition of shitty "journalism" at the Verge the author is trying to convince others of something so they can be hailed as a technical prophet.
Microsoft has enough money that they can pour it into Windows Phone for a very long time and not bat an eye. The Windows Phone platform will only die if Microsoft loses interest, not because of poor market performance.
That being said this article is full of weapons grade stupid. It claims that last quarter 400m smartphones were sold yet only 1.1% were Windows Phone devices. That's a small percentage but works out to 4.4m phones. If the ASP (average sale price) is $200 that's almost a billion dollars in revenue for the quarter. While that's nothing compared to Apple's iPhone revenues it's not anywhere close to zero or any number less than zero.
Yet again someone trots out a "market share" number as if it is a meaningful comparison of anything. As has always been the case market share percentages don't need to be large in order for a company to be making money. Apple's "market share" of the overall PC market is likewise small compared to all PC manufacturers yet they make an enviable amount of money off Macs. They make a ridiculous amount of money off the iPhone despite Android "winning" with market share percentage.
You can compare revenue, profit on that revenue, and unit sales. Share percentages are virtually useless when trying to gauge the health of a competitor in a market. They're used by "journalists" that don't want to bother with math or real analysis.
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
You know the reason many corporations are turning to Apple over Dell is both cost and support. At my corporate buy-everything-from-Microsoft-partner-vendors overlords I see lots of Apple machines running Windows. Dell only has cheap stuff on the personal low end and those are 3 year old machines. Business-Dell is a lot more expensive.
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
Tiny hipster infested start-ups don't count...
Hate to say it, but even the staid corporate drone-factories are buying more MacBook Pros for their higher-end employees (developers who want/need a *nix platform to work from, marketing/graphics types who want the tools and UI they're already comfortable with, executives and sales-critters who want to rub that glowing little logo into others' faces, etc).
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
> Tiny hipster infested start-ups
$120 billion / year (twice the size of Google) is tiny? An organization that's 170 years old is a startup?
That's who I worked for at my last job, where I was issued a Mac desktop, A Mac laptop, and an iPad.
And it just won't die. Before Windows Phone it was Windows Mobile. Before Windows Mobile it was PocketPC on phones. Before PocketPC on phones it was Windows CE on phones. And it's disturbing to see Windows CE is still getting around on ultra-cheap Chinese-made GPS navigators. Just die, already!
Well "he" passed the Turing test, then!
Sent from my ASR33 using ASCII
And it was BSD that did it, in the toilet, with the KY Jelly!
Sent from my ASR33 using ASCII
I was pining for my N900 only last nite...
I have plenty of common sense, I just choose to ignore it. -- Calvin
Windows 10 and the Universal Windows App platform, on the other hand, are only just picking up steam.
Oh, it runs on phones, too? Huh.
I see that this one got mark as "Off Topic." Yet another example of humor-impaired moderation...
Well that sucks. I'm one of those who prefer Windows Phone's Live Tiles over iOS/Android's grid of icons. And while every once in a while there's an app I want that I can't get, I don't usually do much on my phone besides text, phone, camera and web. I would also miss a dedicated camera button when changing platform. I guess if MS does give up on Windows Phone, I just hope it's after my current phone gets the Win 10 update so I don't have to get a new phone for a while yet...
WOULD YOU LIKE ME TO?
1 FIRST POST!
2 FILL YOUR TIMELINE WITH SHIT FROM DICE
3 COMPLAIN ABOUT SEEING THIS ON GIZMAG YESTERDAY AND HOW SLASHDOT ISN'T THE SAME SITE IT USED TO BE
4 FUCK OFF AND DIE!!!
Build a Man a Fire, and He'll Be Warm for a Day. Set a Man on Fire, and He'll Be Warm for the Rest of His Life.
I forgot what the Windows 7 calculator was like, and don't have a Windows 7 box near me. But the Windows 10 has standard and scientific, as one would want*, and also 2 new modes - programmer and conversion. Programmer gives you conversions of binary to octal to hexadecimal to decimal, so that one could do things like calculating IPv6 addresses. The coolest part of this calculator is that it can convert most basic units, like length, mass, temperature, angle, et al. It does lack conversions of fuel efficiency, like miles/gallon to kilometer/liter.
The calculator on either an iPhone or an Android lack either of these - are restricted to standard mode. They do look prettier, though.
It is almost a decade since Microsoft quit actually supporting Windows Phone. I miss the old functionality they allowed to wither. You could plug in your phone or PDA and all your contact information, calendar information, and Office files in the transfer directory, and even Quicken data synchronized with your desktop or laptop.
They quit supporting then came out with a NEW version that would sync nothing. Just like Office 2007 they went for eye candy like ribbon bars and forgot functionality.
NRRPT/RCT
I just ordered the Lumia 950 XL the other day in order to take advantage of the free dock offer. If this is really true that WP is going to go the way of the dodo, then I am happy I ordered this device, which I guess will have to carry me through the demise of the platform.
Yes, I am one of those people ... one of the dozens of people who actually prefers Windows Phone over iPhone and Android-based devices.
this kind of explains why i can buy a used Lumia Windows Phone for $20 on amazon
Nowadays it is a general purpose computer and a user-tracking device, which happens to have the functionality of making calls. You might want to give more consideration when choosing that kind of tracking device/computer you will carry on you... With WP, YMMV)
Nowadays it is a general purpose computer and a user-tracking device, which happens to have the functionality of making calls.
I understand that. What's your point?
-
You might want to give more consideration when choosing that kind of tracking device/computer you will carry on you..
Why? So I can act like an asshat and wave my shiny rectangle around proclaiming its superiority? What a pathetic, embarrassing, and repulsive thing to do. No, what I have works for for me, I don't need some brand-obsessed loser shucking and jiving in my face about why his or her phone is "better". It's awkward and low-class in the extreme. Please stop it.
To be clear: I don't care what kind of phone you have. I'll never care what kind of phone you have. I have more important things in life to be concerned with than that kind of shallow consumeristic-nonsense.
Conversely, I don't care what your opinion is of the phone I have. I'll never care what your opinion is of the phone I have.
If you like your phone and it helps fill in all of the empty spots in your paper-thin ego, good for you! More power to ya. But I don't want to hear you blathering on about it to me, okay? It's embarrassing to hear people gushing about their phone. The first thing I think when I hear that shit is, "Holy crap, what a loser."
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
When the Surface Phone is also your laptop and your desktop and all you need is a screen that is nothing more than a wireless display/input device for your phone, the majority of the world will move over to it. Why? Because while other phones have all the apps, Windows has all the Applications. Apps are just a neat way to have a better experience on a mobile device than a browser provides. Full-blown applications are the real driver of this world.
As for just needing a display/input device, doesn't that sound familiar? Tablets, laptops, desktops are going to nothing more than terminal screens. Technology just repeats itself only smaller and smaller. It is the mainframe design, but the mainframe is your phone and the terminals are anything else you want to use.
Whether you like it or not, Windows run the most Applications by millions. This is why even though Apple laptops have cracked into enterprise, almost every last one of them has to have a Windows Virtual Machine to run some Windows only app the business needs.
The smart phone is the future. Microsoft isn't going to abandon it. Abandoning Windows Phone doesn't mean abandoning the phone market.
If you're using a newer version of Android, you don't need root to do most of those things anymore.
I'm using a newer version of Android on my brand new device Asus Zenfone 2 lazer, but non-root way of backup is still badly broken -- adb backup hangs randomly without finishing the backup. I know, Asus has its own backup but I don't want to use proprietary solution -- what if I decide that my next phone is NOT Asus anymore?
So I had to root it and install old venerable Titanium backup again.