Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Microsoft Kills Windows 10's Messaging Everywhere Texts, To Bolster Skype (pcworld.com)

Posted by msmash on from the logic-need-not-apply dept.

Reader tripleevenfall writes: The ability to respond to text messages received on your phone with the same app on your PC. It's a dream that's been a reality for Mac users since 2014, and Windows 10 Mobile users were supposed to get the feature, called Messaging Everywhere, with the Anniversary Update rolling out August 2.
But that's not happening anymore. Instead, Microsoft thinks it has a better idea: add Messaging Everywhere to an upcoming version of Skype for Windows 10 PCs.Microsoft commentator Brad Sams writes, "Skype barely works; let's add new features. Texting from your phone is cool, let's remove it. 0.0% people want this."

12 of 122 comments (clear)

  1. Hooray by tripleevenfall · · Score: 5, Insightful

    More of the Skype mentality: Taking something that could be implemented simply and cleanly - and using it to drag you kicking and screaming into an larger application that you hate.

    Forget that "0.0% of people want this", as TFA states. We know what you want. We will help you want it.

    1. Re:Hooray by Dr_Terminus · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I don't remember a time when iTunes was ever a respectable music manager and player. I remember trying it in the early days, but soon went back to just using WinAmp and organized folders in Explorer to play and manage my music... Unfortunately now with iDevices, I'm forced to use the abomination that is iTunes...

    2. Re:Hooray by TroII · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I can imagine that the people who were tricked into installing Windows 10 and then used Messaging Everywhere are a bit sour about having that taken away from them.

      Anyone running Windows 10 ought to get comfortable with the idea of things being taken away on a whim, and free things suddenly having a fee attached. Microsoft seems to have bet the empire on it.

      --
      "If there was a gay Afro-Puertorican Linux distribution, I'd give it a try" ~lucm
  2. " 0.0% people want this." by Pope+Raymond+Lama · · Score: 3, Insightful

    It should read "from the 1.0% people using WIndows on Phones, 0.0% want this" is like: who freaking cares?
    This is news about how to set the corpse's arms inside the coffin!

    --
    -><- no .sig is good sig.
  3. Dumpster Fire by Thelasko · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I'm guessing Microsoft is doing this to get more people to use Skype. Obviously they have no idea why people don't like it. They need to stop adding features and rebranding and make the thing usable again. As it stands, it's just a cluster of various projects haphazardly bundled together. This will only make the problem worse.

    --
    One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
  4. iMessage across devices is actually useful by cant_get_a_good_nick · · Score: 3, Insightful

    My wife has taken over the laptop, and she messages me a lot from the laptop. She'll be on some webpage and then send texts and things from a full keyboard.

    If i have a phone, i have SMS. If I have a phone, i may or may not have Skype. If I actually had an MS Phone, this becomes a non-feature for me, and I'm pissed that MS decides to play these games.

  5. Re:Useless Mac mention by Anubis+IV · · Score: 2, Insightful

    No one said they invented it, but in terms of having it baked into an OS, rather than being a third-party feature (which, I'll add, oftentimes comes with weird issues such as the texts that originate in an IM client coming from unrecognized phone numbers), Mac is still the only one that does it. Windows was set to match, but now it's not.

  6. Re:What's actually going on? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    It's not the fault of the programmers. The programmers could do a radically better job, and I would even guess they'd prefer to.

    You can't lay this blame at their feet. Look instead to the ones giving the marching orders: marketing and "business" people who believe that manipulating customers, vendor-lock-in, and closed protocols are the way to make money. And look even more to those customers who prove them correct.

  7. Google Voice by darkain · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Google Voice anyone? Sending/receiving texts from every device since the beginning of time! Plus voice mailing and calling, too.

  8. Re:M$ Becoming Like Apple by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Luckily, the number of people using Windows 10 mobile phones is rapidly approaching 0, so it's not like Microsoft is actually forcing anyone to do anything.

  9. There is some high level idiot exec at Microsoft by Rainwulf · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Running around with his fingers in his ears, going "LA LA LA LA LA I CANT HEAR YOU" when people say to him "you are making stupid decisions, alienating your user base and generally fucking about in a bad way'

    Its like.. they forgot their core business, and now all they care about is shitty little apps making money.

    They cant even get the app store in windows 10 working properly and it breaks at every opportunity that requires a windows re-installation all because they don't even bother testing their patches. Skype barely works, they still haven't fixed its terrible user interface and the difference between close, exit and quit. Office 2016 still uses the office 2007 control panel interface with its broken font scaling.

    Microsoft has utterly lost its shit. All they care about is the next micro feature in windows, while completely forgetting their entire microcosm is on the brink of falling to pieces.

    So their solution is to ignore what people are saying.
     

  10. Re:What's actually going on? by Archangel+Michael · · Score: 1, Insightful

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

    --
    Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.