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Ask Slashdot: What Can You Do With An Old Windows Phone?
Slashdot reader unixisc writes:
While it's always been well known that Windows phones in the market have floundered, one saving grace has always been that one could at least use it for the barest minimum of apps, even if updates have stopped... Aside from a door stop or a hand me down to someone who'll use it like a dumb phone, what are your suggested uses for this phone? A music player (if the songs are on an SD card)? Games? As far as phones go, I have what I need, so for this, anything it's good for?
The original submission suggests problems connecting to wi-ifi -- something partially corroborated by complaints at Windows Central -- though Microsoft's site says they're still supporting wifi connections.
Slashdot reader thegreatbob suggested "shuffleboard puck" -- then added, "Snark aside, if you're into writing custom applications and such for them, there's probably a bootloader/root solution for you out there."
Leave your own best suggestions in the comments. What can you do with an old Windows Phone?
The original submission suggests problems connecting to wi-ifi -- something partially corroborated by complaints at Windows Central -- though Microsoft's site says they're still supporting wifi connections.
Slashdot reader thegreatbob suggested "shuffleboard puck" -- then added, "Snark aside, if you're into writing custom applications and such for them, there's probably a bootloader/root solution for you out there."
Leave your own best suggestions in the comments. What can you do with an old Windows Phone?
Turn it into a Zune
Table-ized A.I.
Do people regularly use their Samsung S3s or iPhone 3GSs?
Well, I regularly use my Samsung Galaxy Note 2. I'm not a big Smartphone user . . . I use it for programming my own apps. Hey, it still has the original battery! And, yes, this is my main cell phone.
It's been dropped multiple times. The screen looks like an LSD induced episode of the Spider Man cartoon from the late 60's. But the damn thing still works! An "IBM Fellow" looked at my phone once and told me that it was a sign of honor among geeks . . . to have phone with a bashed up screen that still works. Kinda sorta like that boring book we were forced to read in high school, "The Red Badge of Courage".
When this kid actually was a kid . . . we had a big, black, butt-ugly phone on the wall from Ma Bell for as long as I can remember. With . . . a dial! Have any Slashdotters actually dialed a telephone!?!?! Well, the thing worked, and I guess folks talked with each other more back then, instead of hanging on the telephone all day with their pseudo-friends, so why replace it . . . ? Hey, if you have a Windows Phone, you took the wrong boat, and it won't be updated and shiny new every year or so . . . but if it does what you need . . . why get rid of it . . . ?
Oh, I also programmed FORTRAN on an IBM punch card machine in the late 70's in high school, and used a Teletype to save BASIC programs on paper tape . . . so I'm a bit of a dinosaur.
Ah, that crisp, crunchy touch of the Teletype keyboard. . . being a geek was fun back in those days!
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
Turn it into a Zune
Hehe, ... funny, but he asked a serious question. I hooked my old iPhone up to an 5000 mah external battery pack and put the thing in a plastic bag. Then I hid it in a small compartment behind an access panel in the boot of my car that's used to change the light bulbs in the rear lights and used it in combination with the 'Find my iPhone' web-app as a LoJack to track my car in case it got stolen. Other than having to re-charge it every 5 days or so it worked well. I dunno if you can do this with a Windows Phone but I'm pretty sure you can do this with an old Android device too.