I have had two 82 cavaliers and an 82 buick custom that ended up going to the junkyard with over 200k miles. I liked that year in particular because it was the last of the throttle body and they could easily be modified to exceed what we today consider a good high mpg rating.
You could "easily modify" some piece-of-junk 1982 car to get better than 40mpg or so? I'm sorry, I think you're full of shit. I got stuck with an 86 Cavalier in my youth and that thing could barely go uphill under its own power, and was worn out well before 100k.
You can't say with any certainty that cars are lasting longer or retaining value better yet.
Oh bullshit. Just look at used cars and the prices they demand. 100k cars are everywhere now. If you think 1967 cars did that routinely, you're simply insane.
My sister and her husband are both engineers and although the engines they design are not in your car, they might be in the dump truck that picks up your garbage, the great big generator at your data center, or the tractor a farmer is driving, they will be bitching about exactly the opposite when they come around on Christmas.
You really think manufacturing tolerances were better 40 years ago? I'm sorry, you're a fucking fool.
And crappy live tiles? As opposed to non-crappy static icons?
No, as opposed to Android widgets. From a post by ArmoredDragon elsewhere in this discussion:
"- 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.)"
It's as subjective as it gets and irrelevant, every platform will have people who dislike the aesthetic design.
Yeah, apparently people just LOVE MS's aesthetics so much they're rushing out to buy Windows Phones!! \s
Lack of configurability is a dubious claim, since iOS is rather similar.
Configurability makes up for not-so-popular design choices. Apparently, iOS users are happy enough with Apple's designs, and they tend to be a different type of user anyway. Chasing iOS users and trying to get them to switch is a losing strategy for anyone.
but spreading FUD helps nobody and only makes one look foolish.
Calling valid complaints "FUD" only makes one look foolish.
The quality and workmanship of automotive has been in decline for some years now foreign or domestic.
WTF? I'm sorry, this is just dumb. Auto quality has never been better, and it's easily proven: cars are lasting longer than ever and holding their value better than ever. It's routine for cars to reach 100k miles now and still fetch a very good price on the used market; 30 years ago a car that age was ready for the junkyard. Manufacturing tolerances are tighter than ever, defects are low, and things last forever, especially mechanical parts.
Now I will admit I don't have experience with cars in -40 temperatures, and many plastics are indeed known to embrittle with age (and also cold). Perhaps you should look into buying a Volvo; since they're designed and made in Sweden, and have an excellent reputation for quality, they probably know a thing or two about making cars that handle cold weather well.
It's there to protect them from lawsuits, nothing more. Passengers should be able to use the system while the car is in motion, but of course they lock it out because it can't tell the driver's finger from the passenger's.
The solution on my car was pretty simple: logging into the system and running a test script disabled the speed restriction. With systems running on embedded Linux, they're actually very hackable. Of course, to chat with people who actually DO hack on these infotainment systems, I have to go to web forums for gearheads, because the "nerds" on this site just sit around in their Depends whining about how "you can't work on cars any more".
"less is more" is actually quite rational and is a sister to KISS
No, actually it's not. If you want features, you're going to have complexity; there's no way around it. If you want a Spartan car, great, good luck getting the automakers to make one for you. There are some really cheap econoboxes out there, so you can buy one of those, but even those are going to have some creature comforts because it's only a few freaks who really want a stripped-down vehicle, not enough to bother with because the cost of producing cars is so high. Every time automakers do try to make a super stripped-down model for all these complainers, they end up sitting on dealer lots, unable to be sold.
Are you one of those people that still uses a flip phone or even a landline?
If it doesn't need to be there, why put it in?
Because people want nice things. Duh. Not everyone is some minimalist freak who doesn't like anything nice.
Really? Change the bulb maybe but not the housing. Not if you're a BMW owner [bimmerfest.com] at least.
You're going to have to elaborate. I read through a bit and didn't see any problems. Here's one guy's post:
"I finally got around to replacing it with a new one and I didn't need to touch any programming whatsoever."
If you're able to swap a headlight housing without messing with any special programming tools, then what exactly is the problem???
I've blown out amps, speakers and head units.
How in hell did you manage to do that? What kind of crappy cars are you buying where these things fail on you? Or are you playing stuff at max volume constantly or something? These are not normal things to fail in a car.
If you're going aftermarket
Good luck finding an aftermarket stereo to fit your car these days, because the sizes are all different, and now with highly integrated infotainment systems they do a lot more than just play music, and frequently allow configuration of other parts of the car. Basically, if you really don't like the stereo in a new car, *don't buy it*. It's not like the old days with DIN-sized stereos with tiny little buttons.
What if I want to upgrade and resell my old unit?
And what are you going to replace it with?
Really? I think you're oversimplifying a bit. Maybe consumer reports is more your style? [consumerreports.org]
If your tire shop damages your sensors, make sure they buy you new OEM ones then and pay for the programming. They're legally required to pay for anything they break after all. I'm glad my new car doesn't have them and uses the cheap-o method of just looking for different wheelspin rates.
Because I didn't have OEM wheels and tires and had aftermarket TPMS sensors. Even though the TPMS system recognized the pressure and there were no idiot lights, there was a DTC that indicated a problem with the TPMS system. It was a warning but still a DTC.
Can't you just clear the DTC with a typical OBDII scan tool? How did you modify the ECU to disregard it anyway?
Ford no longer has any stake in Mazda and Mazda is (thankfully) completely independent now, but even when they were involved, things like infotainment/interior controls and stuff like that are not shared. It's the chasses (and not even engines) that are the main things shared in projects like that, plus various under-the-hood parts. I also have a 2005 Volvo S40 which was part of the Ford/Mazda/Volvo team days, so that chassis shares a lot with Fords and Mazdas of that time, and there's a few other parts shared there too (like some exhaust hangar brackets I found when I installed a tow hitch). But the interior is nothing at all like a Ford of that time.
Remember, Ford's touchscreen system is called "MyFordTouch" (or "MyLincolnTouch" or whatever). It's specific to their own cars. It was also singlehandedly responsible for Ford plummeting in the initial-quality rankings a couple years ago because it was so buggy and problematic (when MS did the software for it, though people are still complaining a lot about it now even though it switched to a different vendor IIRC).
In short, it really doesn't matter how great your chassis or engine or transmission are if your driver controls are a disaster in human-factors design.
No, I don't mean American-made at all. If I meant American-made, I would have said so explicitly. I mean American companies. Honda, Toyota, etc. are not American companies, any more than Apple is a Chinese company. Fords are American, even though they're all made in Mexico, and GMs are American even though they're made in Canada. The design work and engineering is done in America, and the lousy design is why they suck no matter where they're made.
By your logic, VW and Ford are Mexican companies, Apple is Chinese, and Seagate is Thai.
No, you're a fucking idiot. Go read the GP's post: he was railing against LCD screens. That includes your LCD SCREEN PHONE, MORON!!! He didn't make an exception for that!
And yes, phones are better than built-in nav in many ways, that's why everyone wants CarPlay and Android Auto.
Then there's fucking morons like ericloewe who don't even know what are and aren't strengths on various platforms. Developer support is probably one of the only decent things about Windows Phone, it's one of MS's strengths. It doesn't overcome the lack of interest by developers because of MS being late to the smartphone party so they don't want to waste time developing for a platform with 10 users, nor does it overcome the horribly ugly UI. Sure, it's actually a fairly speedy OS on leaner hardware (another strength you said I'm unable to acknowledge!) but that doesn't make up for ugly design, lack of configurability, the crappy live tiles, and the complete lack of apps, nor MS's lackluster reputation in general which contributes to the poor uptake.
Then stop buying shitty Fords or whatever cars don't have buttons and knobs. My Mazda has a nice big knob for controlling the infotainment; works great. I can use the touchscreen when stopped, or stick with the knob when driving. Or I can use voice control (which admittedly is a bit buggy, but at least I don't have to take my eyes off the road when using it).
Good riddance to you when you go. People like you murder tens of thousands of people a year with your shitty driving. Self-driving cars can't get here soon enough to save us from you assholes.
Oh bullshit. You can replace headlights on any car; that's completely stupid. They might not make it completely easy with HIDs, you might have to disassemble some plastic paneling or something, but it's not like you *have* to have dealer equipment to do it. HIDs all use standard D2S and D4S bulbs.
And why the hell would you need "service" at a licensed dealer for your stereo? If you have regular problems with your stereo needing servicing, you're doing something wrong. TPMS? Why would that need service, unless you're changing a tire (and personally I've never met any backyard mechanic who changed their own tires)? All the carmakers use standard TPMS sensors anyway, and all the tire shops will sell you new ones if you need them (like for a second set of wheels, for people who switch between winter and summer wheels/tires). And that's just for cars which actually use TPMS sensors; a lot of cars just reuse the ABS wheelspeed sensors to detect differences in tire pressure. To reset the system when you inflate the tires, you just press and hold the TPMS button.
Honestly, I'm really sick of all the new-car paranoia from luddite morons who want to go back to the days of carburetors and distributor points and manual chokes.
-1 Stupid. How do you expect to use GPS without an LCD screen? Without navigation, you'll be driving around in circles lost, taking wrong turns, backtracking, etc. and be far more likely to have an accident.
Maybe you should stop acting like a gorilla with your power window buttons. I've never had any of those problems. The only problem I've had with power windows were in an early-90s model Honda where they were really slow at times, and that was mostly because back then they still used the shitty scissor-type regulator mechanisms from hand-operated windows. Sometime in the 90s or so, everyone finally switched to the newer mechanisms where the motor sits on the window and raises it up and down a cable. They stuck with the shitty regulators for a long time because when they still made manual windows, it was cheaper to reuse the mechanisms between both types, but the new type is far more mechanically efficient and not prone to binding the way the old one was, so when manual windows became completely obsolete they finally abandoned the old mechanisms.
I have had one or both of these issues in every car I've owned with power windows Dodge, Ford, Buick, Cadillac... all the same
I think I see your problem there. Stop buying shitty American cars.
Is that number for the US or worldwide, or some other particular market? It has been acknowledged that WinPhone is more popular in some markets than others, and the US is one where they're not popular at all.
There's fans for everything you can think of. Think of any highly-obscure genre of music, for instance (like Norwegian shouting choruses): there's some fans of it out there, somewhere.
It's the same for Windows Phone. There's fans out there, somewhere. A few of them pop up on threads like this one to tell us how wonderful it is, even though it's a piece of shit. What's important is the numbers, though: there's not very many of them, and most of them work for MS (those would be "shills"). MS is infamous for employing "technological evangelists", which is just a euphemism for "shill", and sending them across the internet to act like regular people who just love MS products, when in fact they're MS employees paid to do that. MS is the reason we have the term "astroturfing". But not all of them are shills: there's genuinely some real MS lovers out there. Maybe even dozens!
This right here is a good reason to never, ever sign up for a phone contract. It's just a bad idea. You can buy an inexpensive or used Android phone for very little money these days and get month-to-month service for far less than it costs to get service through one of the main companies. Getting service from the main companies is for suckers who feel the need to buy from an actual store instead of just signing up for service online.
I've never seen anyone drive a Tesla, but that says more about where I live and who I hang out with than the company's success.
Where the hell do you live? Minot, North Dakota? Rural Wyoming? Kodiak Island, Alaska? I live in the boonies and there's one guy here who drives a Tesla, and when I go to any decent city I'll see a few.
The Windows UI is way nicer to use
No, it isn't, it's flat, ugly garbage. ArmoredDragon's post here explains it well.
I've never seen someone using one in the wild, and I tend to notice small things like that (and the WP UI is so ugly and unique that there's no way I'd confuse that for iOS or Android).
I *have* actually used a Windows Phone, a year or so ago at a MS mall kiosk, and a couple years before at a phone store. I had to see the horror for myself. But that was at places that were trying to hawk the thing; I've never actually seen a user in public or met anyone who had one.
The UI isn't bad for a mobile platform, I guess, it's just that the software ecosystem is rather poor.
The UI is ugly and unconfigurable. ArmoredDragon's highly informative post just above goes into great detail why WP OS is crap.
But even if it were pretty good, nothing is going to make up for a crappy software ecosystem. This is exactly the reason why Windows (the PC OS) is so popular still even though it's complete shit with the Metro UI: it runs everyone's favorite or at least necessary applications. If you can't run your critical business application on an OS, then it doesn't matter how great that OS is, it's useless to you. Well, for me and I suspect many others, the apps are what make smartphones worth having. For instance, there's no way I'd bother with a phone if it doesn't run Tinder. But there's lots of other apps I use a lot too, like Osmand (invaluable for capturing my hiking routes), RealCalc, etc. I'm sure many other smartphone users are the same: they've got a handful of apps they use constantly (Facebook, WhatsApp, kik come to mind as popular apps), and if a phone doesn't support them all, then it's not even a choice.
The "Windows" brand is not generally associated with phones, and carries negative connotations both from its desktop reputation (crashing, insecurity) and its previous mobile incarnations. The brand also implies compatibility which isn't there, i knew several people who bought windows ce based netbooks a few years ago only to be disappointed they couldn't run regular windows apps on them. Their sole reason for buying the "windows" netbook instead of the linux ones also offered, was this mistaken notion of compatibility.
You're missing the obvious point here, which you spelled out yourself:
MS's "Windows" brand has value because of morons who don't do research and are easily tricked into thinking that Windows devices are far more compatible than they really are. Did the suckers you know who bought WinCE netbooks return them after figuring out they were useless for the purpose for which they bought them?
If you have a point, make it. I'm not going to read a giant article about "leadership". Here's a link for you: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki...
From that link: "Any person that leads or directs." "One having authority to direct." "One who leads a political party or group of elected party members; sometimes used in titles."
The first two apply to leaders like Saddam Hussein, Genghis Khan, Alexander the Great, Hitler, Stalin, Kim Jong *, etc. The last one applied additionally to Saddam Hussein, who was leader of the Ba'ath party, as well as Stalin who was leader of the Communist Party of the USSR, as well as Hitler who was leader of the NSDAP Party.
Slashdot Mirror
I have had two 82 cavaliers and an 82 buick custom that ended up going to the junkyard with over 200k miles. I liked that year in particular because it was the last of the throttle body and they could easily be modified to exceed what we today consider a good high mpg rating.
You could "easily modify" some piece-of-junk 1982 car to get better than 40mpg or so? I'm sorry, I think you're full of shit. I got stuck with an 86 Cavalier in my youth and that thing could barely go uphill under its own power, and was worn out well before 100k.
You can't say with any certainty that cars are lasting longer or retaining value better yet.
Oh bullshit. Just look at used cars and the prices they demand. 100k cars are everywhere now. If you think 1967 cars did that routinely, you're simply insane.
My sister and her husband are both engineers and although the engines they design are not in your car, they might be in the dump truck that picks up your garbage, the great big generator at your data center, or the tractor a farmer is driving, they will be bitching about exactly the opposite when they come around on Christmas.
You really think manufacturing tolerances were better 40 years ago? I'm sorry, you're a fucking fool.
And crappy live tiles? As opposed to non-crappy static icons?
No, as opposed to Android widgets. From a post by ArmoredDragon elsewhere in this discussion:
"- 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.)"
It's as subjective as it gets and irrelevant, every platform will have people who dislike the aesthetic design.
Yeah, apparently people just LOVE MS's aesthetics so much they're rushing out to buy Windows Phones!! \s
Lack of configurability is a dubious claim, since iOS is rather similar.
Configurability makes up for not-so-popular design choices. Apparently, iOS users are happy enough with Apple's designs, and they tend to be a different type of user anyway. Chasing iOS users and trying to get them to switch is a losing strategy for anyone.
but spreading FUD helps nobody and only makes one look foolish.
Calling valid complaints "FUD" only makes one look foolish.
The quality and workmanship of automotive has been in decline for some years now foreign or domestic.
WTF? I'm sorry, this is just dumb. Auto quality has never been better, and it's easily proven: cars are lasting longer than ever and holding their value better than ever. It's routine for cars to reach 100k miles now and still fetch a very good price on the used market; 30 years ago a car that age was ready for the junkyard. Manufacturing tolerances are tighter than ever, defects are low, and things last forever, especially mechanical parts.
Now I will admit I don't have experience with cars in -40 temperatures, and many plastics are indeed known to embrittle with age (and also cold). Perhaps you should look into buying a Volvo; since they're designed and made in Sweden, and have an excellent reputation for quality, they probably know a thing or two about making cars that handle cold weather well.
It's there to protect them from lawsuits, nothing more. Passengers should be able to use the system while the car is in motion, but of course they lock it out because it can't tell the driver's finger from the passenger's.
The solution on my car was pretty simple: logging into the system and running a test script disabled the speed restriction. With systems running on embedded Linux, they're actually very hackable. Of course, to chat with people who actually DO hack on these infotainment systems, I have to go to web forums for gearheads, because the "nerds" on this site just sit around in their Depends whining about how "you can't work on cars any more".
"less is more" is actually quite rational and is a sister to KISS
No, actually it's not. If you want features, you're going to have complexity; there's no way around it. If you want a Spartan car, great, good luck getting the automakers to make one for you. There are some really cheap econoboxes out there, so you can buy one of those, but even those are going to have some creature comforts because it's only a few freaks who really want a stripped-down vehicle, not enough to bother with because the cost of producing cars is so high. Every time automakers do try to make a super stripped-down model for all these complainers, they end up sitting on dealer lots, unable to be sold.
Are you one of those people that still uses a flip phone or even a landline?
If it doesn't need to be there, why put it in?
Because people want nice things. Duh. Not everyone is some minimalist freak who doesn't like anything nice.
Really? Change the bulb maybe but not the housing. Not if you're a BMW owner [bimmerfest.com] at least.
You're going to have to elaborate. I read through a bit and didn't see any problems. Here's one guy's post:
"I finally got around to replacing it with a new one and I didn't need to touch any programming whatsoever."
If you're able to swap a headlight housing without messing with any special programming tools, then what exactly is the problem???
I've blown out amps, speakers and head units.
How in hell did you manage to do that? What kind of crappy cars are you buying where these things fail on you? Or are you playing stuff at max volume constantly or something? These are not normal things to fail in a car.
If you're going aftermarket
Good luck finding an aftermarket stereo to fit your car these days, because the sizes are all different, and now with highly integrated infotainment systems they do a lot more than just play music, and frequently allow configuration of other parts of the car. Basically, if you really don't like the stereo in a new car, *don't buy it*. It's not like the old days with DIN-sized stereos with tiny little buttons.
What if I want to upgrade and resell my old unit?
And what are you going to replace it with?
Really? I think you're oversimplifying a bit. Maybe consumer reports is more your style? [consumerreports.org]
If your tire shop damages your sensors, make sure they buy you new OEM ones then and pay for the programming. They're legally required to pay for anything they break after all. I'm glad my new car doesn't have them and uses the cheap-o method of just looking for different wheelspin rates.
Because I didn't have OEM wheels and tires and had aftermarket TPMS sensors. Even though the TPMS system recognized the pressure and there were no idiot lights, there was a DTC that indicated a problem with the TPMS system. It was a warning but still a DTC.
Can't you just clear the DTC with a typical OBDII scan tool? How did you modify the ECU to disregard it anyway?
Ford no longer has any stake in Mazda and Mazda is (thankfully) completely independent now, but even when they were involved, things like infotainment/interior controls and stuff like that are not shared. It's the chasses (and not even engines) that are the main things shared in projects like that, plus various under-the-hood parts. I also have a 2005 Volvo S40 which was part of the Ford/Mazda/Volvo team days, so that chassis shares a lot with Fords and Mazdas of that time, and there's a few other parts shared there too (like some exhaust hangar brackets I found when I installed a tow hitch). But the interior is nothing at all like a Ford of that time.
Remember, Ford's touchscreen system is called "MyFordTouch" (or "MyLincolnTouch" or whatever). It's specific to their own cars. It was also singlehandedly responsible for Ford plummeting in the initial-quality rankings a couple years ago because it was so buggy and problematic (when MS did the software for it, though people are still complaining a lot about it now even though it switched to a different vendor IIRC).
In short, it really doesn't matter how great your chassis or engine or transmission are if your driver controls are a disaster in human-factors design.
No, I don't mean American-made at all. If I meant American-made, I would have said so explicitly. I mean American companies. Honda, Toyota, etc. are not American companies, any more than Apple is a Chinese company. Fords are American, even though they're all made in Mexico, and GMs are American even though they're made in Canada. The design work and engineering is done in America, and the lousy design is why they suck no matter where they're made.
By your logic, VW and Ford are Mexican companies, Apple is Chinese, and Seagate is Thai.
No, you're a fucking idiot. Go read the GP's post: he was railing against LCD screens. That includes your LCD SCREEN PHONE, MORON!!! He didn't make an exception for that!
And yes, phones are better than built-in nav in many ways, that's why everyone wants CarPlay and Android Auto.
Idiot.
Then there's fucking morons like ericloewe who don't even know what are and aren't strengths on various platforms. Developer support is probably one of the only decent things about Windows Phone, it's one of MS's strengths. It doesn't overcome the lack of interest by developers because of MS being late to the smartphone party so they don't want to waste time developing for a platform with 10 users, nor does it overcome the horribly ugly UI. Sure, it's actually a fairly speedy OS on leaner hardware (another strength you said I'm unable to acknowledge!) but that doesn't make up for ugly design, lack of configurability, the crappy live tiles, and the complete lack of apps, nor MS's lackluster reputation in general which contributes to the poor uptake.
Then stop buying shitty Fords or whatever cars don't have buttons and knobs. My Mazda has a nice big knob for controlling the infotainment; works great. I can use the touchscreen when stopped, or stick with the knob when driving. Or I can use voice control (which admittedly is a bit buggy, but at least I don't have to take my eyes off the road when using it).
Good riddance to you when you go. People like you murder tens of thousands of people a year with your shitty driving. Self-driving cars can't get here soon enough to save us from you assholes.
Oh bullshit. You can replace headlights on any car; that's completely stupid. They might not make it completely easy with HIDs, you might have to disassemble some plastic paneling or something, but it's not like you *have* to have dealer equipment to do it. HIDs all use standard D2S and D4S bulbs.
And why the hell would you need "service" at a licensed dealer for your stereo? If you have regular problems with your stereo needing servicing, you're doing something wrong. TPMS? Why would that need service, unless you're changing a tire (and personally I've never met any backyard mechanic who changed their own tires)? All the carmakers use standard TPMS sensors anyway, and all the tire shops will sell you new ones if you need them (like for a second set of wheels, for people who switch between winter and summer wheels/tires). And that's just for cars which actually use TPMS sensors; a lot of cars just reuse the ABS wheelspeed sensors to detect differences in tire pressure. To reset the system when you inflate the tires, you just press and hold the TPMS button.
Honestly, I'm really sick of all the new-car paranoia from luddite morons who want to go back to the days of carburetors and distributor points and manual chokes.
-1 Stupid. How do you expect to use GPS without an LCD screen? Without navigation, you'll be driving around in circles lost, taking wrong turns, backtracking, etc. and be far more likely to have an accident.
Maybe you should stop acting like a gorilla with your power window buttons. I've never had any of those problems. The only problem I've had with power windows were in an early-90s model Honda where they were really slow at times, and that was mostly because back then they still used the shitty scissor-type regulator mechanisms from hand-operated windows. Sometime in the 90s or so, everyone finally switched to the newer mechanisms where the motor sits on the window and raises it up and down a cable. They stuck with the shitty regulators for a long time because when they still made manual windows, it was cheaper to reuse the mechanisms between both types, but the new type is far more mechanically efficient and not prone to binding the way the old one was, so when manual windows became completely obsolete they finally abandoned the old mechanisms.
I have had one or both of these issues in every car I've owned with power windows Dodge, Ford, Buick, Cadillac... all the same
I think I see your problem there. Stop buying shitty American cars.
Is that number for the US or worldwide, or some other particular market? It has been acknowledged that WinPhone is more popular in some markets than others, and the US is one where they're not popular at all.
There's fans for everything you can think of. Think of any highly-obscure genre of music, for instance (like Norwegian shouting choruses): there's some fans of it out there, somewhere.
It's the same for Windows Phone. There's fans out there, somewhere. A few of them pop up on threads like this one to tell us how wonderful it is, even though it's a piece of shit. What's important is the numbers, though: there's not very many of them, and most of them work for MS (those would be "shills"). MS is infamous for employing "technological evangelists", which is just a euphemism for "shill", and sending them across the internet to act like regular people who just love MS products, when in fact they're MS employees paid to do that. MS is the reason we have the term "astroturfing". But not all of them are shills: there's genuinely some real MS lovers out there. Maybe even dozens!
This right here is a good reason to never, ever sign up for a phone contract. It's just a bad idea. You can buy an inexpensive or used Android phone for very little money these days and get month-to-month service for far less than it costs to get service through one of the main companies. Getting service from the main companies is for suckers who feel the need to buy from an actual store instead of just signing up for service online.
I've never seen anyone drive a Tesla, but that says more about where I live and who I hang out with than the company's success.
Where the hell do you live? Minot, North Dakota? Rural Wyoming? Kodiak Island, Alaska? I live in the boonies and there's one guy here who drives a Tesla, and when I go to any decent city I'll see a few.
The Windows UI is way nicer to use
No, it isn't, it's flat, ugly garbage. ArmoredDragon's post here explains it well.
I've never seen someone using one in the wild, and I tend to notice small things like that (and the WP UI is so ugly and unique that there's no way I'd confuse that for iOS or Android).
I *have* actually used a Windows Phone, a year or so ago at a MS mall kiosk, and a couple years before at a phone store. I had to see the horror for myself. But that was at places that were trying to hawk the thing; I've never actually seen a user in public or met anyone who had one.
The UI isn't bad for a mobile platform, I guess, it's just that the software ecosystem is rather poor.
The UI is ugly and unconfigurable. ArmoredDragon's highly informative post just above goes into great detail why WP OS is crap.
But even if it were pretty good, nothing is going to make up for a crappy software ecosystem. This is exactly the reason why Windows (the PC OS) is so popular still even though it's complete shit with the Metro UI: it runs everyone's favorite or at least necessary applications. If you can't run your critical business application on an OS, then it doesn't matter how great that OS is, it's useless to you. Well, for me and I suspect many others, the apps are what make smartphones worth having. For instance, there's no way I'd bother with a phone if it doesn't run Tinder. But there's lots of other apps I use a lot too, like Osmand (invaluable for capturing my hiking routes), RealCalc, etc. I'm sure many other smartphone users are the same: they've got a handful of apps they use constantly (Facebook, WhatsApp, kik come to mind as popular apps), and if a phone doesn't support them all, then it's not even a choice.
I sure hope they don't take your advice. I'd rather see them bet the company on Windows Phone.....
The "Windows" brand is not generally associated with phones, and carries negative connotations both from its desktop reputation (crashing, insecurity) and its previous mobile incarnations.
The brand also implies compatibility which isn't there, i knew several people who bought windows ce based netbooks a few years ago only to be disappointed they couldn't run regular windows apps on them. Their sole reason for buying the "windows" netbook instead of the linux ones also offered, was this mistaken notion of compatibility.
You're missing the obvious point here, which you spelled out yourself:
MS's "Windows" brand has value because of morons who don't do research and are easily tricked into thinking that Windows devices are far more compatible than they really are. Did the suckers you know who bought WinCE netbooks return them after figuring out they were useless for the purpose for which they bought them?
All those "issues" you find are considered features by some people I know. To describe them as a group, would be ... old and near retirement.
Huh? I thought it was all the stupid 20-something hipsters who loved this flat-UI crap.
And you're a fucking moron trying to redefine simple English.
If you have a point, make it. I'm not going to read a giant article about "leadership". Here's a link for you:
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki...
From that link:
"Any person that leads or directs."
"One having authority to direct."
"One who leads a political party or group of elected party members; sometimes used in titles."
The first two apply to leaders like Saddam Hussein, Genghis Khan, Alexander the Great, Hitler, Stalin, Kim Jong *, etc. The last one applied additionally to Saddam Hussein, who was leader of the Ba'ath party, as well as Stalin who was leader of the Communist Party of the USSR, as well as Hitler who was leader of the NSDAP Party.