Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: Which abandoned proprietary software would you resurrect?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

171–180 of 837 posts

Re: Ask HN: Which abandoned proprietary software would you resurrect?

#171

Post by michaelbrave »

bhauer wrote: post #156

* Windows Phone. We need a third viable option in the mobile space. This week we are concerned about the loss of a browser engine, recognizing this is unhealthy for the market. Windows Phone was terrific in many ways and recent concepts by fans such as @boxnwhisker (Harry Dohyun Kim) [1] show how beautiful the Metro design could be today. * Microsoft Image Composer. A little known sprite-oriented graphic arts program…

I was just talking about how it was a shame windows phone didn't catch on last night, I really think they should have doubled down on it at least as hard as they did on the original X-Box, it really felt like they gave up on it too soon.

Re: Ask HN: Which abandoned proprietary software would you resurrect?

#173

Post by untog »

hackerman12345 wrote: post #150
ioman wrote: post #46

Microsoft MapPoint. This was a phenomenal piece of mapping software and had features I haven’t been able to find in any of the online map replacements. When getting directions, you could designate a number of areas on the map as “avoid area”. You could map all sorts of census data. Want to colorize the map based on crime rate divided by median home price? No problem. You could import lots of data from a spreadsheet a…

Won't happen. Apps with those features get accused of being racist. https://www.npr.org/2012/01/25/145337346/this-app-was-made-f...

The OP appears to be talking about just mapping demographic datasets, plenty of software does that today and isn't accused of being racist.

The issue you linked to seems different. I agree that the headline is hysterical, but the patent mentions, among other sensible ideas, that it would plot paths factoring in demographic data. Which is just plain weird when you already have crime data available.

Re: Ask HN: Which abandoned proprietary software would you resurrect?

#174

Post by iamcreasy »

Norton GoBack [1]

I remember this software runs before the OS and allows you to revert the enter HDD in a different time. It can even fix the OS if it stopped working for some reason. I thought it was pretty cool. Anybody know if similar tools exists?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GoBack

Re: Ask HN: Which abandoned proprietary software would you resurrect?

#175

Post by dahart »

bsenftner wrote: post #120

Shake: the first accelerated graphics compositing software; Fuck the Apple Shake travesty, the PC & Linux versions rocked. Cool factor 12: your compositing node "scripts" were C disguised by macros, and gcc would hot compile them into so/dlls and hot link them in. Meeting the developer of this software was a major inspiration to my software to follow.

I almost added this comment, I wasn’t expecting anyone else to say it. Shake was so awesome before Apple killed it. I clung to my old working copy for many many years, until it wouldn’t run anymore.

I never ever understood what the plan for Shake was supposed to be, did you? I remember hearing rumors it would turn into something bigger and better in a different Apple product, but it doensn’t seem like anything ever materialized.

Re: Ask HN: Which abandoned proprietary software would you resurrect?

#176

Post by sheepybloke »

Is no one going to mention Pebble? It's the only smartwatch I've ever wanted, and I was so sad that it got bought and died right when I had enough money to spend some on a smart watch. It just had the perfect combo of good design, long battery life, and usability.

Re: Ask HN: Which abandoned proprietary software would you resurrect?

#177

Post by stamina67 »

ilmiont wrote: post #122

Windows Phone. To this day no Android phone I've used ever as fast, reliable or plain refined as WP8 was. Unique design and many genuinely useful features, and it reflected a time when smartphones could have been vibrant and diverse, not our current two mega-platforms or nothing.

Why doesn't Microsoft just open-source the windows phone OS as an android alternative ?

Re: Ask HN: Which abandoned proprietary software would you resurrect?

#178

Post by bluedino »

iamcreasy wrote: post #174

Norton GoBack [1] I remember this software runs before the OS and allows you to revert the enter HDD in a different time. It can even fix the OS if it stopped working for some reason. I thought it was pretty cool. Anybody know if similar tools exists? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GoBack

Isn’t it basically restore points?

Re: Ask HN: Which abandoned proprietary software would you resurrect?

#179

Post by Aspos »

iamcreasy wrote: post #174

Norton GoBack [1] I remember this software runs before the OS and allows you to revert the enter HDD in a different time. It can even fix the OS if it stopped working for some reason. I thought it was pretty cool. Anybody know if similar tools exists? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GoBack

DeepFreeze https://www.faronics.com/products/deep-freeze

Re: Ask HN: Which abandoned proprietary software would you resurrect?

#180

Post by untog »

ilmiont wrote: post #122

Windows Phone. To this day no Android phone I've used ever as fast, reliable or plain refined as WP8 was. Unique design and many genuinely useful features, and it reflected a time when smartphones could have been vibrant and diverse, not our current two mega-platforms or nothing.

Strongly agree with this. I got a WP service when WP7 came out and it was a revelation compared to Android. Not just the way it looked, but the hubs concept just made a ton of sense. Future releases ruined both, sadly.

I'd like to believe that in the world of progressive web apps Windows Phone would have had a higher chance of success. Firefox phone tried the same and failed, but with the backing of a huge company like MS... you never know.

Post reply on HN