Single major innovation in iPhone was ability to perform reasonably high precision user interaction using grossly imprecise input method, i.e. Human thumbs. My theory is that people in WinMo team didn't used iPhone when it came out because everyone carried WinMo in their pocket. I think most people just didn't believed it was perfectly possible to use touch keyboard with thumbs with reasonable precision. So the reaction to new design was slow. Once Verizon told Microsoft how they were bleeding customers over iPhone, people realized the significance of what had happened. But then there was long battle for how to evolve. Should old WinMo code be modified or do we need new OS or do we combine desktop and mobile OS? This would have been difficult decision in itself because you also need to support vast number of existing WinMo customers. This struggle took years to resolve and by that time ship was sailed. If there was one person in charge who understood what was going to hit the world and gave order to unify entire army behind creating new mobile OS without worrying about compatibility or merge with desktop then we might have had different story. Of course, in hindsight every thing looks crystal clear about what should have been done but if you were sitting in Ballmerd chair with data you had in hand your call could have been the same. On the other hand Android chief realized what was going to hit them and they turned around their execution overnight which was possible because they didn't had legacy OS used by millions or desktop OS diverging from mobile. Anyway, this is just my theory. I have no insider information like the author.
The war Microsoft should have won
31–40 of 53 posts
Re: The war Microsoft should have won
#32Main reason: capacitive touchscreen display. They were last to understand how they were enablers of a new way of interacting.
Re: The war Microsoft should have won
#33I started writing Android programs in 2011. With Android: * I can develop the apps on Windows, Mac or Linux * There is a lifetime developer fee of $25 * The source code is available To program for the Windows phone, I believe I'd need a Windows setup which I don't have. "A small barrier" some might say, but a barrier nonetheless. I believe the Windows Store fee was $100 a year or something like that. Not much for a s…
FWIW, for almost two whole years now, the Windows Dev Center fee has been a one-time $20 fee.
http://winsupersite.com/software-development/windows-dev-cen...
Re: The war Microsoft should have won
#34Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is true, but Apple has the same model - you need an OS/X machine (note: much more expensive than a basic windows machine) to develop for iOS, and I believe the app store fee is also $100. It doesn't seem to have hampered iOS at all. (although the argument to be made is that because they were the first to get big, the barrier to entry didn't matter much).
True — but it's also why neither I nor the companies I've worked at have worked on iOS apps (of note, the Android apps we've built have been internal corporate apps, not consumer-facing apps, where iOS's consumer base would be an asset). I as a developer very much don't want to use Windows or macOS. Why would I want to use either of them when I can use Linux? I know there are others who think otherwise; it's great th…
This makes no sense. In what kind of backwards company are internal apps targeted based on the software devs' platform preferences? The determining factor is what phones the people who need to use the apps have. If many of the people that need to use the app have iPhones, you'd be forced to write them for iPhones. If many had Windows Phones, you'd be forced to write them for Windows Phones. Your development-platform preferences be damned.
Re: The war Microsoft should have won
#35tl;dr: Ex. micro-softie laments all the ways ms failed in the mobile space, while completely overlooking the elephant in the room: MS, in the mobile space, did not have an already entrenched monopoly upon which to leverage other market share.
>MS, in the mobile space, did not have an already entrenched monopoly upon which to leverage other market share.
Not quite true. MS managed to beat out Palm to become the market leader in PDAs and mobile devices, just before the iPhone was released and torpedoed everyone.
At one time, there were as many different models of Windows CE devices as there are Android devices now, giving MS a severe fragmentation problem back then similar to the one that Android has now.
Re: The war Microsoft should have won
#36[deleted]
Re: The war Microsoft should have won
#37Single major innovation in iPhone was ability to perform reasonably high precision user interaction using grossly imprecise input method, i.e. Human thumbs. My theory is that people in WinMo team didn't used iPhone when it came out because everyone carried WinMo in their pocket. I think most people just didn't believed it was perfectly possible to use touch keyboard with thumbs with reasonable precision. So the react…
The capacitive touch screen is a major factor however I believe it was Steve Jobs ability to break carrier control (in the USA, where the iPhone was initially launched) was critical. I had worked for a while in the telecoms business and noted this at the time. In fact I bought Apple stock on the day the iPhone was announced specifically because it had a visual voicemail feature. This was something we had built years before but could not get it on phones because the carriers liked to charge for the air time to listen to and delete voice mails. He also got AT&T to provide a reasonably cheap data plan. At the time you could either have a cheap plan with services the carrier had complete control over, OR you could have IP connectivity at a much higher price. This isn't something I'm rationalizing after the fact: I saw it happen, opened the Schwab web site, bought stock and made a nice profit. I had no notion of apps or nice browsers or decent touch screens being key at the time. There were no apps on the iPhone initially but they had long existed for WM Nokia BB etc.
Re: The war Microsoft should have won
#38Single major innovation in iPhone was ability to perform reasonably high precision user interaction using grossly imprecise input method, i.e. Human thumbs. My theory is that people in WinMo team didn't used iPhone when it came out because everyone carried WinMo in their pocket. I think most people just didn't believed it was perfectly possible to use touch keyboard with thumbs with reasonable precision. So the react…
The capacitive touch screen is a major factor however I believe it was Steve Jobs ability to break carrier control (in the USA, where the iPhone was initially launched) was critical. I had worked for a while in the telecoms business and noted this at the time. In fact I bought Apple stock on the day the iPhone was announced specifically because it had a visual voicemail feature. This was something we had built years…
The data plan was insane. Year before I had a Palm and it cost $45 vs. $20 for the iPhone. Sure it was 2G, but the things you could do were so compelling.
Being on the road, starting a download for an app at one stoplight and being able to use it by the time I got to the next stop light... that was an epiphany.
Re: The war Microsoft should have won
#39They lost because their ultimate strategy was "All Roads Lead to Windows." This is what handcuffed all their talented developers and product managers into creating extremely inferior products. The ones that had freedom from the Windows ecosystem, like X-Box, did relatively well in terms of competitiveness. Steve Ballmer was stuck in his dinosaur thinking and couldn't see the writing on the wall. The break away from t…
> Steve Ballmer was stuck in his dinosaur thinking and couldn't see the writing on the wall.
How can you see the writing on the wall when you're busing laughing at the competition with your eyes closed. I recall that he even laughed at Android.
Re: The war Microsoft should have won
#40I have bought a Lumia just to play around with the WinRT platform, as was positively impressed by the SDK and Visual Studio tooling, versus the usual chaos of Android releases specially for NDK users.
The C++/CX + XAML experience feels like Visual C++ finally catching up with C++ Builder and finally becoming visual.
Also the component model allows for an easy interaction between .NET, JavaScript and C++, similar to Objective-C++ / JavaScript Core on iOS.
So I really like the WinRT model.
But alas, with all the mid-steps specially the last one of ditching the 512MB Lumias, Microsoft should just drop WP from the UWP supported platforms.