Bill Gates switches to Android phone • Hacker News Board

Re: Bill Gates switches to Android phone

#121

Post by pjmlp » Thu, Sep 28, 2017, 6:28 AM UTC

ansible wrote: post #53

Clubber wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was really hoping to have a full Windows 10 phone that ran x86-64 apps and you could then dock and use like a regular computer. I think Intel scuttled that idea when they dropped the mobile chip though. It could have been a game changer.

I've liked that sort of idea, but not really as it has been currently implemented. What I really want is just some way to maintain my 'working state' wherever I go. When I'm in front of a desk, I'll want to make best use of multiple screens, higher-speed networking and storage. And when mobile (on a phone or tablet) I still want to maintain my context, at least in terms of what I've been looking at on the browser, in…

That was project Rome from Microsoft

https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/project-rome

Re: Bill Gates switches to Android phone

#122

Post by pjmlp » Thu, Sep 28, 2017, 6:38 AM UTC

kettlecorn wrote: post #93

mobilio wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup! But they do this with version 6.5 then "rewrote apps" for 7, and then "rewrite apps" for 8 and now for 10. It's easy to understand why devs are pissed-off from that decisions. PS: I forgot fiasco with 7.5 and upgrade to 7.9 and 8.0

8 -> 8.1 was also a similar transition. There was a period where targeting the 8.0 APIs meant you had access to one set of features and targeting the 8.1 set of APIs meant you were missing certain features but gaining others. The constant rewrites was a nightmare from the developer perspective and prevented any traction being gained. The story of Windows Phone is full of similar bone-headed decisions in which Microso…

Fully agree with your point of view.

For a while WP devices actually had more market share than iPhone on some European countries, because they were the only affordable alternative to Android.

With all these missteps they managed to drive both the consumers that enjoyed WP, and Windows developers that had fun coding apps for it.

I have this gut feeling that since Windows 10 tablets and hybrids are actually more successful than Android based ones, they would like to try a "mini-tablet" that can make phone calls.

But they burned us so many times, that most likely it will be UWP apps that happen to run on such "mini-tablet" by accident, than being made explicitly for it.

Re: Bill Gates switches to Android phone

#123

Post by pjmlp » Thu, Sep 28, 2017, 6:41 AM UTC

drzaiusapelord wrote: post #86

bmsleight_ wrote: post #43

Wow, I guess 10 years ago - if I said Mr Gates would be walking around with a Linux device as his most often used 'computer' - no one would have believed me. What next ?

Its not like he had much choice. Adopting Apple, his historic competitor, would have been too much of an ego bruising for him. Linux is more neutral to MS anyway. MS never had a lock on the server market that linux is successful in. The home computer front has always been under attack by Apple with varying results. Especially today where owning an Apple computer isn't just for 'designers.' Pretty much every college s…

> MS never had a lock on the server market that linux is successful in.

Only because Linux happened, businesses were happily moving from proprietary UNIXes into Windows NT and 2000.

Re: Bill Gates switches to Android phone

#124

Post by pjmlp » Thu, Sep 28, 2017, 6:42 AM UTC

ThrowawayR2 wrote: post #46

Jedd wrote: post #11

There's a mild delight in noting that Microsoft failed to break into someone else's platform stranglehold. Personally I wasn't sad to see it fail to obtain a place in the market. Disclaimer -- I've never used a Microsoft phone. Indeed, I only know one person that had one - and even then it was an employer decision. Nor have I ever heard anyone wish out loud that their phone was more like their Microsoft Windows compu…

> There's a mild delight in noting that Microsoft failed to break into someone else's platform stranglehold. You're forgetting that Microsoft _was_ the smartphone leader around the time of Windows Mobile 5 and 6, after defeating Palm. At one time, there were over 100 models of of Windows Mobile phones on the market. (Android's fragmentation problem was entirely foreseeable because it happened to WM first.) They lost…

Not on Europe, we were happily using Symbian based phones.

Re: Bill Gates switches to Android phone

#125

Post by drzaiusapelord » Thu, Sep 28, 2017, 2:56 PM UTC

pjmlp wrote: post #123

drzaiusapelord wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its not like he had much choice. Adopting Apple, his historic competitor, would have been too much of an ego bruising for him. Linux is more neutral to MS anyway. MS never had a lock on the server market that linux is successful in. The home computer front has always been under attack by Apple with varying results. Especially today where owning an Apple computer isn't just for 'designers.' Pretty much every college s…

> MS never had a lock on the server market that linux is successful in. Only because Linux happened, businesses were happily moving from proprietary UNIXes into Windows NT and 2000.

Linux ate proprietary Unix, not Windows. Windows "servers" domination as listed by garner and others were tiny office NT4 domains back then, not internet facing websites and such. The web never really got dominated by MS and Unix and Linux always strangled MS in the cradle. Even stats by netcraft are misleading. Sure you'll see a lot of small business IIS crap and Exchange OWA, but that's no the web in general. The web has always been dominated by linux/Unix.

Re: Bill Gates switches to Android phone

#126

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Sep 28, 2017, 5:12 PM UTC

drzaiusapelord wrote: post #125

pjmlp wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> MS never had a lock on the server market that linux is successful in. Only because Linux happened, businesses were happily moving from proprietary UNIXes into Windows NT and 2000.

Linux ate proprietary Unix, not Windows. Windows "servers" domination as listed by garner and others were tiny office NT4 domains back then, not internet facing websites and such. The web never really got dominated by MS and Unix and Linux always strangled MS in the cradle. Even stats by netcraft are misleading. Sure you'll see a lot of small business IIS crap and Exchange OWA, but that's no the web in general. The w…

[deleted]