Live data from Hacker News

Microsoft gives up on Windows 10 Mobile

bbc.co.uk

131–140 of 724 posts

Re: Microsoft gives up on Windows 10 Mobile

#131

I was working in Microsoft about 5 years ago and Satya's not lying when they say they tried everything to incentivise app developers. It was a big focus of the company at the time. For keystone apps they tried to partner with developers doing most of the work for them. For more niche apps they ran promotions for students and independent developers giving away free phones etc. But nothing was enough to get over the pr…

A couple of years ago we sent two people to a meeting at Microsoft to talk about a port of an existing Android/iOS app. The work was already funded so we were really just hoping for a free phone or two.

The report I heard back was that they treated it as an opportunity to try to sell us Office 365.

(The port never happened because the client's plans to roll out Windows phone to their staff fell through some time later.)

Re: Microsoft gives up on Windows 10 Mobile

#132
post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We'll see. I think the netstandard -> all platforms approach, combined with the aggressive depreciation of old .Net 4.6.x versions is a road map for the future. Maintaining two entire release chains, the 4.x and the .Net core 2.x, is an impossible long term strategy. I would be absolutely astonished if the 4.x line is quietly folded away and depreciated ('unsupported') once the netstandard surface area means the code…

What the heck can replace winforms and wpf apps though? I've seen them promote at least 2 different technologies since the first time I heard WPF was dying, and both of them are dead already, so far as I can tell.

Apparently Xamarin.Forms, from the .NET Conf 2017 roadmap talks.

Re: Microsoft gives up on Windows 10 Mobile

#133
Joe Belfiore wholly missed the problem. Microsoft didn't need apps. Most people using Windows Mobile had enough apps. But the last Verizon phone which could run Windows came out three years ago. People left Windows because they didn't have any options. Had Microsoft kept Nokia intact, even in a reduced size state, Windows Mobile would probably still have it's 5% or so market share.

Re: Microsoft gives up on Windows 10 Mobile

#134
post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Windows is extremely well sunk into the enterprise market, and neither Linux nor Mac are at all focusing sufficiently on it to displace them. Linux isn't user friendly enough, and Mac's support policy is a complete no go for enterprise.

If a Ubuntu in 2017 isn't user friendly I really don't know what that phrase is even supposed to mean.

I lost access to my netbook $HOME, when Ubuntu just refused to acknowledge the existence the file system after freezing in X.

It required a boot direct into the GRUB root console and running fsck from there.

Not something that regular macOS and Windows users expect as user friendly.

Re: Microsoft gives up on Windows 10 Mobile

#135
post #122

I don't think the problem was primarily the lack of apps but a major reason to use Windows mobile. With iOS you get the high end hardware and deep integration with Apple's ecosystem. With Android you get deep integration with Google's services and a wide range of devices in prices and features. What did you get with Windows mobile?

You got high-quality cameras on Nokia Lumia phones. Which apparently was not enough...

Re: Microsoft gives up on Windows 10 Mobile

#136
post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As seemingly ubiquitous as Macbooks are, their market share has never really budged. It's been 3-5% for the entirety of the OS X era.

That's because there has never been a <$999 MacBook. If you purely start to look at the Ultrabook segment then MacBooks have an absolutely staggering market share.

I seldom see any Macs around in most southern European countries, but I do see ultrabook PCs running Windows like the Asus ones.

Re: Microsoft gives up on Windows 10 Mobile

#137
While WM was clunky at least you could run any random piece of software you wanted. Then Microsoft tried to copy apple. I think if they had put a relatively open OS and sold highend phones for $200-300 bucks I think they could have made it. They probably would have had to sink billions and billions, but they could have done it. Look at Xbox its viable platform today.

Re: Microsoft gives up on Windows 10 Mobile

#138

Windows Mobile is my favorite example of ecosystems being more valuable than individual user experiences. They came out later and really managed to hit a bright spot in between the customizability of Android and the sleekness of iOS. But without the deep app ecosystem backing them up, I'm not sure we're going to see any new players emerge in this current form factor of mobile computing. So far we've seen: - Amazon fa…

> Facebook fail (killed internally)

Interesting. What was the Facebook mobile OS?

Re: Microsoft gives up on Windows 10 Mobile

#139
post #132
post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What the heck can replace winforms and wpf apps though? I've seen them promote at least 2 different technologies since the first time I heard WPF was dying, and both of them are dead already, so far as I can tell.

Apparently Xamarin.Forms, from the .NET Conf 2017 roadmap talks.

lol, so not only is the replacement technology none of the tech previously promised to replace wpf / winform, its a piece of tech that is still roadmapped?

Yeah, I don't think winform / wpf is going anywhere quite yet.

Re: Microsoft gives up on Windows 10 Mobile

#140

Windows Mobile is my favorite example of ecosystems being more valuable than individual user experiences. They came out later and really managed to hit a bright spot in between the customizability of Android and the sleekness of iOS. But without the deep app ecosystem backing them up, I'm not sure we're going to see any new players emerge in this current form factor of mobile computing. So far we've seen: - Amazon fa…

- Amazon fail - Microsoft fail - Facebook fail (killed internally)

All fail at providing anything like a competitive answer to Android and iOS dominance.

It still seems like another way of failing. Microsoft tried a different OS from scratch, while Facebook and Amazon just versioned Android-

Post reply on HN