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Microsoft gives up on Windows 10 Mobile

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Microsoft gives up on Windows 10 Mobile

#141

Post by pjmlp »

shadowmint wrote: post #55

This surprises no one. I'm more interested in: what's the future for UWP apps now? Another dead end like silverlight? A cross platform UI library that runs on .Net core (ie. windows, mac, linux, android, ios), some kind of hybrid of ??? and Xamarin forms could potentially be quite a nice tool... but its pretty hard to be excited about the prospect with their track record of killed off UI frameworks so far.

Currently they are still pushing it as the future, with Desktop Bridge being a stepping stone to migrate Win32 apps into UWP.

Re: Microsoft gives up on Windows 10 Mobile

#142

Post by JTenerife »

I remember when they tried to push the first version of Windows Phone out of the gates. I think it was 2008 or 2009. Then - as to be expected with that ambitious projects - they already had big delays. What happened then is a good example of how big companies seem to have problems taking the necessary radical steps when projects don't perform. I've experienced this at my employee. Only that the project I have in mind is more than 10 years heavily underperforming while spending easily over a billion dollars. Microsoft seemed to let the Windows Phone project keep going pretty much the same way as it started ... same project lead, probably a lot of the same people. What happens than typically is that good people don't work on this kind of projects.

Then the whole Nokia mess ... what a sad story.

I remember when I finally gave up any hope for Windows Phone: It was when I read that Samsung and HTC ought to pay license fee to Microsoft. That was probably the biggest mistake in Microsoft's history. They should have payed them 50 $ per sold Smartphone with Windows Phone on it.

Anyway - I still have a Windows Phone from my employee and like it.

Re: Microsoft gives up on Windows 10 Mobile

#143

Post by snomad »

shadowmint wrote: post #55

This surprises no one. I'm more interested in: what's the future for UWP apps now? Another dead end like silverlight? A cross platform UI library that runs on .Net core (ie. windows, mac, linux, android, ios), some kind of hybrid of ??? and Xamarin forms could potentially be quite a nice tool... but its pretty hard to be excited about the prospect with their track record of killed off UI frameworks so far.

I guess that will depend on Widnows Store, if that is working, even a little, I would guess UWP is safe. The fall creator's update has some nice new features -including SQL and acrylic - it will be interesting to watch adoption rates over the next year

Re: Microsoft gives up on Windows 10 Mobile

#144

Post by isolli »

herbst wrote: post #95
richardwhiuk wrote: post #3

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.

Just one example: every few weeks I need to manually remove old images as described here [0], otherwise security updates won't be installed. Four versions and four years later, it's still not fixed.

[0] https://askubuntu.com/questions/298487/not-enough-free-disk-...

Re: Microsoft gives up on Windows 10 Mobile

#145

Post by pjmlp »

ep103 wrote: post #139
pjmlp wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Xamarin.Forms is currently available for iOS, Android, UWP.

At .NET Conf 2017 they announced support for macOS, Linux and WPF. And demoed macOS and Linux current status.

While previously at BUILD 2017 they announced XAML Standard for interoperability between WPF, UWP and Xamarin.Forms.

Which kind of implies it is the way forward.

Re: Microsoft gives up on Windows 10 Mobile

#146

Post by DrBazza »

What Microsoft did wrong: charge for the OS, and then rewrite it.

I had a Samsung Omnia 7, and it was still the best phone I've had, in the sense that the UI was fast, obvious, and well thought out.

Then they brought out Windows 8 mobile. And abandoned all hardware that ran Windows 7 mobile. And messed around with a working UI and broke the 'experience' (ghastly buzzword).

And all the while, trying to fight Android which was free, and Apple that just has a cult of users that will buy the new phone regardless.

Re: Microsoft gives up on Windows 10 Mobile

#147

Post by OoooooooO »

herbst wrote: post #95
richardwhiuk wrote: post #3

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.

Ubuntu did not enable the energy saving options by default on my notebook and did not install the wifi drivers out of the box.

Which was a "bit" painful because the office is wifi only and getting online then is impossible. Had to hunt down the driver, put it on a stick and install them. Never again.

And the laptop was 5+ years old ...

Re: Microsoft gives up on Windows 10 Mobile

#148

Post by owebmaster »

michaelbuckbee wrote: post #72

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 didn't fail. You are not seeing their moviment with React Native & open source ecosystem (and the people saying that FB is doing "free" work aren't seeing this either, as FB is looking for a big chunk in the app development, and getting it).

Re: Microsoft gives up on Windows 10 Mobile

#149

Post by eloisant »

nailer wrote: post #138
michaelbuckbee wrote: post #72

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?

I guess the Facebook Home app was the tip of the iceberg that we saw?

Re: Microsoft gives up on Windows 10 Mobile

#150

Post by microtonal »

michaelbuckbee wrote: post #72

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…

But without the deep app ecosystem backing them up,

But there was also a genuine sense of excitement about Windows Phone 7, they had some single-digit marketshare, the other ecosystems were not as big as they are now, and Android was pretty bad at the time.

I think one of their fatal mistakes was the Windows Phone 7 -> Windows Phone 8 transition where they left many early adopters out in the cold (IIRC none of the WP7 phones could run WP8).

I agree that building an ecosystem was a large part of the problem, but Microsoft also messed up royally by making a hard cut in the platform when it was just starting to take off.

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