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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

#301

Post by NiveaGeForce »

mtgx wrote: post #63
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.

UWP apps wouldn't be so bad for Windows if maybe Microsoft extended their functionality a little and kept improving their performance. However, what scares me to death as a user is that if UWP is let's say super-popular with developers 5-10 years from now, and everyone builds their apps as UWP apps for Windows, then Microsoft will eventually restrict "normal" users (read: most "consumer" Windows machines) from even s…

Adobe XD is a fully featured professional UWP creative app, distributed outside the store

http://www.adobe.com/products/experience-design.html

Re: Microsoft gives up on Windows 10 Mobile

#302

Post by jhbadger »

JamesUtah07 wrote: post #269
toast0 wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The lack of apps was annoying at time, but what made me leave was probably Microsoft Edge. The rendering was clearly better than IE, but Edge would crash my phone, or become non responsive, or both so often (creators update on Lumia 640 LTE). If the browser doesn't work, and there are no apps, it doesn't make sense to have the phone.

I don't understand why Microsoft has keep IE/Edge around. It's just embarrassing. Event my technology illiterate friends and family rag on IE and everyone installs chrome these days. If they spend less time building IE and focused on other platforms they'd waste a lot less time for everyone including themselves.

They need it for the same reason Apple needs Safari. And why the European Union needs their GPS competitor Galileo. It's dangerous to put all your trust into a tool controlled by a competitor, even if they are playing nice with you at the moment.

Re: Microsoft gives up on Windows 10 Mobile

#303

Post by pjmlp »

izacus wrote: post #275
pjmlp wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I only see a value on .NET apps on Android for those companies planning to do both iOS and Android, or re-using existing .NET code. For those just targeting Android, specially given the global market share, they are better off with plain Java/Kotlin + NDK, than adding yet another layer to debug and extra APK size.

".NET apps on Android/iOS" are actually a very popular thing - the framework is just named Xamarin instead of .NET.

As I said, in the context of targeting both iOS and Android it makes sense, but OP meant targeting only Android.

And despite my advocacy, when targeting both mobile OSes, customers at enterprise level tend to pick Ionic or pure Web approaches, despite the lower UX.

Re: Microsoft gives up on Windows 10 Mobile

#304

Post by mark-r »

throwaway613834 wrote: post #242
pm90 wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its a free market, and the market has spoken. I think its the right strategy for MS to accept that the market is just not going to accommodate yet another mobile ecosystem. And its not for lack of trying: they've been trying for over a decade now to break into the mobile OS market. They had tablets running a version of Windows much before iPad; they had "Smartphones" running windows much before 2007. There's gotta be…

Wow, I didn't even know Intel was a RAM chip maker before doing microprocessors... or that Microsoft started with BASIC. Thanks for the historical notes!

OK, now you're making me feel old. I knew those things through personal experience.

I suppose you didn't know that HP made calculators either?

Re: Microsoft gives up on Windows 10 Mobile

#305

Post by NiveaGeForce »

criddell wrote: post #285
Const-me wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Windows is terrible from a security and power consumption point of view Windows is way ahead in both security and power efficiency. About security, here’s an example: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10410833 In Windows, clipboard access was restricted to foreground app since WP7. About power efficiency, WP is very restrictive on what apps can do in background. See this: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library…

I'm talking about x86 Windows. Windows Phone is dead. The fact that a viable mobile OS has to be restrictive about background operations is exactly what I was talking about when I said they can't fix it without breaking everything.

But they already fixed it https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15434931

Re: Microsoft gives up on Windows 10 Mobile

#306

Post by zuminator »

wlesieutre wrote: post #152
wmeredith wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did everything they could... Ah, yes. $100 per app. I'm sure that's what most apps cost to produce. /s It seems like they did a few things, but never actually, you know, paid app developers to build out their ecosystem.

Hey, if you're optimizing for "number of apps on our store" I bet it worked great! Why spend $100,000 developing something one app when you could get 1000 for the same price?!

Instead of paying per app, would make more sense to let devs keep 90% of store revenue, which would incentivize the development of apps that are actually popular and make money.

Re: Microsoft gives up on Windows 10 Mobile

#307

Post by slimshady94 »

ssully wrote: post #79
nathantotten wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a stretch IMO. I was working there too at the time and the focus on apps was never as strong as it should have been. Yes, they paid out lots of money to get devs to build apps, but they never really dedicated the resources to building quality apps. The prime example was Facebook. This was an app built by Microsoft with FBs blessing, but it was always far behind in terms of features and quality. Developement o…

I was going to chime in a little on it being a stretch. One of the promotions for students they did was near the summer of 2012 or 2013. The promotion was you got paid 100 dollars for every app published on the Microsoft store limit 5 for the mobile store and 5 for the regular store. So a total limit of $1000. My school actually had a Microsoft rep run a workshop over a weekend showing students how to publish an app…

I was a student who had won a Lumia 800 around May of 2012. There was a promotion where anyone who submitted 4 apps to the appstore would get a phone - no 'win' involved, a guaranteed phone. It was one of the best promotions I'd ever seen, and I promptly churned out 4 soundboard apps in a week.

Re: Microsoft gives up on Windows 10 Mobile

#308

Post by hinkley »

nathantotten wrote: post #121
nova22033 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Had Microsoft put quality dev teams on building high quality third-party apps I think the chances of success would have greatly improved. For one app? For an app they would have to give away for free? For an app that would always be behind the FB built ios/android apps?

You have to consider this in the context at the time. Yes it would have been expensive, but Microsoft was investing BILLIONS into Windows Phone. Microsoft and partners spent something like $700 million dollars just on marketing for the launch of Windows Phone 7[1,2]. To spend that kind of money on marketing and then not dedicate resources to the actual product seems foolish. And I am not saying they should have done…

    To spend that kind of money on marketing and then not dedicate resources to the actual product seems foolish.
Sounds like a Hollywood strategy to me. Overadvertise a stinker to try to recoup your investment.

Re: Microsoft gives up on Windows 10 Mobile

#309

Post by Rjevski »

godzillabrennus wrote: post #88
itsmenotyou wrote: post #30

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…

They even held a funeral for their competitors devices: https://www.engadget.com/2010/09/10/microsoft-celebrates-win... This didn't age well.

The walk of shame.
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