Microsoft gives up on Windows 10 Mobile • Hacker News Board

Re: Microsoft gives up on Windows 10 Mobile

#321

Post by criddell » Mon, Oct 09, 2017, 4:48 PM UTC

narrator wrote: post #244

dtx1 wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worked 3 years as a windows phone dev and i'm sorry to say but Microsofts efforts were ... almost insultingly bad. It started with windows phone 8 and the Metro UI. Bad Idea. The UI was too far away from Android/iPhone to be easily ported and adding corporate design to it was hard as it was too different. Silverlight and XAML was okay for the time. Then came windows 8.1 and windows desktop 8 which was universally h…

The thing about the MS platforms that has always been an issue is that they change the developer APIs around all the time. Every year they come out with the latest greatest way to access a database or whatever and it really isn't that much better than what they had last year, but it still requires a rewrite.

In Microsoft's defense, they also tend to support their stuff for a long time. I work with MFC every day. It's 20+ years old and still being developed.

Re: Microsoft gives up on Windows 10 Mobile

#322

Post by pjmlp » Mon, Oct 09, 2017, 4:48 PM UTC

jhasse wrote: post #264

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…

You know what would have been an incentive for me (and I guess thousand of other game devs) to support windows phone? Support for OpenGL ES.

So now with Apple leaving GL ES in the dust as legacy API, are you going to stop targeting iOS?

Just as side note, Microsoft did port ANGLE to WP.

Re: Microsoft gives up on Windows 10 Mobile

#323

Post by thibran » Mon, Oct 09, 2017, 4:49 PM UTC

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.

Publishing software – especially close source software – for Linux has always been, and still is, a huge pain. Beside all the nightmarish things you have to do to package something.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5PmHRSeA2c8&feature=youtu.be...

Re: Microsoft gives up on Windows 10 Mobile

#324

Post by hinkley » Mon, Oct 09, 2017, 4:49 PM UTC

rodorgas wrote: post #198

tomaskafka wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure it would have helped. Any rational high-profile dev will compute that 70 % * 100 000 downloads is better that 100 % of 1000 downloads.

Sure, but it's not like they have to choose one or another. And 100% of 1000 downloads is better than 70% of 1000 downloads.

This reminds me of an interview question I "failed" once.

If you can't live with either of them, it doesn't matter. It's pointless to rank them. There are much better problems to put energy into. Like where to go for lunch.

Re: Microsoft gives up on Windows 10 Mobile

#325

Post by dpark » Mon, Oct 09, 2017, 4:50 PM UTC

wdn wrote: post #294

Microsoft got a chance to steal market shares and established themselves as an alternative to iOS and Android when they introduced Lumia 950 and 950XL. I really think the device were great. However, they made the fatal mistake on this, the price point. They priced the 950/950XL same as iPhone and Android flagship phones. Yes, I do understand the 950 and 950 XL have flagship hardware, however, you do not priced it as…

> Microsoft got a chance to steal market shares and established themselves as an alternative to iOS and Android when they introduced Lumia 950 and 950XL.

The hardware was never the problem. Lots of great devices shipped with Windows Phone.

(Disclosure: Microsoft employee)

Re: Microsoft gives up on Windows 10 Mobile

#326

Post by chickenbane » Mon, Oct 09, 2017, 4:50 PM UTC

hitgeek wrote: post #317

"incentivize app devs". as an early adopter I felt abandoned. I was all in on windows mobile around v7 and windows8. bought the flagship lumia phone and surface rt tablet. invested the time to develop some basic apps. 6 months later both platforms were basically discontinued with no upgrade path, so I abandoned it too. if microsoft had just made an enterprise successor to blackberry, instead of trying to make a consu…

Sorry you feel abandoned. However, as you say you are an early adopter you should recognize this is a strong (even likely?) possibility.

Yes, if the platform you invest in early is a success you can reap many rewards. But the mobile OS market has killed many platforms, and even a successful company like Microsoft can't guarantee success.

We can play what-ifs in hindsight, but it's not like Microsoft was late to the game. I remember Windows CE and Pocket PC. My guess (and hope) is for Microsoft to make an Android phone. They just announced a launcher, so fingers crossed!

Re: Microsoft gives up on Windows 10 Mobile

#327

Post by slinkyavenger » Mon, Oct 09, 2017, 4:50 PM UTC

pjc50 wrote: post #184

jk2323 wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is my understanding that MS has given up on ARM. Sooner or later there will be x86 based phones, which partly solves the "app" problem. They just run a regular windows on the phone.

I've got one in my pocket right now: Asus Zenfone 2. It just runs regular Android. Even has an "Intel Inside" logo on the back. Windows has never had great dynamic scaling, so trying to run regular apps on a phone would be a nightmare of tiny click targets. Metro apps would scale better, but that was the whole point of UWP. IMO they've given up slightly too early. They could have written an Android-on-Windows compati…

> Android-on-Windows compatibility layer

This was one of the big mistakes made by OS/2 when they were competing against Windows. They created a compatibility layer for Windows applications, which meant that developers never wrote native apps for their platform, leading to a very poor user experience and gave Windows a leg-up on its competition. I doubt Microsoft wants to make the same mistake.

Re: Microsoft gives up on Windows 10 Mobile

#328

Post by ngold » Mon, Oct 09, 2017, 4:52 PM UTC

Apple was the 1st and got to dictate the terms of their walled garden. The told Adobe from day 1 to get lost with flash, but for a wall it had walls amazingly low for what had been tried in the past. And people lost their minds with excitement, except those pesky open source kids.

Google looked around and said we want in but how? Get rid of the wall and let any carrier and everyone use it. All the carrier's saw they could never get to market as fast and cheap as this so they begrudgingly accepteded in the face of Iphone taking huge marketshare an growing.

MS came late with an expensive phone, a walled garden and no software(but hey kid why don't you build some for me for free). What were they expecting?

I guarantee that they would have loved to tie your phone to an Xbox live account and make you pay 15 a month to text. That was probably the end goal and they were trying to work backwards towards it.

Re: Microsoft gives up on Windows 10 Mobile

#329

Post by marindez » Mon, Oct 09, 2017, 4:52 PM UTC

rchaud wrote: post #233

Had Microsoft's acquisition strategy been different, they could have significantly boosted WM's hopes. The lack of official apps for Whatsapp and Instagram on WP were user's biggest complaints by far. Facebook bought Instagram in 2012 and Whatsapp in 2014 for a combined total of $20 billion. In roughly the same period, Microsoft bought Skype, Minecraft and LinkedIn for a total of around $36 billion, the bulk of that…

An official WhatsApp app has existed since forever and is actively maintained. You probably mean Snapchat?

Re: Microsoft gives up on Windows 10 Mobile

#330

Post by legulere » Mon, Oct 09, 2017, 4:52 PM UTC

unethical_ban wrote: post #194

CaptSpify wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone that only works on linux systems.... The state of Linux is not great. We still can't get the basics like sound, wifi, etc out of the box. I get why it's a problem, and it's generally not the fault of Linux devs, but it's still a problem that turns people away. I really want to see Linux take over on the desktop, but turning a blind eye to our problems is a poor way to do it.

>We still can't get the basics like sound, wifi, etc out of the box. Complete and total fabrication. Video for gaming is still trouble, but I have no more issue with Linux wifi or sound output than I do with Windows. In fact, Linux networking to me is better than Windows.

Channel 12/13 don't work and 5GHz wifi does not work the last time I tried.

Usually you can make things kind of work, but a lot of things do not properly function 100% out of the box.