Live data from Hacker News

Microsoft gives up on Windows 10 Mobile

bbc.co.uk

401–410 of 724 posts

Re: Microsoft gives up on Windows 10 Mobile

#401
post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Outlook+Exchange is really the thing keeping Microsoft alive.

And Active Directory. I mean, I haven't found another platform yet that allows a sysadmin to control 10,000+ computers at the OS level simultaneously via one checkbox. Clear area for disruption here. But it's IT stuff, so no one wants to touch it because it's not a cool selfie app.

MS has a bunch of patents related to active directory. Nobody wants to risk touching that.

Re: Microsoft gives up on Windows 10 Mobile

#402
post #372
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…

There's a semi-contradiction in your post that I think speaks to some of the issues MS had: "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 " "half-baked half-assed phone plattform that at no point had even a single feature that wasn't available better on iOS and Android" As someone who played around with WP7 when it first came out, I'd argu…

Thats imo no contradictions. Metro did things different but in no way better and felt severly restricted compared to android/ios ui design at the time. They banked on having everything look the same in the whole OS but never considered that certain apps just straight up wouldn't work with the metro UI concept.

Re: Microsoft gives up on Windows 10 Mobile

#403
post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Outlook+Exchange is really the thing keeping Microsoft alive.

And Active Directory. I mean, I haven't found another platform yet that allows a sysadmin to control 10,000+ computers at the OS level simultaneously via one checkbox. Clear area for disruption here. But it's IT stuff, so no one wants to touch it because it's not a cool selfie app.

Sysadmins aren't big fans of disruption either. You could build the greatest active-directory replacement in the world and no IT department would touch it with a ten foot pole because it isn't what they're used to.

Re: Microsoft gives up on Windows 10 Mobile

#404
post #372
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…

There's a semi-contradiction in your post that I think speaks to some of the issues MS had: "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 " "half-baked half-assed phone plattform that at no point had even a single feature that wasn't available better on iOS and Android" As someone who played around with WP7 when it first came out, I'd argu…

My wife had several Windows Phones in succession.

Her use of a phone is very practical: contacts, texting, weather information. All of this was available at a glance in a much much better way than either Android or the iPhone have. It was a better business UI.

It was harder to use if you had many apps. But seriously, having a phone open to the equivalent of Windows 3.1's Program Manager (which is what Android and iPhone deliver) is not great!

Re: Microsoft gives up on Windows 10 Mobile

#405
post #232
post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Didn't the iPhone launch US-only?

Original yes, but it also launched only on AT&T in US as well and wasn't all that successful. The real uptick in popularity started with IPhone 3G (with AppStore) which was available world wide.

I can't help but suspect that Jobs would have been happy to leave the iphone US exclusive if it had not been for the gray market of jailbroken phones.

Hell, i could have sworn he had to be talked down from lawyerbombing jailbreakers and cydia into the ground.

Re: Microsoft gives up on Windows 10 Mobile

#406

As much as I loved Windows Phone (I bought 4 of them), the app development side was never mature enough to take seriously by most professionals. The support from Microsoft on the development side was pretty limited, outside of "hey, we're MS, you need to do this!" At the time, the Metro theme seemed like a novel and interesting idea. In hindsight, mimicking the UX of iOS (which is exactly what Android did), was the c…

> My black Nokia 1020 with the recharging case sits in my desk. Worthless.

Can I have it? Since it's worthless and everything. I'll pay shipping.

Re: Microsoft gives up on Windows 10 Mobile

#407

Does anyone actually make money on the app Store? Either Desktop or Mobile? I have a niche desktop app that I'm thinking about porting. It's probably a few weeks worth of work. The 30% cut might be tolerable if I can increase the sales.

Am I shadowbanned? I can't see my comment from another account.

Re: Microsoft gives up on Windows 10 Mobile

#408
post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Outlook+Exchange is really the thing keeping Microsoft alive.

And Active Directory. I mean, I haven't found another platform yet that allows a sysadmin to control 10,000+ computers at the OS level simultaneously via one checkbox. Clear area for disruption here. But it's IT stuff, so no one wants to touch it because it's not a cool selfie app.

I wonder if that is what RH is gunning for by backing the likes of systemd and polkit.

Especially as they get more and more attention from the military-industrial complex.

Re: Microsoft gives up on Windows 10 Mobile

#409
post #29

This doesn't mean anything, to me. I just read "Windows 10 Mobile as a standalone OS is going away." Remember that Windows OneCore is a thing, and that Windows on Arm is a thing. They are eliminating all the "one-off" operating systems and consolidating all of the features into OneCore. I am not pining for Windows Mobile (despite owning several throughout the past decade) I just think that Windows OneCore will make W…

Might be, but given how they managed the whole story, they will get UWP apps that work by accident on phones. Just like Google and Apple get phone apps that work by accident on tablets, but feel out of place otherwise.

what do you mean "by accident?" UWP works across Windows 10 platforms by design.

Re: Microsoft gives up on Windows 10 Mobile

#410

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I stumbled over a few bugs in WPF (worked in WPF3.5, would hang in WPF4), which were, for at least 4 years, documented and "WONTFIX" with no acceptable workaround (workaround provided slows things down by a factor of 10 under some circumstances).

Maybe it's fixed with the reinvigorated WPF on Win10. I don't care anymore, but I do caution anyone to ever use any MS Technology younger than 15 years.

Post reply on HN