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Satya Nadella admits giving up on Windows Phone and mobile was a mistake

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Re: Satya Nadella admits giving up on Windows Phone and mobile was a mistake

#111

Post by toast0 »

fy20 wrote: post #106
toast0 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Microsoft had an Android compatability layer in WM10 betas, as well as an iOS layer. They didn't launch either, afaik, running the apps without platform services isn't great, so then it's a push towards developers --- port your app to WM10 much easier... But there's still work, and IMHO, the user share on WM10 wasn't compelling enough for new developers to do the work. https://seekingalpha.com/article/3447036-microso…

They did actually release phones running Android with a Metro skin: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_X_family https://m.gsmarena.com/nokia_x-6067.php

Yeah, those weren't connected to windows phone really; it was something Nokia was playing with before the acquisition, although they may have launched after?

Forked Android with a Metro launcher and maybe they skinned the rest of the UI. I think I remember WhatsApp doing work to support them while I was there (anything Nokia made and didn't cancel before launching would have and sell enough units to matter), but I don't remember how hard we had to work; I'm guessing it didn't have google play services, but I don't remember if it had its own push services or if it just used long connections. I think maps/locations was weird because Nokia didn't hook the Google apis, so that was a bit tricky. I don't know if it could use the website distributed apk or if Nokia had an appstore, etc.

Re: Satya Nadella admits giving up on Windows Phone and mobile was a mistake

#112

Post by steve1977 »

alberth wrote: post #46
kevinventullo wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Read it as “Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella admits giving up on (Windows Phone and mobile) was a mistake”

My memory is fuzzy but was: Windows Phone == Nokia? Or was Windows Phone not Nokia?

It was not only Nokia.

Re: Satya Nadella admits giving up on Windows Phone and mobile was a mistake

#113

Post by steve1977 »

andrewmcwatters wrote: post #57

They’ve practically given up on Windows, too, considering it stays put while macOS continues year by year to improve by adding useful features and ecosystem integration.

I’ve been using macOS at home for about 23 years now, but what was the last really useful new feature they added?

Re: Satya Nadella admits giving up on Windows Phone and mobile was a mistake

#114

Post by fooker »

andrewmcwatters wrote: post #57

They’ve practically given up on Windows, too, considering it stays put while macOS continues year by year to improve by adding useful features and ecosystem integration.

I was horrified with the out of the box experience of Windows 11.

How did this shitshow get past hundreds of developersc, testers, and product managers?

Re: Satya Nadella admits giving up on Windows Phone and mobile was a mistake

#115

Post by colordrops »

com2kid wrote: post #75
simonh wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Microsoft thought the way you do for years after the iPhone came out. They thought they’d be fine competing using CE based systems. They completely underestimated the advantages a modern, secure, pre-emptive multitasking OS with proper process isolation, fine grained multi threading, and all the other features you get that a workstation class Unix OS bring to the table. That 8MB footprint sound great, until you consi…

CE6 and 7 had all of those. From CE6 onwards, CE was a fully modern OS. Not only that, it was a brand new OS written from the ground up that was designed to be modular and battery efficient. Sadly it never got a chance to shine, as internal politics killed it.

The UI was a joke though, and that's arguably one of the most important elements of a mobile OS.

Re: Satya Nadella admits giving up on Windows Phone and mobile was a mistake

#116

Post by chithanh »

kyriakos wrote: post #50

If I am not mistaken Windows Phone had some steep competition from Google, Google was actively trying to block any of its services (e.g. youtube) from working on the platform. With popularity of google products at the time it was very hard to convince people to stick to the platform.

About YouTube, Microsoft could have done the same as Amazon on the Fire devices, put the website into an app. Instead they used some non-public API to access videos, presumably due to the deficiencies of their browser engine. Of course Google shut that down.

Re: Satya Nadella admits giving up on Windows Phone and mobile was a mistake

#117

Post by pjmlp »

m_mueller wrote: post #108
pjmlp wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, if one wants to have fun debugging all the issues that are still open since Project Reunion was announced in 2020, with less capable tooling than .NET Native and C++/CX, specially fun having to deal with CsWinRT and C++/WinRT, the latter already in maintenance, stuck in C++17, as the team is now having fun with Rust/WinRT. At least Native AOT might support WinUI in .NET 9, something to look forward to, for anyo…

I think the alphabet soup thrown around in this thread alone is indicative for what‘s wrong with Microsoft‘s native user interface story…

I can throw similar alphabet soups from other ecosystems, either one is in and gets them, or not.

Re: Satya Nadella admits giving up on Windows Phone and mobile was a mistake

#118

Post by chithanh »

steve1977 wrote: post #113
andrewmcwatters wrote: post #57

They’ve practically given up on Windows, too, considering it stays put while macOS continues year by year to improve by adding useful features and ecosystem integration.

I’ve been using macOS at home for about 23 years now, but what was the last really useful new feature they added?

Just to name an example: There is excellent integration between iDevices.

With Windows you have Phone Link which allows access to messages and notifications, but it is a far cry from Apple Continuity. For things like access to the phone camera you still need 3rd party software.

Re: Satya Nadella admits giving up on Windows Phone and mobile was a mistake

#120

Post by [deleted] »

Clamchop wrote: post #7
damiankennedy wrote: post #2

I really liked my windows phone. The colourful live tiles and the physical design were great. What it lacked was 3rd party apps.

And it never got that ecosystem because of inscrutable mismanagement so scatterbrained and perplexing that I can't wait for the insider-tells-all book about this post-iPhone period at Microsoft that I assume will arrive in a decade or two. Zune, Phone, Surface, Windows 8, Windows RT, Bing, Cortana, Continuum, Project Astoria, I'm sure I'm forgetting. Apple and Google execs must have been amused.

[deleted]
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