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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

#121

Post by pjmlp »

idonotknowwhy wrote: post #99
oblio wrote: post #18

For me the saddest thing is not Windows Phone going away, it's Nokia not going all the way with their Qt based Linux distro, Meego. I had a Nokia N9 smartphone, the UI was amazing. It took 5 (I think?) years for iOS and Android to sort of copy the gesture based UI, badly. Damn internal corporate politics at Nokia.

Elop was clearly a mole. I use the Nokia N9 alarm clock was an example of a perfect piece of software.

This keeps being told.

It was the Nokia board that decided to hire him.

It was the Nokia board that gave him a contract with a bonus clause if he managed to sell Nokia Mobiles business unit, as discussed on the Finn press at the time.

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

#122

Post by faeriechangling »

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?

The AirPods audio switching between devices for me is a KILLER feature, although Google is cloning it. Yes I’m aware Bluetooth multipoint exists.

They just improved the performance too.

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

#123

Post by pjmlp »

chithanh wrote: post #110
CSMastermind wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lacking 3rd party apps was more of a symptom than a root cause in my opinion. Instead of being scrappy and trying to do whatever it took to gain marketshare in an area they were behind in they put a ton of limitations on their platform and it tanked adoption because the people who were willing to switch and try something new were by definition people who were going to be frustrated with this behavior. Things like not…

Microsoft both directly and indirectly turned app developers away from Windows Phone. Mobile games at the time were all OpenGL ES, which Microsoft refused to support in favor of Direct3D. Then there was Microsoft's perpetual need to start over. WM6.5 to WP7 broke app compatibility. WP7 to WP8, entirely new APIs. WP8 to WM10 there was UWP and Continuum, again forcing major rewrites if you wanted the new features. And…

There was no lack of games, Valve even needs to emulate DirectX and Win32, as Android developers couldn't care less about Steam Deck.

The rewrites across multiple versions, that is what killed the desire to target the devices.

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

#124

Post by NewJazz »

zerr wrote: post #35
oblio wrote: post #18

For me the saddest thing is not Windows Phone going away, it's Nokia not going all the way with their Qt based Linux distro, Meego. I had a Nokia N9 smartphone, the UI was amazing. It took 5 (I think?) years for iOS and Android to sort of copy the gesture based UI, badly. Damn internal corporate politics at Nokia.

Nokia acquisition of Trolltech gave us LGPL Qt.

Which I guess later gave rise to Unity8/UBPorts, or at least factored in.

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

#125

Post by pjmlp »

fooker wrote: post #114
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?

Marketing and sales department, unfortunely.

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

#126

Post by pjmlp »

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?

Plenty of them, at least for software developers targeting Apple demographics.

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

#127

Post by mackrevinack »

ravenstine wrote: post #36

I never understood Microsoft's desire to use "Windows" in their mobile device marketing. That might have barely made sense back when computing was dominated by geeks, but nobody in 2023 truly cares whether their phone runs a form of Windows, just as they wouldn't care if an iPhone runs iOS instead of macOS; they want a device that does the things they want. Windows today represents more of a necessary evil than somet…

the name was a bit of a mouthful as well "windows phone 7 series". or even worse if "microsoft's" had to be added at the start of it

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

#128

Post by iforgotpassword »

VyseofArcadia wrote: post #86
jnwatson wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Microsoft tried the Kinect for 13 years. How long are they supposed to let a product run? It was a cool tech solution in search of a problem.

You're glossing over a big part of the story. It is hard, really, really hard, to convince game developers and publishers to make games that require an optional accessory. It's been tried again and again and it is never more than a mild success and usually an abject failure. They want to target the base platform, which will always have a dramatically larger install base. Thr original Kinect was just such an optional…

No, there is absolutely no way to integrate the Kinect into games in a meaningful way. Name just one example where it was done so that you would think "wow this has potential". Throwing grenades by gesture in call of duty? Biggest LOL ever. When I'm playing a competitive multiplayer title, I want precise, quick controls, and not let go of my controller to gesture around like a brain-damaged monkey.

With Kinect, you had to make a game that was entirely designed around it, and not have some random mix where you play with the controller and occasionally use gestures. And there really only are so many types of games you can come up with where it doesn't feel like you made something for the Kinect just for the sake of it..

I think the market tried quite a few things with Kinect on the 360, and the most convincing game to me was dance central, because it didn't entirely feel like a casual game with a bit of tech-demo scent, where you'd lose interest after a week and then maybe only ever pull it out again when you have friends over.

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

#129

Post by diarrhea »

gardenhedge wrote: post #20
Clamchop wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Isn't Bing now a competitor to Google? It's results are nearly as good and Bing Chat is available to users and will soon be rolled out to enterprises.

My org forces ChatGPT to be used through Bing Chat when internal company data is involved. It’s an avalanche of popups, dialogues, links, “did you know”s, color and animations.

Quite unpleasant to use compared to just vanilla ChatGPT, which offers a zen-like experience in comparison.

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

#130

Post by tonyedgecombe »

pjmlp wrote: post #70
Bootvis wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looking for some advice here. I’d be interested to develop simple GUI’s at work. I don’t have much experience of that. I have a license for VS2015 to maintain legacy VB and C++ but I think an upgrade could be arranged. I’m comfortable doing web dev but the browser remains limiting. In my situation, would learning native gui development be worthwhile or is it much easier to stick to websites and/or Electron?

If on .NET, Windows Forms, WPF, or the community projects from Uno and Avalonia. For C++, you're better off with Qt, wxWidgets. You can use Visual Studio Community if the licence still fits your work, or in the case of Qt, Qt Creator alongside a recent VS or MinGW.

>For C++, you're better off with Qt, wxWidgets.

Only if you need cross platform.

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