Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Deal That Makes No Sense

stratechery.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 165 posts

Re: The Deal That Makes No Sense

#101

Post by mikeash »

hobs wrote: post #93
Alphasite_ wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No it's not. People may forget, but they don't rebuy things repeatadly.

Hi there, as a former phone support/trainer for apple support, people definitely buy things repeatedly! I had one customer who thought each phone was effectively a burner, and he threw them out when he got a new one. He also made sure the apple store activated his phone (before all went that way) as he thought it was useless to have a computer with the phone (because why was he buying the phone then?). This story and…

Surely the Apple Store would set up the new phone with his existing Apple ID, though? Even if they didn't, most people only have one e-mail address (that they know of?) and so will be forced into using the same account again whether they like it or not.

Re: The Deal That Makes No Sense

#102

Post by marcosdumay »

discodave wrote: post #79
justincormack wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No need for a deal. Going windows phone only made Nokia unsaleable to anyone else anyway.

Except by somebody who had an interest in making WP go away... Although I'm sure there would be howls of protest and possibly regulatory issues with Google, Samsung or Apple buying Nokia.

WP is perfectly capable of going away by its own feet, nobody needs to help.

Re: The Deal That Makes No Sense

#103

Post by ZeroGravitas »

lnanek2 wrote: post #100
polemic wrote: post #11

> "...I think Microsoft ought to abandon Windows Phone. The war is over, and iOS and Android won." That's remarkably short-sighted. The first iPhone was released only 6 years ago, Android 5 years ago. You really think that Microsoft - a company with nearly infinite runway, an enormous R&D investment and serious history - is going to down tools after a few years of frustration? Not likely. The prize is too big and con…

And everyone thought XBox would be a consistent failure whereas the series ending up pioneering a lot of network service stuff and being well considered now.

Though many people think it still hasn't earned back the $20-odd billion investment that's been put into it, which makes it a failure by many definitions.

Re: The Deal That Makes No Sense

#105

Post by [deleted] »

chris_wot wrote: post #98
mkr-hn wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As Apple fans are often quick to point out when someone mentions Android's share, market share is not the only (or best) measure of a platform.

Except the argument was that the general public aren't fans of Windows phones, to which 20% market share of a few regions was used as a counter argument. I would tend to think that market share is one indicator of a phone platform's popularity, and while 20% is not bad, it's not an amazing figure either.

[deleted]

Re: The Deal That Makes No Sense

#106

Post by mikeash »

narcissus wrote: post #65
raverbashing wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "...I think Microsoft ought to abandon Windows Phone. The war is over, and iOS and Android won." This sounds like (some years ago) "I think Google ought to abandon their search engine, the war is over and Yahoo and Altavista won"

There is a slight difference, though, in that as soon as Google went to market with their search engine, it was a hit. Or it seemed like it at least. I don't have the numbers, but I can only imagine that uptake of Google was a lot faster than that of Windows Phone. Now I understand that search engines are a lot easier to switch to than phones etc. but it still makes for a less compelling comparison.

I don't think it's right to count Windows Phone separately from Microsoft's previous mobile phone offerings. Even if it was a major change from before, it was still part of the lineage.

If you count it that way, Microsoft has been in the mobile phone OS business for well over a decade and they still have essentially no traction. They had traction back when the smartphone market was tiny, but they didn't expand with the market once Apple and Google blew it open.

If Google were still struggling to get traction with their search engine in 2010, I think it would be quite fair to say that Yahoo or whoever had won and maybe they should give it up.

Re: The Deal That Makes No Sense

#107

Post by mikeash »

telephonetemp wrote: post #17
polemic wrote: post #11

> "...I think Microsoft ought to abandon Windows Phone. The war is over, and iOS and Android won." That's remarkably short-sighted. The first iPhone was released only 6 years ago, Android 5 years ago. You really think that Microsoft - a company with nearly infinite runway, an enormous R&D investment and serious history - is going to down tools after a few years of frustration? Not likely. The prize is too big and con…

I agree. I don't see why this isn't like saying > "...I think Microsoft ought to abandon the Xbox. The war is over, and Sony and Nintendo won." a decade or so ago.

A major difference there is that the Xbox was a success in the market.

Re: The Deal That Makes No Sense

#108

Post by mkr-hn »

chris_wot wrote: post #98
mkr-hn wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As Apple fans are often quick to point out when someone mentions Android's share, market share is not the only (or best) measure of a platform.

Except the argument was that the general public aren't fans of Windows phones, to which 20% market share of a few regions was used as a counter argument. I would tend to think that market share is one indicator of a phone platform's popularity, and while 20% is not bad, it's not an amazing figure either.

I looked around for a chart of the iPhone's market share by year, but couldn't find one. I remember the iPhone having trouble in its first year or two, and most of WP8's credibility comes from the ~2 year old Lumia line.

Re: The Deal That Makes No Sense

#109

Post by loxs »

300bps wrote: post #89
lttlrck wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why did you switch if web and email are paramount? I am genuinely interested.

Because Windows Phone does web and email better than iPhone. The primary way it is better is that the screen is so much bigger. This is easy to dismiss, but it makes a ton of UI hacks done for the iPhone needless. For example, the fact that the address bar isn't on the screen all the time is a hack to compensate for the small screen. Then that leads to a need for the hack where you click the top of the screen in the…

Well, Android has all of this, and then some more. Except maybe for the Nokia Maps. Haven't used it and can't say, but Google Maps on Android is FAR better than the iOS counterpart. So why Windows Phone and not Android?

Re: The Deal That Makes No Sense

#110

Post by snowwrestler »

narcissus wrote: post #65
raverbashing wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "...I think Microsoft ought to abandon Windows Phone. The war is over, and iOS and Android won." This sounds like (some years ago) "I think Google ought to abandon their search engine, the war is over and Yahoo and Altavista won"

There is a slight difference, though, in that as soon as Google went to market with their search engine, it was a hit. Or it seemed like it at least. I don't have the numbers, but I can only imagine that uptake of Google was a lot faster than that of Windows Phone. Now I understand that search engines are a lot easier to switch to than phones etc. but it still makes for a less compelling comparison.

Google was a huge hit since it was hosted on Stanford's servers. It was just so obvious from the beginning that it was easier to use, and produced better results than the incumbents.
Post reply on HN