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Microsoft to release Android-powered Nokia X2 handset

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Re: Microsoft to release Android-powered Nokia X2 handset

#111
post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> + May have the killer smartphone app - carrier independent voice calls (aka "Skype"). So does every Android and iOS device, unless Microsoft wants to remove it from the android matket and the app store. > + Clearly has a more thoughtfully designed user interface in the form of Metro versus Android's WIMP on a phone mashups. That's debatable. I prefer Android to Windows Phone. Sometimes, even over the iPhone. And th…

You've already told me many many times that you don't like Microsoft. And if I didn't know, I could just look at your user profile where it is stated explicitly. There's about zero content in your response. Just scattershot contradiction using the pick apart technique in hopes of trolling an inflamed response.

> There's about zero content in your response

While I don't necessarily agree with their reply, you are both stating your opinions here. Saying MS has a more clearly though out user interface is highly debatable. And while I think the majority of people that have used Visual Studio would say it trumps the Eclipse based Android Toolchain, the fact that (s)he prefers it is still opinion.

Re: Microsoft to release Android-powered Nokia X2 handset

#112

This has even fewer apps than WP8, let alone the "real" Android. I don't see why anyone would want this.

I don't know why you're being modded down, you're exactly right. Just like the Ovi Store on Symbian, the Nokia Store offers a fraction of the apps that Play, Microsoft App Store, and even the Amazon App Store offer. As for why people would want this, it's actually good hardware for the price, and if it's ever rooted and flashed with a full Android ROM with Play support, it would end up being a nice phone overall.

Skip all that work, and just get a Moto E. At least it's an Android device that actually comes with access to Google's app store and services out of the box.

Re: Microsoft to release Android-powered Nokia X2 handset

#113

What this says to me as a developer in the Microsoft ecosystem (admittedly, enterprise side and not mobile): "Four years ago we had you writing all your apps using Silverlight. Two years ago we chucked that out the window (ahahahaha) and told you to switch over to WinRT. Now we're going Android. We hope you've got the message by now. But in case you haven't, let us restate it in plain English: Dear developers, GO THE…

If anything Google and Apple have contracted this disease too. If you're an Android dev you constantly have the Chrome group telling you to use web technologies instead of developing native apps, it's utterly incoherent.

Apple aren't quite so bad, but they only get away with things like the iOS 7 UI change because so many of the people in that ecosystem are (I'm not knocking this) obsessed with stylistic consistency and will jump when Apple say so.

Re: Microsoft to release Android-powered Nokia X2 handset

#114
post #5

They could get Android apps working on Windows Phone OS, rather than this. Microsoft is useless these days.

Blackberry tried this. Even on QNX, which is a POSIX OS, it took significant amounts of work and last I checked was still pretty buggy.

Sailfish has had much better luck, no doubt due to running on top of the Linux kernel however.

Re: Microsoft to release Android-powered Nokia X2 handset

#115
post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> + May have the killer smartphone app - carrier independent voice calls (aka "Skype"). So does every Android and iOS device, unless Microsoft wants to remove it from the android matket and the app store. > + Clearly has a more thoughtfully designed user interface in the form of Metro versus Android's WIMP on a phone mashups. That's debatable. I prefer Android to Windows Phone. Sometimes, even over the iPhone. And th…

You've already told me many many times that you don't like Microsoft. And if I didn't know, I could just look at your user profile where it is stated explicitly. There's about zero content in your response. Just scattershot contradiction using the pick apart technique in hopes of trolling an inflamed response.

If you disagree with my argument, you should discuss it. If you disagree with my taste, you can do so politely.

> Just scattershot contradiction

It's appropriate when many of the statements are simply false.

- All competitors have Skype. This is not an advantage.

- The interface being "more thoughtfully designed" is debatable. I am hardly alone in preferring vanilla Android over Metro and it remains to be seen how well this interface mimics its big brother. This would create a halo effect if Windows Phone proved very popular. So far, it hasn't.

- A lot of people love Visual Studio. A lot of other people don't. I like it for C# work. I prefer Emacs for Python, JS and PHP. It's also not an option on two out of three major desktop OSs. I find the Android toolset very good for Android development and Xcode is unbeatable for iOS development. For Visual Studio fans, merging Visual Studio with the Android tooling may be a big thing, but for the rest of us, it's inconsequential. Most developers I know base their decisions on things other than what is the IDE that'll be used with a project. I fear for companies that do otherwise.

- Azure may be as good as Google's cloud offerings (haven't paid much attention), but how a platform agnostic cloud service infrastructure can be called a competitive advantage still seems an interesting question. I'd like to see some elaboration on that, because platform agnostic is, well, agnostic.

- Finally, Microsoft has a lot of B2B clout that allows them to throw money into other divisions until they achieve meaningful market share. However, unless Microsoft finds a way to monetize their Android offerings, they'll eventually give up and the phones will have to hold their own. This is an advantage in that Microsoft will offer all kinds of financial incentive to companies who develop for it or sign exclusives. It's money in the bank regardless of application or product success. Unfortunately, in my experience (yes - I have dealt with Microsoft) they are not the most generous partners. They'll offer mostly stuff that costs nothing to them (licenses) in exchange of stuff that has cost to you (effort, exclusivity). I've had much more attractive partnerships.

Re: Microsoft to release Android-powered Nokia X2 handset

#116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You've already told me many many times that you don't like Microsoft. And if I didn't know, I could just look at your user profile where it is stated explicitly. There's about zero content in your response. Just scattershot contradiction using the pick apart technique in hopes of trolling an inflamed response.

> There's about zero content in your response While I don't necessarily agree with their reply, you are both stating your opinions here. Saying MS has a more clearly though out user interface is highly debatable. And while I think the majority of people that have used Visual Studio would say it trumps the Eclipse based Android Toolchain, the fact that (s)he prefers it is still opinion.

[deleted]

Re: Microsoft to release Android-powered Nokia X2 handset

#118
post #15

Microsoft releases a phone running Android, Microsoft releases hardware running Linux, pigs are flying and hell is freezing over etc etc. The real news is that this is not just an Android phone, it's a really good Android phone. It has a front facing camera, a decent SoC, enough RAM, what appears to be an IPS display (according to some sources), likely very decent build quality, and a price that is likely to dip belo…

Microsoft's roots are contrary to characture in popular culture - they sold and developed for Unix throughout the 1980's. It's big and corporate, but it's still a company founded as a software startup and always dogfooding its way into new products.

>they sold and developed for Unix throughout the 1980's

Even into the late 90s. I remember trying out MSIE 5 for Solaris circa 1999. It ran like crap, but that was probably just as much a function of the SS20 I was using at work at the time as it was IE's fault.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Explorer_for_UNIX

Re: Microsoft to release Android-powered Nokia X2 handset

#120
post #105

What this says to me as a developer in the Microsoft ecosystem (admittedly, enterprise side and not mobile): "Four years ago we had you writing all your apps using Silverlight. Two years ago we chucked that out the window (ahahahaha) and told you to switch over to WinRT. Now we're going Android. We hope you've got the message by now. But in case you haven't, let us restate it in plain English: Dear developers, GO THE…

It doesn't say that to me. It says: "Nokia baggage". That is all. Either way, I'm not writing another damn mobile app or picking up another damn smartphone again. It's all totally crazy bananas now. I'd rather write win32 again with a broken-ass compiler.

Make your fantasy a (simulated) reality. With current trends you'd probably be best served by creating "win32js".
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