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

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.

I also deeply enjoyed my Nokia Lumia.

They clearly took many design cues from Zune, which was another excellent product I loved that did not take off.

I think if MS Phone had stuck it out a bit longer hybrid apps may have helped bring some developers in.

It sounds like Nadella still doesn’t get it though. MSFT tried several times to “reinvent the category of computing between PCs, tablets, and phones” and none succeeded. Windows 8 UC targeting tablets and native apps was a disaster and ate up a lot of goodwill. With tablet PCs and netbooks Microsoft had the right idea too early and with poor technical implementation.

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

#5

Post by zaxpr » Tue, Oct 24, 2023, 7:20 PM UTC

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.

yes, windows phone UI and their basic apps were pretty great and easy to use for a none tech-savvy person. Lack of 3rd party apps actually provides a nice distraction-free experience. lol

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

#6

Post by brnt » Tue, Oct 24, 2023, 7:43 PM UTC

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.

I am by no means a Windows fan (Linux only sinds 2003) but Windows Phone/mobile was (and is, I have one still) awesome. Snappy, no frills, yet feature complete. Pretty interoperable. Pretty. Pity it's over.

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

#7

Post by Clamchop » Tue, Oct 24, 2023, 7:43 PM UTC

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.

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

#8

Post by pjmlp » Tue, Oct 24, 2023, 7:52 PM UTC

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.

If you watch the Windows UI community talks on YouTube, at least on public channels, whoever is in charge doesn't seem to grasp how much all those rewrites killed the ecosystem, and they keep asking people to invest into WinUI/WinAppSDK, which not only is yet another rewrite, the tooling is a joke versus UWP.

No wonder that Windows developer community decided to ignore whatever is related to WinUI, and focus on the stable technologies from the past.

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

#9

Post by DonnyV » Tue, Oct 24, 2023, 7:55 PM UTC

Do I smell a round 2 for a Windows Phone?

Imagine a new Windows Phone....that runs Android apps.

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

#10

Post by marklubi » Tue, Oct 24, 2023, 8:01 PM UTC

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.

They tried with the 3rd party apps. I still have the developer phone they gave my company to port our app.

It was a fun project, and the live tiles and flat style provided a lot of inspiration that resulted in the next version of our app for iOS and Android.