8 ms·

I'd say Microsoft killed Windows Phone. They reset the ecosystem twice (once when Phone 7 apps weren't compatible with 8, and after then Phone 8 apps weren't co

I'd say Microsoft killed Windows Phone. They reset the ecosystem twice (once when Phone 7 apps weren't compatible with 8, and after then Phone 8 apps weren't compatible with 10). When you've got little apps to start with obviously the best idea was to throw them all out twice and hope the developers are still interested. Not to mention the dev environment required Windows 8 - personally this is what discouraged me from even trying to develop on the platform, I wasn't going to give up my perfect Windows 7 installation for a toy OS that will allow me to create apps for a toy phone while getting in my way when I tried to do real work. Add to that a shitty web browser and quite slow devices and obviously its failure must be the fault of the competition, I mean how can such a great product fail? The only good thing I can remember about my Windows Phone is that it handled IMAP push notifications, something iOS is still lacking.

skinnymuch 9y ago
Wow. I can't believe there were all these restrictions and upheavals. I loved two of my Lumia devices. I didn't know you needed Windows 8 for development. Bad move. No less with the phone doing better in different parts of the world, having Windows 8 as a requirement is obviously bad. The incompatibility of apps was lame the first go around. I had bad luck with my devices and so I was out by the time of Windows 10. I didn't know the incompatibility happened a second time. I don't think the browser or "slow devices" as you say are the reason for its demise at all though. Windows on mobile was a great OS. I believe even with all the faults you mention, if they were somehow able to get the top 25 to 50 apps onto their store, we would still have Windows mobile around today with a ~10% market share worldwide (varying greatly by country). Of course getting the apps onto their store would be an undertaking so it's quite hypothetical. My main point is, I firmly believe that is what killed Windows and any other OS that arrived late or never got popular enough by 2011 or so, when a few major apps were already desired by many people or at least the hype and talk would tell people that. P.S. I miss webOS even more than Windows 8 :/. So sad we are left with two mobile OS options knowing there were good ones that didn't survive.
- stuaxo 9y ago
  Bah, even though Symbian was a bit workaday, think it was killed off too early. Microsoft killed S60 (Symbian) and kept S40 for their lower phones, when S60 could have just become the base.
  - skinnymuch 9y ago
    I never messed with Symbian too much. You think it actually had a chance at being decent in the post iOS world?
    - kccqzy 9y ago
      I've had fond memories of S40. It had a good-ish browser (Opera Mini) and lots of Java apps.
      - sundvor 9y ago
        I was going to say, I had fond memories of my N810. However that was a Maemo based device, which sadly fizzled out.
    - snuxoll 9y ago
      With Nokia's purchase of Qt it had a shot, Symbians main failing was a really awful SDK IMHO - if they hadn't spread themselves so thin with Maemo/meego and just used Symbian as an underlying platform for new Qt apps and added touch support quickly they may have survived.
    - pjmlp 9y ago
      Symbian was great as user OS, for developers not so much. It used a C++ dialect called Symbian C++, basically Hungarian notation everywhere, special semantics how objects were created (Two-phase creation), strings could not be used directly, ARM trap errors instead of exceptions, and so on. They also rebooted the SDK multiple times, initially Code Warrior based, then a set of Eclipse CDT plugins, then they rebooted it and created another Eclipse attempt called Caride. They eventually added POSIX support (PIPS), but just nowadays with Android, due to lack of updates, not every device could take apps that made use of PIPS. Then came Qt, but it was pretty much WIP by the time the burning platform memo came to be.
MiddleEndian 9y ago
As someone who doesn't install many apps at all, I also think Microsoft killed Windows Phone with WP10 just by making it awful. They awkwardly copied a bunch of junk from Android and it lost the reasons I actually loved the platform: it was minimalistic, consistent, and rarely alerted me about anything.
- iaml 9y ago
  Agreed, for me WM10 was the point where I decided to jump ship even though before that I was a fanboy to the bone.
icelancer 9y ago
>the dev environment required Windows 8 Dear god. As someone who just had to battle Win8 on a corporate laptop from a vendor... I'm shocked WP did as well as it did if this is true.
digi_owl 9y ago
More like three times. The intro of phone 7 gave the middle finger to the pocketpc platform that by then were fairly well established. It was really sad to see the established players freak out like that.
- untog 9y ago
  I actually think WP7 was genuinely fantastic. It had the beginnings of some really interesting concepts (like "hubs" rather than separate apps for every messaging network) along with a genuinely different UI. It had real potential, but MS would have had to absolutely double down on it, and they never seemed to want to.
  - nailer 9y ago
    Oh god I would love this. I deal with whatsapp, email, slack, Instagram, and FB messages on iPhone and wish the OS had one damn place to deal with it all.
    - vetinari 9y ago
      The first android Gtalk, that was shipped with Android 1.x, had plugin system for third parties. The plugins never materialized. Every third party wanted complete control over it's app, which later developed into stores for digital goods, wallets, etc. The situation was not helped by the fact, that there was no such system on iOS and the only way for a messenger to wait for messages on the background were push notifications from Apple servers. Here people expected separate apps for separate chat networks. So basically what we have today is exactly what the market wanted.
      - untog 9y ago
        > So basically what we have today is exactly what the market wanted. If "the market" means "companies" then yes. "Users", not so much. Much like Apple getting rid of Flash, if MS had a dominant market position they could have forced a user-friendly trend. Alas.
iaml 9y ago
>Add to that a shitty web browser Never had any problems with WP browser. I really liked that address bar was at the bottom, and the quirks didn't bother me that much.
- roryisok 9y ago
  It continues to serve me well
roryisok 9y ago
Phone 8 apps aren't compatible with 10? Are you sure about that?
simonh 9y ago
Yes Microsoft made a series of terrible decisions, but if Android hadn't existed they would have been able to lose that time and still come out on top. The problem wasn't just that it took Microsoft executives about a year to even recognise that the iPhone was a credible threat, it was also that they took even longer to recognise Android was even more of a threat. By then, it was too late. When Windows Phone 7 and 8 came out, other than Android what other alternatives existed for OEMs to use as an OS to compete head to head with the iPhone? There was only Android. Without Android, in 2010 and 2012 they'd have had no choice but to form a queue and sign licensing agreements with Microsoft for 7 and 8. Even if the Pre had succeeded, that wouldn't fundamentally have changed anything because it wasn't a licensed OS, aside from the persistent hardware and software quality issues that held it back. Microsoft would still have been the only viable option for companies like Samsung, Sony, HTC, etc and Windows Phone 7 and 8 were fine platforms. They could absolutely have competed with the iPhone just as successfully as Android did. They were just too late because Android was already out there and already had the apps.
- toyg 9y ago
  >if Android hadn't existed they would have been able to lose that time lol, but it did exist. TBH, when MS started their phone efforts, I think even Symbian was still around, and other operators had their own pet projects here and there - which is what the status quo was like before the iPhone anyway. So MS knew very well from the start that they had to be better than existing competition, they couldn't just stroll in and hoover up the market. WP was a pretty bad MS fumble. They had the brand and the market clout to nail it, and they lost it to a competitor that all but followed their original Windows blueprint: give the OS more or less away (with Windows, through tolerated piracy; with Android, through opensource licensing) to get de-facto monopoly, and then leverage it in more lucrative areas (for Windows, Office and enterprise software; for Android, Google's own services and datamining).
  - vetinari 9y ago
    One big thing, that helped Android among early adopters was the ability to install apps originating outside app store (and also easy rooting). This gave them the sense of ownership of the devices. It was theirs and the device did whatever they wanted. If you didn't want anything to do with Google - you could. iOS was walled garden. Microsoft also tried to make WP into walled garden, controlling, what's running on the device and getting their cut.
locusm 9y ago
Microsoft doesn't only make super mediocre products, but then services the customers of those products in a super mediocre way. My most recent pain is O365 customers that signed up in the US but no longer use US credit cards, forced to migrate their tenancy with no warning or thought for the disruption that causes.
- kartickv 9y ago
  I, in fact, wanted to buy Office 365 for my startup, but it was too hard to buy, so I bought GSuite: https://medium.com/@karti/office-365-was-too-hard-to-buy-so-i-bought-gsuite-e599d2af9962 https://medium.com/@karti/office-365-was-too-hard-to-buy-so-...

skinnymuch 9y ago

Wow. I can't believe there were all these restrictions and upheavals. I loved two of my Lumia devices. I didn't know you needed Windows 8 for development. Bad move. No less with the phone doing better in different parts of the world, having Windows 8 as a requirement is obviously bad. The incompatibility of apps was lame the first go around. I had bad luck with my devices and so I was out by the time of Windows 10. I didn't know the incompatibility happened a second time. I don't think the browser or "slow devices" as you say are the reason for its demise at all though. Windows on mobile was a great OS. I believe even with all the faults you mention, if they were somehow able to get the top 25 to 50 apps onto their store, we would still have Windows mobile around today with a ~10% market share worldwide (varying greatly by country). Of course getting the apps onto their store would be an undertaking so it's quite hypothetical. My main point is, I firmly believe that is what killed Windows and any other OS that arrived late or never got popular enough by 2011 or so, when a few major apps were already desired by many people or at least the hype and talk would tell people that. P.S. I miss webOS even more than Windows 8 :/. So sad we are left with two mobile OS options knowing there were good ones that didn't survive.

stuaxo 9y ago
Bah, even though Symbian was a bit workaday, think it was killed off too early. Microsoft killed S60 (Symbian) and kept S40 for their lower phones, when S60 could have just become the base.
- skinnymuch 9y ago
  I never messed with Symbian too much. You think it actually had a chance at being decent in the post iOS world?
  - kccqzy 9y ago
    I've had fond memories of S40. It had a good-ish browser (Opera Mini) and lots of Java apps.
    - sundvor 9y ago
      I was going to say, I had fond memories of my N810. However that was a Maemo based device, which sadly fizzled out.
  - snuxoll 9y ago
    With Nokia's purchase of Qt it had a shot, Symbians main failing was a really awful SDK IMHO - if they hadn't spread themselves so thin with Maemo/meego and just used Symbian as an underlying platform for new Qt apps and added touch support quickly they may have survived.
  - pjmlp 9y ago
    Symbian was great as user OS, for developers not so much. It used a C++ dialect called Symbian C++, basically Hungarian notation everywhere, special semantics how objects were created (Two-phase creation), strings could not be used directly, ARM trap errors instead of exceptions, and so on. They also rebooted the SDK multiple times, initially Code Warrior based, then a set of Eclipse CDT plugins, then they rebooted it and created another Eclipse attempt called Caride. They eventually added POSIX support (PIPS), but just nowadays with Android, due to lack of updates, not every device could take apps that made use of PIPS. Then came Qt, but it was pretty much WIP by the time the burning platform memo came to be.

MiddleEndian 9y ago

As someone who doesn't install many apps at all, I also think Microsoft killed Windows Phone with WP10 just by making it awful. They awkwardly copied a bunch of junk from Android and it lost the reasons I actually loved the platform: it was minimalistic, consistent, and rarely alerted me about anything.

iaml 9y ago
Agreed, for me WM10 was the point where I decided to jump ship even though before that I was a fanboy to the bone.

icelancer 9y ago

>the dev environment required Windows 8 Dear god. As someone who just had to battle Win8 on a corporate laptop from a vendor... I'm shocked WP did as well as it did if this is true.

digi_owl 9y ago

More like three times. The intro of phone 7 gave the middle finger to the pocketpc platform that by then were fairly well established. It was really sad to see the established players freak out like that.

untog 9y ago
I actually think WP7 was genuinely fantastic. It had the beginnings of some really interesting concepts (like "hubs" rather than separate apps for every messaging network) along with a genuinely different UI. It had real potential, but MS would have had to absolutely double down on it, and they never seemed to want to.
- nailer 9y ago
  Oh god I would love this. I deal with whatsapp, email, slack, Instagram, and FB messages on iPhone and wish the OS had one damn place to deal with it all.
  - vetinari 9y ago
    The first android Gtalk, that was shipped with Android 1.x, had plugin system for third parties. The plugins never materialized. Every third party wanted complete control over it's app, which later developed into stores for digital goods, wallets, etc. The situation was not helped by the fact, that there was no such system on iOS and the only way for a messenger to wait for messages on the background were push notifications from Apple servers. Here people expected separate apps for separate chat networks. So basically what we have today is exactly what the market wanted.
    - untog 9y ago
      > So basically what we have today is exactly what the market wanted. If "the market" means "companies" then yes. "Users", not so much. Much like Apple getting rid of Flash, if MS had a dominant market position they could have forced a user-friendly trend. Alas.

iaml 9y ago

>Add to that a shitty web browser Never had any problems with WP browser. I really liked that address bar was at the bottom, and the quirks didn't bother me that much.

roryisok 9y ago
It continues to serve me well

roryisok 9y ago

Phone 8 apps aren't compatible with 10? Are you sure about that?

simonh 9y ago

Yes Microsoft made a series of terrible decisions, but if Android hadn't existed they would have been able to lose that time and still come out on top. The problem wasn't just that it took Microsoft executives about a year to even recognise that the iPhone was a credible threat, it was also that they took even longer to recognise Android was even more of a threat. By then, it was too late. When Windows Phone 7 and 8 came out, other than Android what other alternatives existed for OEMs to use as an OS to compete head to head with the iPhone? There was only Android. Without Android, in 2010 and 2012 they'd have had no choice but to form a queue and sign licensing agreements with Microsoft for 7 and 8. Even if the Pre had succeeded, that wouldn't fundamentally have changed anything because it wasn't a licensed OS, aside from the persistent hardware and software quality issues that held it back. Microsoft would still have been the only viable option for companies like Samsung, Sony, HTC, etc and Windows Phone 7 and 8 were fine platforms. They could absolutely have competed with the iPhone just as successfully as Android did. They were just too late because Android was already out there and already had the apps.

toyg 9y ago
>if Android hadn't existed they would have been able to lose that time lol, but it did exist. TBH, when MS started their phone efforts, I think even Symbian was still around, and other operators had their own pet projects here and there - which is what the status quo was like before the iPhone anyway. So MS knew very well from the start that they had to be better than existing competition, they couldn't just stroll in and hoover up the market. WP was a pretty bad MS fumble. They had the brand and the market clout to nail it, and they lost it to a competitor that all but followed their original Windows blueprint: give the OS more or less away (with Windows, through tolerated piracy; with Android, through opensource licensing) to get de-facto monopoly, and then leverage it in more lucrative areas (for Windows, Office and enterprise software; for Android, Google's own services and datamining).
- vetinari 9y ago
  One big thing, that helped Android among early adopters was the ability to install apps originating outside app store (and also easy rooting). This gave them the sense of ownership of the devices. It was theirs and the device did whatever they wanted. If you didn't want anything to do with Google - you could. iOS was walled garden. Microsoft also tried to make WP into walled garden, controlling, what's running on the device and getting their cut.

locusm 9y ago

Microsoft doesn't only make super mediocre products, but then services the customers of those products in a super mediocre way. My most recent pain is O365 customers that signed up in the US but no longer use US credit cards, forced to migrate their tenancy with no warning or thought for the disruption that causes.

kartickv 9y ago
I, in fact, wanted to buy Office 365 for my startup, but it was too hard to buy, so I bought GSuite: https://medium.com/@karti/office-365-was-too-hard-to-buy-so-i-bought-gsuite-e599d2af9962 https://medium.com/@karti/office-365-was-too-hard-to-buy-so-...