30 ms·

I purchased a $30 Windows Phone well after the platform was dead, I just wanted to experience it before it was gone. For a $30 phone, it was incredibly fast an

I purchased a $30 Windows Phone well after the platform was dead, I just wanted to experience it before it was gone. For a $30 phone, it was incredibly fast and smooth. The tile interface worked well (particularly information dense relative to notification dots/counts on icons we're seeing now), the onscreen keyboard is the best I've ever used (even to this day), and the way updates were delivered (direct from Microsoft, not the network operator or OEM) was a breath of fresh air from Android. As anyone and everyone will tell you, lack of apps killed it. In no small part because Google was using their market position to squish it (yes, I appreciate the irony). Google didn't produce Windows Phone apps, which they're entitled to not do, but then Microsoft tried to make apps for Google's services[0] which Google also shut down. Makes you wonder what would happen if Google pulled all of their iOS apps tomorrow, and then blocked third parties/diminished the mobile browser experience on purpose. [0] https://venturebeat.com/2013/05/15/google-to-microsoft-kill-your-youtube-app-immediately/ https://venturebeat.com/2013/05/15/google-to-microsoft-kill-...

enitihas 9y ago
Given the amount that Google pays to Apple to remain the default search engine on the iPhone, I really doubt they would be willing to take that risk.
- dep_b 9y ago
  iOS users are the biggest cash cows for e-commerce in the US. Since Google is ad-driven and ads are ultimately paid by people that actually buy stuff it would lower the value of Google overnight by 30%.
pgeorgi 9y ago
> Microsoft tried to make apps for Google's services Where "apps" means "app", and "Google's services" means "YouTube".
- spikej 9y ago
  I missed not having Google Drive
bko 9y ago
From the article cited regarding the YouTube app developed by Microsoft: > The problems with that, according to Google, are three: the app enables users to download YouTube videos, prevents ads from being shown, and plays videos whose owners have set to only play on certain platforms. Microsoft’s app, Google says, violates the YouTube terms of service, and uses the YouTube logo in a way that contravenes the company’s branding guidelines. Is this just an excuse used by Google, or did they really have these features? Because I could understand why Google doesn't want a service to demonitize their service. Why wouldn't Microsoft just remove those features? It seems like a reasonable response.
- prepend 9y ago
  Since it would be trivial for Goog to expose all of this functionality in their API, I consider all of this BS PR by google. It would also be trivial for google to make a basic app for the 3rd biggest phone OS. But since Google makes an OS and doesn’t want other OSes, any actions they have other than support are suspect. It’s like when MS said that it was possible for PC sellers to not bundle IE. Sure it’s possible, but it was just BS because it was completely MS’ prerogative.
  - p992eiiej28 9y ago
    They’re not obliged to spend resources on making native apps But they’re obliged to spend resources making open APIs? Any actions they have are suspect because they’re a big fucking corporation that vacuums up our data and lobbies government for beneficial treatment Let’s not wrap it up in overly customized excuses for their shit behavior. A more generally phrased definition will suffice and probably be more beneficial If it’s just market assholery, that’s the market If it’s acceptance of the reality they control us through plain behavior of buying and selling our data and buying influence, that’s broadly more captivating
  - bko 9y ago
    I’m not sure I understand. Do you mean that their api prevented Microsoft from creating a YouTube app that confirms to their guidelines (shows ads and respects uploaded guidelines as to device? Is this still the case? The download feature certainly could have been pulled from Microsoft
hota_mazi 9y ago
It's a bit strange to fault Google for killing Windows Phone while it was essentially users making that choice. The article is looking at Windows Phone with a lot of rosy glasses. Sure, WP had tiles and neither iOS nor Android have them, but WP had been behind on tons of other features that Android users had been enjoying for years, starting with apps being able to call each other indirectly (the intent system). WP failed because it was late in the game but also because overall, it was inferior to Android on most fronts.
- sydd 9y ago
  It was really Google's app monopoly that killed it. Arguing that the users did it, is the same as arguing why people only use Google or Facebook.
  - hota_mazi 9y ago
    Google was nowhere near having a monopoly when WP died. And yes, people use Google and Facebook because these two tools are the best in their category, not because the companies performed some kind of brainwashing on users.
    - blackoil 9y ago
      Irrespective of how monopoly was acquired, it did influence choice of mobile OS. Youtube and Google Maps were of few universally used apps, not available on WP.
    - CodeWriter23 9y ago
      Neither was Microsoft a monopoly when they got their eyes sued out and a consent decree slapped on them simply for making their browser the default browser on their own OS. A lot less than Google did to stifle competition from WP.
      - hota_mazi 9y ago
        Microsoft was definitely a monopoly when the antitrust lawsuit was filed against them. There can be no antitrust lawsuit if you're not a monopoly, it pretty much is a requirement for such a lawsuit to be brought. It's perfectly legal (and healthy in a free trade economy) to be a monopoly. What's illegal is leveraging that monopoly to enter other markets, which is what Microsoft attempted to do.
rootusrootus 9y ago
Most likely Apple would make a similar license arrangement with Bing. But what would really be neat is if they bought DuckDuckGo instead, made it the search engine of choice, and expanded on it's abilities. Apple has quite a lot of cash to throw at such a problem and DDG would line up nicely with their stance on privacy. I wouldn't be surprised if they've given something like that serious consideration. Much the way Google tries to break Apple's grip on high-end smartphones, Apple probably wants to keep some leverage of their own.
- mattnewport 9y ago
  That wouldn't be good, then I'd have to stop using DuckDuckGo. Avoiding Apple products is currently much easier than avoiding Google products (though after a concerted effort I'm now mostly managing that too) but if they bought DuckDuckGo I'd have to find another search engine.
  - matthewmacleod 9y ago
    Why?
    - mattnewport 9y ago
      Why what? Why would I have to stop using DuckDuckGo? Because I don't use Apple products. Why don't I use Apple products? Many reasons.
      - deleted 9y ago
        [deleted]
      - tibyat 9y ago
        wow great supporting argument. this is the quality we come to HN for.
      - saagarjha 9y ago
        I sort of agree with the other reply (that's dead now), if not with the way they said it. Your response provides next to no information. Maybe you could list some of the reasons why you don't use Apple products? "Many reasons" provides no insight, which is especially annoying because the parent comment to yours was explicitly asking for you to explain your reasoning.
vbezhenar 9y ago
I've read few impressions from Windows Phone users and they all liked it. It's a pity that it died. While I'm personally don't have much interest with it, competition never hurts. Currently iOS and Android basically divided the market: iOS for niche luxury phones and Android for average phones. I've found it hard to find Android with premium price ($1000), there are not enough phones to make a good choice, it seems like a lot of manufacturers just not interested with this market, for example.
- Zanni 9y ago
  I switched from Android to the Windows Phone and greatly preferred it. I liked the look, the responsiveness, and the dearth of apps wasn't a problem initially. I was never a huge fan of live tiles, though, because I like my UI to stay still and let me focus on what I focus on. But what ultimately drove me away was the inexplicably shitty Kindle app. I read a lot on my phone, and the Kindle app would skip lines on page turns, for a very disorienting and frustrating reading experience.
  - thaumasiotes 9y ago
    I'm having the same problem recently with the Kindle app for Android...
    - coldacid 9y ago
      Amazon would rather you buy one of their devices instead of using your phone to read.
      - thaumasiotes 9y ago
        I seriously doubt this is the case. Amazon's business selling ebooks is much more significant than their business selling proprietary Android devices. And the page turning problem also occurs on my Kindle Oasis.
        9y ago
oldgun 9y ago
I don't think you should blame Google for putting resources into a platform of less than 1% of the market-share that's not built by Google itself. Google has actually been pretty eager in developing iOS apps AFAIK, sometimes releasing it even sooner than Android platform. If Windows Phone really gained traction, maybe Google will develop apps for it too. Remember it's more of a service company than a hardware company. But MS never got out of that vicious cycle. Can't shift blame to its competitors.
- prepend 9y ago
  How many resources would it take? Especially if Microsoft partnered on it. This doesn’t make any sense since Google used to be really supportive of new platforms and services. This was back when goog was just playing around with using lock-in to their advantage
- Mononokay 9y ago
  > Google has actually been pretty eager in developing iOS apps AFAIK, sometimes releasing it even sooner than Android platform. If Windows Phone really gained traction, maybe Google will develop apps for it too. Remember it's more of a service company than a hardware company. Their support for iOS is second-class for more than a few apps; like Inbox for Gmail.
  - saagarjha 9y ago
    To be fair, it's not like Apple's updated all their apps for iPhone X either.
mc32 9y ago
The biggest thing I miss from Winmo is the universal back button. You always knew where "back" was. No having to scroll back up, no having to figure out where this app has the "back" feature. Always one known place.
severino 9y ago
> Google didn't produce Windows Phone apps, which they're entitled to not do, but then Microsoft tried to make apps for Google's services[0] which Google also shut down Well, you know, that's what Microsoft has been doing throughout its history, and still does. It's not bad when those giants get a taste of their own medicine.
- SmellyGeekBoy 9y ago
  Office and IE have been available for the Mac for a very long time now, I'm not sure what you're talking about...
  - my123 9y ago
    Office was available for the Mac before Office for Windows even existed.
    - __sr__ 9y ago
      And it was left to languish for a couple of decades before the move to cloud centric multi-platform workflow left them with no other choice. I am not a power user of MS Office, but the ones I know tell me that the macOS version still lacks features compared to Windows. And lastly, where is MS Access for macOS?
  - tiuPapa 9y ago
    Are they available for Linux?
    - zeusk 9y ago
      No they're not because of multitude of reasons but they now use a open XML format that does way better interchange with openOffice etc. and don't actively try to shut down those products.
      - __sr__ 9y ago
        The keyword being now. It happened when they realised that they were going to be knocked off their pedestal if they didn’t open up - not when they were at the height of their power. By the way, is the XML Office file format really open — to the extant where one can create a third party client which works as well as the official one without reverse engineering?
mhermher 9y ago
Aside from the Google issue, I think honestly the biggest thing is that MS was still charging OEMs a licensing fee where Android wasn't. They eventually let go of the fee, but it was too late. I think that killed WP more than anything.
- mavhc 9y ago
  Android isn't, but surely Google is for having the google play store, services, and apps?
  - ocdtrekkie 9y ago
    Google doesn't collect a paid license fee for Google Apps on Android, but they have fairly significant nonmonetary agreements, essentially barring the OEMs from using Google's competitors, making Google's products the default, dictating where Google Apps must be placed on the home screen, etc. Some of the larger OEMs might be able to negotiate revenue sharing agreements from Play purchases, but inside the Google Apps is definitely where Google makes its money, on app sales and ad targeting based on data collected by Google hoovering up everyone's mobile data and location.
  - mhermher 9y ago
    From what I remember, no. I think play services is a separate license which is also free, as long as you sign something called the Open Handset Agreement (or something like that), which basically forces OEMs to follow a bunch of rules about pre-installed/default apps and home screen placement, etc. The one example I remember being mentioned at some point is that the google search bar widget must be on the first home page of any phone sold by OEMs (of course users are free to change that if they wish). Other little things like that. Instead of making money from licenses, Google makes money by nudging users into its ad-revenue generating services.
throwafk81 9y ago
Most of the arguments I read here are the same one: WP was fast and smooth. But it was not particularly fast, you are simply comparing it to Android, which fucking sucks. And other than that, it had no other redeeming qualities.
- tehlike 9y ago
  Fast, smooth, and had very robust development environment. One thing Microsoft knows how is to develop a language/platform (.net, for example), and provide tooling around that. 5 years ago, Visual Studio was years ahead of what today's mobile tools can do.
  - throwafk81 9y ago
    I hope you’re kidding with the dev environment thing. WP died because they changed everything completely with every OS release. Not to mention that to develop an app they required you to have Hyper-V, which is only available in Pro editions of Windows and CPUs with VT-x.
    - tehlike 9y ago
      I was definitely not kidding. 10+ years of c# experience, and 5+ years of android, and you can see the difference between the two. Hyper-V and so on, i certainly do not remember as I had them anyway, but talking about purely the dev env and ease of platform to me tells it all. Android has not been written from "application dev" pov. With all these contexts, application contexts, leaky abstractions all over, it certainly is not a robust platform.
  - bitmapbrother 9y ago
    Did you even develop for windows phone? Because it's like you have no idea of what the development process entailed or how frequently they changed it.
    - pjmlp 9y ago
      Still way less how Google handles Android development, where recommended API in version X, turns out legacy in version X+1, replaced in X+2, but all need to be supported thanks to lack of updates.
__sr__ 9y ago
> Makes you wonder what would happen if Google pulled all of their iOS apps tomorrow, and then blocked third parties/diminished the mobile browser experience on purpose. There is a reason Google paid close to 3 billon USD to stay the default search provider on iOS. They had several opportunities to pull their apps from the platform, but they never did. It’s not random. They acknowledge that Apple is not in direct competitior as far as their core business is concerned — unlike Microsoft. They can still be the primary search provider on iOS, but Microsoft would never let that happen on Windows Phone/Mobile thanks to Bing. In fact, there was no way to set the search engine to Google in Edge for a while - and the OS wide search never offered a choice. Allowing Windows Phone/Mobile to flourish would have meant allowing Bing to grow - something Google can’t afford. As long as Apple doesn’t become a threat to their core business, I don’t think they are going to pull their apps. And even if they do, iOS has become too big to die like Windows Phone/Mobile. And let’s not forget, the organisations charged with preventing monopoly will slap Google with antitrust lawsuits all over the world.
- mgkimsal 9y ago
  > Google paid close to 3 billon USD to stay the default search provider on iOS And yet... they purposefully have ipad mini google search results only show in a crappy 'mobile' format, vs the regular way it used to ('normal desktop' for safari). It's bizarre, has been broken for years. Doesn't matter if they're "default", we've moved to yahoo and ddg for ipad searching. :/
  - bla2 9y ago
    iPad is the iOS sideshow in sale numbers by far -- no reason to prioritize it. And, more cynical, using the parent comment's reasoning: iPad _is_ a competitor to Google's Chrome OS in education, so maybe they don't want it to work too well.
    - chx 9y ago
      Can you imagine being the programmer on that project?
agumonkey 9y ago
I don't know why I never got a WP phone. I knew it has a lot of benefits in terms of UX. But somehow I feared MS way of doing software more than Google. So even if they provided lots of stuff I wouldn't be attracted to their phones.
chengiz 9y ago
I bought my Nokia 635 for $50 off Ebay and still use it. I've hated all Android phones I've used before, so dont want to switch unless I can no longer handle it, and I dont want to pay premium for Apple. The WP OS is pretty awesome, and the phone is rock solid. I use an old Nexus 4 which I never liked for Chromecast purposes, a standalone GPS, and WP for everything else. It works just fine.
golfer 9y ago
Your $30 phone likely cost far more to build, perhaps hundreds. You bought it at a huge discount probably, since you said it was after the platform was dead. Therefore, this statement doesn't make sense to me: "For a $30 phone, it was incredibly fast and smooth."
- maxsilver 9y ago
  > Your $30 phone likely cost far more to build, perhaps hundreds When the platform was still new and well supported, and without any discounts or contracts, you could get Windows Phones at the ~$100 USD price that were every bit as fast and fluid as described. Phones like the Lumia 520 / 530 / 535 series. So, if the discounted price bothers you, just read it as "For a $100 phone", as that was the brand-new day-one price at the time, with no subsidies / discounts / contract / credit-checks / loss write-off / etc.
  - ams6110 9y ago
    Are you sure it wasn't sold at a loss even then, just to try to establish market share?
giancarlostoro 9y ago
I would love to see Microsoft do a fully open source Mobile OS now that they've shown to be mobile friendly. Maybe based off of BSD or something to take advantage of some of the things BSD does differently from Linux
- bitmapbrother 9y ago
  Because this time it's really going to be different, right? The story always ends the same with red all over your balance sheet. They will never have the developers or ecosystem.
  - giancarlostoro 9y ago
    People don't want yet another close sourced OS like iOS, they want something open like Android. Microsoft has the resources to work with other bigger service providers. Also a lot of corporations use Microsoft's solutions like Outlook and Office 365. They could provide a strong focus on corporate customers sorta like how Blackberry had that reputation. Point is, we got two options for smart phones, we need more.
    - Khaine 9y ago
      Who are these people? What is the size of that market? The fact is that iPhones and iOS dominate the revenue of the mobile market[1]. iPhone users have incredibly high customer satisfaction numbers[2] and are unlikely to switch, so essentially you are competing against Android which is already "open". Seems like an easy way to loose a ton of money to me. [1] https://www.zdnet.com/article/how-the-iphone-x-drives-apples-smartphone-revenue-dominance/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/how-the-iphone-x-drives-apples... [2] https://marketrealist.com/2017/06/could-apples-iphone-8-drive-revenues-in-2017-and-beyond https://marketrealist.com/2017/06/could-apples-iphone-8-driv... [3] https://www.imore.com/apple-seeing-record-rate-android-users-switching-iphone https://www.imore.com/apple-seeing-record-rate-android-users...
    - bitmapbrother 9y ago
      >People don't want yet another close sourced OS like iOS, they want something open like Android So you've conducted a poll and asked what people want? People don't care if the OS is open or closed source. In fact, the extreme majority wouldn't even know what you're talking about. They care about having access to the apps and services they want. Microsoft failed with a closed source OS and they'll fail even harder with an open one too.
notadoc 9y ago
>As anyone and everyone will tell you, lack of apps killed it. I am not convinced of this. Aside from the widely used social networking apps, most people just use default apps on their phones for email, the web, and text messaging. Kids play games too, I suppose. To me, it never felt like Microsoft made a sincere push for establishing Windows Phone into the market. Aggressive subsidies, pricing, and features should have been able to get a footprint. They pulled it off with Xbox, and of course with PCs, so they could certainly do it again with commoditized phone hardware if they were committed to it.
- mxfh 9y ago
  I had a few windows phones and it was not the lack of apps in my opinion, but a in a big part, a badly managed store policy that incentivized inflating numbers over actual apps. Searching for any term gave you 4/5 of trash, nonfunctional trash if you were lucky. Discovery was fundamentally broken, if you had no good idea of what you where doing. Around 2014/2015 the ecosystem had pretty much no apps or at least functionality missing, besides snapchat and instagram (which was added at some point).
- cc81 9y ago
  I had one and for me it was absolutely the lack of apps and I think that is the way for most people. Even if I don't use many it was pretty annoying not to be able to use my banks app, a good workout app or a local taxi company app. None of those are critical but thing like that is annoying.
- fencepost 9y ago
  most people just use default apps on their phones for email, the web, and text messaging The email client was fine IIRC, particularly if you were connecting to Exchange for work since it's Outlook. For Gmail on the other hand, well, it was IMAP. I'm pretty sure that's improved a lot over the years, but for a long time I think there was a lot that was broken about using Gmail with IMAP - little things like IMAP not being so great for handling tags. The web browser situation was pretty poor. Edge for a long time was what you'd expect from a brand-new written-from-scratch browser - immature and not really ready for prime time. Unfortunately there weren't any other options that were really great either (Squirrel Browser? Monument? I think that's it) and nothing with a significant development team behind it. Text messaging was interesting - IIRC, it was a "Model T color choice" situation. You used the built-in messaging app, because security features meant that there not only were not any others but that there could not be any others. I'm not sure about iOS, but on Android there are some very successful alternative messaging apps (Textra, Handcent, Go, maybe some others).
Alterlife 9y ago
> lack of apps killed it For me personally, this is not true. I had a windows phone for about a year and it sucked, and I do mean SUCKED for daily use. At the time, I didn't use apps apart from email. Sure animations were smooth, but after the first two times looking at them, they are too slow and 'in your face', making the phone feel slow. Live tiles were annoying rather than useful because often I couldn't tell what clicking on the tile would do. Whatever reviewers tell you, pictures are not as good as simple icons if you want to open an app fast. The only good thing is I think there was a way to turn them off. Basic things like having a separate audio level for media vs ringtone were missing. Even something as simple as swiping up to unlock the phone, you swipe up to pull the lock screen up and unlock the phone, but often when unlocking the phone one handed, I couldn't push it far enough; instead of unlocking, the shade would drop back down and bounce on the bottom of the screen. This happened a LOT and it was really annoying. I tried to use it but it was a terrible, terrible, horrible experience.
- fencepost 9y ago
  Basic things like having a separate audio level for media vs ringtone were missing. What version were you using and when? Mine always had 2 settings ("Media + Apps" and "Ringer + Notifications"). For that matter, the fact that it brought up the media controls (at least to pause/advance) when you hit the volume buttons was very handy since it allowed control without unlocking.
  - Alterlife 9y ago
    It was a Nokia Lumia 630. I think it was on Windows 8.1.
    - imajoo 9y ago
      WP7 and WP8 did not have it, but WM10 did.
  - B1FF_PSUVM 9y ago
    IIRC, for 8.1 the controls were separate, but ringer volume was available on phone or main screen, and media volume inside apps/games.
neya 9y ago
Your comment poses as though Microsoft is a victim here, which they're not. Around 2012ish if I can remember correctly, Apple was throwing around lawsuits like crazy at everyone in the android ecosystem. The most notable I can remember was the one with Samsung. And the next one was HTC. I owned a HTC phone at that time and they made both Android and Windows phones that were very popular. Microsoft, following suit with Apple, started suing almost every major Android vendor to for basic patents[0]. I can't find the article, but their deal was that if you made Android phones, it means you had the means to build Windows phones as well. If you made a Windows phone AND an Android phone, the licensing was very reasonable, otherwise the vendors who made only Android phones would have to pay a lot in royalties to Microsoft. I personally found this slimy and a very shitty way to sell Windows phones. Technologically, it's a great phone (I had both - Android and Windows from HTC). It was fast, fluid and almost didn't have any lags. Ethically speaking, I'm glad their sneaky sales didn't work out and Windows phone is dead. [0] https://www.howtogeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/microsoft-android-patent-licensing-and-litigation-graph.png https://www.howtogeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/microso...
- midnitewarrior 9y ago
  Have you seen Oracle's patent lawsuit against Google over their misuse of Java in Android? Billions in damages if they win, and recent developments look like it could go that way. Google is already building an OS to replace Android.
  - Too 9y ago
    Which part of java is the suit about? The runtime, the library or the language? Would kotlin be a possible escape hatch for Google here in the future?
    - stevefan1999 9y ago
      Just the library. Oracle said Google reimplementing Java API is an infringement of their IP because function prototypes should be regarded as protected properties as well.
bitmapbrother 9y ago
>For a $30 phone, it was incredibly fast and smooth. No it wasn't. As the previous owner of 2 windows phones the platform was anything but fast or smooth, but it sure did like resuming a lot. You should upload a video of your phone on YouTube so that we can count all of the frame drops and stutters. And those slow superfluous animations they used still couldn't mask all of the hitches. >The tile interface worked well (particularly information dense relative to notification dots/counts on icons we're seeing now), the onscreen keyboard is the best I've ever used (even to this day), and the way updates were delivered (direct from Microsoft, not the network operator or OEM) was a breath of fresh air from Android. Firmware updates aren't provided by Microsoft and can only be updated by the OEM. >As anyone and everyone will tell you, lack of apps killed it. In no small part because Google was using their market position to squish it (yes, I appreciate the irony). Google didn't produce Windows Phone apps, which they're entitled to not do, but then Microsoft tried to make apps for Google's services[0] which Google also shut down. Windows phone supporters should really stop trying to blame Google for the incompetence of Microsoft. Microsoft controlled their own fate and they alone are responsible for its demise. From their constant reboots, their abandonment of the previous OS, the constant changes to the development and tooling that did nothing but confuse and frustrate developers and they even had the arrogance to tell OEM's what they could and could not do with their OS. If there's anything Windows phone should be remembered for it's how it systematically destroyed Nokia's device division like a cancer.
barbs 9y ago
> the onscreen keyboard is the best I've ever used The article mentioned this as well - could you please elaborate on why the Windows keyboard is so good? I've used an Android phone for 4 years and still find the keyboard fiddly, so would love to learn about alternatives.
- __sr__ 9y ago
  It’s hard to quantify, you have to use it to understand the difference. IMO BlackBerry had the best onscreen keyboard, followed very closely by Windows Phone. And while iOS keyboard has issues with Autocorrect, it’s gotten a lot better in the recent days and is still miles ahead of Android keyboard. There is a good reason third party keyboards are so popular on Android while most people stick to the stock one on iOS despite third party keyboards being available on the platform for many years now.
asveikau 9y ago
Your casual review conveniently left out trying out the app dev platform, which mostly used frameworks that were completely separate from what first party apps got. When wp7 launched the default blank app in Visual Studio took absurdly long to load and didn't have fancy things like ... wait for it ... sockets. There was some gradual and some big improvement over time, so maybe that is a bit of hyperbole, but it is a fairly representative example of the spirit throughout the lifetime of the product. My thesis is that even if you wanted to make a very good WP app, you needed to work harder and be more of an expert than if you wanted a decent app on other platforms, and some device capabilities would be off the table. Too many people attribute the lack of apps to the lack of interest, which sure is a big factor, but nobody asks if it was technically feasible to have a large number of decent apps.
otempomores 9y ago
Yes, its all Noodlesoups fault. Definitely not Microsoft treating external devs like they where lowly locked in peasants on the windows eco system. Windows phone was windows last victim. It was done right in software and UE but destroyed by management.

enitihas 9y ago

Given the amount that Google pays to Apple to remain the default search engine on the iPhone, I really doubt they would be willing to take that risk.

dep_b 9y ago
iOS users are the biggest cash cows for e-commerce in the US. Since Google is ad-driven and ads are ultimately paid by people that actually buy stuff it would lower the value of Google overnight by 30%.

pgeorgi 9y ago

> Microsoft tried to make apps for Google's services Where "apps" means "app", and "Google's services" means "YouTube".

spikej 9y ago
I missed not having Google Drive

bko 9y ago

From the article cited regarding the YouTube app developed by Microsoft: > The problems with that, according to Google, are three: the app enables users to download YouTube videos, prevents ads from being shown, and plays videos whose owners have set to only play on certain platforms. Microsoft’s app, Google says, violates the YouTube terms of service, and uses the YouTube logo in a way that contravenes the company’s branding guidelines. Is this just an excuse used by Google, or did they really have these features? Because I could understand why Google doesn't want a service to demonitize their service. Why wouldn't Microsoft just remove those features? It seems like a reasonable response.

prepend 9y ago
Since it would be trivial for Goog to expose all of this functionality in their API, I consider all of this BS PR by google. It would also be trivial for google to make a basic app for the 3rd biggest phone OS. But since Google makes an OS and doesn’t want other OSes, any actions they have other than support are suspect. It’s like when MS said that it was possible for PC sellers to not bundle IE. Sure it’s possible, but it was just BS because it was completely MS’ prerogative.
- p992eiiej28 9y ago
  They’re not obliged to spend resources on making native apps But they’re obliged to spend resources making open APIs? Any actions they have are suspect because they’re a big fucking corporation that vacuums up our data and lobbies government for beneficial treatment Let’s not wrap it up in overly customized excuses for their shit behavior. A more generally phrased definition will suffice and probably be more beneficial If it’s just market assholery, that’s the market If it’s acceptance of the reality they control us through plain behavior of buying and selling our data and buying influence, that’s broadly more captivating
- bko 9y ago
  I’m not sure I understand. Do you mean that their api prevented Microsoft from creating a YouTube app that confirms to their guidelines (shows ads and respects uploaded guidelines as to device? Is this still the case? The download feature certainly could have been pulled from Microsoft

hota_mazi 9y ago

It's a bit strange to fault Google for killing Windows Phone while it was essentially users making that choice. The article is looking at Windows Phone with a lot of rosy glasses. Sure, WP had tiles and neither iOS nor Android have them, but WP had been behind on tons of other features that Android users had been enjoying for years, starting with apps being able to call each other indirectly (the intent system). WP failed because it was late in the game but also because overall, it was inferior to Android on most fronts.

sydd 9y ago
It was really Google's app monopoly that killed it. Arguing that the users did it, is the same as arguing why people only use Google or Facebook.
- hota_mazi 9y ago
  Google was nowhere near having a monopoly when WP died. And yes, people use Google and Facebook because these two tools are the best in their category, not because the companies performed some kind of brainwashing on users.
  - blackoil 9y ago
    Irrespective of how monopoly was acquired, it did influence choice of mobile OS. Youtube and Google Maps were of few universally used apps, not available on WP.
  - CodeWriter23 9y ago
    Neither was Microsoft a monopoly when they got their eyes sued out and a consent decree slapped on them simply for making their browser the default browser on their own OS. A lot less than Google did to stifle competition from WP.
    - hota_mazi 9y ago
      Microsoft was definitely a monopoly when the antitrust lawsuit was filed against them. There can be no antitrust lawsuit if you're not a monopoly, it pretty much is a requirement for such a lawsuit to be brought. It's perfectly legal (and healthy in a free trade economy) to be a monopoly. What's illegal is leveraging that monopoly to enter other markets, which is what Microsoft attempted to do.

rootusrootus 9y ago

Most likely Apple would make a similar license arrangement with Bing. But what would really be neat is if they bought DuckDuckGo instead, made it the search engine of choice, and expanded on it's abilities. Apple has quite a lot of cash to throw at such a problem and DDG would line up nicely with their stance on privacy. I wouldn't be surprised if they've given something like that serious consideration. Much the way Google tries to break Apple's grip on high-end smartphones, Apple probably wants to keep some leverage of their own.

mattnewport 9y ago
That wouldn't be good, then I'd have to stop using DuckDuckGo. Avoiding Apple products is currently much easier than avoiding Google products (though after a concerted effort I'm now mostly managing that too) but if they bought DuckDuckGo I'd have to find another search engine.
- matthewmacleod 9y ago
  Why?
  - mattnewport 9y ago
    Why what? Why would I have to stop using DuckDuckGo? Because I don't use Apple products. Why don't I use Apple products? Many reasons.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
    - tibyat 9y ago
      wow great supporting argument. this is the quality we come to HN for.
    - saagarjha 9y ago
      I sort of agree with the other reply (that's dead now), if not with the way they said it. Your response provides next to no information. Maybe you could list some of the reasons why you don't use Apple products? "Many reasons" provides no insight, which is especially annoying because the parent comment to yours was explicitly asking for you to explain your reasoning.

vbezhenar 9y ago

I've read few impressions from Windows Phone users and they all liked it. It's a pity that it died. While I'm personally don't have much interest with it, competition never hurts. Currently iOS and Android basically divided the market: iOS for niche luxury phones and Android for average phones. I've found it hard to find Android with premium price ($1000), there are not enough phones to make a good choice, it seems like a lot of manufacturers just not interested with this market, for example.

Zanni 9y ago
I switched from Android to the Windows Phone and greatly preferred it. I liked the look, the responsiveness, and the dearth of apps wasn't a problem initially. I was never a huge fan of live tiles, though, because I like my UI to stay still and let me focus on what I focus on. But what ultimately drove me away was the inexplicably shitty Kindle app. I read a lot on my phone, and the Kindle app would skip lines on page turns, for a very disorienting and frustrating reading experience.
- thaumasiotes 9y ago
  I'm having the same problem recently with the Kindle app for Android...
  - coldacid 9y ago
    Amazon would rather you buy one of their devices instead of using your phone to read.
    - thaumasiotes 9y ago
      I seriously doubt this is the case. Amazon's business selling ebooks is much more significant than their business selling proprietary Android devices. And the page turning problem also occurs on my Kindle Oasis.
      - 9y ago

oldgun 9y ago

I don't think you should blame Google for putting resources into a platform of less than 1% of the market-share that's not built by Google itself. Google has actually been pretty eager in developing iOS apps AFAIK, sometimes releasing it even sooner than Android platform. If Windows Phone really gained traction, maybe Google will develop apps for it too. Remember it's more of a service company than a hardware company. But MS never got out of that vicious cycle. Can't shift blame to its competitors.

prepend 9y ago
How many resources would it take? Especially if Microsoft partnered on it. This doesn’t make any sense since Google used to be really supportive of new platforms and services. This was back when goog was just playing around with using lock-in to their advantage
Mononokay 9y ago
> Google has actually been pretty eager in developing iOS apps AFAIK, sometimes releasing it even sooner than Android platform. If Windows Phone really gained traction, maybe Google will develop apps for it too. Remember it's more of a service company than a hardware company. Their support for iOS is second-class for more than a few apps; like Inbox for Gmail.
- saagarjha 9y ago
  To be fair, it's not like Apple's updated all their apps for iPhone X either.

mc32 9y ago

The biggest thing I miss from Winmo is the universal back button. You always knew where "back" was. No having to scroll back up, no having to figure out where this app has the "back" feature. Always one known place.

severino 9y ago

> Google didn't produce Windows Phone apps, which they're entitled to not do, but then Microsoft tried to make apps for Google's services[0] which Google also shut down Well, you know, that's what Microsoft has been doing throughout its history, and still does. It's not bad when those giants get a taste of their own medicine.

SmellyGeekBoy 9y ago
Office and IE have been available for the Mac for a very long time now, I'm not sure what you're talking about...
- my123 9y ago
  Office was available for the Mac before Office for Windows even existed.
  - __sr__ 9y ago
    And it was left to languish for a couple of decades before the move to cloud centric multi-platform workflow left them with no other choice. I am not a power user of MS Office, but the ones I know tell me that the macOS version still lacks features compared to Windows. And lastly, where is MS Access for macOS?
- tiuPapa 9y ago
  Are they available for Linux?
  - zeusk 9y ago
    No they're not because of multitude of reasons but they now use a open XML format that does way better interchange with openOffice etc. and don't actively try to shut down those products.
    - __sr__ 9y ago
      The keyword being now. It happened when they realised that they were going to be knocked off their pedestal if they didn’t open up - not when they were at the height of their power. By the way, is the XML Office file format really open — to the extant where one can create a third party client which works as well as the official one without reverse engineering?

mhermher 9y ago

Aside from the Google issue, I think honestly the biggest thing is that MS was still charging OEMs a licensing fee where Android wasn't. They eventually let go of the fee, but it was too late. I think that killed WP more than anything.

mavhc 9y ago
Android isn't, but surely Google is for having the google play store, services, and apps?
- ocdtrekkie 9y ago
  Google doesn't collect a paid license fee for Google Apps on Android, but they have fairly significant nonmonetary agreements, essentially barring the OEMs from using Google's competitors, making Google's products the default, dictating where Google Apps must be placed on the home screen, etc. Some of the larger OEMs might be able to negotiate revenue sharing agreements from Play purchases, but inside the Google Apps is definitely where Google makes its money, on app sales and ad targeting based on data collected by Google hoovering up everyone's mobile data and location.
- mhermher 9y ago
  From what I remember, no. I think play services is a separate license which is also free, as long as you sign something called the Open Handset Agreement (or something like that), which basically forces OEMs to follow a bunch of rules about pre-installed/default apps and home screen placement, etc. The one example I remember being mentioned at some point is that the google search bar widget must be on the first home page of any phone sold by OEMs (of course users are free to change that if they wish). Other little things like that. Instead of making money from licenses, Google makes money by nudging users into its ad-revenue generating services.

throwafk81 9y ago

Most of the arguments I read here are the same one: WP was fast and smooth. But it was not particularly fast, you are simply comparing it to Android, which fucking sucks. And other than that, it had no other redeeming qualities.

tehlike 9y ago
Fast, smooth, and had very robust development environment. One thing Microsoft knows how is to develop a language/platform (.net, for example), and provide tooling around that. 5 years ago, Visual Studio was years ahead of what today's mobile tools can do.
- throwafk81 9y ago
  I hope you’re kidding with the dev environment thing. WP died because they changed everything completely with every OS release. Not to mention that to develop an app they required you to have Hyper-V, which is only available in Pro editions of Windows and CPUs with VT-x.
  - tehlike 9y ago
    I was definitely not kidding. 10+ years of c# experience, and 5+ years of android, and you can see the difference between the two. Hyper-V and so on, i certainly do not remember as I had them anyway, but talking about purely the dev env and ease of platform to me tells it all. Android has not been written from "application dev" pov. With all these contexts, application contexts, leaky abstractions all over, it certainly is not a robust platform.
- bitmapbrother 9y ago
  Did you even develop for windows phone? Because it's like you have no idea of what the development process entailed or how frequently they changed it.
  - pjmlp 9y ago
    Still way less how Google handles Android development, where recommended API in version X, turns out legacy in version X+1, replaced in X+2, but all need to be supported thanks to lack of updates.

__sr__ 9y ago

> Makes you wonder what would happen if Google pulled all of their iOS apps tomorrow, and then blocked third parties/diminished the mobile browser experience on purpose. There is a reason Google paid close to 3 billon USD to stay the default search provider on iOS. They had several opportunities to pull their apps from the platform, but they never did. It’s not random. They acknowledge that Apple is not in direct competitior as far as their core business is concerned — unlike Microsoft. They can still be the primary search provider on iOS, but Microsoft would never let that happen on Windows Phone/Mobile thanks to Bing. In fact, there was no way to set the search engine to Google in Edge for a while - and the OS wide search never offered a choice. Allowing Windows Phone/Mobile to flourish would have meant allowing Bing to grow - something Google can’t afford. As long as Apple doesn’t become a threat to their core business, I don’t think they are going to pull their apps. And even if they do, iOS has become too big to die like Windows Phone/Mobile. And let’s not forget, the organisations charged with preventing monopoly will slap Google with antitrust lawsuits all over the world.

mgkimsal 9y ago
> Google paid close to 3 billon USD to stay the default search provider on iOS And yet... they purposefully have ipad mini google search results only show in a crappy 'mobile' format, vs the regular way it used to ('normal desktop' for safari). It's bizarre, has been broken for years. Doesn't matter if they're "default", we've moved to yahoo and ddg for ipad searching. :/
- bla2 9y ago
  iPad is the iOS sideshow in sale numbers by far -- no reason to prioritize it. And, more cynical, using the parent comment's reasoning: iPad _is_ a competitor to Google's Chrome OS in education, so maybe they don't want it to work too well.
  - chx 9y ago
    Can you imagine being the programmer on that project?

agumonkey 9y ago

I don't know why I never got a WP phone. I knew it has a lot of benefits in terms of UX. But somehow I feared MS way of doing software more than Google. So even if they provided lots of stuff I wouldn't be attracted to their phones.

chengiz 9y ago

I bought my Nokia 635 for $50 off Ebay and still use it. I've hated all Android phones I've used before, so dont want to switch unless I can no longer handle it, and I dont want to pay premium for Apple. The WP OS is pretty awesome, and the phone is rock solid. I use an old Nexus 4 which I never liked for Chromecast purposes, a standalone GPS, and WP for everything else. It works just fine.

golfer 9y ago

Your $30 phone likely cost far more to build, perhaps hundreds. You bought it at a huge discount probably, since you said it was after the platform was dead. Therefore, this statement doesn't make sense to me: "For a $30 phone, it was incredibly fast and smooth."

maxsilver 9y ago
> Your $30 phone likely cost far more to build, perhaps hundreds When the platform was still new and well supported, and without any discounts or contracts, you could get Windows Phones at the ~$100 USD price that were every bit as fast and fluid as described. Phones like the Lumia 520 / 530 / 535 series. So, if the discounted price bothers you, just read it as "For a $100 phone", as that was the brand-new day-one price at the time, with no subsidies / discounts / contract / credit-checks / loss write-off / etc.
- ams6110 9y ago
  Are you sure it wasn't sold at a loss even then, just to try to establish market share?

giancarlostoro 9y ago

I would love to see Microsoft do a fully open source Mobile OS now that they've shown to be mobile friendly. Maybe based off of BSD or something to take advantage of some of the things BSD does differently from Linux

bitmapbrother 9y ago
Because this time it's really going to be different, right? The story always ends the same with red all over your balance sheet. They will never have the developers or ecosystem.
- giancarlostoro 9y ago
  People don't want yet another close sourced OS like iOS, they want something open like Android. Microsoft has the resources to work with other bigger service providers. Also a lot of corporations use Microsoft's solutions like Outlook and Office 365. They could provide a strong focus on corporate customers sorta like how Blackberry had that reputation. Point is, we got two options for smart phones, we need more.
  - Khaine 9y ago
    Who are these people? What is the size of that market? The fact is that iPhones and iOS dominate the revenue of the mobile market[1]. iPhone users have incredibly high customer satisfaction numbers[2] and are unlikely to switch, so essentially you are competing against Android which is already "open". Seems like an easy way to loose a ton of money to me. [1] https://www.zdnet.com/article/how-the-iphone-x-drives-apples-smartphone-revenue-dominance/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/how-the-iphone-x-drives-apples... [2] https://marketrealist.com/2017/06/could-apples-iphone-8-drive-revenues-in-2017-and-beyond https://marketrealist.com/2017/06/could-apples-iphone-8-driv... [3] https://www.imore.com/apple-seeing-record-rate-android-users-switching-iphone https://www.imore.com/apple-seeing-record-rate-android-users...
  - bitmapbrother 9y ago
    >People don't want yet another close sourced OS like iOS, they want something open like Android So you've conducted a poll and asked what people want? People don't care if the OS is open or closed source. In fact, the extreme majority wouldn't even know what you're talking about. They care about having access to the apps and services they want. Microsoft failed with a closed source OS and they'll fail even harder with an open one too.

notadoc 9y ago

>As anyone and everyone will tell you, lack of apps killed it. I am not convinced of this. Aside from the widely used social networking apps, most people just use default apps on their phones for email, the web, and text messaging. Kids play games too, I suppose. To me, it never felt like Microsoft made a sincere push for establishing Windows Phone into the market. Aggressive subsidies, pricing, and features should have been able to get a footprint. They pulled it off with Xbox, and of course with PCs, so they could certainly do it again with commoditized phone hardware if they were committed to it.

mxfh 9y ago
I had a few windows phones and it was not the lack of apps in my opinion, but a in a big part, a badly managed store policy that incentivized inflating numbers over actual apps. Searching for any term gave you 4/5 of trash, nonfunctional trash if you were lucky. Discovery was fundamentally broken, if you had no good idea of what you where doing. Around 2014/2015 the ecosystem had pretty much no apps or at least functionality missing, besides snapchat and instagram (which was added at some point).
cc81 9y ago
I had one and for me it was absolutely the lack of apps and I think that is the way for most people. Even if I don't use many it was pretty annoying not to be able to use my banks app, a good workout app or a local taxi company app. None of those are critical but thing like that is annoying.
fencepost 9y ago
most people just use default apps on their phones for email, the web, and text messaging The email client was fine IIRC, particularly if you were connecting to Exchange for work since it's Outlook. For Gmail on the other hand, well, it was IMAP. I'm pretty sure that's improved a lot over the years, but for a long time I think there was a lot that was broken about using Gmail with IMAP - little things like IMAP not being so great for handling tags. The web browser situation was pretty poor. Edge for a long time was what you'd expect from a brand-new written-from-scratch browser - immature and not really ready for prime time. Unfortunately there weren't any other options that were really great either (Squirrel Browser? Monument? I think that's it) and nothing with a significant development team behind it. Text messaging was interesting - IIRC, it was a "Model T color choice" situation. You used the built-in messaging app, because security features meant that there not only were not any others but that there could not be any others. I'm not sure about iOS, but on Android there are some very successful alternative messaging apps (Textra, Handcent, Go, maybe some others).

Alterlife 9y ago

> lack of apps killed it For me personally, this is not true. I had a windows phone for about a year and it sucked, and I do mean SUCKED for daily use. At the time, I didn't use apps apart from email. Sure animations were smooth, but after the first two times looking at them, they are too slow and 'in your face', making the phone feel slow. Live tiles were annoying rather than useful because often I couldn't tell what clicking on the tile would do. Whatever reviewers tell you, pictures are not as good as simple icons if you want to open an app fast. The only good thing is I think there was a way to turn them off. Basic things like having a separate audio level for media vs ringtone were missing. Even something as simple as swiping up to unlock the phone, you swipe up to pull the lock screen up and unlock the phone, but often when unlocking the phone one handed, I couldn't push it far enough; instead of unlocking, the shade would drop back down and bounce on the bottom of the screen. This happened a LOT and it was really annoying. I tried to use it but it was a terrible, terrible, horrible experience.

fencepost 9y ago
Basic things like having a separate audio level for media vs ringtone were missing. What version were you using and when? Mine always had 2 settings ("Media + Apps" and "Ringer + Notifications"). For that matter, the fact that it brought up the media controls (at least to pause/advance) when you hit the volume buttons was very handy since it allowed control without unlocking.
- Alterlife 9y ago
  It was a Nokia Lumia 630. I think it was on Windows 8.1.
  - imajoo 9y ago
    WP7 and WP8 did not have it, but WM10 did.
- B1FF_PSUVM 9y ago
  IIRC, for 8.1 the controls were separate, but ringer volume was available on phone or main screen, and media volume inside apps/games.

neya 9y ago

Your comment poses as though Microsoft is a victim here, which they're not. Around 2012ish if I can remember correctly, Apple was throwing around lawsuits like crazy at everyone in the android ecosystem. The most notable I can remember was the one with Samsung. And the next one was HTC. I owned a HTC phone at that time and they made both Android and Windows phones that were very popular. Microsoft, following suit with Apple, started suing almost every major Android vendor to for basic patents[0]. I can't find the article, but their deal was that if you made Android phones, it means you had the means to build Windows phones as well. If you made a Windows phone AND an Android phone, the licensing was very reasonable, otherwise the vendors who made only Android phones would have to pay a lot in royalties to Microsoft. I personally found this slimy and a very shitty way to sell Windows phones. Technologically, it's a great phone (I had both - Android and Windows from HTC). It was fast, fluid and almost didn't have any lags. Ethically speaking, I'm glad their sneaky sales didn't work out and Windows phone is dead. [0] https://www.howtogeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/microsoft-android-patent-licensing-and-litigation-graph.png https://www.howtogeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/microso...

midnitewarrior 9y ago
Have you seen Oracle's patent lawsuit against Google over their misuse of Java in Android? Billions in damages if they win, and recent developments look like it could go that way. Google is already building an OS to replace Android.
- Too 9y ago
  Which part of java is the suit about? The runtime, the library or the language? Would kotlin be a possible escape hatch for Google here in the future?
  - stevefan1999 9y ago
    Just the library. Oracle said Google reimplementing Java API is an infringement of their IP because function prototypes should be regarded as protected properties as well.

bitmapbrother 9y ago

>For a $30 phone, it was incredibly fast and smooth. No it wasn't. As the previous owner of 2 windows phones the platform was anything but fast or smooth, but it sure did like resuming a lot. You should upload a video of your phone on YouTube so that we can count all of the frame drops and stutters. And those slow superfluous animations they used still couldn't mask all of the hitches. >The tile interface worked well (particularly information dense relative to notification dots/counts on icons we're seeing now), the onscreen keyboard is the best I've ever used (even to this day), and the way updates were delivered (direct from Microsoft, not the network operator or OEM) was a breath of fresh air from Android. Firmware updates aren't provided by Microsoft and can only be updated by the OEM. >As anyone and everyone will tell you, lack of apps killed it. In no small part because Google was using their market position to squish it (yes, I appreciate the irony). Google didn't produce Windows Phone apps, which they're entitled to not do, but then Microsoft tried to make apps for Google's services[0] which Google also shut down. Windows phone supporters should really stop trying to blame Google for the incompetence of Microsoft. Microsoft controlled their own fate and they alone are responsible for its demise. From their constant reboots, their abandonment of the previous OS, the constant changes to the development and tooling that did nothing but confuse and frustrate developers and they even had the arrogance to tell OEM's what they could and could not do with their OS. If there's anything Windows phone should be remembered for it's how it systematically destroyed Nokia's device division like a cancer.

barbs 9y ago

> the onscreen keyboard is the best I've ever used The article mentioned this as well - could you please elaborate on why the Windows keyboard is so good? I've used an Android phone for 4 years and still find the keyboard fiddly, so would love to learn about alternatives.

__sr__ 9y ago
It’s hard to quantify, you have to use it to understand the difference. IMO BlackBerry had the best onscreen keyboard, followed very closely by Windows Phone. And while iOS keyboard has issues with Autocorrect, it’s gotten a lot better in the recent days and is still miles ahead of Android keyboard. There is a good reason third party keyboards are so popular on Android while most people stick to the stock one on iOS despite third party keyboards being available on the platform for many years now.

asveikau 9y ago

Your casual review conveniently left out trying out the app dev platform, which mostly used frameworks that were completely separate from what first party apps got. When wp7 launched the default blank app in Visual Studio took absurdly long to load and didn't have fancy things like ... wait for it ... sockets. There was some gradual and some big improvement over time, so maybe that is a bit of hyperbole, but it is a fairly representative example of the spirit throughout the lifetime of the product. My thesis is that even if you wanted to make a very good WP app, you needed to work harder and be more of an expert than if you wanted a decent app on other platforms, and some device capabilities would be off the table. Too many people attribute the lack of apps to the lack of interest, which sure is a big factor, but nobody asks if it was technically feasible to have a large number of decent apps.

otempomores 9y ago

Yes, its all Noodlesoups fault. Definitely not Microsoft treating external devs like they where lowly locked in peasants on the windows eco system. Windows phone was windows last victim. It was done right in software and UE but destroyed by management.