6 ms·

I wish Microsoft would still have a viable option for phones. I don't like iPhones or Apples walled garden, but I don't wan't to be dependent on Google either.

I wish Microsoft would still have a viable option for phones. I don't like iPhones or Apples walled garden, but I don't wan't to be dependent on Google either. I wonder if they would have a better chance today, when cross platform app development is easier and most people only use a handful of them.

TeMPOraL 8y ago
I wish that too. Especially that their UX ideas were good, and their tablets show capacity of doing better than both Apple and Google. Alas, I feel the mistake they made was releasing an MVP of a phone OS, instead of hitting feature parity with Android (or at least iOS) of the era. Phones have quite a big switching cost - if you make a mistake and are not super wealthy, you may need to live with it for the next year, or more. By releasing and aggressively pushing a subpar product, Microsoft completely obliterated the trust in their mobile brand.
- fauigerzigerk 8y ago
  Was feature parity really in Microsoft's hands? One of the main features people want is app availability after all. I think Windows needs to run Android apps like Chrome OS does. Then they will eventually be able to run on phones once again.
  - TeMPOraL 8y ago
    Right. That was a problem as well. But what I remember the most from the experience with early Windows phones is the lack of many OS-level features and configuration options I came to expect from Android.
rimliu 8y ago
I wish developers started to care about the users again instead of looking for the ways to make a life easier for themselves. I’ve never saw enjoyable cross-platform app and I doubt I ever will, by definition.
- oblio 8y ago
  Skype used to be Qt and it was pretty good for a big chunk of its life.
  - Liquid_Fire 8y ago
    Only the Linux version of Skype used to be based on Qt. The Windows, Linux and macOS Skype clients were all separate codebases with considerably different UI rather than one cross-platform application (although I'm sure they probably shared a lot of the network, protocol and VoIP code).
jraph 8y ago
I wouldn't trust Microsoft for privacy today. I think the "best" option for now would be an Android phone without Google services. And as a developer you don't have to play to put your app in the F-Droid repository (you may want to donate though). In 2019, the Librem 5 will probably be a good (expensive?) option too.
- twsted 8y ago
  Yours is the "best" option to be able to tinker with your device, which is a laudable goal. It is not the best option for a secure device, for which some restrictions are necessary.
  - jraph 8y ago
    You don't need root and developer options on such a device. If your device is well supported, you may have regular OTA updates with latest security patches (which is not always the case with stock Android by the way). Using only apps from F-Droid, I'm reasonably sure no app is doing something shady. Google is probably not spying on you as much as on a regular Android phone. No need for having a Google account to install apps, by the way. Depending on the device, SELinux policies can be enforced (and probably are on a well supported device). F-Droid requires enabling insecure sources but this is not a problem if you don't download random APKs from the Internet and on Oreo, it seems insecure sources are handled with a permission given per app. Insecure sources can be enabled in any regular Android device anyway. (edit: and actually, I think enabling insecure sources is not necessary if F-Droid Privileged Extension is flashed on the device (https://f-droid.org/en/packages/org.fdroid.fdroid.privileged.ota/ https://f-droid.org/en/packages/org.fdroid.fdroid.privileged...) I can't verify what are doing the numerous proprietary blobs all over the place, but this is true on any current Android phone so far (and this is my motivation to put "best" inside quotes actually). Why would this option not be secure enough compared to a regular Android phone? Sure you have to deal with an unlocked bootloader, but if someone gets physical access to the phone, they can unlock it anyway. They will not get access to the data since it is encrypted (it should, anyway!). (p.s. for posterity: I meant "pay", not "play" in my previous message)
swebs 8y ago
Fuck that. Microsoft is worse then Google when it comes to privacy. At least when you opt out to Google's tracking, it doesn't magically opt back in after an update. Microsoft is a toxic company that simply has a good PR team on social media. I wish we had the Ubuntu phone instead.
- jrs95 8y ago
  I get that people may not like the tone here...but the central point is true. Microsoft is even more aggressive about this stuff than Google now. Having to opt-out per major update is just insane, almost nobody will remember to do it making the opt-out virtually meaningless.
- sir-alien 8y ago
  Except that due to GDPR (at least in Europe) automatically opting someone in now is against the law and will result in hefty fines. So for Europe, each major update should either remember your preferences or have them opted out by default.
ubermonkey 8y ago
I'm not attempting to derail, or to engage in OS partisanship, AT ALL. I'm actually hoping I can get a more nuanced answer here, at HN, than I might posing the question elsewhere. What do you mean specifically about the walled garden? Is it just the fact that it's a bit of a hassle to get apps on an iOS device without going through the store, or is it something else? (I'm absolutely not trying to argue your preference; some people just like Android's take on the mobile OS better, and that's fine. I'm specifically interested in your comment about the walled garden, and what that prevents or gets in the way of for you.)
- delecti 8y ago
  > it's a bit of a hassle to get apps on an iOS device without going through the store You seem to be deliberately understating the difficulty. For the overwhelming majority of the people, it's simply not an option. I'm not who you're replying to, but it's hard to honestly argue that Apple doesn't maintain a walled garden unless you come up with a euphemistic term that means the same thing but sounds more generous. It's entirely possible that such a model doesn't bother you, and it clearly doesn't bother most of their enormous customer base, but that doesn't make it not the case.
  - ubermonkey 8y ago
    I'm really not. I have apps on my iOS devices right now that I didn't get from the app store; all I had to do was download them from the publisher, and then accept their signature in the security settings. (In my case, it's the frozen-in-amber old version of Sonos, which they'll let you have if you ask for it, but presumably this would work for anything.) Anyway, you're coming at me apparently ready to argue about whether it is or isn't a walled garden. That isn't what I'm asking about. I'm asking what, specifically, Apple won't let you do that you want or need to do that leads you to describe it as a walled garden.
- kodablah 8y ago
  > Is it just the fact that it's a bit of a hassle to get apps on an iOS device without going through the store, or is it something else? A bit? Maybe you can provide a nuanced answer here. As a user, when browsing a site on my iPhone, what steps do I need to take to download software from a website and run it? Can you provide an example of a website that provides their software for iPhone download without Apple's permission? I can build and publish an APK on my website without Google's approval. That approval is the wall, the only place to get apps is the garden.

TeMPOraL 8y ago

I wish that too. Especially that their UX ideas were good, and their tablets show capacity of doing better than both Apple and Google. Alas, I feel the mistake they made was releasing an MVP of a phone OS, instead of hitting feature parity with Android (or at least iOS) of the era. Phones have quite a big switching cost - if you make a mistake and are not super wealthy, you may need to live with it for the next year, or more. By releasing and aggressively pushing a subpar product, Microsoft completely obliterated the trust in their mobile brand.

fauigerzigerk 8y ago
Was feature parity really in Microsoft's hands? One of the main features people want is app availability after all. I think Windows needs to run Android apps like Chrome OS does. Then they will eventually be able to run on phones once again.
- TeMPOraL 8y ago
  Right. That was a problem as well. But what I remember the most from the experience with early Windows phones is the lack of many OS-level features and configuration options I came to expect from Android.

rimliu 8y ago

I wish developers started to care about the users again instead of looking for the ways to make a life easier for themselves. I’ve never saw enjoyable cross-platform app and I doubt I ever will, by definition.

oblio 8y ago
Skype used to be Qt and it was pretty good for a big chunk of its life.
- Liquid_Fire 8y ago
  Only the Linux version of Skype used to be based on Qt. The Windows, Linux and macOS Skype clients were all separate codebases with considerably different UI rather than one cross-platform application (although I'm sure they probably shared a lot of the network, protocol and VoIP code).

jraph 8y ago

I wouldn't trust Microsoft for privacy today. I think the "best" option for now would be an Android phone without Google services. And as a developer you don't have to play to put your app in the F-Droid repository (you may want to donate though). In 2019, the Librem 5 will probably be a good (expensive?) option too.

twsted 8y ago
Yours is the "best" option to be able to tinker with your device, which is a laudable goal. It is not the best option for a secure device, for which some restrictions are necessary.
- jraph 8y ago
  You don't need root and developer options on such a device. If your device is well supported, you may have regular OTA updates with latest security patches (which is not always the case with stock Android by the way). Using only apps from F-Droid, I'm reasonably sure no app is doing something shady. Google is probably not spying on you as much as on a regular Android phone. No need for having a Google account to install apps, by the way. Depending on the device, SELinux policies can be enforced (and probably are on a well supported device). F-Droid requires enabling insecure sources but this is not a problem if you don't download random APKs from the Internet and on Oreo, it seems insecure sources are handled with a permission given per app. Insecure sources can be enabled in any regular Android device anyway. (edit: and actually, I think enabling insecure sources is not necessary if F-Droid Privileged Extension is flashed on the device (https://f-droid.org/en/packages/org.fdroid.fdroid.privileged.ota/ https://f-droid.org/en/packages/org.fdroid.fdroid.privileged...) I can't verify what are doing the numerous proprietary blobs all over the place, but this is true on any current Android phone so far (and this is my motivation to put "best" inside quotes actually). Why would this option not be secure enough compared to a regular Android phone? Sure you have to deal with an unlocked bootloader, but if someone gets physical access to the phone, they can unlock it anyway. They will not get access to the data since it is encrypted (it should, anyway!). (p.s. for posterity: I meant "pay", not "play" in my previous message)

swebs 8y ago

Fuck that. Microsoft is worse then Google when it comes to privacy. At least when you opt out to Google's tracking, it doesn't magically opt back in after an update. Microsoft is a toxic company that simply has a good PR team on social media. I wish we had the Ubuntu phone instead.

jrs95 8y ago
I get that people may not like the tone here...but the central point is true. Microsoft is even more aggressive about this stuff than Google now. Having to opt-out per major update is just insane, almost nobody will remember to do it making the opt-out virtually meaningless.
sir-alien 8y ago
Except that due to GDPR (at least in Europe) automatically opting someone in now is against the law and will result in hefty fines. So for Europe, each major update should either remember your preferences or have them opted out by default.

ubermonkey 8y ago

I'm not attempting to derail, or to engage in OS partisanship, AT ALL. I'm actually hoping I can get a more nuanced answer here, at HN, than I might posing the question elsewhere. What do you mean specifically about the walled garden? Is it just the fact that it's a bit of a hassle to get apps on an iOS device without going through the store, or is it something else? (I'm absolutely not trying to argue your preference; some people just like Android's take on the mobile OS better, and that's fine. I'm specifically interested in your comment about the walled garden, and what that prevents or gets in the way of for you.)

delecti 8y ago
> it's a bit of a hassle to get apps on an iOS device without going through the store You seem to be deliberately understating the difficulty. For the overwhelming majority of the people, it's simply not an option. I'm not who you're replying to, but it's hard to honestly argue that Apple doesn't maintain a walled garden unless you come up with a euphemistic term that means the same thing but sounds more generous. It's entirely possible that such a model doesn't bother you, and it clearly doesn't bother most of their enormous customer base, but that doesn't make it not the case.
- ubermonkey 8y ago
  I'm really not. I have apps on my iOS devices right now that I didn't get from the app store; all I had to do was download them from the publisher, and then accept their signature in the security settings. (In my case, it's the frozen-in-amber old version of Sonos, which they'll let you have if you ask for it, but presumably this would work for anything.) Anyway, you're coming at me apparently ready to argue about whether it is or isn't a walled garden. That isn't what I'm asking about. I'm asking what, specifically, Apple won't let you do that you want or need to do that leads you to describe it as a walled garden.
kodablah 8y ago
> Is it just the fact that it's a bit of a hassle to get apps on an iOS device without going through the store, or is it something else? A bit? Maybe you can provide a nuanced answer here. As a user, when browsing a site on my iPhone, what steps do I need to take to download software from a website and run it? Can you provide an example of a website that provides their software for iPhone download without Apple's permission? I can build and publish an APK on my website without Google's approval. That approval is the wall, the only place to get apps is the garden.