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Windows CE and windows mobile was terrible, making it open source, or aggressive 3rd party handset adoption with it would not change anything. Windows phone was

by ohiovr 7y ago

Windows CE and windows mobile was terrible, making it open source, or aggressive 3rd party handset adoption with it would not change anything. Windows phone was too little too late. Android copied how iOS worked and felt fairly closely to it and it became an affordable alternative product for the non bourgeoisie. iOS is not so intuitive that anyone can pick it up and figure out how to use it. There are still older people that don't understand it and handset interfaces could be improved if a company can stomach throwing away a few complete designs for the sake of clarity. Microsoft just didn't have the vision required to make something that had its own merit besides being the poor mans iOS. To say that handsets can never be improved and that iOS is fundamentally the best it can ever be is short sighted. Of course a new paradigm can be found that is superior. An also ran that is cheaper is running with an also ran that has been around way longer that already fills that role. So the only way to get that market is to innovate.

karmakaze 7y ago
Windows CE and Windows Phone were different things and the late realization of this is a large part of the problem. The later versions of the Windows Phone UX were great in both usability and responsiveness. The main problem was a lack of focus. The developer experience was a rehash of desktop models that were reworked for mobile but not portable either, so you had something very similar and incompatible. This was not a place to be extending the desktop (Windows CE, Forms). I find it hard to believe that MS took mobile seriously producing only the low-quality devkits and limited marketing they did. I also wouldn't count them out just yet either. iPadOS (or iTableOS?) is showing that there's a third platform yet to come and MS Surface with good dev tooling and app runtime could win over Flutter/Fuchsia.
dghughes 7y ago
There are still so many Windows CE devices on the go it's amazing. I often see them as an inventory tool used to scan barcodes or count items it's the perfect device and it's been around forever. Stores don't want to their inventory systems if it works don't change it. And these devices on old hardware never seem to die or there is a modern supplier of the devices.

by ohiovr 7y ago

karmakaze 7y ago

Windows CE and Windows Phone were different things and the late realization of this is a large part of the problem. The later versions of the Windows Phone UX were great in both usability and responsiveness. The main problem was a lack of focus. The developer experience was a rehash of desktop models that were reworked for mobile but not portable either, so you had something very similar and incompatible. This was not a place to be extending the desktop (Windows CE, Forms). I find it hard to believe that MS took mobile seriously producing only the low-quality devkits and limited marketing they did. I also wouldn't count them out just yet either. iPadOS (or iTableOS?) is showing that there's a third platform yet to come and MS Surface with good dev tooling and app runtime could win over Flutter/Fuchsia.

dghughes 7y ago

There are still so many Windows CE devices on the go it's amazing. I often see them as an inventory tool used to scan barcodes or count items it's the perfect device and it's been around forever. Stores don't want to their inventory systems if it works don't change it. And these devices on old hardware never seem to die or there is a modern supplier of the devices.