3 ms·

They botched the original Windows Phone through a failure of management. They botched subsequent pushes on it because the bootstrapping problem around apps had

by _bxg1 7y ago

They botched the original Windows Phone through a failure of management. They botched subsequent pushes on it because the bootstrapping problem around apps had grown too deep. At this point, if they tried to give it another go, there would be trust issues: "Am I investing in a phone ecosystem that's going to be dead in a few years?" Not to mention how much they've gone all-in on Android development. A Surface-branded Android phone wouldn't be out of the question, but my gut tells me it would die a quiet death from thin margins and differentiators that aren't big enough for people to get excited.

danieldk 7y ago
They botched the original Windows Phone through a failure of management This. I had some Windows Phones besides my iPhones, because I liked very much what they were doing. Windows Phone 7, despite being technically weak (it was based on Windows CE), had an awesome UI. Nokia had some really affordable phones that were really well-built for the price and Windows Phone was getting traction. Quite a few friends/colleagues bought a Windows Phone, because it was the hip thing after the iPhone. The development story was also great, they used .NET and XAML (IIRC), which also made it possible to demo applications on web pages through Silverlight. Then they screwed over all the early adopters by completely deprecating Windows Phone 7, doing one final release (7.8). None of the Windows Phone 7 devices were upgraded to Windows Phone 8. Most of the traction they had up till that point was lost and they were basically starting over with Windows Phone 8. Windows Phone 7 was already late to the market, the hard WP8 cut set them back even more years. And then it was simply too late. There were technical reasons for WP7 -> WP8 (such as moving to the NT kernel, adding multi-processing support). But the hard cut was a catastrophical mistake. Either they should have started with the NT kernel in the first release or they should have had a gradual migration route from WP7 to WP8.
- _bxg1 7y ago
  And underpinning all of that was the unfortunate fact that this truly innovative and lively new area of development at Microsoft found itself happening at the tail end of Ballmer's tenure. There was this spark of energy around Zune, and then Kin (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Kin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Kin), and then Windows Phone that was just completely orthogonal to the stagnant money-printing strategy that Microsoft followed before Nadella. It was this little glimpse of an Apple-like spirit somewhere deep in the behemoth. It was exciting. But it was always treated as a side thing instead of being placed front-and-center. It's now been diffused into Microsoft's various consumer products, most obviously the Surface, but Windows Phone was already dead by the time things started to change. Aside: despite all the jokes about it, the Zune (2nd gen and forward) was awesome. It was a little late to the game - it really nailed the traditional mp3/video player right when the iPod touch had just come out - but I think it may've been the peak of that category. Everything from the UX to the hardware buttons was so meticulously considered, the screen was much bigger than an iPod Video, it had momentum scrolling that worked really well despite lacking a touch screen, etc. It did not at all feel like a Microsoft product of the time. It was even one of the first services to offer all-you-can-download, subscription-based music. And you could download songs over WiFi.
  - buzzert 7y ago
    I completely agree. In an environment where everyone was just copying the iPhone UI, some of the design ideas that were coming out of Microsoft were really refreshing and exciting. There was really nothing else like it (and nothing like it ever since). I would love to see how Windows Phone would’ve matured.
  - piqued 7y ago
    Oh man, I had the second gen Zune. It really was so good. To this day I still think about that little touch/d-pad, and wish something similar had caught on with more devices...
    - _bxg1 7y ago
      It's very much like the current Apple TV remote. Unfortunately, the latter: - Doesn't have the hard directional buttons underneath - Isn't really helpful because you aren't scrolling through hundreds of items like you do in a music library
StillBored 7y ago
They botched subsequent pushes on it because the bootstrapping problem around apps had grown too deep. I don't really think that is necessarily accurate. Lots of smaller developers would be more than happy to have a green field for app development if another player were willing to put the effort into assuring the device isn't a POS, and is priced reasonably. Some of the larger apps (netflix for example) already have a dozen diffrent versions because they support not only ios/android but a pile of similar devices (TV's/etc) and likely don't have a problem with another platform if it has a future and has the prereqs (widevine or similar DRM for example).
- _bxg1 7y ago
  Microsoft literally paid developers to port their apps to Windows Phone: https://www.theverge.com/2013/6/15/4433082/microsoft-paying-companies-100k-windows-phone-apps https://www.theverge.com/2013/6/15/4433082/microsoft-paying-... It's that chicken-and-egg problem where people don't want to use it because it doesn't have the apps they need, and developers don't want to make apps for it because it doesn't have enough users. Microsoft tried to throw money at the problem to middling success. But I think it was too little too late.
  - StillBored 7y ago
    I'm not sure why paying developers is a problem to bootstrap the ecosystem. Although, if they were paying for temple run (as the image might suggest) that seems odd. Mostly because presumably they should be targeting the apps everyone uses that don't have good replacements (aka netflix/prime streaming/etc). I would guess that they aren't the only ones. Do you think LG/Sony/Samsung/roku/apple tv/firestic/etc all got the netflix app ported for free? Maybe. Plex probably isn't getting paid, and they do it too.. But MS was a special case, it seems to me that every time I looked at CE/Mobile/etc they were tossing existing app compatibility aside for the latest and greatest toolkit that went with some not particularly good set of phones.
    - Marsymars 7y ago
      > But MS was a special case, it seems to me that every time I looked at CE/Mobile/etc they were tossing existing app compatibility aside for the latest and greatest toolkit that went with some not particularly good set of phones. Their (forward) app compatibility was actually very good. I wrote a WP7 Silverlight app in 2011 that still works on the last release of Windows Mobile 10.
SlowRobotAhead 7y ago
> A Surface-branded Android phone wouldn't be out of the question, It could run chromium based Edge right away logically.
Miraste 7y ago
Microsoft already announced a Surface Android phone: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2019/10/microsofts-first-android-phone-is-the-dual-screen-surface-duo/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2019/10/microsofts-first-and... It's supposed to come out later this year. There's definitely a differentiator, at least. Apparently they've forgotten what happened to the many previous attempts at dual-screen phones and tablets.
- _bxg1 7y ago
  Yeah, I forgot about that one, although it's not really primarily "the Surface of Android phones"; it's an experimental form factor that happens to be lumped under the Surface brand because why not.
dcormier 7y ago
> A Surface-branded Android phone wouldn't be out of the question, but my gut tells me it would die a quiet death from thin margins and differentiators that aren't big enough for people to get excited. It's coming. https://www.theverge.com/2019/10/3/20895268/microsoft-surface-duo-foldable-phone-dual-screen-android-hands-on-features-price-photos-video https://www.theverge.com/2019/10/3/20895268/microsoft-surfac...

by _bxg1 7y ago

danieldk 7y ago

They botched the original Windows Phone through a failure of management This. I had some Windows Phones besides my iPhones, because I liked very much what they were doing. Windows Phone 7, despite being technically weak (it was based on Windows CE), had an awesome UI. Nokia had some really affordable phones that were really well-built for the price and Windows Phone was getting traction. Quite a few friends/colleagues bought a Windows Phone, because it was the hip thing after the iPhone. The development story was also great, they used .NET and XAML (IIRC), which also made it possible to demo applications on web pages through Silverlight. Then they screwed over all the early adopters by completely deprecating Windows Phone 7, doing one final release (7.8). None of the Windows Phone 7 devices were upgraded to Windows Phone 8. Most of the traction they had up till that point was lost and they were basically starting over with Windows Phone 8. Windows Phone 7 was already late to the market, the hard WP8 cut set them back even more years. And then it was simply too late. There were technical reasons for WP7 -> WP8 (such as moving to the NT kernel, adding multi-processing support). But the hard cut was a catastrophical mistake. Either they should have started with the NT kernel in the first release or they should have had a gradual migration route from WP7 to WP8.

_bxg1 7y ago
And underpinning all of that was the unfortunate fact that this truly innovative and lively new area of development at Microsoft found itself happening at the tail end of Ballmer's tenure. There was this spark of energy around Zune, and then Kin (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Kin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Kin), and then Windows Phone that was just completely orthogonal to the stagnant money-printing strategy that Microsoft followed before Nadella. It was this little glimpse of an Apple-like spirit somewhere deep in the behemoth. It was exciting. But it was always treated as a side thing instead of being placed front-and-center. It's now been diffused into Microsoft's various consumer products, most obviously the Surface, but Windows Phone was already dead by the time things started to change. Aside: despite all the jokes about it, the Zune (2nd gen and forward) was awesome. It was a little late to the game - it really nailed the traditional mp3/video player right when the iPod touch had just come out - but I think it may've been the peak of that category. Everything from the UX to the hardware buttons was so meticulously considered, the screen was much bigger than an iPod Video, it had momentum scrolling that worked really well despite lacking a touch screen, etc. It did not at all feel like a Microsoft product of the time. It was even one of the first services to offer all-you-can-download, subscription-based music. And you could download songs over WiFi.
- buzzert 7y ago
  I completely agree. In an environment where everyone was just copying the iPhone UI, some of the design ideas that were coming out of Microsoft were really refreshing and exciting. There was really nothing else like it (and nothing like it ever since). I would love to see how Windows Phone would’ve matured.
- piqued 7y ago
  Oh man, I had the second gen Zune. It really was so good. To this day I still think about that little touch/d-pad, and wish something similar had caught on with more devices...
  - _bxg1 7y ago
    It's very much like the current Apple TV remote. Unfortunately, the latter: - Doesn't have the hard directional buttons underneath - Isn't really helpful because you aren't scrolling through hundreds of items like you do in a music library

StillBored 7y ago

They botched subsequent pushes on it because the bootstrapping problem around apps had grown too deep. I don't really think that is necessarily accurate. Lots of smaller developers would be more than happy to have a green field for app development if another player were willing to put the effort into assuring the device isn't a POS, and is priced reasonably. Some of the larger apps (netflix for example) already have a dozen diffrent versions because they support not only ios/android but a pile of similar devices (TV's/etc) and likely don't have a problem with another platform if it has a future and has the prereqs (widevine or similar DRM for example).

_bxg1 7y ago
Microsoft literally paid developers to port their apps to Windows Phone: https://www.theverge.com/2013/6/15/4433082/microsoft-paying-companies-100k-windows-phone-apps https://www.theverge.com/2013/6/15/4433082/microsoft-paying-... It's that chicken-and-egg problem where people don't want to use it because it doesn't have the apps they need, and developers don't want to make apps for it because it doesn't have enough users. Microsoft tried to throw money at the problem to middling success. But I think it was too little too late.
- StillBored 7y ago
  I'm not sure why paying developers is a problem to bootstrap the ecosystem. Although, if they were paying for temple run (as the image might suggest) that seems odd. Mostly because presumably they should be targeting the apps everyone uses that don't have good replacements (aka netflix/prime streaming/etc). I would guess that they aren't the only ones. Do you think LG/Sony/Samsung/roku/apple tv/firestic/etc all got the netflix app ported for free? Maybe. Plex probably isn't getting paid, and they do it too.. But MS was a special case, it seems to me that every time I looked at CE/Mobile/etc they were tossing existing app compatibility aside for the latest and greatest toolkit that went with some not particularly good set of phones.
  - Marsymars 7y ago
    > But MS was a special case, it seems to me that every time I looked at CE/Mobile/etc they were tossing existing app compatibility aside for the latest and greatest toolkit that went with some not particularly good set of phones. Their (forward) app compatibility was actually very good. I wrote a WP7 Silverlight app in 2011 that still works on the last release of Windows Mobile 10.

SlowRobotAhead 7y ago

> A Surface-branded Android phone wouldn't be out of the question, It could run chromium based Edge right away logically.

Miraste 7y ago

Microsoft already announced a Surface Android phone: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2019/10/microsofts-first-android-phone-is-the-dual-screen-surface-duo/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2019/10/microsofts-first-and... It's supposed to come out later this year. There's definitely a differentiator, at least. Apparently they've forgotten what happened to the many previous attempts at dual-screen phones and tablets.

_bxg1 7y ago
Yeah, I forgot about that one, although it's not really primarily "the Surface of Android phones"; it's an experimental form factor that happens to be lumped under the Surface brand because why not.

dcormier 7y ago

> A Surface-branded Android phone wouldn't be out of the question, but my gut tells me it would die a quiet death from thin margins and differentiators that aren't big enough for people to get excited. It's coming. https://www.theverge.com/2019/10/3/20895268/microsoft-surface-duo-foldable-phone-dual-screen-android-hands-on-features-price-photos-video https://www.theverge.com/2019/10/3/20895268/microsoft-surfac...