4 ms·

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. Lot

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.
    - StillBored 7y ago
      But that was basically quite late in the game, microsoft had been making a phone OS's for ~ a decade at that point. In 2011 it seemed like MS was already putting it on life support.
- glogla 7y ago
  It was not just any anonymous developers, it was Google specifically making Gmail and Youtube not working on the Windows Phone. They refused to port their apps, and when Microsoft created clones (i.e. Microsoft built Youtube apps) Google made them not work on the back-end and threatened to sue MS. It was just monopoly abusing its walled garden and being anticompetitive, nothing else. Not that Microsoft would behave any differently, if the positions were switched.

_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.
  - StillBored 7y ago
    But that was basically quite late in the game, microsoft had been making a phone OS's for ~ a decade at that point. In 2011 it seemed like MS was already putting it on life support.
glogla 7y ago
It was not just any anonymous developers, it was Google specifically making Gmail and Youtube not working on the Windows Phone. They refused to port their apps, and when Microsoft created clones (i.e. Microsoft built Youtube apps) Google made them not work on the back-end and threatened to sue MS. It was just monopoly abusing its walled garden and being anticompetitive, nothing else. Not that Microsoft would behave any differently, if the positions were switched.