5 ms·

This seems to be the ongoing story with Windows Phone / Surface: interesting and well-made hardware, let down by mediocre software and UX.

neogodless 5y ago
I'll disagree with UX on the Windows Phone. I miss it to this day. The problem was 100% insufficient ecosystem support. Friends having social apps I simply couldn't get my hands on (and third-party apps that worked great getting blocked by official sources.) And bank apps that required Android/iOS - the convenience of mobile check deposit can't be overstated in the U.S.! The Surface UX (Windows 10) has improved massively since Windows RT / Windows 8. So I don't think that's to blame, either. But software/ecosystem is everything. And it's what Windows 10 excels at, but every locked-down Windows has failed at.
- johnvaluk 5y ago
  I wish Microsoft had continued to develop Windows Phone as an alternative to Windows, instead of trying to incorporate some features into Windows as Metro, which met with inevitable backlash. I would have loved to see it evolve into a tablet/touchscreen laptop platform on its own merits.
  - mumblemumble 5y ago
    Indeed, my sense is that Windows Phone 7 was picking up some decent momentum, and then it was scuttled by the Windows 8 initiative. There was probably some guilt by association with the ill-fated desktop OS. But there was also the confusing compatibility story between Windows Phone 7 and Windows Phone 8, which I found to be confusing and slightly intimidating both as someone who was shopping for a phone at the time, and someone who was considering developing an app for Windows Phone. I get what they were trying to do, and it was certainly an interesting and ambitious goal. But they made the same mistake I repeatedly make when I'm trying to kindle a campfire: putting the fire out by throwing way too much wood onto it at the first hint of a visible flame.
- GordonS 5y ago
  I used Windows Phone for a few years back in the day. I did find it a bit buggy (my phone would crash about once a week), but the UX was pretty good. Especially at the time, where screens were lower-resolution than they are now, the tiled interface worked really well. I eventually moved to Android, and it took me a long time to get used to it - for a long time I kept thinking that just about everything had been more intuitive in Windows Phone.
- lotsofpulp 5y ago
  >The problem was 100% insufficient ecosystem support. The root cause of which is insufficient Microsoft support. If they had stuck with it and kept investing for 10 years and kept up their investments in physical stores where people could go to buy non malware laden products and get tech help, I think they could have been a 3rd option in today's market.
  - WorldMaker 5y ago
    Microsoft couldn't get over the hurdle that US phone carriers refused to sell a 3rd option at all, no matter how much money or time they threw at that problem. They could invest in physical retail Microsoft Stores all they want, but they were locked out of the stores US consumers actually buy that hardware form factor from, and in many cases they couldn't even get SIM cards for most of the US networks even if they did manage to convince people to buy their next phone from a Microsoft Store. Against that kind of gatekeeping, of course there is no third option in today's market! It's harder to sell three things than it is to sell two things, and AT&T/Verizon/et al decided that they didn't want to sell three things. (Sure, Microsoft could have trundled on in other markets than the US. They had such a sizeable India marketshare against the troubles in the US, for instance. But when you've already lost your "home" market, it's hard to keep people's confidence. Especially in that case where Microsoft got the biggest marketshare gains from cheap hardware from a variety of hardware partners, those thin margin partners are nothing but confidence driven.)
    - lotsofpulp 5y ago
      Interesting. I wonder how could Microsoft not have enough political sway to force FCC to do something about that? Maybe not force them to sell their phones, but not giving them SIM cards seems egregious. And at all 4 mobile networks? How are Pinephone and these small timers getting SIM cards then?
    - 908B64B197 5y ago
      It's also that OEMs and carrier had absolutely no way of customizing Win Phone. Samsung's dream is for you not to buy an Android phone that happens to have been built by Samsung but a Samsung Phone running Android. That's why they try so hard with their vocal assistant. Win Phone offered OEMs the option of shipping glass slabs that were competing on price and specs (just like the PC market!) while Microsoft would own all the value added on top. By the time Microsoft started shipping it's own hardware, it was too late.
- 8note 5y ago
  That one has always felt to me like monopoly abuse by Google to prop up android
- AshamedCaptain 5y ago
  > The Surface UX (Windows 10) has improved massively since Windows RT / Windows 8. As a Surface owner, I am sorry, but the Surface/Tablet UX on Windows has actually _significantly degraded_ compared to Windows 8. Just pick up a Windows 8/.1 Surface and compare; it is night and day. Windows 10 may have upgraded "desktop" Windows usability and reduced the much-hated "tablet influences", but the cost is that as a result it is a much worse tablet OS, no doubt about it.
alpaca128 5y ago
Windows Phone 8.1 was the pinnacle of modern smartphone UX and is still far ahead of Android, with BB10 OS being the only serious competitor. If I had to describe Android's UI in comparison: usable but I hate every second of it. Especially the text input is so frustrating I have to wonder whether it's intentional.
- neogodless 5y ago
  It's still a great mystery to me why it seemed like the swipe keyboard (Word Flow[0]) on Windows Phone was so, so good, and yet even SwiftKey which is owned by Microsoft doesn't measure up (but SwiftKey co-existed with Word Flow...) At this point, some seven years since I've used Windows Phone, maybe my memory isn't that accurate, but I remember the transition to using Android keyboards to be very painful. It's interesting to see a thread where even going from Windows Phone 8.1 to 10, the predictive keyboard got worse.[1] [0] https://www.zdnet.com/article/microsofts-new-word-flow-keyboard-is-the-best-smartphone-text-entry-system/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/microsofts-new-word-flow-keybo... [1] https://old.reddit.com/r/windowsphone/comments/4smmuc/what_happened_to_swipe_keyboard_in_windows_10/ https://old.reddit.com/r/windowsphone/comments/4smmuc/what_h...
  - com2kid 5y ago
    > It's still a great mystery to me why it seemed like the swipe keyboard (Word Flow[0]) on Windows Phone was so, so good, and yet even SwiftKey which is owned by Microsoft doesn't measure up I worked with the guy who lead the swipe keyboard on Windows Phone. Amazing machine learning engineer who lead an amazing team. Some of the work he did for my team was out of this world (ML models to do predictive touch inputs to decrease perceived touch screen latency and improve touch recognition accuracy, on a Cortex m3) Unfortunately for whatever reason his code was never adopted outside the mobile org, and I believe he was moved off that project after its initial version was completed. This is also why the desktop Windows swipe keyboard for Windows tablets at that time terri-bad compared to Windows Phone's swipe keyboard! Also this is possibly why the keyboard got worse, not sure it was long enough ago that I remember it was mid-Win8.1 mobile -> 10 transition but I don't recall all the details and the timeline.

neogodless 5y ago

I'll disagree with UX on the Windows Phone. I miss it to this day. The problem was 100% insufficient ecosystem support. Friends having social apps I simply couldn't get my hands on (and third-party apps that worked great getting blocked by official sources.) And bank apps that required Android/iOS - the convenience of mobile check deposit can't be overstated in the U.S.! The Surface UX (Windows 10) has improved massively since Windows RT / Windows 8. So I don't think that's to blame, either. But software/ecosystem is everything. And it's what Windows 10 excels at, but every locked-down Windows has failed at.

johnvaluk 5y ago
I wish Microsoft had continued to develop Windows Phone as an alternative to Windows, instead of trying to incorporate some features into Windows as Metro, which met with inevitable backlash. I would have loved to see it evolve into a tablet/touchscreen laptop platform on its own merits.
- mumblemumble 5y ago
  Indeed, my sense is that Windows Phone 7 was picking up some decent momentum, and then it was scuttled by the Windows 8 initiative. There was probably some guilt by association with the ill-fated desktop OS. But there was also the confusing compatibility story between Windows Phone 7 and Windows Phone 8, which I found to be confusing and slightly intimidating both as someone who was shopping for a phone at the time, and someone who was considering developing an app for Windows Phone. I get what they were trying to do, and it was certainly an interesting and ambitious goal. But they made the same mistake I repeatedly make when I'm trying to kindle a campfire: putting the fire out by throwing way too much wood onto it at the first hint of a visible flame.
GordonS 5y ago
I used Windows Phone for a few years back in the day. I did find it a bit buggy (my phone would crash about once a week), but the UX was pretty good. Especially at the time, where screens were lower-resolution than they are now, the tiled interface worked really well. I eventually moved to Android, and it took me a long time to get used to it - for a long time I kept thinking that just about everything had been more intuitive in Windows Phone.
lotsofpulp 5y ago
>The problem was 100% insufficient ecosystem support. The root cause of which is insufficient Microsoft support. If they had stuck with it and kept investing for 10 years and kept up their investments in physical stores where people could go to buy non malware laden products and get tech help, I think they could have been a 3rd option in today's market.
- WorldMaker 5y ago
  Microsoft couldn't get over the hurdle that US phone carriers refused to sell a 3rd option at all, no matter how much money or time they threw at that problem. They could invest in physical retail Microsoft Stores all they want, but they were locked out of the stores US consumers actually buy that hardware form factor from, and in many cases they couldn't even get SIM cards for most of the US networks even if they did manage to convince people to buy their next phone from a Microsoft Store. Against that kind of gatekeeping, of course there is no third option in today's market! It's harder to sell three things than it is to sell two things, and AT&T/Verizon/et al decided that they didn't want to sell three things. (Sure, Microsoft could have trundled on in other markets than the US. They had such a sizeable India marketshare against the troubles in the US, for instance. But when you've already lost your "home" market, it's hard to keep people's confidence. Especially in that case where Microsoft got the biggest marketshare gains from cheap hardware from a variety of hardware partners, those thin margin partners are nothing but confidence driven.)
  - lotsofpulp 5y ago
    Interesting. I wonder how could Microsoft not have enough political sway to force FCC to do something about that? Maybe not force them to sell their phones, but not giving them SIM cards seems egregious. And at all 4 mobile networks? How are Pinephone and these small timers getting SIM cards then?
  - 908B64B197 5y ago
    It's also that OEMs and carrier had absolutely no way of customizing Win Phone. Samsung's dream is for you not to buy an Android phone that happens to have been built by Samsung but a Samsung Phone running Android. That's why they try so hard with their vocal assistant. Win Phone offered OEMs the option of shipping glass slabs that were competing on price and specs (just like the PC market!) while Microsoft would own all the value added on top. By the time Microsoft started shipping it's own hardware, it was too late.
8note 5y ago
That one has always felt to me like monopoly abuse by Google to prop up android
AshamedCaptain 5y ago
> The Surface UX (Windows 10) has improved massively since Windows RT / Windows 8. As a Surface owner, I am sorry, but the Surface/Tablet UX on Windows has actually _significantly degraded_ compared to Windows 8. Just pick up a Windows 8/.1 Surface and compare; it is night and day. Windows 10 may have upgraded "desktop" Windows usability and reduced the much-hated "tablet influences", but the cost is that as a result it is a much worse tablet OS, no doubt about it.

alpaca128 5y ago

Windows Phone 8.1 was the pinnacle of modern smartphone UX and is still far ahead of Android, with BB10 OS being the only serious competitor. If I had to describe Android's UI in comparison: usable but I hate every second of it. Especially the text input is so frustrating I have to wonder whether it's intentional.

neogodless 5y ago
It's still a great mystery to me why it seemed like the swipe keyboard (Word Flow[0]) on Windows Phone was so, so good, and yet even SwiftKey which is owned by Microsoft doesn't measure up (but SwiftKey co-existed with Word Flow...) At this point, some seven years since I've used Windows Phone, maybe my memory isn't that accurate, but I remember the transition to using Android keyboards to be very painful. It's interesting to see a thread where even going from Windows Phone 8.1 to 10, the predictive keyboard got worse.[1] [0] https://www.zdnet.com/article/microsofts-new-word-flow-keyboard-is-the-best-smartphone-text-entry-system/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/microsofts-new-word-flow-keybo... [1] https://old.reddit.com/r/windowsphone/comments/4smmuc/what_happened_to_swipe_keyboard_in_windows_10/ https://old.reddit.com/r/windowsphone/comments/4smmuc/what_h...
- com2kid 5y ago
  > It's still a great mystery to me why it seemed like the swipe keyboard (Word Flow[0]) on Windows Phone was so, so good, and yet even SwiftKey which is owned by Microsoft doesn't measure up I worked with the guy who lead the swipe keyboard on Windows Phone. Amazing machine learning engineer who lead an amazing team. Some of the work he did for my team was out of this world (ML models to do predictive touch inputs to decrease perceived touch screen latency and improve touch recognition accuracy, on a Cortex m3) Unfortunately for whatever reason his code was never adopted outside the mobile org, and I believe he was moved off that project after its initial version was completed. This is also why the desktop Windows swipe keyboard for Windows tablets at that time terri-bad compared to Windows Phone's swipe keyboard! Also this is possibly why the keyboard got worse, not sure it was long enough ago that I remember it was mid-Win8.1 mobile -> 10 transition but I don't recall all the details and the timeline.