3 ms·

Personally I have a hard time believing either will gain significant market share (much as I would like them to). Even Microsoft, a much larger company with hug

Personally I have a hard time believing either will gain significant market share (much as I would like them to). Even Microsoft, a much larger company with huge brand recognition and what people seem to think is a well-executed product (never tried a Windows phone myself) keeps failing. But best of luck to them. Having a dockable smartphone would be fantastic... if you could switch to xmonad on the desktop :)

bad_user 14y ago
On Microsoft, it's debatable if Windows Phone is a well executed product or not. I played with one and personally I hated it. First of all, with both Windows Phone and Windows 8 they went way too far with their minimalistic design. The interface gives you no clues on what things are clickable, or what actions you can do. Many times you end up doing things and have no idea what got you there in the first place. Going back to what you were doing is equally painful. Microsoft also tried to come up with design guidelines, but they aren't the kind of company to enforce such guidelines and even they are guilty of breaking those guidelines, so there's also a lack of established conventions. The interface, while pretty and shiny, simply sucks. Second, Windows Phone 7 (don't know about 8) lacked the ability to run native binaries, with some rare exceptions if you happened to be one of few privileged big companies. This is in addition to the lack of support for OpenGL, making ports of games a bitch to deal with. Did you know that many games that are available on both Android and iOS have the same codebase for both? It's no wonder that Microsoft's Marketplace is empty, because nobody wanted to deal with yet another proprietary platform using proprietary APIs. Speaking of WinPhone 7, it also sucked that many users didn't receive the upgrade to WinPhone 8. In regards to upgrades, at least Android has the excuse of fragmentation that you can put up with because of its popularity, but Microsoft has no excuse for that. Third, everybody fears a new Microsoft monopoly. Windows Phone is a proprietary OS, built by a big company which is known to use aggresive tactics to move to new markets, by averaging their already established monopoly on desktops. Android on the other hand, even if it is controlled by Google, can always be forked in case shit happens (hey, Amazon already did it). Android also allows users to install apps from third party sources. Windows Phone does not allow one to do that. My Samsung Galaxy came with their Samsung's marketplace on it (or whatever they call it) installed. Sure it sucks in comparison to Google Play, but it's there for their peace of mind (they also have their own OS btw, called Bada, which is more successful than Windows Phone, because Samsung knows how to sell). Microsoft is also known for dropping the ball after they achieve success ... projects like IExplorer and Windows Mobile stagnated for years before Microsoft finally felt the heat from competition. Only Nokia was stupid enough to invest heavily in Windows Phone and that's only because Microsoft is putting money in their pockets. I don't know how good Ubuntu will be for smartphones or how well Canonical will execute. But Ubuntu (and Firefox OS for that matter) will not have the same problems and we might be surprised.

bad_user 14y ago

On Microsoft, it's debatable if Windows Phone is a well executed product or not. I played with one and personally I hated it. First of all, with both Windows Phone and Windows 8 they went way too far with their minimalistic design. The interface gives you no clues on what things are clickable, or what actions you can do. Many times you end up doing things and have no idea what got you there in the first place. Going back to what you were doing is equally painful. Microsoft also tried to come up with design guidelines, but they aren't the kind of company to enforce such guidelines and even they are guilty of breaking those guidelines, so there's also a lack of established conventions. The interface, while pretty and shiny, simply sucks. Second, Windows Phone 7 (don't know about 8) lacked the ability to run native binaries, with some rare exceptions if you happened to be one of few privileged big companies. This is in addition to the lack of support for OpenGL, making ports of games a bitch to deal with. Did you know that many games that are available on both Android and iOS have the same codebase for both? It's no wonder that Microsoft's Marketplace is empty, because nobody wanted to deal with yet another proprietary platform using proprietary APIs. Speaking of WinPhone 7, it also sucked that many users didn't receive the upgrade to WinPhone 8. In regards to upgrades, at least Android has the excuse of fragmentation that you can put up with because of its popularity, but Microsoft has no excuse for that. Third, everybody fears a new Microsoft monopoly. Windows Phone is a proprietary OS, built by a big company which is known to use aggresive tactics to move to new markets, by averaging their already established monopoly on desktops. Android on the other hand, even if it is controlled by Google, can always be forked in case shit happens (hey, Amazon already did it). Android also allows users to install apps from third party sources. Windows Phone does not allow one to do that. My Samsung Galaxy came with their Samsung's marketplace on it (or whatever they call it) installed. Sure it sucks in comparison to Google Play, but it's there for their peace of mind (they also have their own OS btw, called Bada, which is more successful than Windows Phone, because Samsung knows how to sell). Microsoft is also known for dropping the ball after they achieve success ... projects like IExplorer and Windows Mobile stagnated for years before Microsoft finally felt the heat from competition. Only Nokia was stupid enough to invest heavily in Windows Phone and that's only because Microsoft is putting money in their pockets. I don't know how good Ubuntu will be for smartphones or how well Canonical will execute. But Ubuntu (and Firefox OS for that matter) will not have the same problems and we might be surprised.