Microsoft says they’re officially killing Windows 10 Mobile, says to switch to iOS and Android to use Microsoft apps/services

[Good Kid mAAd Poster]

The Samsung Focus I had was a solid piece of tech. It was plasticy but didn't feel cheap, and the OLED screen + Windows Phone UI were a match made in (black) heaven. It was smooth and fast like iOS as well unlike laggy Android at the time.

It was the lack of app support that killed it. You can't have a mobile OS that didn't have apps.

 

[SRG01]

I'm intrigued by that mention of Linux. Office on Linux would be huge.

Click to shrink...

I believe Linux already runs Office perfectly with WINE, so they're probably referring to that?

 

[Durden]

I didn't even know this was still a thing. I had someone that I worked with at my old retail job (like 5-6 years ago at this point) that LOVED their Windows phone. Had some pretty good points on why he did too, I was even considering going for it myself at the time.

 

[House_Of_Lightning]

Man.

Windows Phones were so fucking great.

 

[House_Of_Lightning]

I really thought Windows Continuum was going to be revolutionary. Maybe Android / Chrome OS will be able to do something similar soon?

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MacOS and iOS will converge, Google's Fuschia will converge phones with tablets and Chromebooks. So they'll do what MS tried to do.

MS was too early to the market.

If everything on my desktop would run on my phone then it would be a no brainer.

But that wasn't the case.

 

[linkboy]

I believe Linux already runs Office perfectly with WINE, so they're probably referring to that?

Click to shrink...

People aren't going to go through the hassle of setting up WINE just for Office, or fully switch to Linux just to run Office in WINE. However, a fully compatible version of Office for Linux would get the attention of a lot of people.

 

[Vagabond]

Serious suggestion - they should create a W10M-like launcher for Android. Still by far the best, most useful, and most beautiful launcher

 

[JuanMR2]

Guess I have until December to switch to a new phone. Think I am leaning towards an Android phone.

 

[henhowc]

Thank god. Every now and then someone comes in and tries to get us to support these devices and complains because it has basically zero app support

 

[Kreed]

So what makes this phone unpopular? Late to the market or shoddy relative to other offerings?

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Both, and other bad decisions. First Microsoft tried competing directly with Android allowing any manufacturer to make a Windows phone, but their OS was much more expensive for phone manufacturers to use than Android, and the OS had more hardware requirements. So they weren't competing with Android aggressively enough. And most importantly, Microsoft didn't put enough focus on creating phone apps/software the way Apple and Google did, allowing Google and Apple to get a stranglehold on the mobile development market and a lack of apps being the phone's biggest criticism. By the time Microsoft realized the importance of apps, many developers only wanted to develop for Apple and Google/they didn't bother with a Windows phone even in regards to porting an app.

 

[Marin-Lune]

Started with an iphone 3G, then moved to a Lumia 620 and now I've been on Android for a good while.

The Lumia was great, cheap, cute and very well built. And I loved the ideas and interface cues of WP8, but my god that OS was severely lacking of polish. 8.1 wasn't much better, never really tried WM10 after.

 

[PositivePolitique]

I really liked the OS, I never owned a windows phone though but I've played around with them. I feel like it had a lot of things that I loved about iOS and the interface was really cool too. Would've considered switching if the OS had more traction but it looks like it'll be iOS and Android for the foreseeable future.

 

[pochi]

My first smartphone was Nokia Windows Phone.
I really liked how fast and smooth it was.

 

[uncelestial]

Rest of the world: "What the fuck is Windows 10 Mobile?"

Used to be on the Windows Mobile team at MSFT. We knew.

 

[Deleted member 8860]

Serious suggestion - they should create a W10M-like launcher for Android. Still by far the best, most useful, and most beautiful launcher

Click to shrink...

Like Launcher 10 or Square Launcher? Microsoft itself seems to have no interest; their own launcher takes nothing from WinMo.

So what makes this phone unpopular? Late to the market or shoddy relative to other offerings?

Click to shrink...

Horrible web browser performance/compatibility, very few apps, constantly switching development frameworks, leaving devices behind (breaking promises) with the switch from 7->8->8.1->10->updates, way late to the party.

 

[Vagabond]

Like Launcher 10 or Square Launcher? Microsoft itself seems to have no interest; their own launcher takes nothing from WinMo.

Click to shrink...

I've used both and currently use Launcher10 since I paid for it, but its still not as sleek as my Dell Venue Pro

I've also used the Microsoft Launcher and it's OK, but inferior to even Samsung's Launcher because of the way it handled tabs and icons/widgets. Not sure if it changed, but even if they just allowed vertical scrolling it'd be a step in the right direction.

 

[NickHyde]

RIP
Lumia 800 is still my favorite designed smartphone ever, so ahead of its time

 

[surr]

They got killed by app support.

People don't realize that developing apps is fucking hard. They may whine and complain why don't more app developers port their apps but even just managing 2 platforms takes entire teams to create UI, UX interactions, not to mention the raw coding aspect of having 2 teams work on 2 different code bases. Launching any new feature can take months. Daily bug triages of crashes and other bugs drain resources and take up huge swaths of time. Very few teams have the time or budget to devote another 5--8 engineers + manager to work on a Windows client.

Not to mention the build pipeline, certification pipeline, testing etc. to get an app on Windows store. No freaking way. Teams can't hire engineers fast enough as it is. Good luck finding a Windows app developer also. If the money is in being an iOS/Android developer no one was going to waste their time learning how to code WIndows apps.

 

[XDevil666]

The windows 10 mobile app was actually pretty decent, shame the app devs wouldn't support it

 

[Jinroh]

They have such a weird strategy. Their Windows Phone and stuff like Kinect were predictable failures. Trying to expand their activity in saturated markets or replicate the wii success with a weird device is awkward.