What is happening to Windows Phone?

The Windows platform has apps for Facebook and Instagram. Someone please tell me what software isn't in an everlasting beta state? It's a dying platform but to claim it is crap is ridiculous if you've ever used one. Yes, we all hate the windows store but it's what we have for mobile and desktop now. Because it doesn't have your favorite games doesn't mean the whole thing sucks. Don't worry it will die off soon enough. I currently have a Samsung S5 but was pleasantly surprised at how fast and stable W10 mobile is even with the modest hardware. Android could learn a couple things from that.
 
bittermann said:
The Windows platform has apps for Facebook and Instagram. Someone please tell me what software isn't in an everlasting beta state?
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There are official, stable, up-to-date-with-other-platform releases on iOS and Android. Adding functionality over time is not the same as remaining in beta.

It's a dying platform but to claim it is crap is ridiculous if you've ever used one. Yes, we all hate the windows store but it's what we have for mobile and desktop now. Because it doesn't have your favorite games doesn't mean the whole thing sucks. Don't worry it will die off soon enough. I currently have a Samsung S5 but was pleasantly surprised at how fast and stable W10 mobile is even with the modest hardware. Android could learn a couple things from that.
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I'm pretty sure no one here said that WP was crap. The ecosystem was lacking to sell the platform as a fun lifestyle device.
 
The platform is still being supported. To say it's not is an outright falsehood. A full on OS would be better than a watered down version on mobile but that's neither here nor there as long as it has the basic apps people need.
 
bittermann said:
The platform is still being supported. To say it's not is an outright falsehood. A full on OS would be better than a watered down version on mobile but that's neither here nor there as long as it has the basic apps people need.
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Looks more like life support to me but yes it is still supported. My dream is to have a mobile phone be a laptop and desktop replacement for productivity, not gaming. Use a desktop dock or even a notebook shell doc. I've wanted this for a while and with 256 GB flash, 6+ GB RAM, 4k phone displays etc I think it is possible right now. To bad Intel's new smartphone strategy was to quit. http://www.theverge.com/2016/5/3/11576216/intel-atom-smartphone-quit
Microsoft could have carried that instead of using ARM CPUs so I blame Microsoft for Intel leaving the mobile CPU market.

Did Windows 10 upgrade ever get released for the T-Mobile 640? It doesn't look like it to me. Upgrade adviser said there would be one when I tried it several months ago.
 
guest said:
You can have metro apps on x86. Apps can also use multiple interfaces. If people want a Microsoft phone to succeed this is the only way.
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But then what's the point of having full windows on a phone? I (and the majority of users) don't need a full desktop environment on my phone. Outside of that, what is Window's value proposition on a phone?
 
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Zero said:
But then what's the point of having full windows on a phone? I (and the majority of users) don't need a full desktop environment on my phone. Outside of that, what is WP's value proposition?
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You would have a phone interface but when plugged into a doc or whatever you can switch the interface to mouse/keyboard input. It would not take magic.

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2477782,00.asp

Of course, a full PC app differs from a phone app and an Xbox app, hence the 20-percent difference in code. The unification also means that a developer can target the entire audience of several device types with (mostly) the code of one app.
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The Xbox One and PC now share the same CPU instruction set. If the phone did as well cross platform programs would be much easier for developers. The selection of the apps in that pcmag article are crap and I think it's due to ARM vs x86.

Then for the first time in two decades a Windows mobile device will have a huge selection of apps and will not be a failure.
 
The usage case is still something to consider. Like it's great that you could run full office off your phone with a kb/M, but who wants to do that on a smartphone screen? If you then connect to a larger screen, you overlap into usage case for tablets, laptops, NUCS, etc and reduce the value proposition to a very specific market and usage case.

Consumers aren't looking to run x86 apps and app developers don't want the hassle of developing another platform unless there's a meaningful return in it for them. I still don't see x86 as the solution to WP's adoption woes.
 
Zero said:
Consumers aren't looking to run x86 apps and app developers don't want the hassle of developing another platform unless there's a meaningful return in it for them. I still don't see x86 as the solution to WP's adoption woes.
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But it won't hurt either - as long as the API stays the same then compiling for a theoretically x86 based phone is as simple as switching the compile target. (and that only applies to non-.Net apps of course, those would Just Work provided nothing else changes.)

About the only wrinkle I could see are closed third party libs which are ARM only, but then most of those won't be on WP anyway so *shrugs*.

Even for C++ based apps MS could offer a service like Apple where you upload Bitcode and they recompile it in the cloud for you to the correct ISA - between .Net and the new LLVM support MS have adopted they probably already have most of the pieces of tech laying about.

(Personally, as a WP10 user I'm watching how things are playing out just so I know when I'm going to have to go Apple - having done some dev for it I don't want to touch that train wreak of an OS which is Android and would rather give my money to Apple if MS abandon ship...)
 
Zero said:
WP is dead, major apps like facebook and instagram aren't even being updated.
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Actually you're wrong, both of them received iOS ports. They're essentially carbon copies of their iOS counterparts with a slightly different UI.

MS is pretty much putting all the their eggs in one basket by putting out a surface phone in 2017. By then WP should have enough tools to port practically any iOS apps and making the whole "There are no apps, waa" complaint meaningless.
 
daPhoenix said:
Actually you're wrong, both of them received iOS ports. They're essentially carbon copies of their iOS counterparts with a slightly different UI.
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Only on Win10. For 90% of WP users who are on WP8x and earlier, there's no such update.
 
I am on Windows Phone 8.1 and my Facebook app got updated last month. (Not that I care that much). If you are big into constantly accessing social media on you phone. I am sure that Android and IOS apps will be more up to date. But, for people that use their phone for productivity reasons, WP are really good. I especially like how my PC, Laptop, and Phone sync seamlessly. The thought of ever having to install iTunes on my PC ever again turns my stomach. Unfortunately, Microsoft is doing so many things wrong lately. So it is unlikely WP will succeed. So, I'll probably have to downgrade to an Android phone next upgrade. But, I am holding onto my WP as long as I can because I still love it.
 
Zero said:
The usage case is still something to consider. Like it's great that you could run full office off your phone with a kb/M, but who wants to do that on a smartphone screen? If you then connect to a larger screen, you overlap into usage case for tablets, laptops, NUCS, etc and reduce the value proposition to a very specific market and usage case.

Consumers aren't looking to run x86 apps and app developers don't want the hassle of developing another platform unless there's a meaningful return in it for them. I still don't see x86 as the solution to WP's adoption woes.
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The problem is MS abandons their old platforms rather quickly. If the phone apps were basically multi-mode desktop/mobile apps running on the phone that issue would be gone. A 5 year old x86 mobile device would be able to receive new programs because you would not have to compile to it.

I realize Microsoft is somewhat trying it with Windows 10 but to me it just looks totally lame and still requires cross compiling.

Just to be clear, I am suggesting a user would install the full version of office or any other desktop app on their phone. Flash storage is cheap so it's not a problem any more. The only issue is devs would have to incorporate desktop, touch and mobile touch interfaces into their programs.
 
Having used WP since 8.0 on a Lumia 822 and upgrading to an 840 after a couple years. I can agree that the major apps are seriously lacking in some ways (WP Twitter app is superior to iOS for the simple reason it has a dark theme). But more of the big names in apps are dropping the platform. Amazon sent an e-mail a couple days ago nixing updates for the app. Facebook isn't done by Facebook but by Microsoft so there's a couple cool things in it but a handful of daily use things aren't there or are goofy.
 
daPhoenix said:
If you have WP10, install the Facebook App;
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/store/p/facebook-beta/9nblggh6ct0l

It's made by Facebook and essentially the iOS version.
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And its a shitton better than the MS version (but that version was also way faster than the facebook official). But its also in a perpetual state of Beta (I think Instagram is too)


MS continues to bungle the phone in so many ways and they do NOT give any developers any confidence and any incentive to develop anything to the platform.
When it first came out back when as WP7 it was a 'reboot' of the Windows Mobile. It was nice and was worth a watch but it was severely lacking in features. Then came Win8/8.1 which pretty much almost brought it on par with the others at the time. But then it stagnated while everyone else kept moving forward. Then Came Win10 with MS having a new CEO and trying to make win10 mobile relevant in whatever PR speak he can BS out of his mouth.

all the while taking every 'bullet point' that MS had and just giving it to the other platforms (as well as even making better versions of them on other platforms as well)

-Office was a bullet point (the mobile versions were such a joke at the time though so this bullet point had no worth), but until Win10 version came out it was really crappy. Then the new versions came out on ios and android BEFORE windows 10 even came out on phones (which had the new versions and we couldn't download it earlier...)
-Skype continues to be utter crap on windows. Its embarrassing considering MS owns skype......ios and android versions are far more full featured than the win10 mobile version.
-Cortana was supposed to be MS version of Siri and google voice...but MS said oh its not exclusive to windows so apple and android gets it too! But win10 wont get Siri or google voice because they're exclusive to their own. Another bullet point crossed out.
-Continuum is actually kinda cool, but only works on the latest and greatest hardware (which limits it to the Acer Jade Primo, the HP Elite X3 and The Lumia 950/950XL)
-Windows 10 is on over a half a billion devices (or something). Sounds great, except like 99% of that is x86 PC and Tablets that is perfectly capable of having a full browser experience vs any need for an app. Only the phones and really need the apps cuz the screens are too small to use for the non mobile browser pages. you can lump win10 desktop and win10M together but its still separate.
-I don't see how win10 mobile does any kind of integration with the PC any different or any more efficient than ios or android does.....
-Any time an app does make its way over to W10M, its always "after the ios and android versions" maybe a couple days after, maybe a week or two. And even then its likely just going to be released just so the dev can say 'see we have that app on windows!" and it never gets updated. Or if it does its updated REALLY REALLY slow, like 'when we feel like it' slow.
-MS isn't investing anything in W10M right now (just releasing the OS updates a little AFTER the PC versions get their updates) and they keep releasing updated apps on the ios/android FIRST before win10 gets any.
-There has been no new hardware releases to look forward to or even when Win10 came out only the Lumia 950/XL was available.

I like the OS, and its better than it ever was now (even win10 mobile seems to be in a perpetual state of beta.....Ms is just so damn slow to adopt features and they constantly lag further and further behind) but I don't see the point of staying on it. Its just been left to die, but not die. All the 'MS advantages" like Cortana or Office or Skype or something could have been a "good experience" on IOS and Android with "BEST experience" on Win10 never exists. Its actually the other way around. The apps aren't there and it doesn't look like theres any chance of them coming, especially considering the negative momentum its having. It just feels like W10M is just being kept afloat just so they can say they're still committed to it (and to pander to whoever is left of the userbase)
 
Windows Phone was dead on arrival. MS knows it but they've got to save face. There's only room for 2 platforms to be honest.
 
Down to 0.06% market share and BB is even worse. Microsoft knows how to do two things, Windows for Desktop and Office. They've been trying for years since Windows 8.x to screw those up as well.
 
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Bleh

Windows Phone sports one the best UI's(easily, it's slick as hell since WP7). The biggest problem is that unlike it's desktop counterpart, the support doesn't crossover enough right? Once WP8 hit, WP7 stuff died. This doesn't happen on Android of iOS the same way right. So fix that silly short coming and WP might gain market share.
 
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