Many enthusiasts of the old Windows Mobile operating system should agree that personality wasn’t something lacked by the OS. The Windows Phone carried a very characteristic and original UI when compared with its Android and iOS counterparts, the big problem experienced by the majority of users was the lack of specific apps for the ecosystem.
However, not everyone agrees with the above statement. According to the former Senior Director of Windows Phone – Mr. Brandon Watson – The lack of some popular applications was only the tip of the Iceberg. If you’re unaware, Watson was the responsible for bringing most of the popular apps like Angry Birds to the Windows Phone platform, in a race to attract possible consumers for the WP smartphones. While he worked for Microsoft, he was responsible for more than 60,000 apps inclusion in the Windows Phone marketplace.
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Mr.Watson left his rest today in order to respond a tweet claiming that the exclusive fault of the Windows Phone failure was the lack of apps. “You’re talking to the wrong guy if you are going to make the claim they (Windows Phone) couldn’t get apps developed. You couldn’t be more wrong,” Watson tweeted. The former executive puts the blame for the OS failure in the carriers and manufacturers. According to him, the lack of support offered by them, was the main reason for the mobile platform big failure, since most of the devices offered by those manufacturers and carriers were “second string devices” and couldn’t compete with both Apple and Google offerings.
“Windows Phone died because it would have been almost impossible to beat Google or Apple without carriers and handset manufacturers embracing it. We got second string devices and almost no support at the carriers. They couldn’t keep burning money to please Sisyfus.”-Brandon Watson, former Senior Director for Windows Phone, Microsoft.”
Brandon’s tweet was just disseminated in the past days following the statement made by the Windows Phone Chief Terry Myerson who put the blame for the platform failure in the Windows CE Kernel, while this may be true for the Windows Phone 7.0 and 7.5, the Windows Phone 8.0 and up used a brand new Windows NT Kernel. No matter the justification, the Windows Phone can be considered one of the biggest failures for the mobile OS industry, with just the former BlackBerry OS taking the lead. However, while BlackBerry managed to reinvent themselves going for Android, Microsoft still needs a plan to get back in the competition with both Apple and Google.
The only thing keeping them relevant on the desktop is the same thing that kept them out of mobile, that is sweet irony right there.
Now that I can agree with.
Windows phone died because the UI was crap.
Relatively speaking, it exceeds the Android and Apple tripe.
It was late to the game. And they couldn’t get google apps. Nobody was going to switch from a device with google a app to a phone without.
On top of that, they shouldn’t have released cheap phones. Apple doesn’t.
And finally, yes. The carriers. They didn’t offer good windows phones. I know, because I got a good windows Phone. Myself.
Thats laughable, you cant even change the stock Keyboard in Windows Phone, meanwhile you can change everything from the launcher to the GSP geolocator on Android. It excels at nothing.
and android is full of virus !!!
So what? The only reason this is not the case about the mobile version of windows is that it is so damn unpopular and it’s simply not worth putting the time and effort into developing a virus.
My favorite thing on Android is to boot it up and realize that… I don’t like stock… But! I can spend the next week finagling with it to get to a point of ‘meh’, I guess that’s as good as it’s going to get.
Can’t say I’ve had that problem with Android. Only with ignorant users mostly.
(also, the stock keyboard works great. I don’t need to change it for functionality. And I’m not 12, so I don’t need to skin it)
Besides, those modded keyboards are performance hits. Start using them, start the slippery slope to slow phone land.
You do sound like the average Windows fan. Customisation is bad, choice is bad, and master knows best. Its like you guys have stockholmes syndrome from using Windows so long on the desktop, you’ve convinced yourself it was a conscious choice.
Since you made it personal… I consider myself open minded, more so then most android/apple fans. I run opensuse and opnewrt, I’ve got an xbox, a wiiu, and a Lumia 950xl. I’ve used the s2, s5, Sony xa1 – all at the same price point as the 950xl when I bought it. Two years ago. I’ve tried apple products, find them more restrictive then most Google or MS products. I like how android gives the illusion of customization. I tried one again at the two year mark on my phone.. Suddenly I had to switch apps all over the place to get anything done. The email client was terrible. I use mine for email and web browsing, and Netflix. Also, to ssh into the openwrt machine. It just works. Even developed my own app for it, was much easier then doing the same in android land.
It seems that in your position it hurts for someone to like a windows phone. I don’t know why, it’s history at this point.
Personally, I like competition in the marketplace. I like having more then a binary choice. See hillary vs. Trump ’16. (red herring invoked!) Both were bad choices. I don’t like wasting my time customizing my phone. I just want the thing to work.
Long story short.. I tried the android customizations. I tried the windows os, I tried the iPhone. The winner for me was, and still is, windows Phone. When this one dies, I’ll see what is on the market.
You just couldn’t get a Windows phone to buy in Canada, only Rogers(I was and still is on a different carrier) carried the HTC 8X and Lumia 920, I was able to buy a HTC 8X about 1 year into the OS release and it was a struggle to get these phones to buy, 8X looked nice but was garbage especially for the price point. I’m still using Windows 10 Mobile, it’s still a way better experience than iOS, I keep an old iPhone in my backpack for those one off apps I want to use, like zipcar, which I rarely use.
My approach is, if a service is tied to an app and cannot be accessed via a browser I stay away.
I think the mistake was to purchase Nokia, Nokia had a big market in my country, but when Microsoft purchased it then Nokia started to banish as the efforts and services were, it seems, focused into U.S. The only models to arrive where the budget ones, so slow, with not enough ram to run the messenger app. I don’t like Android but I have not other choice, and after get used to apps like VSCO it seems just not good to come back to windows mobile.
Give me a Windows powered device which is able to run Gmail and Hangouts, and I’d dump my Android phone without looking back. Every other app I use is available in the store.
Hangouts and Gmail are pretty terrible web apps at this point. But they are entrenched. I totally get it.
The outlook app links well with Gmail on the phone I’ve used that. But yeah, no hangouts.
I once got a lumia 520 and it was nice to see a phone running someway smooth with only 512Mb of RAM while at that time android was getting 2Gb. The interface was fresh, not customizable but fresh. I had a lot of fun using it for some months but that’s all. Windows phone was something I wanted to try because I had the chance of doing it for free. I love tech and I would really like do the same with Apple but they put a lot of effort on blocking me yo get a very cheap device from them. Investing more than 100 euro in a phone is a waste of money for me.