What would Microsoft's Windows Phone look like in 2024? It's like a micro PC running Windows 12 in your pocket

[Windows Central]

A well-renowned concept designer recently shared a video on YouTube showcasing what the Windows Phone would be like today while running Windows 12.

What would Microsoft's Windows Phone look like in 2024? It's like a micro PC running Windows 12 in your pocket : Read more

 

[GraniteStateColin]

I would love a new MS phone, assuming the Surface team can still make good stuff w/o Panay. It's interesting how that video highlights how Windows seems to have shifted to look much more like Android. Without Live Tiles, it seems almost pointless as a mobile OS, but I'd be interested.

 

[MBY]

It seems like almost all of what they showed here could be achieved through an updated MS Launcher with Windows 11/12 design language. That would be great to get. But MS seems to not be updating the launcher at all...

 

[MPetrozio]

Microsoft did a good job with combining widgets and icons into live tiles. This was genius and one of the things that made WP great, along with the easy to use and fluid interface that utilized parallax effects in a great way. Metro was just cool. This combined with Microsoft services, such as OneDrive streaming music to the Music app, are the things I miss so much.

 

[Dush Ku]

Looked like android copy, live tiles were the best

 

[GothardJ2]

Agreeing with other comments here, I think this concept video misses what made Windows Phone/Windows 10 Mobile an interesting 3rd choice. It was something completely different than iOS and Android. This concept video, while showing some of the tech that could be integrated really just screamed Android with a complete Microsoft launcher. Nothing here really showed me that it would be worth having, let alone buying, a new Windows powered mobile device.

 

[pjmlp]

All these wishes for the return of the Windows Phone miss out how Microsoft has burned the Windows Developer community, after pushing no matter what WinRT/UWP tooling, with multiple rewrites, only to back away from it.

Even its desktop version on Windows 11 remains a pain to use, after they rebooted the whole story into WinUI 3.0/WinAppSDK.

And then there is the whole issue about dropping it altogether and using Android instead on their Surface phones.

Doesn't matter how cool a future Windows Phone would look like, if the Windows developer community decides it isn't worth going through the same pain yet another time.

 

[Cosmocronos]

Like others already pointed out, the concept is well done but at the end of the day... is an Android device; the paradigm of Windows phone was completely different than the ones of iOS and Android. In all honesty, also considering MS past history, I would be very hesitant to buy another smartphone from Microsoft.
Note that my first Windows phone was a Motorola MPX 200 and I kept buying MS powered devices till the Lumia 950XL; yes, I also had a Duo 1 and 2 but again Android devices, unquestionably interesting especially as hardware but the mystique was already lost.

 

[ShinyProton]

Been there, done that, moved away.

I owned several Windows Phones (including 520, 620, 650, 720, 900, 920, 950) and as with many other Microsoft products, I got burned by their usual and countless withdrawal from the market.

Without an all-in commitment, which they never made, it wouldn't have gone anywhere.
Bad decisions, often bad quality, bad ecosystem...
In the end, they was no other possible outcome.

And I'm now glad I moved away.

Please guys, let go. It wouldn't work anyways. That simple.

 

[naddy69]

"It's like a micro PC running Windows 12 in your pocket".

This old pipe dream AGAIN? "Desktop Windows in my pocket would be SO COOL! Wherever I go (hotels, airports, etc.) SOMEONE will provide me with a dock, mouse, keyboard, monitor, cables and power supplies to run it all!"

Why would ANY hotel want to do that? Just travel with a laptop. WAY easier.

Besides, we already have "micro PCs in our pockets". But they are all running consumer-focused software instead of Windows, and thus are much more "personal" than Windows will ever be.

 

[ShavedMonkey]

I would love a new MS phone, assuming the Surface team can still make good stuff w/o Panay. It's interesting how that video highlights how Windows seems to have shifted to look much more like Android. Without Live Tiles, it seems almost pointless as a mobile OS, but I'd be interested.

My thoughts exactly. While the presentation is nicely done, it's just amounts to another Android skin. No incentive for anyone to move, and definately zero incentive for developers to target another OS.

 

[Tony Simmons]

It's a shame that this ship has sailed, though, as a sad old Microsoft Access VBA developer wishing that I could use it to easily develop phone apps, the appearance of the Access icon at 00:44s caught my eye. I'll just wander off into the distance using my dinosaur legs...

 

[taynjack]

Turn the app drawer icon into the start button, rework the app drawer, bottom dock and you have a Microsoft skin in Android.

In my opinion, to have the slightest chance to get back into mobile, Microsoft would have to at the very least:
+ Dump Satya. Replace him with a John Legere caliber CEO. Satya's lack of confidence is too tightly intertwined in Windows mobile's failure. The burned evangelists won't come back if he is involved.
+ Commit to at least triple the cost of what they wrote down.
+ Then provide a really compelling device with almost no bugs on day 1, and features that no other device has and couldn't replicate, that people find invaluable. At a competitively reasonable price.

It's a Herculean lift at this point for Microsoft. Even if they did attempt it, there's still a huge chance of massive failure.