Don't understand why Windows phones aren't more popular

odin09

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The first time I picked up a windows phone I had it up and running instantly. I was moving things, downloading and changing settings. Everything was very intuitive, for me. When I tried to set up an iPhone I struggled with the settings and even had to call iPhone friends to ask how to do things. For me... Windows phone was much easier. I also love the tiles!
 

sumanthsuresh

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You're right I am going to disagree :grin: However I don't consider myself a Windows ****** either as I came relatively late compared with most in here and I certainly do not think it's without its faults. Tiles certainly aren't any more difficult to use than Android Widgets. Once someone is shown how to add and resize tiles, it's second nature, I mean I can't see how they could've made that any easier.

Are Tiles Perfect? Maybe not, but to me, they give some of the functionality of a widget with the cleaner look of iOS. As to the home screen being a cluttered mess, that is up to the user. You can layout your tiles to mimic a 'grid' of icons or have dissimilar sized ones like widgets to match the priority of certain apps.

I am not of the opinion that the Tiles themselves are the cause of Windows Phones's unpopularity. It's the apps, plain and simple.
Apps are there just some basic one. Works fine for me. People need a lot more fancy and there is always comparison to iOS and android
 

gcyoung

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Here in the UK I've not seen a single ad for the L950 or L950XL on TV or billboards. Odd for new phones and this close to Xmas. I see the occasional ad in my Facebook feed but I don't really see that as advertising.

The Surface on the other hand I see ads for all the time.

It does make you wonder.

Nadella was pretty clear about the 950 being for Windows Phone enthusiasts, so that's a pretty small market, that will already know the phones are released. I also wonder if they didn't know that it would be a rather rocky launch, and decided not to promote the new phones and OS until the bugs had been worked out. Not surprised to see no promotion.
 
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Since every post here has focused on the consumer end, I'll offer my take from the supply side.

The reason Windows Phone never took off in any meaningful way is the mismanagement by MS.

1. OEMS: Microsoft lost the OEM market before they even began their WP journey by establishing rigid hardware requirements and forbade them from altering the look and feel. The positioning from MS at the time is "We" want "Our" consumers to have a consistent hardware experience across the ecosystem. By tying the OEMs' hands on any sort of differentiation, it severely limited the appeal. What OEM want's to be just another me a

2. Carriers: Since many carriers are also landline operators, there is much tension there, as MS have slowly been eating away at those value added profits by providing PBX integration to Exchange and then the ultimate insult, buying Skype. Carriers have no love for MS.

3. Software developers: By insisting (initially) that all Windows phone apps had to be sandboxed in a little silverlight container meant many developers who could've potentially developed an app, did not do so due to the steep learning curve. On top of that, the limitations of the OS / Silverlight layer meant many apps simply were not possible.

4. Stupid pivots: not the UI, but the radical shifts that occur with each re-imagining of what Windows on the phone should be. They went from a well thought out, simplistic design, to Continuum. Each shift in the roadmap meant much rework to fit in the new runtime/ecosystem. To the point that many apps in the Windows Phone store today are still their original WP7 Silverlight apps. Silverlight -> Windows Runtime -> UWP (Windows Runtime 2.1).

5. Bad design decisions: The biggest failure in this journey was having TPM as optional in WP7 and mandatory in WP8. This left the consumer with a bad taste as their devices were immediately cut from the WP8 upgrade path, in clear violation of the promise mandated by MS when WP7 launched that "Our devices will have supported upgrade path for 18 months".


When MS stack the deck against themselves like this, failure is imminent. So they backpedal with the OEMs and allow them to recycle their Android designs, which in turn meant much work for the UX team to support new screen ratios. Now, in this iteration, they try to bypass the carrier. Microsoft made the mistake of thinking they were still the 800 lb gorilla in the room, using their clout to get others in line with their vision, rather than collaborating with the different players in the ecosystem to build something that works for everyone.
 

anon(6078578)

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I personally think the whole universal apps and continuum deal is really a way for Microsoft to slowly creep away from the consumer market by shifting focus to more business orientated devices (ie Surface Phone).
 

cracgor

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I personally think the whole universal apps and continuum deal is really a way for Microsoft to slowly creep away from the consumer market by shifting focus to more business orientated devices (ie Surface Phone).

Or creep away from phones in general. Maybe the future device line isn't even a phone+. I can't say I understand how Continuum really is useful without wireless interaction and no need for additional peripherals.
 

chmun77

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Now, I know what many of you are going to say. "I love Live tiles! Windows Mobile UI is so elegant and easy to use!" Yes that may be true to you because you're a ******, but to the general consumer, that is not the case. The majority of consumers who use Windows Phones the first time find it confusing as heck. The first time I used Windows Phones, I didn't know how to resize and snap tiles around. Nobody wants to go through a tutorial on how to use the start screen.

When I showed my friend the windows phone I'm using, his very first reaction is - "what are all those squares? So messy!". I think in order to use windows phone, one has to have to be prepared to use a very different home screen. This is also why MS decided to make the big Start "disappear" for the new Windows 10 desktop OS. People are just to used to the "old and static" icons sad to say.

Another thing that disappoint me a lot is how slow apps are being updated - the non third party apps to be precised. On my Android, I see such promises by the app developers:

BwFEJH6m.png


To make things worse, I see this when I tried to reinstall Tunein:
h47kmM7l.png


Where are the promises on windows phone? I'm seeing Facebook, Messenger, Whatsapp, Flipboard, Instagram, etc all being updated frequently on my Note 4 and iPhone6s+. On the contrary, things are so quiet on the windows phone platform. Is just so demoralizing!
 

chmun77

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I personally think the whole universal apps and continuum deal is really a way for Microsoft to slowly creep away from the consumer market by shifting focus to more business orientated devices (ie Surface Phone).

That's why they are forcing consumers to pay for using Office on the phone via Continuum starting next April.
 

WinOMG

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Because you're only looking at it from a limited perspective. With Android, you can change your home screen to anything you want (make it look like an iPhone or Windows Phone) and you can change your keyboard. You can root your phone and make it so that on phone startup you can show a boot log. You can browse the system files and do anything you want and even change the lock screen or download a new messaging or phone app. You also have a crap load of apps to choose from. I used to think like you did. I was a hardcore WP ******. But I decided to give Android a try and well, I am doing a lot more than I used to before. And with iPhones, they have the apps, but they also have simplicity. WP has simplicity, but no apps.
 
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mariusmuntean

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In Romania Windows Phone was and is doing fine with both mid and high level phones. This Monday I've bought my Lumia 950 from my operator and the sales person told me that they have the second batch running as the first one was already sold out. I've been also in Germany and Austria and I've seen many people using windows phones
 

N_LaRUE

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That's why they are forcing consumers to pay for using Office on the phone via Continuum starting next April.

Not to start this whole argument again (there's a whole thread of it) but they never once said that Office on Continuum would be free. They also stated many times that Mobile Office is free where as the desktop version is not. When you're using Continuum you are not mobile are you? That's the distinction.

Leave it to MS to make it complicated but what else is new?
 

N_LaRUE

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I personally think the whole universal apps and continuum deal is really a way for Microsoft to slowly creep away from the consumer market by shifting focus to more business orientated devices (ie Surface Phone).

Reality is they should have focused on their stronger side first, the business side. MS has always been strong in business. Having a good business oriented phone probably would have helped them a lot considering BB went bust and they weren't in a position to capitalise.

Saying that, there's no reason why they couldn't have did both at the same time. Unfortunately their phones were never 'business' enough looking aside from the L925. That new L650 is looking nice, if a bit low spec.
 

N_LaRUE

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Nadella was pretty clear about the 950 being for Windows Phone enthusiasts, so that's a pretty small market, that will already know the phones are released. I also wonder if they didn't know that it would be a rather rocky launch, and decided not to promote the new phones and OS until the bugs had been worked out. Not surprised to see no promotion.

Isn't that just a bit silly? I mean why make a product and not market the thing? That's kind of like doing the 'build it they will come' mentality. It doesn't work really.

As for it being the phone for enthusiasts I don't think they achieved that.
 
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As a general consumer, I used iPhone, Android and now Windows Phone. Contrary to your opinion on the learning curves for using the various UI's, I found Android exceedingly tricky. I had to study the manual to learn how to remove empty start screen pages. Then, to complicate things further, behind the start screen there is a whole lot of extra pages loaded with all your apps, many of them bloatware duplicates which can't be removed. Then, on top of that, there are the widgets to figure out.

On contrast, it was immediately clear to me how to move Windows tiles around, change their sizes or unpin or pin them. To me, the Windows Phone UI really was a piece of cake to figure out compared to the Android UI.

I will agree that the app gap may be an issue. However, in South Africa, we have most bank apps, movie apps, train and Uber apps, payment apps. The thing about MS that is troubling in our nook of the world is that MS still does not let you buy music tracks and movies from their music store! Really annoying, as this requires a workaround via iTunes on a PC.
 

anon(6078578)

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Isn't that just a bit silly? I mean why make a product and not market the thing? That's kind of like doing the 'build it they will come' mentality. It doesn't work really.

As for it being the phone for enthusiasts I don't think they achieved that.
I agree with Paul Thurrot in that they should've been $100 cheaper. This is especially true if they really were meant for the "enthusiasts". No one is saying they should give them away, but saying they are the equal hardware wise of the iPhone etc. still does not justify the price. There is more to pricing than simply hardware, such as desirability etc.
 

anon(6078578)

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Reality is they should have focused on their stronger side first, the business side. MS has always been strong in business. Having a good business oriented phone probably would have helped them a lot considering BB went bust and they weren't in a position to capitalise.

Saying that, there's no reason why they couldn't have did both at the same time. Unfortunately their phones were never 'business' enough looking aside from the L925. That new L650 is looking nice, if a bit low spec.
Part of the problem with Windows phones is that the included productivity features such as office are not what consumers want or need and they only make sense for a business phone. The only office app I find genuinely useful is OneNote. It also doesn't help when they replace apps like Microsoft Health & Fitness with a more crippled Microsoft Health simply because they're trying to get people to buy their Band instead.
 

cracgor

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Part of the problem with Windows phones is that the included productivity features such as office are not what consumers want or need and they only make sense for a business phone. The only office app I find genuinely useful is OneNote. It also doesn't help when they replace apps like Microsoft Health & Fitness with a more crippled Microsoft Health simply because they're trying to get people to buy their Band instead.

I think this perception that Microsoft is better at business side of things is not entirely true. The reason that Microsoft dominates on the computer front is because OEMs load their computers with Windows. These OEMs offer cheaper computers with a lot more legacy connections and fixable parts than the only other competition (Apple). This makes buying a computer something of an investment that can last 10 years. That and for a long time, the third party software on Windows was superior to Apple.

The Mobile arena is far different. None of the phones (Microsoft included) are able to cheaply swap out parts currently (Google seems to be the only one working on this project). All phones reach a end of life after 3-4 years for functionality (due to advances in hardware or software requirements). And while Windows Phone used to claim a victory for having real office available...Google did have its google documents available--even if it was subpar. Add on to that the fact that 3rd party developers don't have any plans to make software for Windows Phone and this is why the business world is not latching on. I have used Windows phone for years despite having for a long time incompatibility with my hospital's mail servers (couldn't get email on my phone without opening explorer), no dictation software (have to call a dictation line which is less efficient), no access to electronic records (no software available), and really no useful medical references.

The business world is probably a worse hope for Windows Phone in the current implementation than the consumer world. There really is no compelling reason to choose Windows Phone other than being a fan of the universal ecosystem--like iphone users deciding to switch to Mac. Some may argue that WP is more stable or more useful, but most consumers have chosen otherwise.
 

mj0

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The business world is probably a worse hope for Windows Phone in the current implementation than the consumer world. There really is no compelling reason to choose Windows Phone other than being a fan of the universal ecosystem--like iphone users deciding to switch to Mac. Some may argue that WP is more stable or more useful, but most consumers have chosen otherwise.

Not only is there no compelling reason to choose Windows Phone over iOS or Android but it's actually massively counterproductive. Microsoft's implementation of their very own ActiveSync Exchange protocol is completely bananas. Accessing an Exchange (or any other Groupware) server via iOS is much more convenient than doing the same via Android (it sort of works but depends on the OEM) or Windows Phone (it's more fun than you can shake a stick at...). I'll give you an example: public folders - such as group calendars, contacts, etc. - and public resources - such as conference rooms - cannot be accessed from the phone with Windows Phone 8 at all. In all fairness it does appear to work with Windows 10 Mobile, but then again we've been using iOS devices to access our Groupware servers since early 2009 and never had an issue. Thus, finally after only six years (and counting) Microsoft has caught up with Apple in implementing their very own protocol.
 

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