Why WP is dead in the water

Chregu

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The past does not equal the future is a great mantra to live by unfortunate many people use the past to hit them over the head with, nothing except genuine innovation will change that, its coming though.

Well, I have had quite some success with a different approach: Hope for the best, prepare for the worst.

In this case I will most likely switch platform in fall, but that doesn't mean that I won't be back if everything will be as great as we all hope. I just don't believe it right now, based on history. And that's another point. I think it's incredibly important to be aware of the past, or else we will just make the same mistakes again and again by naively thinking that everything will be great in the future.
 

SAM 77

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I sure as hell hope some of the ostriches at MS are reading this thread.

Nadella is a fool if he thinks cloud is gonna save their bacon.
WP needs apps to compete with the other two.
It needs a pro active approach to get apps made for major organisations instead of waiting for them to do it cause they certainly won't based on market share.
MS sponsor Lotus F1 and crap on about their dynamics BS.
Well we don't have a F1 app for WP so its just hot f&@#in air to the people that folllow the sport.
IOS and Android have the official app
We had an app last year but not this year and nothings getting done about it.
Said before many times

Head up ***!!!!!!
 

rodan01

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The biggest reason why people don't buy a Windows Phone is the app gap. Even people that don't use many apps or don't use apps at all, choose Android over WP when friends or sales representatives tell them that the platform doesn't have the apps. Even WP fans warn this issue when they recommend WP.

The priority should be to solve the app gap. The only way to do it is adding support for Android apps.



After that they need an advantage over iOS and Android. It'd be great if they add something that change the smartphone market, but it's not necessary. Features that are attractive to group of users are good enough to increase the marker share in the high end. For example, the camera, or the obvious path for MS is productivity and enterprise features.



Although, for these features to make a difference, they need to solve the app gap first. It's still exist as a general perception even for people that don't use apps.
 

Great deal

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I sure as hell hope some of the ostriches at MS are reading this thread.

Nadella is a fool if he thinks cloud is gonna save their bacon.
WP needs apps to compete with the other two.
It needs a pro active approach to get apps made for major organisations instead of waiting for them to do it cause they certainly won't based on market share.
MS sponsor Lotus F1 and crap on about their dynamics BS.
Well we don't have a F1 app for WP so its just hot f&@#in air to the people that folllow the sport.
IOS and Android have the official app
We had an app last year but not this year and nothings getting done about it.
Said before many times

Head up ***!!!!!!

1 - they have metrics that measure the industry - My company is also working on Cloud and he is correct it is the future.
2 - Obviously - first they need to demonstrate to developers its worth their time - they are slowly heading in the right direction
3 - The apps are trickling through, as soon as wp hits 10% + globally then ppl will take notice as that's a LOT of people.
4 - Cant comment except that I love F1!!
5 - I use ESPNF1 - great app
6 - There are loads of Apps if your referring to the FIA then as you know, they are useless turds
 

MDMcAtee

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Well, I have had quite some success with a different approach: Hope for the best, prepare for the worst.

In this case I will most likely switch platform in fall, but that doesn't mean that I won't be back if everything will be as great as we all hope. I just don't believe it right now, based on history. And that's another point. I think it's incredibly important to be aware of the past, or else we will just make the same mistakes again and again by naively thinking that everything will be great in the future.


Good point about history....

I'm going to bear with it till spring and see what is going on then. I got a old iPod nano for my music and that will suffice until something better comes along. The way I figure it is if all we have by then is the SSDD,then I've given the new management enough of my time.

I could jump ship early like now,but that would be wasting money and I don't like to do that 😊 and it's up to Microsoft to get their heads out of the cloud ☁ and get grounded in reality for their mobile phone division right now.
 

SAM 77

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I also use ESPN F1 and its very good.

They are way too slow to implement any action to reduce app gap and it will cost em.

How many people are gonna use cloud services when mobile data is so expensive?
Cloud is for people with unlimited data and thats a bees **** percentage.
Yay the cloud
No!!!
Yay you can't afford decent storage which is light years faster.
 

Al4video

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I think the OP's suggestion that WP is dead in the water is beyond ridiculous. A month ago I had a Samsung Galaxy S5 and a iPhone 5. I decided to purchase a Nokia 521 just for the hell of it. I was so impressed with this $69 phone in daily use as compared to my other 2 phones I brought it back and purchased a Lumia 1520 RM 938. I have always owned high end phones, "flagship" as the op calls it. I realize that Android comes with a lot of gimmicks and you can customize until your hearts content. The problem was I wasted numerous hours of my life each day doing just that and I was never content. And the reason it always comes back to how the OS of a phone flows in daily use. The iPhone 5 is as nice a phone as the Samsung with it's puny screened and closed system. After having every iPhone ever made I became bored as hell with purchasing the same phone over and over.

Sure it's an uphill battle for WP, but not because they aren't good or even better as I see it. But because they came to the game late and now they have to play catch up. And my have they done a lot of catching up in such a short time. As far as everyday utility they have already surpassed the competition. They obviously have to add games and gimmicky features that appeal to a broader audience.

The OP suggest that WP only has 3 "Flagship" phones.

Well let's see Samsung only has 2.

Apple only has 1.

Sounds like you should spare us all and move to Android.

I chose a windows phone for personal reasons, not because I don't know what the competition offers. I have owned everything the competition sells, and I don't want it.

If you think WP is dead in the water just move on, it's that easy.
 

Chregu

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I think the OP's suggestion that WP is dead in the water is beyond ridiculous. A month ago I had a Samsung Galaxy S5 and a iPhone 5. I decided to purchase a Nokia 521 just for the hell of it. I was so impressed with this $69 phone in daily use as compared to my other 2 phones I brought it back and purchased a Lumia 1520 RM 938. I have always owned high end phones, "flagship" as the op calls it. I realize that Android comes with a lot of gimmicks and you can customize until your hearts content. The problem was I wasted numerous hours of my life each day doing just that and I was never content. And the reason it always comes back to how the OS of a phone flows in daily use. The iPhone 5 is as nice a phone as the Samsung with it's puny screened and closed system. After having every iPhone ever made I became bored as hell with purchasing the same phone over and over.

Sure it's an uphill battle for WP, but not because they aren't good or even better as I see it. But because they came to the game late and now they have to play catch up. And my have they done a lot of catching up in such a short time. As far as everyday utility they have already surpassed the competition. They obviously have to add games and gimmicky features that appeal to a broader audience.

The OP suggest that WP only has 3 "Flagship" phones.

Well let's see Samsung only has 2.

Apple only has 1.

Sounds like you should spare us all and move to Android.

I chose a windows phone for personal reasons, not because I don't know what the competition offers. I have owned everything the competition sells, and I don't want it.

If you think WP is dead in the water just move on, it's that easy.

There's not only Samsung. There's also HTC, Sony, LG, and son on, all trying to beat each other.

I'm glad you are happy with Windows Phone. But the same is true for my side: I bought a Windows Phone 7 device when it was first released, I had three of them and then switched to Windows Phone 8, using a Lumia 620 and my 8X. I'm just as bored with the UI as you are with iOS, it's just natural, always having the same thing gets boring.

And different to Windows Phone, iOS is at least consistent.
 

tgp

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But just as much as I was excited about WP, I was rejecting Android. With Gobble trying to vacuum up every aspect of your digital life, I really feel less and less like the customer and more and more like the product.

I don't claim to understand every aspect of this, but MS just seems much more respectful of your privacy. I was really pleased when it was announced that Cortana would use a local (i.e. on your phone) notebook for your data, that the you as the user would be able to edit it directly, and that this data would never be used to target advertising at you. This was just one example, but it seems to exemplify MS's approach to data privacy.

Although it's changing some, users as a general rule don't care about Google's data mining. The only place where I see it's a big deal is right here on WPCentral. If users cared, Android would not have 80% market share, Google would not be (by far) the most popular search engine, and Chrome would not be the most popular browser (by some metrics).

I'd really love MS to hit this issue aggressively in their marketing. I suspect this approach hurts their monetizing and they probably don't want to paint themselves into a corner down the road. And data privacy probably isn't flashy enough for most people to switch platforms (or to scare people away from Google). But it is a major difference that should at least be highlighted.

Microsoft tried it in marketing already. Remember the Gmail man & Scroogled? And you are absolutely correct about the possibility of painting themselves into a corner. Microsoft is already monetizing user data some, and it will probably grow until they do as much as they can like Google. I don't believe that privacy is as much of a major difference as we are led to believe, and it will become less and less of a difference as Microsoft looks for more revenue outside of hardware and software.
 

EssVeeEll

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I've had a Windows phone for about two years now, and I believe I can offer some insight.

To many people, WP may seem dead in the water, yes; however, there are three smartwatches coming out soon that are fully compatible: the Agent, the Meteor (which seems really awesome), and the as-yet unnamed Windows smartwatch. Also, as for rugged, I accidentally took my Lumia 900 into a pool with me and it fixed software bugs. And I've dropped both it and my new 1020 several times and they're fine. And the point behind the Lumias and why there is no true "flagship" phone, as you put it, is so that users have options. None of the three main Lumias on the market today are necessarily better than the rest; however, each one has something unique about it that makes it better for one particular type of user. And why would something that is "dead in the water" be the #3 smartphone OS in the world, having recently surpassed BlackBerry? Finally, posting negative things about an OS on its forum is just stupid. Why would you do that.
 

Great deal

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I also use ESPN F1 and its very good.

They are way too slow to implement any action to reduce app gap and it will cost em.

How many people are gonna use cloud services when mobile data is so expensive?
Cloud is for people with unlimited data and thats a bees **** percentage.
Yay the cloud
No!!!
Yay you can't afford decent storage which is light years faster.

Expensive is all relative - Here in the UK there are plans that offer unlimited data, some offer 8GB etc and with WiFi that's more than enough. Most people store documents in the cloud and they use next to no data anyway, I store Pics, vids and music in the cloud too and travel extensively and never go above 4gb of data usage a month while watching Netflix, streaming music, surfing when im out of wifi range of hotels etc. The tech companies are not moving into the cloud space due to a limited customer base, quite the opposite.
 

Keith Wallace

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All of these are terrible reasons. The issue is, and will remain, that Microsoft joined the game 3 years too late with Windows Phone 7, then gutted that user base 2 years later, basically meaning that they jumped into the market 5 years late. What's worse, they did it without match the competition in features, let alone apps and games. I can pretty much explain why each point is crap too, if necessary.

1. The 1020 isn't a flagship phone. Its SoC is from early-2012, so it's a fancy camera in a mediocre phone (by 2014 standards). The Galaxy Note 3 and the emergence of other large devices from Sony and LG show that people absolutely will buy the oversized devices that are coming out. I mean, Apple's not rumored to go to 6 inches with he new iPhone for no good reason. Meanwhile, the whole "no glance or SD" is crap because Android doesn't have glance in its stock devices. Apple's never had glance OR SD support. They've both just built a consumer base that requires apps on the platforms, which keeps the customers happy and on those platforms. It's not glance or SD support.

2. That's an overstatement, when talking OEMs. We saw LG and HTC involved with WP7. We've seen ZTE and Huwaei around. We've had Samsung lead WP7 at the start. The OEMs care, but when it's not making business sense because of market share, you can't expect them to deliberately lose money on R&D for new devices, pay for licensing, then get the old "we only like Nokia" response from the Windows Phone supporters. As for the consumers, they don't care because of the app selection. It's not just "people don't care," it's that the OS lacks growth for hardware makers and it lacks the apps for customers because the app developers aren't seeing growth. What it boils down to is still the lack of apps, not "no one cares."

3. Design is not the problem. Look at the iPhone. It took, what, 5 years to stretch slightly? The Galaxy S IV was almost the same thing as its predecessor. Because so few are with Windows Phone, the Lumia design would still be fresh to them, and the color options help to keep that stale rectangle look nice across a group of users. The devices all have some differences between them, as we've seen the high-end with sharp edges and the low-end have the rounded ones, while including thick bodies for wireless charging (920), metal bodies (925), camera bumps (1020), and some other things. I don't think a curved display is going to fix anything.

4. Wireless charging was and is SO much better than those crap examples you gave. Those things don't make the platform. It's the apps, that's the problem. They could get all of those things into the Windows Phone 8 devices, and it wouldn't matter without app developers who use them. Again, wireless charging is there, as is great camera optics. The 3D Touch is allegedly coming, whatever it might be as well, and the 630 had that new Sensor Core or whatever for fitness tracking, and I imagine it will be improved upon and added to t he next device.

5. I've experienced and read about enough Lumia durability to call this crap. The iPhone's glass back once had issues where it'd crack when some tighter-fitting cases were put on it, and those phones have been notoriously fragile forever. I don't even know what to say.

6. Wearables still aren't popularized, and they're confirmed to be in-the-works, basically. Apple's surviving with no watch, as are the non-Samsung OEMS with Android, as they are JUST making such things. Android Wear is just emerging, so the market's not exactly flooded with purchases or convincing products.

7. This is the reason, it's going to continue to be the reason as well. This and platform familiarity/history are the reason. The previous 6 points are garbage things on the furthest-back burners possible to most consumers. My grandma didn't take her Windows tablet back for an iPad because of that other stuff, she took it back because Words with Friends and her slot machine apps weren't present. My sister's friend didn't switch to Android because of a curved display, she was sick of not having apps. My sister doesn't complain that her 822 isn't waterproof, she complains it doesn't have an official Pinterest or FitBit app (though the third-party ones suit her fine).

This is what the WPC forums seem to be covered in though, users who think they know "the answer," which is just a ridiculous click-bait thread with the same, rehashed crap as always. We don't have the apps to draw the masses. That's the problem, shut up about the rest.
 

a5cent

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Read my post again. I didn?t say that WP is a poor platform.

I read it again, very carefully, and I've concluded that it is not my reading that requires improvement. You said: "WP offers nothing at [this] time." A mobile OS that offers nothing is by definition a poor platform. That may not have been what you meant, but it is what you said.

What is so good in WP that they should reject their Google or iOS accounts start all over again?

I already gave you a incomplete list (updates would be another important issue). I'd suggest you go back and read my post :wink:

That list might not interest you, but it does interest me and many others here at WPC. I'd suggest we let everyone have their preferences, without claiming that any specific set of preferences make more or less sense... they don't... that is why they are preferences. Okay?
 

Ian Too

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Hi Abdul,

Thanks for your post, I agree with some and disagree with other of the points you've made, but what I take from it was that you really want to replace your current Windows Phone with another. I suspect that if Sony had released a Windows Phone version of the Z2, you'd have bought it and I'd be right there with you. That however, isn't Microsoft's fault it's Sony's, and as an owner of several of their products, I can say it's their loss too. Please start a thread about Sony's lack of support for WP restricting your choice - I'll see you there.

Where I disagree is that Microsoft have been slow. They did the brave thing and started from scratch with Windows Phone and so have been playing catch-up. With the release of 8.1 WP will gain some measure of parity with Android and already there is talk of the first update to 8.1 approaching RTM. It is a real achievement of the Windows Phone team that they have delivered an OS which is rock solid and around which some pretty amazing things can be able to be done, like a 41MP camera. Yes, there are issues like Xbox music, but these are peripheral to the OS, important as they are to individual users.

Your question to one of your responders about why consistency between different make of Windows Phone is probably best answered two ways:Firstly, this consistency allows app developers to design a good experience without having to worry about Touchwiz eating half the memory and blocking optimisation on a more efficient device like a Nexus. The other reason consistency is good is that to get a good experience with Android, you have to buy the right device, which means you have to be some sort of expert - knowing for instance to buy a Moto G or a Nexus. Whatever Windows Phone device you buy, it will work well and you won't need a phd to make it secure either.

Just as Sony are to blame for not giving you the option to buy a WP version of the Z2, Google are to blame for not supporting their consumers who chose to own a Windows Phone. Estimates put the WP user base at 50,000,000 so it's no longer tenable to argue that it's not economic to support the platform. Rather, you should ask why Google care so little for your custom as to reduce you to piggy in the middle in their war with Microsoft.

To me, the lack of Google involvement with WP is a plus for the platform in the same way as having fewer apps is a plus when so many are gambling apps or pornography. My standing advice to everyone is not to use Google devices and services because when all is said and done Google are the biggest security breach of them all. There's nothing an Android could do that would make me use one and I used to be a big fan of Google, back when all the were was a search engine.

My final point is that WP is not dead in the water by any means, the release of new devices and apps in India show how well WP has been received there and in many places like here in the UK WP has significant penetration. It was always going to be an uphill battle against iOS and Android, but WP is gaining momentum. With Cortana and innovative new flaships like MacLaren able to boost WPs image, things pick up further.
 

Abdul Rahman Noor

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All of these are terrible reasons. The issue is, and will remain, that Microsoft joined the game 3 years too late with Windows Phone 7, then gutted that user base 2 years later, basically meaning that they jumped into the market 5 years late. What's worse, they did it without match the competition in features, let alone apps and games. I can pretty much explain why each point is crap too, if necessary.
...
This is what the WPC forums seem to be covered in though, users who think they know "the answer," which is just a ridiculous click-bait thread with the same, rehashed crap as always. We don't have the apps to draw the masses. That's the problem, shut up about the rest.

And clearly YOU alone know the reason; and everything everyone else says that disagrees with that is c**p.
What an attitude!
 

Chregu

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Yawn. . . another WP will fail thread. This isn't rocket science. If WP sucks go to another platform.

I think the discussion is very interesting and I'm glad that we all can have different opinions and talk about it. Yes, it's true, I will most likely go to another platform in fall, but that doesn't mean that I'm not interested in the opinion of people that stay with it, or that want to switch to it, or also want to leave. I'm also interested whether people want to leave for good or if they plan on coming back for whatever reason.

If you are not interested in it that's great, I don't see any reason for you to post here then.
 

Abdul Rahman Noor

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Hi Ian,

Thanks for your response.
I agree, and I think the biggest problem with WP is that its too good to leave behind, despite its flaws.
That right there, is why we have so many threads pointing out its shortcomings - because deep within, everyone using WP wants it to succeed.

If it were a truly horrific, f*8ked up platform, people wouldn't bother starting multiple threads 1) saying they're leaving 2) pointing out flaws and 3) expressing their doubts...
...they would just throw away their phone and leave.

I hope this might be able to explain to some of the loyal fanbase here who are so blinded by their love for WP that they need to mock anyone pointing this out and ask them to "just leave if you're unhappy".

Finally, as I've said numerous times: I'm not blaming anyone (Microsoft or Google or Sony) for the current situation, but the fact remains that this *is* the current situation - and something we need to live with.

Cheers!

p.s. An XPERIA Z2 with WP 8.1 would be surreal! :)
 

BobLobIaw

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I think all of OP's arguments are consistent with WP being "dead in the water" at the present moment. That presumes the strict definition of dead in the water as not making any current progress. The mistake would be extrapolating that conclusion to the future. The landscape will certainly be considerably different this fall with the release of new phones. In addition, anyone who projects the imminent demise of WP before seeing what will result from Microsoft's purchase of Nokia's assets is just being impetuous.
 

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