The lack of support from pretty much everyone and the future of Windows Phone

[tekhna]

There is nothing intelligent about this.

The entire premise of this thread (that "almost every day" we see an article on this forum about a third party dev leaving WP) is WRONG. Where do you go from there, when you're starting with a lie, how does an intelligent conversation evolve from that.

What about the argument made by WPCentral writers that Microsoft may not care about its own platform, made today? It's kinda dire when that's happening, no?
Possible reasons why we get no new Xbox game for Windows Phone again this week | Windows Phone Central

 

[socialcarpet]

I appreciate the dialogue in this thread. I have a Note 2 and Nexus 4 but am really wanting to try a L920 as I've long loved Nokia hardware and I am very intrigued by the capabilities of the camera. As a person who is not loyal to any one single platform I jump across the various forums to educate myself as much as I can about the pros and cons of each operating system. Threads like this one provide valuable information for people who are trying to make an informed decision about a device they are considering for purchase. Not that I didn't already know that there is limited support for apps in the WP8 ecosystem at this point but I also saw some alternatives as well in the thread that I may not have already known about. What is considered sh**ing all over the forum to you may not be perceived as such my most other users. You can usually tell by the title of the thread what the nature of the post is. You are the one that clicked on it.

No worries. I'm out.

The complainers and whiners can have this forum. I'll check back in a few months to see if the real enthusiasts have taken over again.

http://forums.windowscentral.com/wi...ticking-wp8-forum-other-hand.html#post1850052

 

[aggie]

No worries. I'm out.

The complainers and whiners can have this forum. I'll check back in a few months to see if the real enthusiasts have taken over again.

http://forums.windowscentral.com/wi...ticking-wp8-forum-other-hand.html#post1850052

no offense intended but it sounds like you are the one doing the whining and complaining. Nothing is perfect. There is real reason for concern about the long term viability of the platform. I'm pulling for WP8. After using Android and iOS for the last 5 years I really am wanting to try something new. I had never really considered WP8 until I upgraded to Windows 8 on my pc. After that I purchased a Surface and while I love it there are some holes in the user experience due to the lack of certain apps. For the most part though it meets my needs and for what needs it doesn't meet I also have a Nexus 7 and iPad. Even with the cons that it has it is by far my favorite device I have at the moment. The experience of the Surface has the potential to be a springboard for me to go all in with the Microsoft ecosystem, however, I am a little more demanding on my mobile device than I am on a tablet. I use my smartphone for just about everything. Mobile banking (none of the 3 banks I bank with have an app for WP8 yet), fantasy football/baseball, photo syncing through dropbox (skydrive can handle this), light gaming, logging my workout activity (runkeeper and nike are absent but I can use Endomondo), Pandora/Spotify, etc. A thread like this is useful for people like myself who want to make sure all of the bases are covered or at least know what we will have to live without should we go forward with a purchase. While forums are enthusiast sites they are also a place for discussion be it positive or negative. I see nothing in the OP bashing the platform or device but a concern from somebody who likes the platform as to whether or not app developers will ever come on board. You sound like someone who is insecure in their choice and can't stand to see a little constructive criticism. I'm *this close* to making the plunge so it is good for me as well as someone who might be in my situation to see these type threads.

 

[philpeeps]

no offense intended but it sounds like you are the one doing the whining and complaining. Nothing is perfect. There is real reason for concern about the long term viability of the platform. I'm pulling for WP8. After using Android and iOS for the last 5 years I really am wanting to try something new. I had never really considered WP8 until I upgraded to Windows 8 on my pc. After that I purchased a Surface and while I love it there are some holes in the user experience due to the lack of certain apps. For the most part though it meets my needs and for what needs it doesn't meet I also have a Nexus 7 and iPad. Even with the cons that it has it is by far my favorite device I have at the moment. The experience of the Surface has the potential to be a springboard for me to go all in with the Microsoft ecosystem, however, I am a little more demanding on my mobile device than I am on a tablet. I use my smartphone for just about everything. Mobile banking (none of the 3 banks I bank with have an app for WP8 yet), fantasy football/baseball, photo syncing through dropbox (skydrive can handle this), light gaming, logging my workout activity (runkeeper and nike are absent but I can use Endomondo), Pandora/Spotify, etc. A thread like this is useful for people like myself who want to make sure all of the bases are covered or at least know what we will have to live without should we go forward with a purchase. While forums are enthusiast sites they are also a place for discussion be it positive or negative. I see nothing in the OP bashing the platform or device but a concern from somebody who likes the platform as to whether or not app developers will ever come on board. You sound like someone who is insecure in their choice and can't stand to see a little constructive criticism. I'm *this close* to making the plunge so it is good for me as well as someone who might be in my situation to see these type threads.

His post wasn't just related to this thread but the entire forum. There has been an influx of repeat threads rehashing all this same **** as well as other topics over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over.

 

[philpeeps]

true, if only everyone's posts were constructive like yours

Thanks!

 

[Nataku4ca]

It seems like a design decision to not allow an app to initiate downloads so all of the podcast apps on windows phone suffer.

i could be misunderstanding you, but iirc (since i haven't done it in a while) i could download podcast via SlapDash Podcasts...?

Likewise it seems like a design decision to not allow file browsing or downloading of files to user created directories which may seem pretty minor.

this, i think and i hope will change in the future, and with some of the updates we are seeing with file selection i think it will come later this year, the addition of SD card slot should help with that as well

I move a lot of PDF's around for work and I can't even download one to my phone let alone send one from my phone via email.

sending i agree, the email app should allow selection of different files, but download? i mean i can download pdfs sent to my email and i can download them when i browse websites... so i don't know why you can't do it, unless it's different in WP8 (i still have my L800)

!!RANTING ALERT!!
I have developed apps for WP7 and have one awaiting certification for Windows 8, I have to say that I do not agree that those two things that you brought up are what's stopping devs from developing apps for WP, heck, what's stopping BBC from making a god damn news reader? alot of these devs are doing this out of spite imo, at least for WP8 you can program in native code so I don't understand why some of these people are out right saying they won't do it, even with market share argument it's stupid especially when you see them developing apps for Windows 8, the coding is 95% the same, just need to change the interface around a bit and it will work like a charm

take a look at Google, they are not developing for MS because of market share reason? fine, but MS built an app for them, and I'm pretty sure they are willing to give that app for Google for free if they would just allow WP to access YouTube, but noooo... there is not a single damn good reason they can come up with that I would agree with at this moment for this kind of behavior and you people are blaming Microsoft for not trying? sheeze...
--end of first rant...--

I think M$ could really help the platform by opening up some doors while keeping the standardization in place.

i think this is the part that is not as easy as people think it is, if you just "open" up the platform, then WP will look like android and worse like WM, the other side of the coin is there will also be less confidence in developers that their apps won't get pirated, ok with that out of the way (i just realized i think my "open" is probably not what you meant...) as far as file structures go, I think Microsoft is still struggling to figure out what is the best way to allow file management on a phone and how to allow apps to access those areas

the original reason with no file management on WP was for security reasons (at least that's what i read last year), with the addition of SD card mass storage device option, I think they are starting to figure out how to do this safely, here comes a different issue, they want to prevent apps from doing dumb things with an user's files so apps sandboxed (not the only reason, but whatever you get the point), for these apps to access files on Windows 8 we had to ask for permission, and if we try to ask for permission for Document Library there is even more restrictions such as the need to have a company account and explanation why we need access (reason why i couldn't do that in my app for Windows 8... =.=) with that happening I'm starting to think Microsoft is using Windows 8 to test out how the apps can interact with folders and eventually implement what they think will work on a phone

no guarantees, lots of speculation on this latter part, but having been early adopter for several things, i see a lot more reasons to keep supporting this system than not, heck have you seen pre-mango WP? and the amount of improvement with mango just within a year? and now with Apollo the improvement is astounding imo, there are still plenty of things that needs to improve, but Microsoft is on the right path and making alot more improvements then the other guys in a years worth of time (by that i mean by each major update... not sure how else to put it)

I was an early android adopter as well and I do remember the days of a sparce and terrible google market with no angry birds, no words with friends and no INSTAGRAM!!!! and in that respect Windows Phone store has much more to offer in the way of good apps than early android handsets ever did. I just fear that some of these restrictions are more than the market can bare and really just slowing down or downright stopping the development of third party apps.

now, im glad you do see the same thing i do in that WP's market place is not as bad as people make it out to be, and i think you will see things turn around quickly within the next year, and for developers like instagram? i hope they die a painful death in not providing any way for WP to access their social network, they are bought by fb now, so i don't believe this small dev no money to support WP crap flies any more, we have some of the best cameras out there as well

heck, remember how long it took for them to bother making anything for android? and the high horsed users even said android would pollute instagram with bad pictures (granted that's not instagram's fault) makes me feel like that social network is filled d***s...

 

[gravage]

There is nothing intelligent about this.

The entire premise of this thread (that "almost every day" we see an article on this forum about a third party dev leaving WP) is WRONG. Where do you go from there, when you're starting with a lie, how does an intelligent conversation evolve from that.

You clearly don't read the news on this site very often.

Sent from my GT-N7105 using Tapatalk 2

 

[Squatting Hen]

I will just keep making calls on my 920 while watching HD-DVD's and browsing the internet on my Touchpad.

 

[Nataku4ca]

I meant they can't initiate downloads. You can't schedule your podcast app to check for new episodes at a regular interval and download them, the user must initiate the downloads.

ohh, ok i can't comment on that since i don't use podcast that often

I can't manage attached files at all, 0 options for the default email app to download files. Also, I'm on a Lumia 920 so there is no SD slot, I would need to manage files directly on my drive.

im still a little hazy on this one, i mean when you tap on a attached pdf file on your email it downloads it, no?

i brought up SD card as a basis for the argument that it seems like a good indication of what Microsoft is intending on doing in the future as far as file management goes, sorry guess my wording needs to be better

[EDIT] forgot to say, i know why wp can't do scheduled download yet, i hope they have something up their sleeves (reason was to prevent battery drain and unknown data usage i believe, but since there is Data Sense now they might change their stance)

 

[masterchief1984]

This is exactly how I was feeling. We have a great OS but no one wants to make apps for it.

 

[Funky Cricket]

It just seems to me they are erring on the side of data protection (no scheduled downloads) but at the same time everything is cloud! (can't email full res picture). It is both contradictory and annoying that I can't make a few simple choices.

 

[Andi_N]

There's unarguably more .NET developers "at heart" out there than iOS developers, or even Android. Why? Because MS dominates the PC market worldwide. And developing for WP8 is almost just like developing another .NET application, though there might be little changes. I'm pretty sure when India gets WP8 hardware (they already have the L920), knowing they are predominantly MS people there, will start coding apps like they're on trigger happy mode. So we'll just have to wait. These companies that said they won't develop apps for anything Windows 8 will eat their humble pie in the future.

 

[Laura Knotek]

There's unarguably more .NET developers "at heart" out there than iOS developers, or even Android. Why? Because MS dominates the PC market worldwide. And developing for WP8 is almost just like developing another .NET application, though there might be little changes. I'm pretty sure when India gets WP8 hardware (they already have the L920), knowing they are predominantly MS people there, will start coding apps like they're on trigger happy mode. So we'll just have to wait. These companies that said they won't develop apps for anything Windows 8 will eat their humble pie in the future.

Microsoft needs to host an event like this one in India, only for Windows Phone rather than Windows 8.

 

[erasure25]

It's not about specific advantages. The point is that 100 million people use Dropbox, and a pretty decent chunk of them have no interest in changing services. I use my GS3 much more than my 820 because I've been told:
If I use Gmail, switch to Outlook.
If I use Spotify, switch to Zune Music.
If I use Dropbox, switch to SkyDrive.
If I use Instagram, well, sorry, you're SOL.

Trying to win over customers by expecting them to switch their entire digital lives over to competing providers because your OS can't and doesn't provide the services they are used to, and have used for years, is a dead end. Period. End of story.
No one cares about your 10-step plan to switch over to Outlook because you think Google is evil. People care about using the same email address they've used for a decade.

Ok so you are lazy. I guess you can just continue to complain and hope that these life long apps that you have used will come to the OS or you can spend an hour or two and upgrade to something that works better with your 820. I dunno, I mean I upgraded from Win XP a long time ago and that was fine with me. What's the difference here. Honestly, I am not sure why you posted this. Are you hoping someone can point you to a secret Instagram app hidden in the marketplace that no one knows about?

 

[thecaringkind]

I appreciate the viewpoints and opinions of this thread and of the forum in general. When it comes to my own humble two cents I just think everyone needs to take a deep breath, or maybe knock down a shot or two. WP8 is a VERY SOLID platform. Period. It is and continues to get a little better every day. I love it BECAUSE it is so different from Android & iOS. I have a Droid DNA & it rocks. It just does so much & does it very well. It has a very mature platform & plenty of great apps but guess what? It doesn't keep my sweaty little mitts from my Lumia 920! We all complain and gripe about many things in like however sometimes we lose sight of the little things that mean so much to our user experiences. WP8 is visually appealing and functional in ways that Jelly Bean & iOS just can't touch. Its still very raw in some ways and as such it will continue to grow and improve. The only thing I fear is that Microsoft may in some way fumble the ball. They have ENORMOUS resources. They need to use them. There should be FULL integration with Xbox. Period. As far as developers and third party apps in general Microsoft should front BOATLOADS of cash, trips, any kind of sweet incentives that they can to get those folks on board. When you're somewhat late to the game especially app-wise and want any chance of establishing & expanding your selection & footprint then you MUST emulate what iOS & Android have been doing and flat out making devs offers they can't possibly refuse. Overall WP8 is a winner. Nokia had crafted some pretty awesome hardware to support it. It will grow and maybe even flourish. As long as Microsoft takes care if its baby and fives it every tool it needs to compete.

 

[tekhna]

Ok so you are lazy. I guess you can just continue to complain and hope that these life long apps that you have used will come to the OS or you can spend an hour or two and upgrade to something that works better with your 820. I dunno, I mean I upgraded from Win XP a long time ago and that was fine with me. What's the difference here. Honestly, I am not sure why you posted this. Are you hoping someone can point you to a secret Instagram app hidden in the marketplace that no one knows about?

 

[ClixT]

I'd be fine without the 3rd party apps too, it's the 1st party apps developed by the website or service themselves that people want.

I know what you meant, you don't have a lot of interest in apps on your phone, just realize that you are in a very small minority of smartphone users. Most people that are buying these pocket computers want apps. Lots and lots of high quality 1st party apps for all of the things that they like to do.

I totally agree. I forgot to mention about the 1st party apps--apps that I (and many others) actually care, but not a major issue to me if they're not available.
I used to be obsessed with apps when I had my Xperia X10, but suddenly, I just lost interest in them. Kind of like a cat lost interest with the yarn lol

 

[cardinalryan]

Frankly, I don't think you need a smartphone. You will do fine with a feature phone. There rest of us think that apps are important. WP8 is losing out in the apps ecosystem and I don't see it catching up. Nowadays many companies release apps to access their services and they invariably support only ios and Android. There is a whole range of new localized service apps by banks, airlines, transport companies, retailers, public services, event managers, etc which WP8 is not going to get while we are still talking about essentials like Dropbox, Pandora and Instagram. Microsoft can bribe some developers but they can't bribe everybody.

I think eventually the world will standardize around two ecosystems only - ios and Android. The rest will be niche platforms. Sorry to be harsh but the writing is on the wall.

]
This is 100% spot on. It's a shame though, because WP8 is really nice, but unfortunately it's users are getting the shaft while users of iOS and Android get all the benefits of a wonderful ecosystem.

 

[cardinalryan]

So is SkyDrive.

I don't let vendor lock-in determine which device I use. If a vendor won't support my device, I find one who does. Storage, email, etc. are COMMODITIES, and are thus easy to change.

The iOS brigade is curiously silent on this. There is no difference between switching from Dropbox to Skydrive and switching from Verizon to AT&T to get the iPhone back in the exclusive days... Yet they would suggest that the former is an impossible mess while the latter is easy.

This is cool for you, but you must understand that you are in the vast minority. Most people are not willing to readily change all that is familiar to them.

 

[spaulagain]

This is cool for you, but you must understand that you are in the vast minority. Most people are not willing to readily change all that is familiar to them.

How does that make any sense if they just bought a Windows Phone?

If they are used to using DropBox and its apps on iOS or Android, then switching to Windows Phone is a bigger change than DropBox to SkyDrive.

I can understand moving files and switching to another service may be a little bit of a pain. But if someone is making the jump to Windows Phone, then they are already jumping ship to something they are unfamiliar with.

Also, its not like SkyDrive is some niche/exclusive service. Its a Microsoft product and is fully integrated with Windows Phone, Windows, Xbox, and many other NON-Microsoft products.

I used gmail for years but recently switched to Outlook.com. Did it take some effort to switch? Yes. But its been a great switch to get an even more seamless experience. Something that having a SkyDrive account also does.