Is Windows Phone headed in the right direction?

[Laura Knotek]

This is what is going to happen, because Microsoft failed to understand a simple fact: The people who prefer Microsoft, over Apple, prefer open models, over closed models. Microsoft, in trying to create outstanding uniform consumer experience, has alienated its most important loyalists. Those who do not like being locked-in.

I would not say that is the case. Microsoft has always been proprietary, not open source, even though Microsoft does contribute some things to the open source community. Open source fans would gravitate more toward Linux and things like the Ubuntu mobile and Firefox mobile OSes.

 

[ChMar]

This is what is going to happen, because Microsoft failed to understand a simple fact: The people who prefer Microsoft, over Apple, prefer open models, over closed models. Microsoft, in trying to create outstanding uniform consumer experience, has alienated its most important loyalists. Those who do not like being locked-in.

We are talking about a personal mobile device here. On a computer I can have multiple user accounts. I'm protected from viruses and malware by browsing and using software on accounts without administrator permissions. A smartphone is a different situation. I run the software as administrator by default in such an environment so security is much more relevant than for pc. In enterprise pc are locked down by servers. At home you have some protection by using UAC and installing only software made by recognizable companies.

Now consider android and it's not locked environment. I download and install a swipe keyboard. Now that keyboard has access to all my passwords and user names. Sure it's not locked is open is customizable and completely unsafe. Android is so open that any app can intercept incoming sms or incoming email or even send sms and making phone calls without you knowing this. All your user names and passwords that you have assigned to your email belong to any app that can read your email. Malware can make phone calls for you taxing you or spying you without you ever knowing it. This is the price of mindless openness. This is why on google play 1 in 7 apps is a spyware. You don't store your credit card information's in apps in a pc but you do on a smartphone. You go to your work place with your smartphone and have access to the company data. I'm all for openness but not in detriment of security or usability.

 

[MSFTisMIA]

a5cent, MSFT is sitting on a potential identity: "if you want seamless and integrated EXPERIENCE that lets you be as social and productive as you uniquely are across ALL devices".

That's why MSFT needs to integrate ALL the pieces of WP8 they've shown us superbly. WP8 has great social integration potential...this means MSFT must make the OS visually smooth, easy to use (whether you have apps or not), add quality apps, all on top of great hardware. The People Hub should be a key reason to switch if they develop it fully. There are parts there, but no one cares about how good a v12 engine, voice dialing, leather seats, large trunk storage and great mileage are separately - unless it works well in a car that both LOOKS good and DRIVES well.

 

[omniusovermind]

a5cent made a good point about champions I'd like to add to. It's a little known piece of trivia outside the tech news outlets that Verizon is largely credited with propelling Android into mainstream adoption. WP8 would benefit from carriers pushing it harder if they could be motivated to do so

Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk 2

 

[WanderingTraveler]

Those low storage phones are for low end markets. How many GBs of storage does ZTE Blade have inbuilt? How how many GBs does Galaxy Ace has inbuilt? N8 half a decade ago was a flagship phone with 8GB, today's flagship is Lumia 920 with 32GB - 4 times that capacity!

You're missing the point.
An app needs 4x its size to install on WP, which is partially alleviated by installing from SD Card.
I'm fine with 8 GB for low/mid-end models, but what I'd really like to point out is this:
HTC released a variant of the 8X with 8 GB of internal storage (and no SD card)
Nokia released the Lumia 820 with 8 GB of internal storage.
And, I'd like to talk about the 4 GB phones out there. (8S, Ascend W1)
The point is, the first two phones are high-end (because of 1.5 GHz/1 GB RAM arrangement), and are willingly bought by people who expect them to run (or install, for that matter) every app they throw at them.
And, with the "Other" Storage problem, The 8S and Ascend W1 are practically useless, app-wise.
With Andropid, you can transfer your apps to the SD card anyway, so internal storage is no big deal.

BTW, if you were talking about the 8GB phone that was released half a decade ago, that was the N95 8GB. The Nokia N8 was released with 16 GB of internal storage.
(Sorry for the late reply, and please check on the phones you refer to. As someone who is only switching from Symbian now, I'm actually hurt.)

 

[MSFTisMIA]

a5cent made a good point about champions I'd like to add to. It's a little known piece of trivia outside the tech news outlets that Verizon is largely credited with propelling Android into mainstream adoption. WP8 would benefit from carriers pushing it harder if they could be motivated to do so

Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk 2

The Only Carrier capable of doing that was AT&T, which is iPhone Central. T-Mobile won't because they started Android, Verizon won't because they propelled Android, and Sprint won't...because its Sprint and their most iconic device is the EVO line.

The only thing can propel WP forward on a carrier is a well put together AND WELL MARKETED FLAGSHIP DEVICE. Nokia WAS doing this with the 900, and this should have been continued with the 920. But I will bet it was MSFT itself behind those initial WP8 ads because they didn't want the Lumia brand to be synonymous with WP.

 

[KingCrimson]

The problem is lack of basic OS features + lack of the latest & greatest iOS apps.

Features - No universal search, no Siri/Google Now, no customizable ring tones + volume levels, no notification center, no "do not disturb" function, no folders for organization of the start screen.
Apps - No Temple Run 2, Vine, Instagram, Pinterest, Youtube, Gmail, Flipboard, latest Angry Birds games and on and on.

Until both these issues are addressed, WP will struggle to get 5% marketshare.

 

[MikeSo]

I have a Lumia 900, but am going to move to WP8 later this year. But I have become more and more reluctant to do so, to be honest. The OS is just not gaining traction with the public, and thus not with developers of smaller, popular apps and games either.

I have been willing to overlook this, assuming that critical mass will be reached soon... But frankly, I am not sure how much longer I am willing to wait it out, while new apps and services come and go on other OSes. I'm not even one of those who must have the latest apps all the time, but it's getting annoying to never even have the choice of using something popular that isn't already dead on other systems (case in point, Draw Something ).

But there are signs of hope, mostly seemingly thanks to Nokia's commitment to the platform. I'm not sure MS has a clue what to do. And while I'm happy to see they are investing in ads, the ads never seem to give a reason for anyone to buy a phone. SOME sort of "wow" factor is needed... And those ads have none. Combine that with any apps that make a switch necessary for an iOS or android user, and I think it's difficult to truly believe that WP is moving in the right direction. It mostly seems to be standing still.

 

[ChMar]

All those people saying that they don't see apps and support from 3rd party developers I think they don't want to realize what is involved in making a piece of software. WP8 launched at the end of October the phones appeared in November. Retraining personnel or hiring specialized wp8 developers is taking a least a month. December is a month full of holidays. So it a more fair assumption to presume that development could be started in January (now you have phones and trained people to code for them). An good quality app is made in 2-3 month. Assuming you are working on multiplatform apps then you add 1 more month for wp8 because lets face it, it's not the first concern(it should not be considering it's market share). So you end with a 3-4 month of development cycle for wp8. Assuming you jumped on wp8 dev wagon from the start if not you get more delays on the way. So I don't know in what world you would expect 3rd party software publishers to get their apps on wp8. If they would read forums like this one they would have second thought about developing for wp8 devices for sure. People here have completely impossible expectations and consider that by the end of march they should be covered in apps from 3rd party developers.

All I see here are Nokia fans who bring praises to Nokia for pushing wp8(I have a htc 8x and I'm not screwed by an att firmware update as some nokia users) but all that is mostly media and marketing noise. Yes they do try to sell their phones, they do try to entice developers(by various incentives) but in doing so they do not do this for wp8 but for their lumia devices. MS had their own campaigns as good or as bad as they were(the youtube series comes to mind) and they did not favor nokia over htc they did it showcasing both devices.

Let's face it in US most people buy their phones from carriers and carriers in US so far have been slow to bring wp8 devices or promote them. Can't push things just with the power of mind.

Some developers (evernote) realized that wp8 has potential for profit(per user this means the number of users still remains an issue). And they clearly stated that a port wont suffice and you need to embrace the platform at its full potential to be successful. This means other companies will follow when they will muster the resources for wp8 development(market share still an issue here) but development takes time.

As for service oriented companies I doubt most of them keep in house development teams. Most of them will outsource it's development and that depends on how profitable their services are and depends mostly on market share. When your business is service oriented you depend on large audience as you charge(or not) for your services and not for the software for wp8 platform.

I never saw a more divided community behind an ecosystem. Complains about missing software expecting it to come in weeks or a month. When that software comes(Pandora, temple run) you see only complains like Pandora is us only buhuhuhu, temple run is old buhuhuhu, temple run for now requires 1gb so it's MS fault buhuhuh.

When MS announce clear support terms you get a lot of reactions on how ms is going to dump the os and how all should run from wp8. People are having problems with 3rd party apps yet they prefer to blame MS instead of taking their complains to the ones making that software. When a piece of software comes at a higher price for wp8(considering a lot less people are going to buy that product I consider this to be normal after all cost of development must taken care of) you only hear complains.

Everyone is complaining that they are treated as 3rd grade customers and the most surprising part is they blame MS. for updates, for the fact that htc does not see a need to pour a rain of firmware updates like nokia(this only shows cautions not to break the system by rushing not lack of support) for the fact that they don't get newer phones faster(like MS is building the phones) for the fact that current wp8 devices do not match future android devices in terms of specs(Samsung s4 who you can't even buy in stores right now) and so on.

Act as first grade customers and ask for os features to Microsoft better firmware that don't break your phone to nokia, more firmware upgrades to htc and better apps that can also run on 512mb devices from the ones that make those apps. And don't expect ms or nokia or anyone to make instagram campaigns for you. You are the software consumers you go and prove there is a demand for them. Don't ask for temple run if it is old and don't want it. Ask something else instead. Stop blaming MS because google doesn't want it's services on wp8. Complain to google or better stop using their services if they don't care to provide them for you.

In the end MS sells an OS and it does not sell it for personal use it sells the os to OEMs so they have no responsibility to go grab apps for you and making miracles and giving those apps to you in weeks.

 

[Sugadevan Rajarathinam]

Going well and the next 2 big updates will make WP mature. Microsoft can't abandon WP

 

[a5cent]

a5cent, MSFT is sitting on a potential identity: "if you want seamless and integrated EXPERIENCE that lets you be as social and productive as you uniquely are across ALL devices".

Yes, I agree. My point wasn't that Microsoft can't build an identity for WP, but that they so far haven't. If I were in charge, I would focus on these three things:

• As you mentioned, the ability to seamlessly sync the state of many different windows applications across all your windows based devices.
• Gaming. With that I mean exclusive titles, that are perfectly optimized for WP devices, all of them built to a level of technical sophistication that goes far beyond what a cross-platform title can ever hope to offer. That should come with a large serving of developer support/documentation and free WP optimized gaming middleware + toolsets.
• The enterprise. Details omitted...

In all of those areas, Microsoft has unique opportunities that their competition can't easily replicate. Of course, being the best at something is pretty useless if nobody knows about it, so marketing must be a major part of any such effort. However, as far as I can tell, Blue aims only to make the first one of those three a reality...

 

[abel920]

I am extremely excited to see a good 'ol fashioned Apple- Microsoft show down, once they destroy Android tablets.

Android is thriving SOLELY on market share and not profits. Once the Android ecosystem gets too stale, meaning there can't be anymore profits to be made, developers will realize that Windows platform is the best to go. Too much apps can kill an ecosystem because you can only have too many apps before no one even bothers to make them anymore. When there are no developers, there will be no market share.

I think Windows is just the perfect platform for developers and profits just because we're now transitioning into a seamless Windows tablet, phone, desktop integration. And on top of that, Microsoft PCs (desktop) already has 90% market share worldwide, so that gives Windows App developers a CLEAR and easy advantage.

AND IT'S BEEN 90% ALREADY FOR 20 YEARS, AND IT WILL NEVER CHANGE.

So developers will have no worries.



I mean let's face it. Without iPad and iPhone, Apple is dead, and to be honest they're already starting to go down just because the apps are already there, 700,000 apps, and there's no more money to be made. And if the time comes where iOS developers give up on Apple apps, Apple will die - they have nothing else to lean on with their MacBook 3% share. I mean Android is already eating away iPhone market share after iPhone became #1 for only what.. 2 or 3 years?

In the end, Apple and Android are they're own demise. Microsoft on the other hand, has proved time and time again, they will always get the last laugh.

This is why, I am a loyal worshipper of Microsoft, Nokia, Lord Elop, and Lord Almighty Bill Gatessiah. Not so much on Baldmer though.

The GODS of technology, and the GODS of patents and mobiles will rise again to pass judgements on those who are false prophets. The destruction of Apple and Android is NEAR.

 

[ChMar]

Yes, I agree. My point wasn't that Microsoft can't build an identity for WP, but that they so far haven't. If I were in charge, I would focus on these three things:

• As you mentioned, the ability to seamlessly sync the state of many different windows applications across all your windows based devices.
• Gaming. With that I mean exclusive titles, that are perfectly optimized for WP devices, all of them built to a level of technical sophistication that goes far beyond what a cross-platform title can ever hope to offer. That should come with a large serving of developer support/documentation and free WP optimized gaming middleware + toolsets.
• The enterprise. Details omitted...

In all of those areas, Microsoft has unique opportunities that their competition can't easily replicate. Of course, being the best at something is pretty useless if nobody knows about it, so marketing must be a major part of any such effort. However, as far as I can tell, Blue aims only to make the first one of those three a reality...

-The enterprise is presented as LOB(line of business) Hub. I don't think you are going to see much coverage for it in traditional media. It's not a feature for mass consumers so it's not something that you can sell on tv ads or youtube videos or any one cares to blog about. But I'm sure that in the enterprise cases they promote it better. Still that only means you do need enterprise apps and there is a shortage of truly qualified wp8 developers(an abundance of ios devs and a load of medium to advanced android devs out there). So this is corporate business. Is it viable to build a company specialized in building wp8 apps when it has such a small market share? And we all know companies are not adept at taking risks.

-Gaming will improve now that the full DX stack is implemented. But making quality AAA games is a 2 year process for consoles and between 3-6 month for game held devices. And still most companies use middleware so their game quality depends on the quality of the middleware. I'm sure Microsoft Studios is making pushes in this area but it still needs time to achieve results.

-If you look in the SDK for windows 8 and look at how the data files are structures for a modern(metro) app you see there is already support for roaming your settings and preferences. So this means you get that on wp8 as well. But you need new apps for both windows 8 and wp8(3rd party apps to take advantage of this).There are some size limitations for the amount of data you can roam across devices(does not matter here that we are talking windows 8 devices or windows phone 8 devices). But this approach needs to be adopted by 3rd party software developers. And so far they still have difficulties in adapting to a live tile world and notifications approach the way where most of your work is delegated to cloud servers.

Marketing is serious problem. MS can market windows 8 because it can sell it to you. As a dvd from which you can install the OS and as a physical product the surface. For windows phone 8 it's a lot harder to market. You can't market the OS because you don't actually sell it. You can't showcase it's use without using a phone(should it be Lumia or HTC?). In the youtube videos campaign they kept an equal showing of their flagship devices showcasing htc 8x and lumia 920 in equal videos. But that is a lot easier to do over internet that it is over tv ads. And sincerely shouldn't OEM market their own devices? It's not good business for MS to market someone else devices antagonizing the rest of OEMs in the process. So this is a difficult subject.

 

[ChMar]

Android is thriving SOLELY on market share and not profits. Once the Android ecosystem gets too stale, meaning there can't be anymore profits to be made, developers will realize that Windows platform is the best to go. Too much apps can kill an ecosystem because you can only have too many apps before no one even bothers to make them anymore. When there are no developers, there will be no market share.

I think Windows is just the perfect platform for developers and profits just because we're now transitioning into a seamless Windows tablet, phone, desktop integration. And on top of that, Microsoft PCs (desktop) already has 90% market share worldwide, so that gives Windows App developers a CLEAR and easy advantage.

So developers will have no worries.

Desktop is dying. Most people are browsing and doing stuff on their smartphones those days. Desktop will remain in enterprises for productivity but will be flushed from casual people houses. So I won't bet too much on that desktop advantage.

The android ecosystem will never be defeated. We no longer leave in a world where you buy software. I'm not talking about games I'm talking about software products. You use services. So it's a service-oriented world. Services are only profitable if accessed and used by many. This is how it's possible to have free google access, free youtube access, free facebook and twitter access. You don't take money from your pockets to pay for those servers because the companies running those services makes money by you using them. So the market share of android is it's biggest strength. It's a service-oriented world day dream. And because android is so open it let those service provider to be much more effective at data mining users data than on ios or wp8 platforms.

Remember when android was born. Google plain simple refused to make a market where you could sell your app. It tried it's best to keep the market free and force users to use their adds machine to make up for the costs. And years later you find that android users all expect free software and don't mind the adds so much anymore. So android was never about quality it was about becoming the next platform for google to data mine and serve adds.

So always the big name that will be the next success will create services(facebook, instagram, Pandora you name it) not software(office or actual software that can run locally and do stuff). Those can be free because having access to such a large users audience(android landscape) they can collect lots of data that they can use for advertisement or the next big data algorithm services.

And considering no one likes to provide apps for it's services on 3 or more platforms ios or wp8 or bb10 will someday die. But android will continue to dominate.

 

[omniusovermind]

Android is thriving SOLELY on market share and not profits. Once the Android ecosystem gets too stale, meaning there can't be anymore profits to be made, developers will realize that Windows platform is the best to go. Too much apps can kill an ecosystem because you can only have too many apps before no one even bothers to make them anymore. When there are no developers, there will be no market share.

I think Windows is just the perfect platform for developers and profits just because we're now transitioning into a seamless Windows tablet, phone, desktop integration. And on top of that, Microsoft PCs (desktop) already has 90% market share worldwide, so that gives Windows App developers a CLEAR and easy advantage.

AND IT'S BEEN 90% ALREADY FOR 20 YEARS, AND IT WILL NEVER CHANGE.
http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_mdr9frJPwL1rx0vdvo1_500.gif​

So developers will have no worries.



I mean let's face it. Without iPad and iPhone, Apple is dead, and to be honest they're already starting to go down just because the apps are already there, 700,000 apps, and there's no more money to be made. And if the time comes where iOS developers give up on Apple apps, Apple will die - they have nothing else to lean on with their MacBook 3% share. I mean Android is already eating away iPhone market share after iPhone became #1 for only what.. 2 or 3 years?

In the end, Apple and Android are they're own demise. Microsoft on the other hand, has proved time and time again, they will always get the last laugh.

This is why, I am a loyal worshipper of Microsoft, Nokia, Lord Elop, and Lord Almighty Bill Gatessiah. Not so much on Baldmer though.

The GODS of technology, and the GODS of patents and mobiles will rise again to pass judgements on those who are false prophets. The destruction of Apple and Android is NEAR.

http://i.huffpost.com/gadgets/slideshows/269419/slide_269419_1874280_free.gif?1355338852286http://i.huffpost.com/gadgets/slideshows/269419/slide_269419_1874280_free.gif?1355338852286http://i.huffpost.com/gadgets/slideshows/269419/slide_269419_1874280_free.gif?1355338852286http://i.huffpost.com/gadgets/slideshows/269419/slide_269419_1874280_free.gif?1355338852286​

If this post had some mention of Roswell UFO sightings as well as a shout out to the New world order it would be perfect!

Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk 2

 

[a5cent]

If this post had some mention of Roswell UFO sightings as well as a shout out to the New world order it would be perfect!

Well, he did redefine the meaning of ****** ;-)

 

[X0LARIUM]

Can I share a different perspective. Being on an Android Flagship, I read plenty about what's going on. So here it is. Anyone follow S4's launch? Just a customary mention of Android 4.2.2. That's about it. We are not talking about some godforsaken OEM. We are talking Big Sammy here.

My point? There is already a growing rift between Android and Sammy. No one is really impressed with Sammy anymore. More specs...? Naaah...
Bigger screen...? Naaah.
A screen that tracks your eyes? Wooooh..oh wait...Naaah.

Apple as u all know stands nowhere near where it used to.

Who is left? Windows Phone.

But is that all? Is the opponent's loss MSFT's gain? No. MSFT has some really strong points it needs to pull people.

Apps - the numbers growing by the day
Specs - Outstanding optimisation along with the hardware
Security - not one single person is able to crack it open yet
MSFT - THE name says it all.

My two cents...

Sent from my Π Σ Χ U S 4.

 

[astraith]

I have watch Windows Phone Operating System grow from WP7 all the way through to today. We have come a long way in just a couple of years and WP8 is really growing fast for an OS that is only 6 months old. Understand that WP7 and WP8 are not the same OS the two are fundamentally the same but the base software has been changed. The new WP8 OS is built for the future. We all know the common complaints by people new to the system. From the beginning simple had been the Metro standard. I think that is hard for some people to accept. Average consumers lover it but some of those more versed want more control over their devices. Microsoft keeps moving forwarded with the growth of this OS adding more options along the way. I think Microsoft is still doing a good job of integrating new features while keeping the OS simple. One by one the dislikes get wiped away. Even individual developers are getting into the act by making their apps sharper and richer with each update. I myself have seen more than 20 app updates on my phone this very week. With all that is going on with all the updates and upgrades that we know about, what do you think is WP here to stay? What do you think about the future of WP? Is there anyone that still thinks the Microsoft will abandon WP? Why? I just want to know where this community thinks we are and where do you think we are headed. Do you think we are on the right path? Do you think there is any reason way this OS wont some day be a contender with Apple and Android? Please no one line answers. Explain what you are thinking and why you are think that.

I'll go more in depth in a future post, but in essence I agree with you. I do want to say MS is not going to give up on Mobile. Windows 8. Should put that to rest. Why position your main product to work so close with a product your not committed to? MS WP IS here to. Stay.

 

[MSFTisMIA]

Guess for those who like to whine about Instagram, it is here. Not officially available for download yet, but it is in the Store. Guess they may cut it loose tomorrow. I tell you, if MSFT keeps putting out new "headline" apps every Monday, they should just call it "MSFT Mondays".

Slowly but surely, MSFT is fixing the "app issue". That's nice, but personally I want tighter integration of the core apps and an even smoother UI experience.

 

[mparker]

Guess for those who like to whine about Instagram, it is here

It's also April 1st.