Miss W10M so much :(

[agaskew]

I have a 950, Note 4 (rooted) and S8. There are certain work apps I use that just don't exist on W10M, and the choice of apps on Android is bewildering. But like may others here, the 950/W10M combination does some things so much better.

• My pet HATE on these Android phones is the utterly crappy handling of Contacts. Once I add the 5 different accounts I use, plus WhatApp, Facebook and so on, contacts are a mess. Digging about in the settings to choose which accounts' contacts to display versus which to hide, or trying to merge contacts from multiple sources, is a life-sapping experience. W10M just links them together - easy.
• Email clients on Android are another source of pain. There are so many, but some support ActiveSync, others don't. Some sync calendars, others don't. I must have tried 20 different ones trying to hit on the sweet spot. Failed.
• Cortana in the car via Bluetooth is still the best.
• The fact that notifications are shared across phone and PC, and that I can send and receive SMS from Skype, are great features.

I'm aware that a lot of these gripes/features are also addressed in the Apple ecosystem, but given that iOS is basically nagware and Apple are a bunch of crooks, I'll never go back there again!

 

[nate0]

My pet HATE on these Android phones is the utterly crappy handling of Contacts. Once I add the 5 different accounts I use, plus WhatApp, Facebook and so on, contacts are a mess. Digging about in the settings to choose which accounts' contacts to display versus which to hide, or trying to merge contacts from multiple sources, is a life-sapping experience. W10M just links them together - easy.

Completely agree!

Email clients on Android are another source of pain. There are so many, but some support ActiveSync, others don't. Some sync calendars, others don't. I must have tried 20 different ones trying to hit on the sweet spot. Failed.

And once you've signed in with Google, the gmail app cannot be avoided...I dislike the gmail app personally...I like that Microsoft will let you not sign into the phone at all and later if you want sign in to individual apps and services one by one as you choose...Store app, Mail, SMS sync, Photos, all can be signed into if you choose with out syncing a Microsoft account to the phone...

The fact that notifications are shared across phone and PC, and that I can send and receive SMS from Skype, are great features.

Good point. It took them a while to get this right. It works fluidly and pretty much flawlessly for me now if I activate Cortana and sync notifications.

 

[fatclue_98]

I have a 950, Note 4 (rooted) and S8. There are certain work apps I use that just don't exist on W10M, and the choice of apps on Android is bewildering. But like may others here, the 950/W10M combination does some things so much better.

• My pet HATE on these Android phones is the utterly crappy handling of Contacts. Once I add the 5 different accounts I use, plus WhatApp, Facebook and so on, contacts are a mess. Digging about in the settings to choose which accounts' contacts to display versus which to hide, or trying to merge contacts from multiple sources, is a life-sapping experience. W10M just links them together - easy.
• Email clients on Android are another source of pain. There are so many, but some support ActiveSync, others don't. Some sync calendars, others don't. I must have tried 20 different ones trying to hit on the sweet spot. Failed.
• Cortana in the car via Bluetooth is still the best.
• The fact that notifications are shared across phone and PC, and that I can send and receive SMS from Skype, are great features.

I'm aware that a lot of these gripes/features are also addressed in the Apple ecosystem, but given that iOS is basically nagware and Apple are a bunch of crooks, I'll never go back there again!

Oh I have felt your pain numerous times. The best contact app I’ve ever been able to use on Android is the one bundled with the BlackBerry Hub. You can get it as a stand-alone but that leads me to the next item - email. The Hub has no equal on Android and I’ll argue that point to my grave. Nine is very close but what they consider “push” and what I do are miles apart.

The contact app has a very effective duplicates function and show/hide is a breeze. Simple edits like contact photo and custom ringtones don’t require multiple drill-downs in the settings menu - which is how it should be!

 

[Troy Tiscareno]

Another question that i’ve had.
Microsoft has billions and billions of dollars. Why can’t they or why couldn’t they have come up with a way to incentivize developers to write and maintain the most popular apps? It could be as easy as not taking any cut of the profit from paid apps, could be to pay to develop, develop with in house programmers and through agreements with the companies, pay these companies a small royalty to brand their apps for distribution in the MS Store, market their OS and WM devices. Who knows

MS offered all kinds of incentives (financial and otherwise) to developers to make their apps for Win Phone. It didn't work, because there was no long-term incentive to do so.

Software on mobile is never "done" - the mobile landscape changes so quickly, with new features, functions, and expectations appearing constantly, so developers have to continually work on their apps. That means they need ongoing income to pay for all of that development work, and they need a large enough userbase to make it feasible. Windows never had a big enough marketshare for that.

But, even more important: it's in developers' best interest to only have 2 platforms to support and to have those 2 platforms reach virtually every potential customer. That's why there have only been 2 commercially successful desktop OSs for the last 35 years - and why there are only 2 commercially successful mobile ecosystems today.

When you write an app for one platform, and let's say that costs you 30,000 man-hours, it will cost you another 30,000 man-hours (or something fairly close) to write that app again for the second platform - there's relatively little savings in time when developing for a second platform unless you completely forgo the platform's UI and make a generic interface (as many mobile game developers do). No one wants apps that work that way. Still, developers are willing to do that for 2 platforms because there needs to be SOME competition in the marketplace to keep things moving forward. But to pay for a THIRD platform is rarely worth the return, because third platforms are usually under 10% marketshare, and that won't cover development costs, much less generate a profit.

Also, if you ignore the third platform, it will eventually go away, and most of those users will end up one one of the two platforms you already support - without you as a developer having to pay any extra development costs.

A developer who writes an app for iOS and an app for Android is able to reach over 99% of the mobile market - so why invest the time and money for initial development (much less ongoing development) of an app for a third platform? It just doesn't make financial sense.

That's why Commodore, GeoWorks, Amiga, OS2, and BeOS failed on the desktop, and why WinPhone, Symbian, PalmOS, BB10, and Meego failed in mobile. There are only 2 winning spots on the podium, and if you aren't in First or Second place, you've lost.

Even MS's billions aren't enough to pay every developer to write apps and then to support them on an on-going basis. In order for MS to win, they had to have timed the market right - they'd had to have released a modern mobile OS no later than 2009 to compete with iOS and Android. When was WinPhone 7 released? Oh, that's right: 2013. That was 4-5 years too late, and the race was already over and trophies handed out before MS even got their car on the racetrack.

No one is saying that the OS itself is bad - we're saying that the quality of the OS is irrelevant if it isn't released while there is a gap in the market to be filled. The release of the iPhone changed the game and radically reset the expectations of the market, and other than Apple, Google was the only company to respond quickly and get a decent product onto the market within a year. Palm wasn't far behind with an early 2009 release date, but their form-factor wasn't what the market wanted, and Palm (and then HP) lacked the ecosystem infrastructure to support an entire mobile OS. MS and BB didn't release until 2013, which means they were doomed before the first device was sold. Neither company was looking ahead, both ignored rumors of an Apple smartphone (which were all over Silicon Valley in 2005, 2 years before release), and they got caught in a position where they couldn't catch up in time. It's really that simple.

 

[Ryujingt3]

Whilst I do not want to switch to Android, now that MS have decided to no longer continue MS Teams for W10M after May 20th (which I need for my job) I fear I may not have much choice anymore. I hope that MS change their mind and keep Teams working for W10M but we all know it won't happen.

 

[ManofGod1000]

MS offered all kinds of incentives (financial and otherwise) to developers to make their apps for Win Phone. It didn't work, because there was no long-term incentive to do so.

Software on mobile is never "done" - the mobile landscape changes so quickly, with new features, functions, and expectations appearing constantly, so developers have to continually work on their apps. That means they need ongoing income to pay for all of that development work, and they need a large enough userbase to make it feasible. Windows never had a big enough marketshare for that.

But, even more important: it's in developers' best interest to only have 2 platforms to support and to have those 2 platforms reach virtually every potential customer. That's why there have only been 2 commercially successful desktop OSs for the last 35 years - and why there are only 2 commercially successful mobile ecosystems today.

When you write an app for one platform, and let's say that costs you 30,000 man-hours, it will cost you another 30,000 man-hours (or something fairly close) to write that app again for the second platform - there's relatively little savings in time when developing for a second platform unless you completely forgo the platform's UI and make a generic interface (as many mobile game developers do). No one wants apps that work that way. Still, developers are willing to do that for 2 platforms because there needs to be SOME competition in the marketplace to keep things moving forward. But to pay for a THIRD platform is rarely worth the return, because third platforms are usually under 10% marketshare, and that won't cover development costs, much less generate a profit.

Also, if you ignore the third platform, it will eventually go away, and most of those users will end up one one of the two platforms you already support - without you as a developer having to pay any extra development costs.

A developer who writes an app for iOS and an app for Android is able to reach over 99% of the mobile market - so why invest the time and money for initial development (much less ongoing development) of an app for a third platform? It just doesn't make financial sense.

That's why Commodore, GeoWorks, Amiga, OS2, and BeOS failed on the desktop, and why WinPhone, Symbian, PalmOS, BB10, and Meego failed in mobile. There are only 2 winning spots on the podium, and if you aren't in First or Second place, you've lost.

Even MS's billions aren't enough to pay every developer to write apps and then to support them on an on-going basis. In order for MS to win, they had to have timed the market right - they'd had to have released a modern mobile OS no later than 2009 to compete with iOS and Android. When was WinPhone 7 released? Oh, that's right: 2013. That was 4-5 years too late, and the race was already over and trophies handed out before MS even got their car on the racetrack.

No one is saying that the OS itself is bad - we're saying that the quality of the OS is irrelevant if it isn't released while there is a gap in the market to be filled. The release of the iPhone changed the game and radically reset the expectations of the market, and other than Apple, Google was the only company to respond quickly and get a decent product onto the market within a year. Palm wasn't far behind with an early 2009 release date, but their form-factor wasn't what the market wanted, and Palm (and then HP) lacked the ecosystem infrastructure to support an entire mobile OS. MS and BB didn't release until 2013, which means they were doomed before the first device was sold. Neither company was looking ahead, both ignored rumors of an Apple smartphone (which were all over Silicon Valley in 2005, 2 years before release), and they got caught in a position where they couldn't catch up in time. It's really that simple.

Thanks for the revisionist history lesson, I needed a good wake up call.

 

[ManofGod1000]

Whilst I do not want to switch to Android, now that MS have decided to no longer continue MS Teams for W10M after May 20th (which I need for my job) I fear I may not have much choice anymore. I hope that MS change their mind and keep Teams working for W10M but we all know it won't happen.

I have to admit, yesterday was the first time I laughed at my Windows Mobile phone. It struggled to open some things, some things would crash when opening and it was just not a good experience anymore. That said, I still cannot bring myself to completely turn it off and stick it in a drawer and therefore, I carry it around as a second device. (Alcatel Idol 4s for Windows.)

It does stink that they went and killed it off themselves. Oh well, my primary phone now is an Essential phone and although it is boring, it is fast and I hope to get two years out of it.

 

[anon(50597)]

I have to admit, yesterday was the first time I laughed at my Windows Mobile phone. It struggled to open some things, some things would crash when opening and it was just not a good experience anymore. That said, I still cannot bring myself to completely turn it off and stick it in a drawer and therefore, I carry it around as a second device. (Alcatel Idol 4s for Windows.)

It does stink that they went and killed it off themselves. Oh well, my primary phone now is an Essential phone and although it is boring, it is fast and I hope to get two years out of it.

Another Essential phone user. How do you like it? What are it’s best attributes?

 

[ManofGod1000]

Another Essential phone user. How do you like it? What are it’s best attributes?

Well, so far, so good. I like the fact that it is fast and pure Vanilla Android. I have disabled all the Google stuff I could, installed the Microsoft stuff and Cortana is very fast on it. I did go through an Honor 6X at this time last year, an Xperia XA1 from October to just recently and now this Essential phone.

The 6X was to big, the Xperia ended up being too small although it did not appear so at the time, and this Essential Phone seems just about right. I preferred the size and feel of the Lumia 950 and it is about the same.

 

[Ryujingt3]

I have to admit, yesterday was the first time I laughed at my Windows Mobile phone. It struggled to open some things, some things would crash when opening and it was just not a good experience anymore. That said, I still cannot bring myself to completely turn it off and stick it in a drawer and therefore, I carry it around as a second device. (Alcatel Idol 4s for Windows.)

It does stink that they went and killed it off themselves. Oh well, my primary phone now is an Essential phone and although it is boring, it is fast and I hope to get two years out of it.

You know, I have to agree with you. Now that MS have abandoned Teams I have started to sadly see just how far the WP platform has fallen. I've purchased a cheap Xiaomi Android phone. So I guess, from next week, I'm back on Android. At least, I still get all my old apps (such as Teams) so that is good, but I know the overall OS experience of Android just won't be the same, but I also know I have no other choice now.

Well, so far, so good. I like the fact that it is fast and pure Vanilla Android. I have disabled all the Google stuff I could, installed the Microsoft stuff and Cortana is very fast on it. I did go through an Honor 6X at this time last year, an Xperia XA1 from October to just recently and now this Essential phone.

The 6X was to big, the Xperia ended up being too small although it did not appear so at the time, and this Essential Phone seems just about right. I preferred the size and feel of the Lumia 950 and it is about the same.

I chose Xiaomi because they too use pure Vanilla Android. I tried Samsung once and I really didn't like it. So hopefully this will be better.

 

[raycpl]

My wife switch to Android after her 1520 began to die on her (erratic crash, battery problems).. She's not a real heavy user so she plunked for a midrange Vivo (one of those heavily marketed as THE megapixel 'selfie' phone).. She has the apps she wanted. But dislikes..., i mean, hates the the main cos it is crap compared to her 1520
So barely 6 months later, I'm looking for a replacement. .. We tend to buy phones full price over here. Several malls in Kota Kinabalu has floors with nothing but phones and accessories... I'm curious to check out the Nokia7+ though

For myself, its still the trusty 950XL for another year
... !

 

[nate0]

@Ryujingt3 Sorry to hear your misfortune with Teams. Nothing you can really do about it, so I don't blame you. It is different when a service/app that serves a necessary capacity for our daily lives gets disconnected, then one that serves our personal live's wants dies. When Groove lost its streaming service, I was not too worried, even though it was a bummer. Now we are seeing lots of aspects of Mobile services that are just not working or no longer available on Windows phones. That is when people who need Microsoft to step up or be there, will end up leaving them for the likes of Android or a service that works. And that is unfortunate for Microsoft. Using Microsoft services on other platforms to me just ain't the same...

Soon, there ain't gonna be nothing left of Windows 10 Mobile/Windows Phone except the good old days...

 

[ananimus]

miss the Cortana integration the most, from inside my car. Nothing on Android comes close, and Android Auto keeps saying "I can't do that yet".

Omg, this feel. I gave up and moved onto Android. Actually a big part of the move was utter frustration with the new word flow keyboard. It was so, so much better in WM8.1, and it's something you use so often that this one feature pushed me over the edge. Swype for Android is pretty solid by comparison to WP10.

That said, blech! I miss Cortana and also mostly in the car. Android Assistant is far less intuitive by comparison. Did you know if you ask Google to play a song, the default is to try and push you to a custom station on their stupid music service instead of playing music from your local library? I joined a thread last year complaining about it, and to this day still get notifications of the hundreds of others frustrated by it. I wish I could make Cortana the permanent default voice assistant.

Not to mention Cortana's tone somehow has far more personality which weirdly adds a lot to the experience.

Back to the subject, my 950 is collecting dust alongside my 735. I really miss the 735 but the internal storage got limiting. I'd pawn them off if I knew an interested party.

 

[Ryujingt3]

@Ryujingt3 Sorry to hear your misfortune with Teams. Nothing you can really do about it, so I don't blame you. It is different when a service/app that serves a necessary capacity for our daily lives gets disconnected, then one that serves our personal live's wants dies. When Groove lost its streaming service, I was not too worried, even though it was a bummer. Now we are seeing lots of aspects of Mobile services that are just not working or no longer available on Windows phones. That is when people who need Microsoft to step up or be there, will end up leaving them for the likes of Android or a service that works. And that is unfortunate for Microsoft. Using Microsoft services on other platforms to me just ain't the same...

Soon, there ain't gonna be nothing left of Windows 10 Mobile/Windows Phone except the good old days...

I think you are completely spot on here, sadly.

 

[hoang trinh]

Windows M never die with me, because i just bought a new HP ELITE 3. Happy 299 again.

New HP Elite x3 for $299.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct...8wr4klx6m5gt&usg=AOvVaw1wyIkgkqfaXePPQswCGk5i

 

[Timbre70]

Once you leave, then you will know how much you miss windows phones.

 

[Elky64]

Once you leave, then you will know how much you miss windows phones.

For me personally, that couldn't be further from the truth. Loved the design but also enjoy, stability, consistency, usability, fluidity and productivity, things WP has failed to deliver (for me) in the real sense of the words since W10M's implementation. Was just toying with my 950 today (running latest build 15254.401) and boy does it feel archaic. So the only thing I do miss is, that time when it appeared MS seemed to care.

 

[anon(50597)]

Miss W10M so much

Once you leave, then you will know how much you miss windows phones.

It was actually the opposite for me.
Though I had used both iOS and Android previously, you get used to what you currently use. I hung in for a while but now that I’m back with iPhone I find W phone just unacceptable. I still have my Idol4s and pull it out once in a while to keep it updated. I don’t last for more than half a day.
But hey, if some day they come out with something I find acceptable I could be convinced to change. I’m not married to any manufacturer forever.

 

[tgp]

Once you leave, then you will know how much you miss windows phones.

This was certainly not the case for me! While there were a couple things I liked about WP, the issues I encountered far outweighed the positives!

I also discovered that the thing I liked most about it had nothing to do with the system itself. I liked it simply because it was Microsoft. Once I got over that, my experience on the other side went a lot better!

 

[nate0]

Its all relative to the user.
...and honestly not sure it even matters. Do what you need to do I suppose. Right? But just for observation sake, I'd say for some folks (me included), that don't want or need to move to a mobile OS different from Windows is the difference. If you really want to leave for good then you will. Anyone could do that if they really wanted to. Anyone still wholeheartedly using a Lumia or another windows phone and don't want/need to know what it is like on the other side are fine where they are. Or if they chose to try the other side, they end up missing what they left behind.