My Opinion: The Death of Windows Phone: As a Windows Fan I Don't Need One

[ScubaDog]

Re: The Death of Windows Phone: As a Windows Fan I Don't Need One

Except that Microsoft has completely ruined the interface. WP7 and WP8 had it the way I loved it. WP8.1 began to drop a huge portion of that experience. W10M has gutted it entirely. So, WHAT experience are we supposedly left with? A mere fa?ade of what drew us in the first place. For me, the only reason I hang on is purely because so despise Apple and Google SO much that I don't want to give them (or their fans) the satisfaction of switching. So, I tolerate W10M for now.

 

[cracgor]

YEAH AND YEAH!
I got rid of my lumia 950xl just one day after receiving it.
I never ever believed that Microsoft will make fun of all us and sell unfinished phone with horrible bugs, horrible people app and more!

This CEO should GO!

If he killed off mobile, the shareholders/board may give him a bonus.

 

[cracgor]

I can appreciate all of the negative talk regarding the future of Windows Mobile, which does seem bleak after the latest stats, but after two years of experience with a Lumia 1520, I wouldn't switch to anything else unless Microsoft actually, officially abandons the platform and I am forced to.

I just like the experience of using W10M too much, and appreciate that it is different and the way I see it, a bit quirky and eccentric compared to other platforms. I feel that there is a similarity in its underdog, outsider status to some marginal auto manufacturers, like Saab and Volvo. In this regard, I much prefer driving a Saab 9000 Aero to a Honda Accord (Android), BMW 325 (iPhone).

Great analogy with the defunct, bankrupt Saab representing windows phone. Was that intentional?

 

[omerfbingol]

Re: The Death of Windows Phone: As a Windows Fan I Don't Need One

If you told me now that MS was intentionally killing Windows Phone, I would believe you.

They have done that to Nokia, as everyone remember. Maybe they think that the Windows Phone is keeping them behind on the mobile arena, and may be planning to passivate the WP and blame everything on it when they switch to an other OS for their mobile product line.

 

[Madam ImAdam]

Great analogy with the defunct, bankrupt Saab representing windows phone. Was that intentional?

Yes.. unfortunately it may be too appropriate!

 

[Mark Baker3]

The only possible reason to worry is that windows 10 runs so we'll on old phones that who needs to buy a new 950 or xl. It even runs well on the 1020 I trialled it on.... Let alone my 930 daily driver. All this ' end of the world' rubbish is surely more click bait by android fanbois right?

 

[Jack Neill]

Android doesn't have to have Google, nor does it have to have lag. My Nexus 5 works just fine with Marshmallow and Amazon proved you don't need Google Services to use Android mildly successfully. That being said I'd prefer W10M, in the long run its a better play than going AOSP.

 

[DJCBS]

I'm a Nokia Lumia 1020 owner. And when the groundbreaking 1020 came out I was in heaven. It was (and in my opinion, still is ... at least for those of us who want to delve into photography and video a little deeper than the average user) the best cameraphone around.

If you really care about photography you ARE in a real difficult predicament, I must tell you.
First of all, allow me this advice: STAY AWAY from the Xperia Z5. OR any other Xperia phone, really. It will NOT reach the underground over which the 1020 stands. I know this, I used a Z3 Compact for a year (it was the phone I jumped to once Nokia went away from phones). I absolutely loved everything about the phone except the camera.
When the Z3 came out, it easily matched the 930 but it never matched the 808/1020. When the Z5 came out, the Z3 had already been beaten by the LG G4, the plethora of Galaxies S6 variants and in some cases even by the Nokia 930 post-Denim. The Z5, unfortunately, kept doing the same mistakes the former Z3 did. The Z5 has a very very sub-par camera, which is something that should make Sony feel ashamed. It still lacks OIS (for aesthetic reasons, as I was told directly by a member of Sony's design team), the software is still a post-processing mess and Sony's so called "manual mode" is a joke, which doesn't allow you to tweak almost anything. No shutter speeds, no manual focus and now you can't even adjust the ISO if you decide to shoot at full 23mp resolution. Oh, and forget using another camera from the Play Store because Sony kept all the camera2api that Google introduced in Lollipop locked on their devices (probably so you wouldn't get another camera app and realise how bad Sony's actually is).
And don't pay attention to what Dxomark says, their results are all forged.

Now to your current predicament:
The 950/XL has a great camera, sure. Better than the Nokia 1020? No.
Is the camera on the 950/XL one of the best out there? Yes. Is it the king of cameras? No.
When it comes to photography, the camera currently to beat if the LG G4's in manual mode and the S6's in auto-mode. So, since you own a Nokia 1020 and you care about photography, I'm going to assume here that you care about manual controls. In that aspect, the G4 if the only one that offers you the same experience as a Lumia and some extra things Lumias don't do (like, for example, showing you the result of your tweaks in real time on the viewfinder before you take a photo and give you an actual spectrum in the WB section). The S6 lacks a bunch of manual controls (although it does offer some). The only downside the G4 camera (as well as the S6 btw) has is that it lacks a dedicated camera shutter button.
Here's the G4 manual mode interface so you can compare it to the Lumia


Now the question is how much do you:
1 - Believe in the future of WP10
2 - Need a proper app ecosystem.


I personally wouldn't advise anyone to buy a 950/XL. And not only because of my known despise for Microsoft Mobile. The reason I would do it is because these phones are just to entertain WP fan(atics) for the time being. Windows Phone flopped. "Windows 10 Mobile" is just Windows Phone 10. It has no future. Microsoft knows this. Which is why the so called "Surface Phone" is happening. That one is expected to be a true PC in your pocket (ie. be able to run win32 programs). But even the Surface Phone will not, I'm sure, be camera-centric. In fact, I'm not sure it will even have a camera worth writing home about. Because it will be truly focused on productivity and not photography, since that's the path Microsoft is taking.
There's the UWP thing, sure, but honestly? I think this is the one time Ballmer is actually right. Universal Windows Apps will not succeed. Not in solving the app gap and "saving" Windows Phone 10/Mobile at least.

My advise, if you want a great smartphone with a great camera, is: jump to Android and get yourself an LG G4 now (or wait 6 more months tops and get a G5 which should already include the tech LG will be licensing from Nokia). As for it being Android, don't worry. You will, as the OP said, be able to keep your Microsoft ecosystem intact on Android. I did (well, except for the things Microsoft itself ruined like the Outlook.com app which, however, you can replace with another email app of your liking and still use Outlook flawlessly and more recently OneDrive).
By this time next year you should have a clearer picture about the path Microsoft is taking, you should have seen the "Surface Phone" and you can decide if it's worth your time and money to return to a Microsoft mobile operating system (assuming WP10 won't be killed off in the end of 2016 which is something I *suspect* will happen as soon as the Surface Phone is announced.
Currently both WP10 and the Lumias 950/XL, as pretty much every honest reviewer said (including Rubino) is really only for fans. And I would add "die hard fans" or "borderline fanatics". Those people whose allegiance is first and foremost towards Microsoft, regardless of what they do with the operating systems or what their phones offer (and note that I do not condemn those people because I have always been exactly like that towards Nokia...which is the reason I ever used WP for 3 years as a daily driver in the first place)

 

[Jack Neill]

Re: The Death of Windows Phone: As a Windows Fan I Don't Need One

Except that Microsoft has completely ruined the interface. WP7 and WP8 had it the way I loved it. WP8.1 began to drop a huge portion of that experience. W10M has gutted it entirely. So, WHAT experience are we supposedly left with? A mere fa?ade of what drew us in the first place. For me, the only reason I hang on is purely because so despise Apple and Google SO much that I don't want to give them (or their ***** fans) the satisfaction of switching. So, I tolerate W10M for now.

I really do miss the UI of WP7, it was truly unique. RIP Tango...

 

[DalekSnare]

The feature is only half-baked so far, but you can already text from a PC now via WP. When they finish getting that feature implemented with phone and text, that will be a rather huge deal. It's one of the iPhone's main selling points for Mac users. This one feature is way more interesting than Snapchat and its ilk for many people (i.e., those who are older than 25). But I wouldn't put it past MS to make it work for the other phones if it can.

 

[Gerryinbc]

I am also disappointed. I bought a 920 when it first came out because my main use for a phone is communication for work. I use it for fun as well but my focus is work related. Since I use Office and OneDrive a lot I assumed that a Windows phone would be my best experience to integrate with my PC.

Wrong. Categories that I create in Office do not show up on the phone. Contacts that I create on the phone do not always show up in Office Outlook without errors. At one time, using Outlook to sync calendar and contacts, all of my contacts disappeared, and despite many other people having the same problem, it took months to get the sync working again. My contacts were never recovered and I ended up entering them all again from a back up.
I do like to try different things out, hence the move from iPhone to Windows phone, and I decided to test out the Nexus 5 when it came out. I took the sim out of my 920 and used the N5 for a while, intending to go back and forth. The 920 rarely is used now. I have 10 on it now because I assumed that it was ready (after all, they have released 2 new expensive phones running that OS) but its a big disappointment. I don't care about apps. But I do want OneNote to sync properly and consistently. It doesn't. Contact management has not improved. I know the 920 is old now but I wanted to see something that indicated that the new phones would be worth buying and I don't see it.
How can a company that gave us a nice OS for PC and some great devices like the Surface line (I have 2) mess up mobile like this? Like I said, I don't care about apps. The UI doesn't matter that much to me. Email, contacts, web, Office and OneDrive are what matters to me. All of that is better on my old Nexus 5 which has my work SIM in it, and my Note 4 which has my personal SIM in it.
I don't regret trying Windows phone. If I don't try, I don't know. The 920 will get fired up again if I hear that the consumer release of W10 is out and I'll try it again. Or if they come out with a Surface phone that matches my Pro 3 for quality build and user satisfaction.
But honestly, right now BlackBerry running Android is probably my next tryout. It will have all of the integration with my Office apps that I need and some Google benefits as well.

Posted via the Windows Central App for Android

 

[fatclue_98]

It's been raining nonstop in Miami for the last 3 days. I didn't think I could be more miserable until I started reading this thread.

 

[mbrdev]

Hi Arsynic,

I think your post goes to show the awesome job that Microsoft has been doing the last few years, they are basically the only company that is interested in being open and being everywhere. I agree, even as a Microsoft fan, you do not NEED Windows Phone or Windows Mobile. However, saying that, it's not always about what you need, but rather what you want. competition is great, look at the things Microsoft is coming out with, their innovations are top notch right now because they failed in the mobile space Windows 8/8.1 was a bit of a failure too, they got pushed into a corner and they are fighting back by coming out with the most innovative hardware and software on the market, ultimately the success of Apple and Google has been the best thing to happen to Microsoft in 10+ years.

If Microsoft simply gave up on Windows 10 Mobile and started releasing phones based on Android, it would basically reduce the market to 2 players (It kind of already is), innovation would slow to a halt and we would be stuck in quite a boring landscape for many years, sure some cool stuff would come and go, but ultimately the mobile world would become stagnant. Microsoft pushed for a tablet that can replace your laptop, the world laughed, few years later we have Apple copying it with their iPad Pro, surface type devices are becoming the norm and we wouldn't have these devices if Microsoft didn't push it so hard without giving up.

I feel the same applies to the new Lumia 950 and 950XL, while many fans are disappointed, I still see these as the most innovative devices on the market, and the reason for that is Continuum (And the liquid cooling, come on guys liquid cooling is just well... cool!). If Microsoft were using forked Android, they wouldn't be able to achieve something like Continuum. Apple is considered fantastic because they control the hardware and the software, it means they can achieve whatever they want with that control, Microsoft needs to continue doing the same if they are going to win back any market share.

As a software engineer, I can also say that I have zero interest in creating a Windows 10 UWP app that I then have to create a separate Java based app for their android fork etc. The UWP is revolutionary technology that only makes sense when Windows 10 is running everywhere, and while it may take a while, more and more developers will switch to UWP as it really makes our lives easier and for the people paying developers, it really makes projects cheaper, the same can't be achieved on other platforms so Microsoft has really done a terrific job on this front. Add to that the fact that you can take an iOS app and get it running on Windows 10 so you don't need to retrain in .NET or start from scratch with a Windows app and you really have something truly unique and amazing.

So pretty much the point is, no you don't need Windows on a phone to survive or to be a Microsoft fan, but for those like me that love it and don't know or care what SnapChat is, it's perfect

 

[mbrdev]

Tell me about it lol

 

[Ten Four]

Data point. I just came back from the biggest, busiest shopping mall crammed with holiday shoppers. There was a roped off line to get into the Apple store and you had to register with an attendant just to get in. The huge AT&T store also was pretty busy, with someone trying to get you to register but when I said "no" he let me in anyway. I quickly spotted the lone 950 on display, since nobody was in front of it as compared to multiple people near every other phone. The display model was hooked up and turned on, but by default had some garbage AT&T promo screen that featured AT&T apps and didn't look anything like what a typical Windows phone home screen would look like. I fiddled with it for a few minutes, and not a single salesperson even bothered to say hello to me--I was left all by myself. Went in to the enormous Best Buy, and there is a huge Windows 10 and Surface section, but no Windows phone except for a lonely 640 hanging on the GoPhone peg. Part of the problem is and always has been lack of carrier support, for whatever reasons. I have been in some AT&T stores where there were no Windows phones on display.

 

[fatclue_98]

I have been in some AT&T stores where there were no Windows phones on display.

That's probably not such a bad thing. Let me explain. The AT&T store by my office has all the Windows Phones on display and turned on. To the uninitiated, the 640XL and the 950 look virtually identical except one's white and the other is black. You see the sticker prices and you have to wonder what the difference is. I'll admit that I don't care for the design of either device and WP fans have been waiting so long for a top-flight phone and.....they get a spec'd out 640. I can understand the frustration with the carrier support (or lack thereof) considering the BlackBerry Priv is sandwiched neatly between the One M9 and the S6 Edge. All things considered, the Priv is a much nicer looking handset than the 950.

 

[RiccardoPastena]

while i understand the frustration of being WP user sometimes i can surely tell that this version of windows mobile is the best one yet. I had many WP staring with the Samsung Omnia and i tried most of them. This is the only one that i am currently enjoing even tough i still have some critical bug like not being able to download any speech therefore i can't enable cortana outside US english. It is the best shape of windows applied to phone and if you are a power user of windows you can't really stay without. It's all about what you need your phone to do and i am quite sure that windows 10 mobile will become soon the new blackberry. Hated by the most by loved when it comes to business. With continuum i am able to carry most of my work life with me without bothering to bring each time two laptops. Having said this i agree the many things are missing compared with Android ( i do not consider iOS as business capable) but i had many android devices and i can assure you that after a while you will spend more time switcing rom than using the phone itself. I am not trying to prove you wrong i respect everyting you said and i can see myself there, i was you some time ago. But i still think that there is room for improvement. The insider idea is the best shot left to microsoft. Having insider designing the function is the best way we got so far to have it done like we want. Don't give up bro

 

[7a2eer]

BlackBerry Messenger is available for Windows Phone, Android, and iOS in addition to BlackBerry. BBM for Android & iPhone iOS - Download Free Instant Messaging - US

I've used BBM on Windows Phone and Android.

Yes I already know they are cross platform )
When (As in what did it take for) did BBM become cross platform? I apologize for the ambiguity

 

[rmeigs]

I quickly realized something: I can do everything I could do on my Windows Phone and more.

Spot on. I jumped from my 1520 to a iPhone 6s+ and have turned it into a Microsoft based platform. Even running the Cortana beta. The UI is old (WP is hands down better), but I'm more concerned with the practical side and MS apps running on my 6s+ is a much better experience than with WP. Plus I have important to me apps (bank and transit) that I couldn't get on WP.

 

[gcyoung]

So I'd be interested to hear the comments and advice from other readers on my very real predicament (but non-abusive, please?).

Herb, someone above dealt with the camera on Android side. I'll address iPhone from my experience. I'm a long-time Microsoft "fan" and shareholder, and a software developer. I don't like Mac or Google, and own nothing but Windows machines (currently, Dell XPS desktop, Acer laptop, Dell Venue Pro 8 -- still a great little tablet -- and Surface Pro 3). I had Windows Phones (owned and loved the MotoQ and HTC Touch when they were released) until late 2010. Since then, iPhone 4 for four years and iPhone 6 for one year.

Especially with Nadella (wisely) putting Microsoft services and software everywhere, I can't think of a single reason to stay with Windows Phone right now, alas. The iPhone 6 is better on every count, and it kills me to say that. The build quality, the outstanding operating system, the availability of apps, and the excellent camera. (I am not a photographer enthusiast, I just use auto mode, but the photos are always great). I'm neither a gamer nor a social app user; the iPhone is just an outstanding device, and a very serious productivity tool.

I keep a 635 around both for development and to keep up with the Windows Mobile insider builds (disappointing quality and fit-and-finish, so far), and to occasionally play around with. I develop Windows Phone apps and have played around a bit with the UWP, which is a delight to code against. The phone is AT&T, which I'm no longer on, so I can't use it as a SIM-swap backup device, but would if I could. There is nothing that it does as well as the iPhone (again, I hate to admit that).

What I would recommend is to get the iPhone 6s for your carrier from the Apple store. I'm pretty sure there is a 30-day return policy, and you probably won't have an activation fee. Try it out for a few weeks. If you really miss your Windows Phone, you can go back at zero (or close to) cost.

On the topic of the state of Windows Phone/Mobile, it's very clear that the division has been poorly managed for many years, all the way up to the top. I think Nadella is doing the right thing for the company, and he's been very clear about what he's doing. Windows Mobile is in (yet another) transitional phase. Things are a bit bumpy right now. If Microsoft can ship a great piece of hardware in 12-18 months (and Panos' team seems like the right group to do this), and somehow address the horrendous app gap issue (whether UWP or bridges or something else), I would love to go back to Windows Phone then.

At this specific point in time, though, you really should give the iPhone a try. It's just so much better right now.